Two days ago I made a post talking about my various fears and anxieties related to the 2024 Game Developer’s Conference. We’re two days after that post, so how am I doing now?

To start - I am so fucking tired dude. Not in a mental sense, just physically: Jetlag hit me like a truck yesterday¹ around 1 PM and I had to force myself to stay awake as long as possible to realign my internal clock, so what that meant was that I had to stay awake until atleast 7 PM, no matter how painful it was. I looked like I was stoned out of my fucking mind by 15:30 from how red my eyes were, and the instant the clock hit 19:30 I passed out on my bed², unable to keep my flesh prison standing for any longer. Other than that it’s been a decent two days.

On the flight here I watched two movies that I’ve been meaning to get around to - Starship Troopers and Waltz with Bashir. Waltz with Bashir is an animated docudrama regarding a solider who saw the Sabra and Shatila Massacre (I enjoyed it a lot), and Starship Troopers is a satire of pro-war action films and fascism (didn’t enjoy that one as much). I’ll probably write something about Waltz eventually.

The two peaks of the recent two days though would be the moment I went to pick up my badge, and the last talk I was part of today. So - the badge. I’ve been wanting to go to GDC since I was but A Little Baby Man, so when I actually got into the conference hall and got an official GDC badge with my name printed on it, I felt so many emotions it was hard to describe. I felt overjoyed. I felt overwhelmed. I felt out of place. I was giddy with excitement like a child brought to a toy store, told he can take as many as he wants home. I was frozen with terror, sure that anyone would spot me for the faker I was and throw me out. I couldn’t wait to come back tomorrow. I hid my badge while walking back to my hotel out of shame. I know impostor syndrome is very common and that this is all irrational feelings, but it doesn’t make me magically not feel them, as much as that would be a relief. Gotta power through it.

Second major moment was about two hours ago. I was sitting in the third floor playing some board games, and I stayed a little longer than I expected, missing the start of a talk I wanted to go to. I finished the game, said goodbye, and ran down to the conference hall to hear someone give a retrospective on Flash, something I am very much interested in. I sit down, and the speaker seems very emotional and involved in the whole subject, which was fascinating and put a bit of curiosity in my head, “wait who is this guy? Does he port stuff? Does he work in a flash-related site nowadays?” He talked about the revival projects of flash while holding back tears, so he was clearly emotionally invested. At some point he referred to Armor Games as “we,” so I assumed he worked there at some point. His talk was killer, too; it was really funny and went very in-depth for only being 30 minutes.

Anyways, the final slide of the presentation shows up, and it lists info about the speaker: John Cooney, Head of Wonderful Element… twitter account handle: @jmtb02. ‘Holy FUCK, THAT’S jmtb02??’ Upon seeing that twitter handle I go through a brief out-of-body experience; that’s not just some random guy who worked at Armor Games, HE WAS THE FUCKING CEO! He made some of the most popular flash games ever made! Probably THE most popular flash games ever made! MOM GET THE CAMERA I FOUND A CELEBRITY

It might seem kind of silly that I rave so much about this guy and not many of the other, much more ‘successful’ creators in the conference, but this guy gave me so many hours of joy throughout my childhood and was one of the faces of Flash as a whole for me. His ongoing success is living and breathing proof that even if you don’t become a megamillionare, it’s still possible and viable to just do what you love, help others, and make a living off of it.

I instantly sent messages to four different friends on discord like I was seeing a celebrity crush at a mall, and the conversations went something like: “DUDE!” “what?” “jmtb02 IS GIVING MY GDC TALK!” “who?” “[picture of Achievement Unlocked]” “OHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

Those two moments were the peaks of the conference for me. I did a lot more stuff (I was part of a really long workshop where we made a functional board game, which was fun), but those are the two big things I have to mention.

That’s it for now, I’ll report back in a few days.