So on top of a tall pile of design tasks at work, I’ve been keeping busy outside the office as well. I’ve done a fair amount of speaking lately. I spoke at eGaDs last Tuesday, giving a version of the Casino talk I did at AGD. The interesting thing is that I’ve been to Vegas since then, of course (that update is still coming!), so I actually was adding new material to the speech, based on some observations I made on Superbowl weekend. Giving the speech was wierd, because eGaDs focuses almost exclusively on programming, and no one there expressed much interest in breaking into a designer role, but many felt after the speech that they had learned a lot anyway. So that felt good.

Last Saturday, I woke up early to do a Resume Workshop held by the Game Initiative. I was mostly there to tell how I got into the game industry and offer pointers that others might take hold of (many of which long time Zen readers would have recognized from my ‘Breaking In’ page that’s been around forever). It was also an excellent excuse to mention that Wolfpack is looking for programmers, especially server programmers.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out my homies have the GameCamp website up. If you are between 12 and 18 and reading this blog, you probably should already be signing up.

Of course, it being March, I’m preparing for GDC. I’m leading a roundtable in Competitive and PVP systems in Massively Multiplayer games, as well as managing a Special Interest Group for Industry Bloggers. Fortunately, roundtables are easy – you just have to bring a handful of questions and keep one person from dominating the discussion. The SIG is new to me, so that should be all learning experience. Hopefully, someone other than me actually is curious what all you guys look like.

Hmmmmm, and to top things off, I should really start thinking about a talk for the next Austin Game Conference. It’s always tricky to find the right subject – you want to choose something that is just a little bit on crack to ensure people show up just from reading the title, but you have to still be based on solid ground when the smoke clears. I’ve often threatened to do”All Hail The Experience Point/Level System” or “Story Sucks”, but clearly more thought is needed here.