I thought I would be nervous about the interactive fiction event but I consoled myself with the thought that everyone would be interested in Dan (who is a legitimate professional game designer) or Andrew (who is a legitimate interactive fiction luminary). When I arrived I was feeling pretty relaxed.

Then I saw my game running on a wall-mounted 40-inch LCD monitor. Two guys were seated in front of it. “Oh you wrote this? We’re stuck on the last waiter.”

The event turned out to be great, actually. It was a nice small roundtable of people genuinely interested in this little niche of game design. I had things to say and only a few of them were carefully rehearsed. The discussion ran overtime and no one minded. I got excited about IF all over again.

One of the topics was the small size of the audience and how it’s diminishing every year. “Three digits, tops, and low three-digits,” Dan said. “Maybe two hundred.”

“But we’re friends with a significant portion of that audience,” I added, “and I think if YouTube and Facebook have taught us anything, it’s that people mostly care about the opinions of their friends.”

(As I was typing this, Dan said, “Hey Emily listed your game under Comedy That Works“, and I thought, “Awesome!”)

After the formal Q&A I wandered into a conversation between a game developer and the sole other woman at the event. The game designer was describing an experiment he was working on involving some computer-generated characters with a certain amount of artificial intelligence.

“But you don’t need special AI,” the woman said. “Look at Liza’s piece — there are all these waiters and they have unique behaviors and responses. If the writing is of high quality, it can completely obscure the fact that the characters are just scripted.”

“Thanks,” I said, embarrassed. When I had hastily replayed my game the night before I had found dozens of obvious typos and bugs.

“Oh yeah,” she added, turning to me. “I wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed your game.”

So the actual size of the audience: two hundred and one.

I got talked into appearing on a panel discussing interactive fiction and the game I wrote eight years ago, Dinner with Andre. I’ll be appearing with Dan (convenient!) and Andrew Plotkin, both of whom are at least famous enough to have Wikipedia pages I can link to.

The event is Tuesday, January 29th, 6pm to 7pm at MIT, as part of the Purple Blurb series on “digital writing.”

I’ve been playing with the Java-based visualization language Processing a bit. Since a client had casually mentioned the idea of some kind of iTunes-like image viewer, I made that my first project.

It’s not perfect by far (it would be nice if it rotated both directions) but I got about as far with it as I could with my limited patience. Still, my first 3D program! My 10-year-old BASIC programming self would be so proud.

This uses seven random photos from my Flickr account:

Apropos of this I’m looking forward to the O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference again this year (thanks Brady!), where I’ll be attending this tutorial on web-based visualizations, focusing on Processing. Honestly, though, I’ll probably have more fun at Food Hacking.

I drank some fancy cocktails and I have a dog and didn’t get any vegan food for my party. :(

A little while ago I got an email via Flickr asking if I would allow one of my photos of Oxford to be included in their online travel guide. I would be credited but not compensated.

I said sure — the site seems more flashy than useful, but at least legitimate. I was impressed that they quoted back my Creative Commons license (free for non-commercial use, with attribution) and indicated that while their site was free, it was ad-driven. Unless you’re Google, to me that means “doomed,” but best of luck on your business plan.

Anyway, it’s up on their site, along with about 10 other photos from the same location: the Pitt Rivers Museum.

If you click through the photo it goes to my Flickr page for it. Not bad.

Our second trip to Green Street Grill:

Liza: English Channel
Cava, Pimms #1, yellow Chartreuse
Delicious, plus hey, Pimms.

Dan: Toronto
Rye, Fernet-Branca, simple syrup, bitters
Dan liked it, and I liked it more than previous Fernet-Branca experiences. Fernet-Branca reminds me of some very specific mentholated liquid cold/cough medicine I had to endure as a child but I can’t remember the brand. It was even the same sour-apple green color. It does not make me feel like partying so much as pulling a blanket up to my chin and watching Dallas.

Liza: Air Mail
Cava, rum, honey, lime juice
I felt bad that I made the bartender/owner open a whole bottle of cava on a Sunday night so I ordered a second drink with it. This was lighter than the first, but a good pairing with dinner — acorn squash, spaetzle, kale.

Dan: Hague
Bourbon, green Chartreuse, dry Vermouth
“Excellent,” but Dan feels that green Chartreuse tends to dominate whatever drink it ends up in.

Liza: De le Louisienne
Rye, Benedictine, sweet Vermouth, Peychaud’s bitters
I’m totally into rye lately, and this was great. I hate anise in general and I was a little put off when I first smelled the Benedictine, but it was really smooth in the final product. I debated getting a third drink at all but I’m glad I did.

Dan: Fort Washington Flip
Whole egg, applejack, Benedictine, maple syrup
After the last visit we swore that we’d get an egg-based drink, and T— and J— insisted that this be the one we get, so Dan got it. I’m a big fan of eggnog so I wasn’t afraid of the whole egg, and overall it was a lot lighter than a typical nog. Sweet and dessert-y, I’m glad we got it last instead of first.

What I had considered trying but didn’t was something with calvados, to compensate for our Saturday night calvados mishap which I will forever remember by its re-christened name, “Grandma’s Sofa.” I’m pretty sure brandy isn’t supposed to smell like moldy upholstery.