{"id":3117,"date":"2018-10-12T19:59:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T11:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/?p=3117"},"modified":"2018-10-24T10:04:11","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T02:04:11","slug":"roguelike-celebration-2018-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/roguelike-celebration-2018-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Roguelike Celebration 2018, the Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another Roguelike Celebration<\/a>! The biggest roguelike gathering of the year just keeps getting bigger :D<\/p>\n

I had to miss last year due to my concussion, but it was great to finally meet up with everyone again. Back in 2016<\/a> I showed up just a few days before Roguecel and still wasn’t sleeping well when the time came around, and although the sheer excitement of being with all these roguelike developers and players was enough to keep me going through an entire day, I knew it’d be even better if I could participate fully refreshed. So this time I made a vacation of it, arriving in the US a couple weeks early to visit family near San Francisco, too.<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_airport_at\"<\/a>

I knew I was headed in the right direction as soon as I saw the sign at the airport.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like 2017, this Roguecel was on a two-day schedule, which is just awesome. The feedback from 2016 was pretty much unanimous in that a single day was simply not enough, especially since that also forced the talks to be split into two tracks, meaning you’d always be watching one talk at the expense of another, which sucked. (After this year I’m hearing multiple calls of “two days is just not enough!” xD)<\/p>\n

Pre-event Gathering<\/h1>\n

On Friday night (10\/5) we had a pre-event meet-up at ThirstyBear Brewery. It was announced relatively late so there were only about 25 people or so, though this was probably for the better since the place was already packed and we had no reserved space. Instead we gradually assimilated tables as they were emptied, and in the meantime had to guess who among those entering the bar were actually here for roguelikes. This was not hard to guess ;)<\/p>\n

I met up with lead organizer Noah<\/a>, who said about 230 tickets were sold this year!? o_O \\o\/ roguelikes!<\/p>\n

I spent most of the evening catching up with old friends Santiago and Thomas. All three of us hail from separate countries, but talk online and got to hang out in 2016.<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_preparty_with_santiago_and_thomas\"<\/a>

RogueBasin and Ananias creator Santiago, myself, and ADOM developer Thomas Biskup.<\/p><\/div>\n

Santiago admitted he didn’t have a single slide prepared for his talk the next day (in the morning scheduled for right after mine). Quite the opposite of my approach, but surprisingly it turned out fine as you’ll see.<\/p>\n

In the Beginning<\/h1>\n

Saturday marked the official start of the event, and the next morning I arrived early to help out a bit with setup. Roguecel 2018 was held at the GitHub offices in San Francisco, same as last year though different from 2016 so I hadn’t been here before.<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_github_entrance1\"<\/a>

Front doors to GitHub in SF.<\/p><\/div>\n

GitHub is such an amazing space for hosting events, and we got to use it for free<\/em>. Wow.<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_github_open_area\"<\/a>

Open area near the entrance.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_github_cafeteria\"<\/a>

Cafeteria.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_github_speaking_area\"<\/a>

Speaking area.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_github_stage\"<\/a>

Stage.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_github_view_from_stage\"<\/a>

View from stage.<\/p><\/div>\n

As usual the decorations included various posters, letters, @ signs, and message log texts, so part of setting up was to hang these things around the area to make it a little less GitHubby and a little more roguelikey.<\/p>\n

As a sponsor, Thomas had some Ultimate ADOM posters printed up, so he, Britta (another organizer) and I hung those around.<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_decorations2\"<\/a>

Ultimate ADOM posters.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_decorations1\"<\/a>

The Altar has been a guaranteed fixture of the event each year.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_decorations3\"<\/a>

Exactly what I want to see at the emergency exit.<\/p><\/div>\n

Swag<\/h1>\n

Even before 9am people were scanning their tickets at the door and picking up their Roguelike Celebration memorabilia.<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_registration\"<\/a>

Let the rogueliking begin!<\/p><\/div>\n

Every year there are @ socks for everyone to replenish their supply. And a new t-shirt design.<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_swag_apparel\"<\/a>

Roguecel t-shirt and socks. (Apparently only 2016 had a separate t-shirt design for speakers, one that is still one of my favorite shirts, and I brought and wore it on Sunday.)<\/p><\/div>\n

But there was a great collection of other stuff, too…<\/p>\n

\"roguelike2018_swag_misc\"<\/a>

RC2018 swag!<\/p><\/div>\n

Everyone got one of those awesome ASCII\/@ tote bags, inside which is a notebook, marker (magic, of course), and pamphlets containing Ultimate ADOM mini-stories. Top-center there is a little roguelike map lapel pin! As a speaker I also got some nice chocolate and a custom thank you card with a hand-written message on it, signed by all the organizers <3<\/p>\n

Food<\/h1>\n

All three meals were catered both days, except for dinner on Sunday. It was a healthy, tasty variety of options, so I was happy to see that (in addition being mostly stuff I wasn’t allergic to :D).<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_breakfast\"<\/a>

Saturday breakfast begins.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_breakfast2\"<\/a>

People just starting to filter into the cafeteria. It was funny to see the high proportion of black clothing throughout the weekend, as many were wearing roguelike-related t-shirts.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_breakfast3\"<\/a>

More and more people.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_breakfast4\"<\/a>

There were eventually enough people that in looking back at my earliest pictures I’m surprised to see a number of them I didn’t even realize were there until much later!<\/p><\/div>\n

After breakfast it was time for talks, so most everyone gradually moved over to the speaking area. There are technically linked monitors everywhere so it’s easy to see the talk from other sitting\/standing areas, too (even, uh, the restrooms xD).<\/p>\n

\"roguecel2018_pretalk_audience\"<\/a>

Audience getting ready for the first talk of this year’s Roguelike Celebration.<\/p><\/div>\n

The talks started a little late due to GitHub technical issues, and the first two ended up not being streamed, but at least they were recorded.<\/p>\n

I was actually the opening talk! This is great because I could get it out my mind rather than worrying about it any longer. It also turns out that because my talk touched on a lot of different subtopics, a fair number of other speakers referred back to my presentation, which was kinda cool.<\/p>\n

\"roguecell2018_noah_opening_remarks\"<\/a>

Opening remarks by lead organizer Noah. (At this point I’d already set up my laptop and presentation so it’s ready to go, which is why it’s on all screens.)<\/p><\/div>\n

How to Make a Roguelike<\/h1>\n

My own talk went pretty well. Back in 2016 at the first Roguelike Celebration<\/a> when I gave the\u00a0From Hobbyist to Full-time Roguelike Developer<\/a> talk, I was quite nervous because 1) that was the first time I’d done any kind of speaking about anything since high school in the 90s and 2) I hadn’t even practiced what I was going to say, just put together a bunch of slides and notes (this is bad when you’re as easily nervous speaking before an audience as I am).<\/p>\n

But this time I came prepared. Perhaps a little too prepared? I started my outline a few weeks in advance, on September 13th, and worked on the outline and content off and on up until the day before the Celebration. I finished with just enough time to practice it a couple times, and was happy that my (intentional) overestimates of how long each section would take ended up totaling an actual final time of about 26 minutes or so. At the time I guessed I’d spent maybe 40 hours on it, but on checking my time records now, apparently I spent freaking 59 hours<\/em> preparing this talk xD<\/p>\n

Well, it was worth it! This is something I’ve always wanted to put together, a comprehensive primer on how to make a roguelike, something that could hopefully be inspiring while including both general and specific advice. So this year’s Roguelike Celebration seemed like the perfect opportunity to force myself to do that after having put it off for so long.<\/p>\n

The full talk is here:<\/p>\n