BYOC 2014

      Saturday's annual gaming event was just as fun as the last one. Just about every person on campus interested in video games showed up at some point during the 12 hour event. Games were played, new friends were met, and things were learned. Catch it all below the break.

     Tons of multiplayer games were going on throughout the day. Minecraft World of Tanks, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Tekken Tag 2, Soul Calibur's 4 and 5, Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3, League of Legends, Halo 2, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 3, Mario Kart Wii, Counterstrike, and Black Ops 2 were there (to name what I saw. I tend to hang around where the Smash Bros matches are taking place (it's my favorite game series after all).

     I met a handful of new people and got to know the ones I've seen before in the Gamer's Guild club at school. Hanging out with them here makes me want to go to the gamer lounge to work on my games instead of staying in my room. The company and change of scenery might be nice.

    Another cool thing that happened was meeting a shy guy who was a Smash Bros. and Halo prodigy that didn't get out much. My girlfriend told him about the BYOC and he entered tournaments for both games. He came in 1st for brawl and 2nd in Halo2. This was his 1st tournament ever and he won the lightsaber umbrella prize. What made it even better was how we found out that it was his birthday as the event ended. It feels good having a hand in making someone else's day.

     Seeing my classmates' games in action was fun too. I finally got to play Shape Wars, a game by friends of mine, and I saw their networking code in action. There were instruction sheets next to each laptop with a game's executable displayed. Another paper nearby was a review sheet where players rank each game based on general quality and ease of use. After that players rank the games with each other and the top two games received a prize at the end of the day.

The prize pile.

     I didn't know there were prizes for the game expo event. I can't believe each of the four developers of the winning game got a $40 Amazon gift card and the runner-ups each got a smaller gift card. I could have made $40 - $160 in Amazon credit that night for games I made this year on my own which is absolutely ridiculous. This is the moment of my life where I need money the most because I have no income. I'm putting everything I have into surviving the college grading system and making my first truly amazing and profitable game. Every cent really counts and missing this opportunity is going to bug me for a while.

     Even just a mention of prize money would have got me to display all of my released apps for the event and I likely would have won the contest because the scores were based on pick-up and play capability. Feed The Plant would have dominated and I'd have enough money to stay stable all summer.

     Counting my losses though it could be worse. When it comes to this stuff I tell myself to think about it differently. At least I didn't lose any money. Moving on from that low point a lot of good things happened at the BYOC.

     There was a lot of hype leading up to this thing. This year confirmed that new faces will appear because people from the last BYOC weren't there and people still in high school or visitors from other colleges came to play.

My roommates painted the school advertisement rock.

     

     Fun was had. There where multiple contests. Minecraft, Civilazation, a few tabletop games, League of Legends, and a few others had prizes from the table as rewards. There were also a bunch of random drawings for prizes and an auction for the leftover food when the party ended. My roommate bought about 16 cheeseburgers for a few bucks.

     It was a fun time that I can't wait to do again. It was also my girlfriend's first BYOC and it felt great attending one without worrying about finding true love before midnight. I will absolutely be submitting my games for the showcase in the future. I can't believe I let at least $40 slip by. It won't happen again.With only two BYOCs left for me to attend, I'll be sure to take full advantage of them.