The Adventure Convention 2002

                 An article by John Ferris

I must start by saying a BIG THANK YOU to Doreen Bardon who
organised the Convention single-handedly and wrote the Megapoints
competition game. I don't think she got a public mention on the
day, so I must redress the balance. Well done.

I was able to briefly visit the pre-convention "session" on the
Friday night. The things you learn about other people's jobs. Or
interesting places to hide pulse/oxygen monitors and wristwatches.
Sometimes I wonder why I turn up on a Friday when such harrowing
conversations are going on, possibly a case of morbid fascination?

We were somewhat fewer in number this year, but it was good to see
some familiar faces and even a new one. Almost all computers were
PC's; excepting Frank Fridd's (sadly under- visited) Amstrad and
Peter Smith had a portable Macintosh on display. I had a little
difficulty in finding a plug socket for my PC, as square pins
don't fit in round plug sockets. However, I was eventually
secreted away in a corner where I could cause little harm.

This year, as in previous years, the graphical puzzle genre seemed
to be most popular. There were a couple of impressive-looking
titles being played.

ACE continues it's gradual ascent to finished splendour. The DOS
version is, to my recollection, ready. The Windows version is in
progress, but I didn't like to pester the chief (and only)
programmer, as he seemed somewhat, er, under the weather.

Frank Fridd was running some of his CAT-written games and selling
his adventure collection on CD. There are about 50 people in the
CAT discussion forum, so that continues to look promising, one or
two new authors have written games.

I was late for lunch, so went out to the local store to buy some
provisions. However they had earlier suffered a robbery and I had
to wait a few minutes until they reopened after the police had
left. Thankfully, earlier hungry Conventioneers had managed to
miss the event itself, which is a cause for relief. I didn't think
that sort of thing happened in Allesley. The staff was visibly
upset, but I don't think anyone was actually hurt.

The afternoon passed surprisingly quickly once again. This year's
Convention was a quieter event, I understand that a number of
Probe readers have had, and continue to have a difficult year one
way or another. There was some talk about trying to get other
events included during the day, apart from the Megapoints. Some
form of short talk by some volunteer(ed) on an adventure related
subject was suggested.

And now the moment that, despite all common sense and good taste,
some of you still want to know the results of the Alternative
Awards:

I have no idea what they are supposed to be alternative to, except
perhaps for having none at all. I'm not permitted give myself the
award for breaking the First Rule of Text Adventuring. This means
I don't have to admit to not EXAMINING everything in the
Megapoints competition. If I had, well I could have been a
contender.

The Most Versatile Beverage award goes to the House Wine as served
at the hotel bar. This rather special little vintage had the
miraculous ability to become dry, medium or sweet or any variation
in between that the consumer desired. Note that this award is for
versatility and not for taste.

The Most Hung-over Java Programmer award goes to Andrew Clarke who
really, really didn't look too happy at all most of the day. He
seemed most sensitive to the phrases "C++" and "bug list" for some
reason. I believe he managed to gather his wits in time to join in
the Saturday night session.

The Least Surprising Outcome of a Competition award goes to David
Hebblethwaite who once again won first prize. Another well done,
Dave. Perhaps we should blindfold him next year.

The award for the Most Surprising Outcome of a Competition award
goes to Karen Tyers who actually tied with David, but graciously
allowed him to take the first prize certificate, considering that
he's a hard-up starving student and we didn't have a printer or a
bottle of Tippex .

The W32/Bugbear Award for Software Propagation goes to Edwina
Brown. The lady in question had two or three programs which she
managed to get installed on EVERY PC by the end of Saturday. I
would nip out to the loo, walking past adventurers typing,
pointing, clicking, quaffing alka-seltzer and other wholesome
adventuresome stuff (or paramedic-related card games). A few
minutes later I would walk back in and the PC screens would be
plastered with cute cats, dogs and babies.  She's amazing! My
cat's called Fluffy, by the way.

Hope to see you all next year.


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