According to the official website, "LTUE is a three-day academic symposium on all aspects of science fiction and fantasy. Comprised of panels, presentations and papers on writing, art, literature, film, gaming and other facets of speculative fiction, LTUE is a place to learn all about life, the universe, and everything else you love. The symposium is, most importantly, a gathering place for fans of our creative and innovative world to hang out and share their love of all things amazing, obscure, and even not-quite-real."
I was mostly there for the game aspect of it. When I first got there, they were doing a demo of a three-dimensional Oculus Rift kind of thing, only it wasn't the Oculus Rift, it was something that the guy had made himself, I think. Anyway, I got to try it out. Here are some pictures of the guy before me doing a 3-D sculpture modeling program on it, making a dude in 3-D. We could see on the computer screen what he was seeing in 2 dimensions, but when I put on the goggle thing it was totally in 3-D and looked way cool.
Okay, so here are some pictures of the game I played, where you had a grappling hook on each hand and were free to explore the environment. You could grapple and pull yourself toward pretty much everything if you were in range of it. The guy after me, Bryant, used his hooks to pull himself along rather than just walking. Below are some pictures of the game as well as Bryant playing it.
After that Bryant and I pretty much hung out together for most of the day. He is 15 and from Logan. After the virtual reality demo we went down and looked at a whole bunch of booths set up. Below is a picture of him checking out some cool leatherwork stuff. He eventually bought one of those leather book covers and a leather pouch.
Some cool leather journals that had designs/artwork o the covers.
Lots of books for sale. The ones pictured below are old used ones but there were several authors there selling their sci-fi/fanstasy books. Brandon Sanderson wasn't there though. Mos of the authors are people you've never heard of.
There was tons of amazing artwork. Most everything was for sale. Below is just a sampling of the stuff that was there. Cool science fiction scenes and fantasy scenes.
These things are made out of folded paper. How cool is that? The detail is amazing. They were selling for a lot of money, like $250 or so.
A booth had some Dr. Who fans who do art. Below are a couple Dr. Who posters which I loved. The one on the right actually has a little key that tells you what episode and which item every picture is from. Te key is not pictured here.
The first workshop I went to had John D. Payne talking to us. e is one of the authors of the Star Trek Beyond movie and is currently working on the script for the fourth Star Trek movie. He talked to us about script writing and pitching ideas and working in Hollywood and his story about how he got to Hollywood and some stories of him working with J. J. Abrams. I snapped a picture of him at the end as proof that I met him.
Later Bryant and I played Somerset and he gave me some ideas. We played one full game and I gained a lot of insight from it adn had some design changes and rule changes.
The Game Room is where I spent most of my time. I even played an hour and a half of Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. I was given a character sheet so I didn't have to make one from scratch. It's an interesting game: it's more of a story-telling kind of thing as opposed to a board game kind of thing, where the main game master tells you this story and you make decisions and interact in that environment. So I guess that now that I've played it I can be considered a total nerd now?
Okay, so that best part of the whole day: there was a workshop on game design from start to finish and the guy teaching it is Alan Bahr. He is a full-time game designer, meaning that designing and playing game sis his entire job and how he makes a living. Jealous. Anyway, at the end of the presentation is a question and answer session and I ask him a few questions about getting your game published by a company if you don't want to go the self-funded route. He said that sometimes people give him pitches of games and he talked about pitching your game to companies and that whole process. So at the end of the workshop when everyone's leaving I go up and I ask him if I could pitch my game idea to him. He laughed and said that he was far too busy and important to take ideas from unproven pipsqueaks like me and that he had better things to do.
Nah, I'm just kidding, he said that he's love to hear my pitch and gave me his business card and personal e-mail so that I could get a hold of him in about a month when he wasn't so busy. He asked if I was local and I said yes, I lived in Provo, and he lives in Lehi so he said he could meet me halfway so that I could pitch my idea to him. I'm so excited. And nervous. The good news is he says he's a big fan of Arthurian lore and games around that concept, and the game I'm pitching to him is Somerset, so that's awesome. I've been playing a game every day now since then (except for Sundays) trying to get it in tip-top shape. I've already made some drastic changes to make to flow better and be more fun. Right now I think I've got it pretty much down, but it could definitely use more polishing. If your'e Alex and Hannah and mom and dad, expect to see a copy coming in the mail so that you can play it. If you're Eric and Ryan, expect to see a copy in the mail coming with a copy of Outbreak so that you can play it and give me feedback. So here's a picture of me at the end of the day, excited that I finally get to pitch my idea to a game design professional.
Later that day I also went to a couple of writing classes, one on apocalypse and dystopia and the differences in young adult and adult science fiction, and one on H. P. Lovecraft. I also ran into my cousin Calista! I should have known she would be there, she's a writer, but it didn't even cross my mind until I ran into her. Well, she ran into me. But it was still cool.
I'm so excited! I can't wait to see the game. Sounds like you had a blast. And that is really neat that you bumped into Calista. Good times!
ReplyDelete