This week, I’ve been at a game manufacturers convention supporting Shifting Skies Games, a gaming start-up that has their first game in production. I’m just the graphic designer on the project– not even the illustrator (read: no gamer cachet whatsoever), but the other person who was supposed to attend couldn’t make it, and in exchange for a trip to Las Vegas, I agreed to play convention-booth wingman.

Conventions kind of suck, huh? For the game company, it was actually a great trip– Boyan (the designer) got to refine his “elevator pitch” by giving it a hundred times to other manufacturers and retailers. We got to see how the guys who put games on shelves reacted to the premise and target market of the game, and it was very positive. But from a standing-around-talking-to-strangers point of view, it was pretty painful. By the end of the second day, Boyan and I were just mocking ourselves, going around making gunfingers and trying to be as cheesy as possible. We cracked ourselves up.

But I didn’t just put finger to keyboard to share a slice of my working life with you. I am here to offer you an accounting of my encounters with the most obnoxious slice of white America; Las Vegas is like a Douchebag Petting Zoo.

Monday:
When I first arrived in Las Vegas, my impression was that the strip was an overrated obnoxious tourist trap populated by chain-smoking degenerate gamblers where you have to pay $11.95 for a $5.00 sandwich. That evening, we hung at the Excalibur and spent $20.00 a round on drinks and second-hand smoked about a pack of everyone else’s cigarettes.

And in case you cannot quite visualize my situation, I’ve created a handy diagram for you:

And here was the highlight of the decoration: a ten-foot tall plastic Merlin that . . . wait for it[/ . . . actually rotated!

What you can’t see are all the degenerate gamblers playing the slots ‘neath Merlin’s beguiling gaze. Hark, is that a tinny rendition of Camptown Ladies emerging from yonder brightly lit device! Verily, I think it is! By the Flowing Mullet of Steven, I shall tame this beast if it takes me five hundred dollars in quarters to bring it to heel!

Tuesday:

Wake up feeling like I’d spent the night before licking the Pink Panther’s ass. I searched the casino, and discovered a Krispy Kreme and a McDonalds, but can’t find anywhere that sells asprin.

Drag ass into convention. Our booth is the least-decorated, least flashy, least actual product having booth in the entire con. But we have 24 bottles of water, and a game that’s actually fun to play (yes, I’m talking to you “Caribbean Monopoly,” so fuck what you think. Oh, look, gamers. Repeat as necessary.

Wandering around the con, I see what could quite possibly be the perfect CK game: The Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game: Save the computer, die a lot.

ME (to The Mongoose Guy): Wow, that looks hot. When is that game coming out?

TMG (English accent): Last year, actually.

ME: Oh.

ME: . . .

ME: Well, shows how tuned in I am.

TMG: Sounds like I’m going to have to fire my marketing guy.

By Tuesday evening, we realized that the Excalibur was just kind of ghetto (sorry Galahad, it’s true– you and Percival ought to . . . you know, do the fabulous thing and re-decorate or something) and we figured out that we should move “up-strip.” So up we went to Treasure Island/Madalay Bay. Okay, first impressions good . . . there were definitely less morbidly obese people playing slots with an oxygen tank in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

At Treasure Island, I realized that my initial impression about Las Vegas was wrong. In fact, the strip was actually an overrated obnoxious tourist trap populated by chain-smoking degenerate gamblers where you have to pay $14.95 for your $5.00 sandwich.

Fuck Las Vegas; in bed by 9pm. Wake up feeling pretty damned human.

Wednesday:
Gamers. Repeat. I curl into a corner and work on some other projects and try to pretend that I’m in my happy place.

Overwhelmed by the sheer corniness of pitching the market angles of your labor of love to everyone that comes by, Boyan and I begin to brainstorm a new game: Gunfingers: the Art of the Deal, where all the players play marketing weenies who have to use uber-cheesy phrases to close the deal, and sabotage the competition. You would punctuate your sentences by pointing at everyone. It would be funny because it’s true.

We started adopting fake laughs and calling each other “guy.”

By Wednesday evening, I was all set to just say, “fuck Las Vegas,” and get some good reading done, but instead we went to the Paris casino, which was actually pretty cool. It has a high ceiling, good air circulation, and isn’t a psycho mind-fuck claustrophobic maze designed to lubricate the part of the mind that separates drunks from their money.

The bartender takes a shine to us, and feeling sheepish about charging $17.00 for drinks, pours us triples. The lounge area is comfortable, has the Suns game on, and has the first genuinely attractive women that we’ve seen since arriving in Las Vegas. We sit for a minute, stroll around the casino, and return in time to see the house band start their show– they play covers of 70s funk and soul music. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I loves me some old-school soul, so I’m growing very happy at this point. Our guy left the bar, so our pours didn’t stay as generous, but the service was fast and the band was really good. They could play, and they looked like they were having a good time as well.

For whatever reason, “Jungle Love” was clearly the band’s favorite song. Even the stoic drummer had a big grin on his face. Oweeeeoweeeoh! Girl I wanna know ya (know ya)!

We eventually figured out that all of the attractive women in this area were friends with one of the singers from the band; she was a cutie herself, but at a metaphysical level she was like this spiritual gravity center for hot women. I don’t claim to understand the intricacies of the whole deal, but God As My Witness, I sat there and watched it unfold.

After the band finished, I went and told the band how much fun they were and that if they ever needed a designer, they should contact me. I didn’t give them the gunfingers, but you know I thought about it.