Big Screen

So Thursday night my company threw a party to celebrate the upcoming release of our new game Guild Wars: Factions. The gig was held in the upper hall at the Science Fiction Museum, and the walls and ceiling were decorated with the flying car from Bladerunner, the saucer from Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, and the Seaview from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

The upper hall at the SFM is turning into geek party center - last week WizKids was running Battlestar Galactica roll-out there, and one of my fellow guests was a WotC expat casing the joint for a Game Designer's conclave in a few weeks.

The big attraction was not the cool props, but the game itself, played out on a huge screen. The opening cinematic is incredible, and for the first time, I have a clue about what I have gotten myself into. I reminded me of an oft-declared WotC goal - to make games as big as movies.

The entertainment section was handled by the all-female AC/DC tribute band Hell's Belles, which rocked the house (Both NikChik and Chris have cool things to say at that). I am afraid the Lovely Bride and I are too old to mosh, so we discretely swing-danced on the balcony.

What amazed me was the fact that usually at such shindig which match gamers and a live band, the gamers all migrate out to the hallway to gossip while the band deals with a mostly empty house. Not this time. Hell's Belles did a great job holding their ground, with the live games running on the big screen behind them.

Games as big as movies, indeed.