AGDC + Celtx Wrap-Up

[Ron Toland]

Sorry I didn't post anything about the Austin GDC earlier...my wife
and I have been busy setting up a move to San Diego.

Celtx ended up sending 2 people to Austin GDC: Greg Dawson (part of
the Celtx dev team) and Bernard Hughes (their games consultant that
has been heavily involved with Celtx development).

We had hoped to arrange a formal meet and greet with Wendy, Richard,
and others, but the hurricane and generally chaotic nature of
conference planning prevented it. Instead, we went for maximum
exposure to the group at large: we invited Greg and Bernard to the
Gingerman (the official writers' pub for the conference), to the many
lunches and dinners Andy Walsh et al organized, and to the SIG meeting
on Tuesday. We introduced Greg and Bernard to as many writers,
designers, and programmers as possible during those events, and then
sat back and let them ask all the questions they needed.

I think this ended up working better than any organized meeting. It
let Greg and Bernard ask their questions directly, and gave them a
better sense of the conflicting and shared opinions games writers have
about what kind of tools they need.

We're setting up a conference call in the near future to hear Greg and
Bernard's thoughts on everything they learned at the conference, but
my impressions were:

1) Celtx (the software) as it stands can definitely become a better
games writing tool with a few modifications.

2) Greg sees the lack of standards in games writing as an opportunity
to *define* those standards. He seemed excited by the thought that
Celtx could develop a tool that not only met writers current needs,
but actually pointed the way to a better method of developing games in
the future.

3) Both Greg and Bernard expressed interest in exploring different
ways of viewing the text we write for games. For instance, viewing a
branching dialogue system as a web of nodes, rather than a simple
branching tree.

Jeff Spock, Drew McGee, and Stephen Dinehart (among others) spent a
lot of time with the Celtx folks, introducing them to other writers,
answering questions, and generally making them feel welcome. Many
thanks for the good work, guys!

Ron