okay i am gonna try to remember everything that happened in Maastricht.
we drove there.
parked the car
had to figure out how to get into the academy because it was after 5 and they locked the doors.
we had to look for annemie called her cell phone and got voice mail.
wandered over to the conservatory
asked someone, was directed to the auditorium
met annemie and she herded us to our apartment.
it was one of those marvels of dutch design. something that looks like high design but in reality is just plywood and carefully chosen minimalism. well done. it had a kitchen, a shower, a bedroom off to the side of a little sitting room. a bottle of water and a bottle of juice in the short refrigerator. tea and coffee and a pot for each. clean and well organized.
it was only a short walk back to the auditorium for tech check.
we gave the presentation from my computer so it wasn’t much problem. i had used some hack i found online so my ibook could do screen spanning (why isn’t that built in)
it was my first time using that Keynote program but i must say it worked out really well. normally Z! and i roll into conferences with a folder full of jpgs and movie files and of course, the demo on the pc but this time i wanted to do something different, special.
this conference was actually one that Michael and I were going to do. we had the idea back when we first started working on 8 and we had planned it out, started inviting speakers and everything but we couldn’t get it together because well, michael and i decided we would rather work on the game than do all the work necessary to get the conference funded, dealing with the funding here in belgium and the academy and universities in holland.
maaike and martijn had come to look at our game prototypes several times. we had become friends with them. they are doing PhD research work at the University of Maastricht, in game design and theory involving. it turned out that the
first we met up with martijn who was standing in the seating area talking with cris crawford. i recognized him immediately. i must have seen his picture more than a few times anyway.
we went over the presentation a few more times after dinner. altering the notes and figuring out who was going to say what. i had already decided to wear his business suit that he bought this summer for when we went to meetings with publishers. it looked good on me, especially with the tie.