IGDA - Green Bay, WI Student Chapter Experience
The Beginning
It all started in early 2007. I was out of a job at the time, and I attended my first ever IGDA student chapter meeting. Patrick Miller whom I briefly met before the meeting and myself were the only attendees. Somehow, the club, which was mainly based out of ITT Tech in Green Bay, managed to lose almost all of its members. Ryan Rosenthal (currently a teacher at ITT and the former president of the club) flushed most of the current cabinet and told us that he would hold elections for officers. On the website that was set up for the club at the time (www.doom3dpoopart.net – it no longer exists; I’ll get to that), elections were held. I was considering nominating myself for president, but I ended up volunteering for secretary instead. Pat, an ITT student who also has an associates degree from Full Sail, became the president of the club, Chuck was our vice president , and Jason was our treasurer. And thus began our mad journey to rebuild the club.
The first thing we decided to do was have a meeting to determine the direction of the club. We both knew that increasing the members and advertising the website were our #1 priorities. We started posting flyers and changed the standard meeting date back to Saturday during the day (another reason that the members stopped going).
During the same time period we also went to the IGDA Madison (now named IGDA Wisconsin) Professional Chapter meetings. We met some contacts there, and every single one of our cabinet members volunteered to help them out. I volunteered to film all of those meetings as well.
One of the first things we did was to set up a workshop with an Alumnus of ITT Tech, Billy Sweetman. Billy currently works at a game development studio called Frozen Codebase that is based in Green Bay, and was the owner of the old club website. He was also a former IGDA cabinet member. Because my job allows me to afford some things that others may not be able to get, I got a camera and decided to film the meeting. The filming was not excellent, but it sufficed. In addition, the turnout was good but not great; roughly 10 people if I remember correctly. Billy encouraged us though and we got some good ideas from that.
A little later in the year, we added another member to our cabinet: Kyle Herminath, our ITT Tech student representative. Kyle is very enthusiastic about the club and had some good ideas about how to build the club back up. He is currently the president of the chapter.
While down at Madison for a pro chapter meeting, we (mainly thanks to Chuck) convinced two professional developers to drive up to ITT Tech and hold workshops. We filmed those talks as well. Both of those meetings went very well; about 50 people attended each meeting.
IGDA GB Newsletter
A newsletter was suggested in order to promote the club even further. I decided to take on this effort in addition to my other responsibilities. At first, I decided that I would try to gather most of the articles needed and the team myself. Ryan, however, had a better idea. He was teaching a class that involved some aspects of managing a project. Rather than make his students do a simulated example of a project, he decided to pull me into the class so that the students who wished to could help to create the newsletter. This helped me get the staff I needed to finish the first edition of the newsletter, and helped me to develop the newsletter template.
Website Changes
At some point during this process, Billy decided to pull the plug on doom3dpoopart, the club website and one way that we were using to get the word out about all of our activities. The news caught us off guard and seemed abrupt, but I respect Billy for his decision. It did force us to immediately look at creating a replacement website. Luckily, Kyle was able to get the new website up and running before doom3dpoopart went down for good. The website went through a couple of name changes since. The current website is:
http://itt3dpoopart.net/igdagb/
Chaoticon
Later in the year, we were given yet another opportunity to promote our club and get some new members – Chaoticon, a small gaming convention held at University of Wisconsin – Green Bay (UWGB). My main priority was to get some contacts so that flyers could also be posted at UWGB. Matthew Vehl, my contact there, did an excellent job of getting us space and a computer to demo the games made by students at ITT Tech, and run videos of IGDA Madison meetings. The three days that I spent there were awesome; there weren’t an overabundance of people who came to see our information, but I did earn some contacts as planned.
Game Fair
There is a game fair that is held annually by ITT Tech. Although it is open to all students, the advertising has not been good enough in recent years to get many competitors from outside the school. One of the other goals of our student chapter was to boost attendance for this event. Unfortunately, this event caught us off guard. We learned when the actual dates for the event would be about three months before it was supposed to occur. In addition, during the time when we were planning for the event, the date moved up at least one week. The turnout was about the same as the previous year. Also, due to some unfortunate events, the footage for the meeting (which was outside of my control) was never published.
After the game fair we met and decided that we would start planning for the next game fair immediately. One of the ideas that Kyle had for improving the attendance, participation, and quality of submissions was an event called the Game Team Venue. At this event, students and independent developers would gather together, form teams and decide to work on game projects. Two initial meetings for the Game Team Venue have been held. At the very least, this meeting helped me gain an extra team member for my current project.
Newsletter woes
Ironically, Ryan Rosenthal's idea for making the newsletter a class project became an issue after the first edition. His idea helped get things off the ground, but my dedicated staff had that extra motivation of this being a part of their grades. Once the class was over, their priorities shifted to their new classes. I'm not saying I am holding myself blameless; since I am not at ITT regularly, I couldn't motivate them in person. I think that was one of our biggest problems. There were articles and interviews that were promised to me from other people that never got completed. After all of that occurred, I basically decided two things: 1) I would put together what I could and try to publish a smaller version myself, 2) I no longer cared about a time-line. I decided that if I had to do the entire thing by myself it would be done on my time-line. I injured my neck (repetitive stress injury) during the prep for the first edition, so I decided not to push as hard for the second edition. I did receive a couple of articles by the end, but I eventually ended up handing this off to the new cabinet members.
Passing the torch
That brings me to my final experience as a cabinet member. After over one year of being on the cabinet, Pat and I decided that we had done enough to build up the club. Attendance for our meetings (which we tried to have one each month), was much higher than the two that we started with, and momentum was building. So, we decided to hold elections for the new cabinet. Ironically, the meeting that we had wanted to hold elections before was poorly attended, so we ended up postponing the elections for a while. During this period, there was a hiatus with meetings and activity – most of the students who were extremely enthusiastic went to Boston for the summer to teach high school age kids about game development. During that three month period there was little or no activity on the IGDA GB student chapter website as well. However, after all of the enthusiastic students returned, elections were held and the new cabinet was chosen. I still try to make it to the student chapter meetings as much as I can, and I wish them and the rest of the IGDA the best of luck.
It all started in early 2007. I was out of a job at the time, and I attended my first ever IGDA student chapter meeting. Patrick Miller whom I briefly met before the meeting and myself were the only attendees. Somehow, the club, which was mainly based out of ITT Tech in Green Bay, managed to lose almost all of its members. Ryan Rosenthal (currently a teacher at ITT and the former president of the club) flushed most of the current cabinet and told us that he would hold elections for officers. On the website that was set up for the club at the time (www.doom3dpoopart.net – it no longer exists; I’ll get to that), elections were held. I was considering nominating myself for president, but I ended up volunteering for secretary instead. Pat, an ITT student who also has an associates degree from Full Sail, became the president of the club, Chuck was our vice president , and Jason was our treasurer. And thus began our mad journey to rebuild the club.
The first thing we decided to do was have a meeting to determine the direction of the club. We both knew that increasing the members and advertising the website were our #1 priorities. We started posting flyers and changed the standard meeting date back to Saturday during the day (another reason that the members stopped going).
During the same time period we also went to the IGDA Madison (now named IGDA Wisconsin) Professional Chapter meetings. We met some contacts there, and every single one of our cabinet members volunteered to help them out. I volunteered to film all of those meetings as well.
One of the first things we did was to set up a workshop with an Alumnus of ITT Tech, Billy Sweetman. Billy currently works at a game development studio called Frozen Codebase that is based in Green Bay, and was the owner of the old club website. He was also a former IGDA cabinet member. Because my job allows me to afford some things that others may not be able to get, I got a camera and decided to film the meeting. The filming was not excellent, but it sufficed. In addition, the turnout was good but not great; roughly 10 people if I remember correctly. Billy encouraged us though and we got some good ideas from that.
A little later in the year, we added another member to our cabinet: Kyle Herminath, our ITT Tech student representative. Kyle is very enthusiastic about the club and had some good ideas about how to build the club back up. He is currently the president of the chapter.
While down at Madison for a pro chapter meeting, we (mainly thanks to Chuck) convinced two professional developers to drive up to ITT Tech and hold workshops. We filmed those talks as well. Both of those meetings went very well; about 50 people attended each meeting.
IGDA GB Newsletter
A newsletter was suggested in order to promote the club even further. I decided to take on this effort in addition to my other responsibilities. At first, I decided that I would try to gather most of the articles needed and the team myself. Ryan, however, had a better idea. He was teaching a class that involved some aspects of managing a project. Rather than make his students do a simulated example of a project, he decided to pull me into the class so that the students who wished to could help to create the newsletter. This helped me get the staff I needed to finish the first edition of the newsletter, and helped me to develop the newsletter template.
Website Changes
At some point during this process, Billy decided to pull the plug on doom3dpoopart, the club website and one way that we were using to get the word out about all of our activities. The news caught us off guard and seemed abrupt, but I respect Billy for his decision. It did force us to immediately look at creating a replacement website. Luckily, Kyle was able to get the new website up and running before doom3dpoopart went down for good. The website went through a couple of name changes since. The current website is:
http://itt3dpoopart.net/igdagb/
Chaoticon
Later in the year, we were given yet another opportunity to promote our club and get some new members – Chaoticon, a small gaming convention held at University of Wisconsin – Green Bay (UWGB). My main priority was to get some contacts so that flyers could also be posted at UWGB. Matthew Vehl, my contact there, did an excellent job of getting us space and a computer to demo the games made by students at ITT Tech, and run videos of IGDA Madison meetings. The three days that I spent there were awesome; there weren’t an overabundance of people who came to see our information, but I did earn some contacts as planned.
Game Fair
There is a game fair that is held annually by ITT Tech. Although it is open to all students, the advertising has not been good enough in recent years to get many competitors from outside the school. One of the other goals of our student chapter was to boost attendance for this event. Unfortunately, this event caught us off guard. We learned when the actual dates for the event would be about three months before it was supposed to occur. In addition, during the time when we were planning for the event, the date moved up at least one week. The turnout was about the same as the previous year. Also, due to some unfortunate events, the footage for the meeting (which was outside of my control) was never published.
After the game fair we met and decided that we would start planning for the next game fair immediately. One of the ideas that Kyle had for improving the attendance, participation, and quality of submissions was an event called the Game Team Venue. At this event, students and independent developers would gather together, form teams and decide to work on game projects. Two initial meetings for the Game Team Venue have been held. At the very least, this meeting helped me gain an extra team member for my current project.
Newsletter woes
Ironically, Ryan Rosenthal's idea for making the newsletter a class project became an issue after the first edition. His idea helped get things off the ground, but my dedicated staff had that extra motivation of this being a part of their grades. Once the class was over, their priorities shifted to their new classes. I'm not saying I am holding myself blameless; since I am not at ITT regularly, I couldn't motivate them in person. I think that was one of our biggest problems. There were articles and interviews that were promised to me from other people that never got completed. After all of that occurred, I basically decided two things: 1) I would put together what I could and try to publish a smaller version myself, 2) I no longer cared about a time-line. I decided that if I had to do the entire thing by myself it would be done on my time-line. I injured my neck (repetitive stress injury) during the prep for the first edition, so I decided not to push as hard for the second edition. I did receive a couple of articles by the end, but I eventually ended up handing this off to the new cabinet members.
Passing the torch
That brings me to my final experience as a cabinet member. After over one year of being on the cabinet, Pat and I decided that we had done enough to build up the club. Attendance for our meetings (which we tried to have one each month), was much higher than the two that we started with, and momentum was building. So, we decided to hold elections for the new cabinet. Ironically, the meeting that we had wanted to hold elections before was poorly attended, so we ended up postponing the elections for a while. During this period, there was a hiatus with meetings and activity – most of the students who were extremely enthusiastic went to Boston for the summer to teach high school age kids about game development. During that three month period there was little or no activity on the IGDA GB student chapter website as well. However, after all of the enthusiastic students returned, elections were held and the new cabinet was chosen. I still try to make it to the student chapter meetings as much as I can, and I wish them and the rest of the IGDA the best of luck.
IGDA Professional Chapter Experience - Youtube, Google Video, and Vimeo
I have been attending IGDA Wisconsin Professional Chapter Meetings ever since starting with the IGDA student chapter. During one of those meetings the former president of the chapter, Eric Francksen, asked for volunteers to help with several of the meeting tasks. Noah Klosinski and myself volunteered to film the meetings. I did not have a camera at the time, but I figured I could use the money I was saving from my engineering job to help out.
I really didn't realize at first what I was getting myself into. I did my research, and picked a camera that I thought would be appropriate for the job. I concentrated more on finding a camera that would record video in any lighting condition. What I did not think about was the sound, which would come out poorly and I would need to edit it. After talking with my brother, I decided to buy an Mbox mini with Protools. I also bought Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit the video and audio together. The audio continued to be an issue though. With the Protools setup I had to set up a laptop as well as an additional microphone. This was cumbersome, and Protools had a tendency to just stop recording for no reason at all. I am ashamed to say that I tried / bought other audio equipment (mostly microphones) before finally consulting another sound guy who helped me out. I now own a Zoom H4N, which has worked beautifully without any extra equipment. My current videos are hosted Vimeo. I also have a couple of videos on YouTube. Feedback would be appreciated as always.
I really didn't realize at first what I was getting myself into. I did my research, and picked a camera that I thought would be appropriate for the job. I concentrated more on finding a camera that would record video in any lighting condition. What I did not think about was the sound, which would come out poorly and I would need to edit it. After talking with my brother, I decided to buy an Mbox mini with Protools. I also bought Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit the video and audio together. The audio continued to be an issue though. With the Protools setup I had to set up a laptop as well as an additional microphone. This was cumbersome, and Protools had a tendency to just stop recording for no reason at all. I am ashamed to say that I tried / bought other audio equipment (mostly microphones) before finally consulting another sound guy who helped me out. I now own a Zoom H4N, which has worked beautifully without any extra equipment. My current videos are hosted Vimeo. I also have a couple of videos on YouTube. Feedback would be appreciated as always.
Volunteering at GDC Online (Austin)
In 2008, I decided that it was time to increase my contacts / networking skills by going to GDC. However, I wanted to start smaller than GDC in San Fransisco, so I decided to go to GDC Austin (now GDC Online) instead. Luke (my brother who I mentioned under my projects page) decided to come with me to do the same thing. The two of us met at the Austin airport and stayed in a hotel together. It was great to be able to split the cost. We also volunteered for this conference. GDC Austin was 3 days long that year. Volunteers were required to spend two days volunteering. However, the day before the conference started involved volunteer orientation training and filling the swag bags that everyone would receive. That counted as one day. So essentially we only had to spend one day volunteering during the conference which was awesome. Here is a picture of me with a swag bag:
Luke and I decided that we both wanted to participate in the Game Career Seminar, so we tried to ask not to work during that seminar. Unfortunately we had to, but the volunteer coordinator was nice enough to make us volunteers for that room so that we wouldn't miss anything. In a small twist, there was a situation in a room nearby, so Luke was sent over to that room instead. However, it turned out that a lot if not all of the panels scheduled in that room were related to sound effects / music in video games, which is what he really wants to do. Some may call it serendipity. Every once in a while good things happen!!
Outside of volunteering, Luke and I spent the majority of our time attending different talks on topics like game development for all ages, code optimization, etc. On the way to one of these talks, I noticed something very interesting - there were some people I knew in attendance! The guys from Frozen Codebase, who were / are very supportive of IGDA's student chapter, were actually at Austin GDC that year! They were promoting a couple of their games, Zombie Wranglers and Jam City Rollergirls. Here are some pictures from my encounter with them:
Outside of volunteering, Luke and I spent the majority of our time attending different talks on topics like game development for all ages, code optimization, etc. On the way to one of these talks, I noticed something very interesting - there were some people I knew in attendance! The guys from Frozen Codebase, who were / are very supportive of IGDA's student chapter, were actually at Austin GDC that year! They were promoting a couple of their games, Zombie Wranglers and Jam City Rollergirls. Here are some pictures from my encounter with them:
As you can see, the held an event during one of the nights of the conference - an exhibition match between the Austin Texecutioners and the Wisconsin Dairyland Dolls. It was the first time I was ever at a roller derby event. And it was awesome. My only regret is that I haven't been to rollerderby since. And maybe not being able to listen to Norb finish the story about that hat!!
For the rest of the conference, I tried the best that I could to network with as many people who would talk to me. It was difficult, but I followed most if not all of the advice on Darius Kazemi's Website (an excellent read - for anyone trying to get into the industry I definitely recommend it). I went to the after parties and tried to hang out with as many different people as I could.
One very interesting thing happened during that time period. I just happened to be wearing my Spoony Bards t-shirt during one of those events. A random person with an awesome mohawk came up to me and commented on the shirt. Apparently, he knew Dave Kitsberg, one of the members of the band!! We chatted for a bit and I got his card. Turns out that his name was Ben Crossbones, and he was from Chicago. I ended up seeing him again, approximately 6 months from then at one of the IGDA Pro Chapter meetings. He is working in California now, and it sounds like things are going well for him.
After a long week, Luke and I took our planes back to our respective states. It was a great experience; not only did I get to network, but I also got to be surrounded by game developers all weekend. It generated a great sense of belonging for me that is only hinted at during the IGDA Pro Chapter meetings. I'm looking forward to my next adventure at one of the conferences.
For the rest of the conference, I tried the best that I could to network with as many people who would talk to me. It was difficult, but I followed most if not all of the advice on Darius Kazemi's Website (an excellent read - for anyone trying to get into the industry I definitely recommend it). I went to the after parties and tried to hang out with as many different people as I could.
One very interesting thing happened during that time period. I just happened to be wearing my Spoony Bards t-shirt during one of those events. A random person with an awesome mohawk came up to me and commented on the shirt. Apparently, he knew Dave Kitsberg, one of the members of the band!! We chatted for a bit and I got his card. Turns out that his name was Ben Crossbones, and he was from Chicago. I ended up seeing him again, approximately 6 months from then at one of the IGDA Pro Chapter meetings. He is working in California now, and it sounds like things are going well for him.
After a long week, Luke and I took our planes back to our respective states. It was a great experience; not only did I get to network, but I also got to be surrounded by game developers all weekend. It generated a great sense of belonging for me that is only hinted at during the IGDA Pro Chapter meetings. I'm looking forward to my next adventure at one of the conferences.
Kitsune Kon Video Game Room Staff
As mentioned in my bio, I am an Anime fan. Because I am originally from New Jersey, one of my strategies for meeting people in Wisconsin was trying to find people who shared my love of Anime. I eventually found an independent Anime Club, then run by Tony Green. Years later, some members from this very same club and some other people from the local Japanese Club at the technical college decided to start an Anime convention in Appleton, Wisconsin called Kitsune Kon. Mike Nettekoven, one of my friends from the club, asked me if I would help out in the Video Game Room. We took a trip to another con called Geek.Kon shortly after I agreed to help. It was during that time that I saw this:
For those of you who don't know, that is a Neo Geo AES (Advanced Entertainment System). When I was younger, I remember wanting one of those. It basically was arcade level hardware in console form. Mike and I played the crap out of that system, and had such a blast that I knew getting one for our con would be an awesome idea. After some initial research, mostly on www.neo-geo.com, I figured out that it would be more cost effective to get the actual arcade hardware and consolize it. So, I bought the hardware, and have been working that project since then. I got the system to work, and am now in the process of building a case for it. I am also letting the convention use all of my game systems / games, except for a select few. Other than the Neo Geo, My systems include a decent amount of vintage systems, such as the Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, Sega Master System, and Turbografx 16. It was a dream of mine to own an arcade when I was little; this will help fulfill a little of that dream.
Promoting the Club - Volunteering at Geek.Kon
Since I had never worked a video game room before, I decided that I would join some of the other members of the Kisune Kon staff in volunteering at Geek.Kon. In order not to pay to get into the convention, volunteers had to work a minimum of eight hours, and that is exactly what I was scheduled for. The other thing we wanted to accomplish was to spread the word about our convention, so we also had two other things planned: an information table for our convention and room parties for Friday and Saturday night.
I arrived with some of the group on Friday evening. We unpacked, set up some of the room, and went to the volunteer meeting. There we got a quick overview of our responsibilities. After that, it was back to the room to try and get some more things set up.
The suite that one of my staff mates got was excellent room-wise; there were basically 3 separate areas where people could hang out. We brought an extra TV, so we had two game systems hooked up at once. I hooked up my Saturn to the hotels TV, and the Wii, Turbografx 16 and XBOX were hooked up to the other TV. We also set up food, which consisted of hot dogs, cream puffs, soda, and chips. In my opinion, it was truly a great setup for a room party.
After the setup was completed, I went to the video game room for my first shift. After that, it was time for my first shift. That year, Geek.Kon had two different stations - one for vintage games (cart based to early CD based games) and another for modern games (XBOX360, Wii, PS3, etc). I was stationed at vintage gaming, which was fine by me. However, when I got there, it was total chaos. Due to a couple of different reasons, the games were not in order, were only partially alphabetized (something that some of our staffers had helped with before I got there, along with other staffers as well), and were all over the place. Because vintage gaming is not as busy, I had the other volunteer watch the vintage gaming area while I tried to straighten up. I received very little direction though, so I just did my best to put things in order. When my first shift was done, things were at least organized enough so that everyone could find games for people who wanted to play them. Mission accomplished!
After my shift, I went back to the room for the room party. The consoles had X-Men vs Street Fighter and Super Smash Brothers Brawl in them, and I just tried to entertain whomever would listen to me talk about Kitsune Kon, and video game development. I had a very interesting talk with some gentlemen from Wausau about classic games and game development during that night. There were also some epic fights going on in X-Men vs Street Fighter going on. Another note, there was a woman there who now works at Filament Games, one of the developers that occasionally attends the IGDA Wisconsin meetings. Ironically, she is also originally from New Jersey. It truly was a successful and interesting night.
Day Two of Geek.Kon got even more interesting. I got woken up early, but procrastinated and stayed in bed as long as I could (i.e. people were in the bathroom nonstop so I couldn't do anything for a while anyway). By the time I got up, I jumped in the shower, grabbed some breakfast, and headed to my shift. The morning shift in vintage gaming was relatively quiet, and passed without incident. One thing I will have to say though, is that I wish we had a sign kind of like this:
Promoting the Club - Volunteering at Geek.Kon
Since I had never worked a video game room before, I decided that I would join some of the other members of the Kisune Kon staff in volunteering at Geek.Kon. In order not to pay to get into the convention, volunteers had to work a minimum of eight hours, and that is exactly what I was scheduled for. The other thing we wanted to accomplish was to spread the word about our convention, so we also had two other things planned: an information table for our convention and room parties for Friday and Saturday night.
I arrived with some of the group on Friday evening. We unpacked, set up some of the room, and went to the volunteer meeting. There we got a quick overview of our responsibilities. After that, it was back to the room to try and get some more things set up.
The suite that one of my staff mates got was excellent room-wise; there were basically 3 separate areas where people could hang out. We brought an extra TV, so we had two game systems hooked up at once. I hooked up my Saturn to the hotels TV, and the Wii, Turbografx 16 and XBOX were hooked up to the other TV. We also set up food, which consisted of hot dogs, cream puffs, soda, and chips. In my opinion, it was truly a great setup for a room party.
After the setup was completed, I went to the video game room for my first shift. After that, it was time for my first shift. That year, Geek.Kon had two different stations - one for vintage games (cart based to early CD based games) and another for modern games (XBOX360, Wii, PS3, etc). I was stationed at vintage gaming, which was fine by me. However, when I got there, it was total chaos. Due to a couple of different reasons, the games were not in order, were only partially alphabetized (something that some of our staffers had helped with before I got there, along with other staffers as well), and were all over the place. Because vintage gaming is not as busy, I had the other volunteer watch the vintage gaming area while I tried to straighten up. I received very little direction though, so I just did my best to put things in order. When my first shift was done, things were at least organized enough so that everyone could find games for people who wanted to play them. Mission accomplished!
After my shift, I went back to the room for the room party. The consoles had X-Men vs Street Fighter and Super Smash Brothers Brawl in them, and I just tried to entertain whomever would listen to me talk about Kitsune Kon, and video game development. I had a very interesting talk with some gentlemen from Wausau about classic games and game development during that night. There were also some epic fights going on in X-Men vs Street Fighter going on. Another note, there was a woman there who now works at Filament Games, one of the developers that occasionally attends the IGDA Wisconsin meetings. Ironically, she is also originally from New Jersey. It truly was a successful and interesting night.
Day Two of Geek.Kon got even more interesting. I got woken up early, but procrastinated and stayed in bed as long as I could (i.e. people were in the bathroom nonstop so I couldn't do anything for a while anyway). By the time I got up, I jumped in the shower, grabbed some breakfast, and headed to my shift. The morning shift in vintage gaming was relatively quiet, and passed without incident. One thing I will have to say though, is that I wish we had a sign kind of like this:
This is what I did the most in vintage gaming
After that, I headed to our table, where I was met by some of our staff. We talked about the need for a room party supply trip, and we were running short on posters. Mike and I made that trip, came back, unpacked the stuff, and headed to our next shift in the video game room. Things got a little busier that shift but it wasn't too bad. Coming off of my shift, I saw Mike and Richard, another Kitsune Kon video game room staffer who said he left his bag in a panel room. After a little confusion, I fetched the bag and got a message to Geek.Kon staff that one of the volunteers (the one in the room where Richard left his bag) needed to be relieved.
By the time I got back to Richard, his shift was almost up. I had the schedule on my phone and told Mike he might have to mind the modern gaming table on his own after that. Mike convinced me to stay on and help him for a couple of hours, even though it technically wasn't my shift. Since I had been working in Vintage Gaming, it was good to get over to modern, since they had a different system. If a game in vintage was requested, we had a choice of either handing it to them or putting the game in ourselves. In modern, they would hand the games / controllers to the people, but would then take their badges. The people working in Modern Gaming only returned the badges after the games / controllers were returned. There was originally no alphabetical order there either, until Mike changed it. One unfortunate thing happened during our shift. One of the games went missing. Geek.Kon staff and the owners of some of the games were occasionally coming back there to take or move their games, That is most likely what happened, but we never received an update on that. Other than that one thing, that shift went well.
The second night room party was another interesting time. This time, the crowd didn't seem that into the fighting games I tried to set up. We played a little, but there didn't seem to be as much interest as the last night. During that time period, Stephen Poon, one of the Spoony Bards, actually stopped in the room and talked to me for a bit. He commented on our Segata Sanshiro posters in the room, and we had a nice conversation. That was nice, since I basically missed their live performance due to volunteering. As for Segatasan Shiro, he is our mascot for the video game room (my idea). I could write an entire article about why, but for now for more info go here. There is a game for the Saturn based on him, and I have a copy:
By the time I got back to Richard, his shift was almost up. I had the schedule on my phone and told Mike he might have to mind the modern gaming table on his own after that. Mike convinced me to stay on and help him for a couple of hours, even though it technically wasn't my shift. Since I had been working in Vintage Gaming, it was good to get over to modern, since they had a different system. If a game in vintage was requested, we had a choice of either handing it to them or putting the game in ourselves. In modern, they would hand the games / controllers to the people, but would then take their badges. The people working in Modern Gaming only returned the badges after the games / controllers were returned. There was originally no alphabetical order there either, until Mike changed it. One unfortunate thing happened during our shift. One of the games went missing. Geek.Kon staff and the owners of some of the games were occasionally coming back there to take or move their games, That is most likely what happened, but we never received an update on that. Other than that one thing, that shift went well.
The second night room party was another interesting time. This time, the crowd didn't seem that into the fighting games I tried to set up. We played a little, but there didn't seem to be as much interest as the last night. During that time period, Stephen Poon, one of the Spoony Bards, actually stopped in the room and talked to me for a bit. He commented on our Segata Sanshiro posters in the room, and we had a nice conversation. That was nice, since I basically missed their live performance due to volunteering. As for Segatasan Shiro, he is our mascot for the video game room (my idea). I could write an entire article about why, but for now for more info go here. There is a game for the Saturn based on him, and I have a copy:
Judging the group to be a bit eclectic, I put the game in the Saturn and started playing it. After the initial "What the heck is that!?!?!?" statements, people got into watching the random minigames. During one of the games, we actually got the whole room into watching the game. In the meantime, and afterward, we were going through hot dogs and cream puffs like hot cakes. As you can probably guess, it turned out to be another good night for us.
However, after the party was over, there were some circumstances that prevented me from getting any sleep. So I ended up randomly wandering the hotel in the morning. Around 6am, I wandered to the video game room. It ended up being closed because of lack of attendance and con staffers with lack of sleep. One staffer was there, and he asked me if I wanted to help reopen the room. I said okay, since I wasn't really doing anything valuable anyway. So I worked in the room from 6am to 8am, then handed off to someone else. I knew I would wake people up if I went back to the room right away, so I ended up playing some games (the first actual con activity I did all weekend) until 9am. Then, I went up to the room and started collecting my stuff so that I could pack my car for the trip home. I did the best I could packing wise with sleepy people still everywhere, and then hurried to my 10am shift. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there when everyone else packed, but I had my last shift to fulfill.
After my last shift, I finally had a little free time to explore the con. I ended up talking to some of the con goers who I kept seeing in the Video Game Room all the time. We went to see a band that was playing for a little bit, and then went into the Dealer's room, where you can buy games, Anime, original artwork, etc. I had about as much fun as someone with zero sleep the night before could. Which is still some, believe it or not ;)
After that, the Kitsune Kon crew packed up and left the convention. I didn't get to do a lot of convention related things, but I definitely learned a lot. I think I am ready to take on my duties at Kitsune Kon, but I may have another opportunity to volunteer before then....
However, after the party was over, there were some circumstances that prevented me from getting any sleep. So I ended up randomly wandering the hotel in the morning. Around 6am, I wandered to the video game room. It ended up being closed because of lack of attendance and con staffers with lack of sleep. One staffer was there, and he asked me if I wanted to help reopen the room. I said okay, since I wasn't really doing anything valuable anyway. So I worked in the room from 6am to 8am, then handed off to someone else. I knew I would wake people up if I went back to the room right away, so I ended up playing some games (the first actual con activity I did all weekend) until 9am. Then, I went up to the room and started collecting my stuff so that I could pack my car for the trip home. I did the best I could packing wise with sleepy people still everywhere, and then hurried to my 10am shift. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there when everyone else packed, but I had my last shift to fulfill.
After my last shift, I finally had a little free time to explore the con. I ended up talking to some of the con goers who I kept seeing in the Video Game Room all the time. We went to see a band that was playing for a little bit, and then went into the Dealer's room, where you can buy games, Anime, original artwork, etc. I had about as much fun as someone with zero sleep the night before could. Which is still some, believe it or not ;)
After that, the Kitsune Kon crew packed up and left the convention. I didn't get to do a lot of convention related things, but I definitely learned a lot. I think I am ready to take on my duties at Kitsune Kon, but I may have another opportunity to volunteer before then....