The GEEX Show

Saturday I spent some time at the gaming and electronics expo or GEEX show in Salt Lake. While there were a few exhibitors, the real meat of the show was in one of three areas: The LAN party, the 24-hour contest, or the center stage.

The LAN party was an excuse for all the nerds in Utah to bring their tricked-out computers someplace where other like-minded individuals could appreciate them. It was like a custom car show only instead of cars, it was computers. In order to show the real power of the machines, everyone was playing games. It was fun to see, but not really why I was there.

The center stage was where you could see the StarCraft tournament on one side and listen to video game professionals on the other. I stopped to listen to the Electronic Arts guys talk about their development process for creating the SIMS game. It was interesting, but I didn't really learn anything new.

My main reason for being there was to see what came out of the 24-hour contest. The organizers had everyone write down game ideas on little slips of paper that were tossed into a hat. Three slips of paper were then drawn and the contestants had 24 hours to incorporate 2 of the 3 items into a game built from scratch. This year the themes were: 8-bit, jewel, and disease. At the end of the 24-hour period, there were some pretty good games created. They started as simple as a text-based game and became as complex as something that could be published. I was impressed with what every team did in such a short amount of time.

GEEX was a fun event and I will definitely attend again next year. Now I just need to decide if I am going to enter the 24-hour contest.