The Adventure Convention 2003

                        John Ferris

Witches cackled, skeletons rattled and nameless horrors in
bin-bags and masks roamed the estate in search of treats.

I love this time of year. For two weeks we have bands of mini-
yobbos extracting money/sweets with menaces from householders, be
it trick or treat or "Penny for the guy." Might I suggest you not
give them an actual penny as they tend to use it to remove the
paint from your car, or so I have heard.

After fending off the sixth bunch of assorted horrors on the last
day of October, I decided enough was enough and it was time to get
down to the Allesley Hotel for the pre-convention session in the
bar. Throughout the evening people arrived from having dinner at
various times and places, I think most people had managed to miss
each other in the bar at one point or another. It was good to see
a few faces that had been missing from last year, as it was good
to see the familiar faces again.

Oh yes, the house wine was as versatile as ever, I believe it now
does children's parties, Bar-Mitzvahs and removes grease, stains
and paint.

Vicky once again regaled us with this year's crop of harrowing
paramedic tales, whilst modelling the latest paramedic "humorous"
T-shirts. I left for home with Karen's instructions to buy a
keyboard ringing in my ears, and her money nestled in my wallet.

Interval

Getting to the Convention on the Saturday Morning was an adventure
in itself. To begin with, I managed to set my alarm 12 hours
ahead, so I didn't get an early alarm call. I raced through
breakfast, lobbed the PC and bits in the back of the car and drove
off in search of a keyboard. First shop I tried had a nice
keyboard for œ12.99. However, the only one they had in stock was
on display and the next model was one of those expensive things
with ergonomic wotsits and 58 extra buttons, remote control,
wireless and tea-making facilities.

So I had to go to my usual purveyor of cheap PC stuff, which was
harder than usual as the roads had been shut due to tarmac-laying.
Then I had to wait outside with the happy throng who were
clutching sick, lame and generally faulty PC bits until 9:30 when
it opened. Thankfully I was the only one who didn't want to return
a faulty item (yes, great advert!) so I was served immediately. I
had a choice of an el-cheapo œ2.99 effort (paper mach‚) or a œ6.99
that looked like it might survive a text adventure played at
Hebblethwaite speed.

I rolled into the convention (actually, I hammered on the fire
doors until they let me in) just before 10am and enlisted Frank
Fridd and Nick Edmunds to help lug the PC from the car. 10 minutes
later and we were in business, having overcome the perennial
problem of not having enough power sockets.  However, I seem to
have left a 4-way socket behind, and I choose to accuse Karen
Tyres of assimilating it into her box of bits. Anything/one who
didn't move quickly enough at 5pm was in danger of ending up in
the box.

Frank Fridd was demonstrating his "Smuggler" game on two PC's.
Written with CAT the game is based around historical events and
Frank has provided a great deal of authenticity and background
detail. Oh, and the game looks good as well.  Expect some
favourable reviews to appear soon.

Frank also gave a short talk on the history behind the Smuggler
game, revealing an aspect of our history I was almost ignorant
about. History is full of real events and people who could easily
inspire an author to create a game based upon them. Frank had put
a lot of time and effort into his research, thank you Frank.

Meanwhile, Karen Tyres was trying to find out why Jill Nott's PC
was misbehaving. Jill had a sophisticated method of determining if
her PC was working at the correct speed.  Winstone benchmarks?
3Dmark 2003 scores? Super-technical soak-test programs that we
have never heard of before? Nope.  At one point most of the
conventioneers were huddled around the recalcitrant box muttering
and suggesting and force- feeding drivers and patches into the
poor thing.

In the end, Karen agreed to take it away to fix it. I thought I
heard "lump hammer" used at least once.

Throughout this, the Megapoints competition was rumbling on in the
background. Peter Clark had used "ACE" (which is in a finished
state at last!) to write "Hounds of Hell" to test our adventuring
skill. The CD cover pictured a most terrifying hound of
Lovecraftian proportions.

I cannot mention "Megapoints" without mentioning Mr David
"Megapoints" Hebblethwaite. Once again he and I went head to head.
I knew I stood a chance as long as Doreen didn't say "Go" and
start the clock. Alas, she did so and I tried to blot out the
high-speed hum of Dave's typing and the steam coming from his
(Industrial strength) keyboard. Instead I concentrated on doing
what I didn't do last year, and I examined everything and found my
score mounting up. Alas, I failed to examine something and so lost
an important point.

The game itself is pretty good and leads you into the plot rather
nicely. I was playing without knowing the title of the game, but I
soon got the idea of the plot. I look forward to playing the game
to the conclusion.

Then it was over. I had scored 20 points and was pretty happy.
Especially when I heard that David had scored 22, oh that was so
close!

But what's this? He hadn't won?

SOMEONE HAD BEATEN DAVID AT MEGAPOINTS!

I was stunned and sat there waiting for Armageddon or the world to
end, or the sun to go out or David to go on a berserk rampage with
an axe. But he was grinning happily; at long last he hadn't won!
He was actually happy about it. Always thought he was a bit odd.

However, the alleged winner, Jon Scott, had to disqualify himself
due to the fact he was a playtester for the game's original
incarnation on the Spectrum. I have never seen anyone so
disappointed to have won a Megapoints Competition. But did I care?
NO, I had come equal second with Doreen, Nick Edmonds and Jon
Scott who was awarded a second place because the game was
sufficiently different enough from the original.

Now if I had bothered to look under the table in the TV room I
would have scored an extra point for finding a knitting needle.
Bah!

Next year David will be writing the Megapoints game, so he will
definitely not win, guaranteed, 100% Well, alright, 50% as I'm
sure he will at least try to come up with something. Perhaps a
false beard and a wig.

The rest of us tremble, because we fear the difficulty level of
the game David will unleash upon us:

Predicted 2004 Megapoints results:

1st prize goes to Special Guest Stephen Hawking for scoring 2
points.
2nd prize goes to the other convention attendees who entered as a
collective and scored 1 point and escaped the first location in
19.5 minutes.
(Maximum score possible = 500 points)

Then it was all over for another year. After dinner, at which Jill
managed to order the only inedible item on the menu, we gathered
for general chat and plotting until the small hours.

Alternative Awards

The 2003 Alternative Awards, in all their glory, are as follows:

The "Victor's in the River Award" for attempted computer rescue
beyond the call of duty goes to Karen Tyres for her
convention-long work on Jill's PC. Honourable mention goes to all
those who also helped*.

The "Only a Woman Would Use a Solitaire Game for That" award goes
to Jill Nott for using "Spider Solitaire" as a benchmark program
to test the speed of her Pentium4 equipped computer. I'm
speechless.

Edwina Brown gets this years special "Thrift" award for
demonstrating how to get a "nose job" on the cheap. (Sorry Edwina,
couldn't resist it, hope the bruising has gone now.)

Finally, David Hebblethwaite gets the "Person Most Likely to Hit
John Ferris Next Year" award. I'm sure he doesn't deserve the
ribbing I give him.

Until next year!

*Email Karen Tyres for info on the "Victor" paramedic in-joke.
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