My GORF [briefly] in the wild

mc300baud

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last weekend, i was involved with Norwescon, a big science-fiction and fantasy convention in the Seattle area (i've been attending and working on it for about 20 years now.) the previous year, i brought my tiny cabaret Asteroids along and dropped it in the main hallway in the evenings after some of the space cleared out. but i had to move it each night so the space could be used for something else during the day, and anyway i no longer own it or any small, relatively portable cabs.

this year, i wanted to bring something with greater visual impact and find a place to drop it for the entire weekend (Thursday to Sunday,) so upstairs in a hallway between the main programming room spaces i found a nice niche with an outlet and stuck my recently rebuilt Gorf there on freeplay. not as much foot traffic as the main hallway but also not near anyone who might get annoyed at the noise and visible from several locations on both floors so it might catch a few eyes.

it ran with no problems, and after one early unplug on Thursday afternoon (the hotel assures me it wasn't them despite the fact that i hadn't cleared the game with either them or the convention,) it ran flawlessly until Sunday afternoon. i got numerous positive (and sometime incredulous) comments from friends and strangers alike, and saw it it in use most of the time when i stopped by check on it. high score for the weekend was about 28k.

my only regret was that i hadn't thought to take any pictures, but fortunately the large number of photographers at the convention helped remedy that oversight:

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Gorf, all alone

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dude, stop wear the paint off my CP with your god damned iPhone.

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that sword ain't gonna help you against the Gorfian Flagship.

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Tribbles? WTF? only at a convention...

Gorf is now safe back home, and i'm starting to plan what game to take next year. i did scope out a spot that would easily hold three or four cabinets... hmmm.
 
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Looks good man! Glad the Gorfian empire got to kick people's butts...nice story and its good to see someone put one back in the wild for a little bit.
 
They was a scifi show in Seattle?!? and I missed it?!?

there are several, but Norwescon is the largest of the real sci-fi conventions (we were at about 3360 this year.) it's always over Easter weekend in Sea-Tac at the Doubletree.

there are also more genre-specific events, like Sakuracon (anime) and PAX (gaming.)

Nice way to promote the obsession too. You know somebody is at home right now, scanning ebay for a Gorf.

i had a nice 2-page sign made up for it explaining the history and significance of the game and telling a bit about collecting, but i never got around to finding something to put it on. we're not allowed to tape to the walls in the hotel and i wasn't going to stick it directly on the machine.

if i wasn't planning to keep this cab i suppose i could stick it up on CL with a big "AS SEEN AT NORWESCON 33" in the ad.
 
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Nice way to promote the obsession too. You know somebody is at home right now, scanning ebay for a Gorf.

And they'll turn their computer off real fast!

Crazy prices listed for Gorfs on Ebay.....$2100, $1900, crazy, I say....
 
No fear of someone putting it on a dolly and hauling it out of there (including hotel staff)?
 
not really. it's a fairly close-knit community despite the numbers of people there. and i did speak with the hotel staff later on about it so they would know who's it was just in case something happened... i've been involved with the convention (putting on the dances) in the same hotel for so long that i know most of the head banquet staff by name.

and besides, there's much easier and more valuable stuff to steal. we had a laptop belonging to the lighting director disappear from a ballroom at 3 a.m. one night while a half-dozen of us were working in the room to take down the lights. went right under our noses. it would have been almost impossible to believe if i hadn't been there.
 
i had a nice 2-page sign made up for it explaining the history and significance of the game and telling a bit about collecting, but i never got around to finding something to put it on. we're not allowed to tape to the walls in the hotel and i wasn't going to stick it directly on the machine.

if i wasn't planning to keep this cab i suppose i could stick it up on CL with a big "AS SEEN AT NORWESCON 33" in the ad.

It's always nice to see a GORF in the wild.
I like the picture with the Tribbles. The other day I read an old post about the GORF programmer made a sequel called Ms Gorf and that the programmer was a woman named Jamie Fenton. I did a Google search for Gorf and found the Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorf
I don't know how much of it is true but under History it reads
"Gorf was originally intended to be a tie-in with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but when the game designers read the film's script, they realized that the concept would not work as a video game and changed its title. Even so, the player's ship bears a passing resemblance to the Starship Enterprise viewed from above."
If this is true I think it's cool Gorf has a tie in to Star Trek
As for the Sequel it reads
"The sequel, Ms. Gorf, was never released. It was programmed in the programming language Forth. The source code for the prototype is owned by Gorf programmer Jay Fenton (now known as Jamie Fenton). The game exists only as source code stored on a set of 8-inch floppy disks, and is difficult to retrieve"
I wondered about the name change,Jay to Jamie so I went to the link and got the rest of the story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Fenton
I still think Jay or I should say Jamie made one hell of a game.
Long Live Gorf :)
 
Gorf is now safe back home, and i'm starting to plan what game to take next year. i did scope out a spot that would easily hold three or four cabinets... hmmm

Next year bring your Scramble, it's a fun Space Themed game as well. Nice pictures and very cool of you to bring your game there!
 
i have to update my VAPS entry... i recently traded Scramble for a project Cheyenne cabinet.

i'm thinking Time Pilot or my multi-Williams if the cabinet is done by then. but then again, i don't know what games i'll have this time next year.
 
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