9am
Easily the most interesting session that I've gone to so far has been the Game Design Challenge. The purpose of the session was to show how designers come up with their ideas in design. The group assembled was anything but normal, showcasing the amazing talents of Raph Koster, Warren Spector and Will Wright. The topic? Making a game about love. In this case what was done was truly amazing. My, and the audience's, favorite pieces were by Will Wright who presented the idea of a game where you would interact with another character in another game that had already been created. The game was Battlefield 1942 and the idea was that you would have specific tasks to complete as a group that ran counter to what all the soldiers would be doing. You and your would be partner must do such things as find each other and then advance on to other locations on the map. A big portion of the game of course would be trying to survive going through an intensive battleground where other players are playing a completely different game killing everyone that they see. Watching the amazing brilliance of three top designers applying themselves to a very different and challenging problem was quite a treat.

10h30am
Andy House from Sony showed off some innovation in the PS2 and the Eye Toy. The Eye Toy has sold 3.3 million units, which means that there is nearly 1 Eye Toy for every 4 X-Boxes currently in existence. Pretty amazing thought.

12noon
John Carmack was perhaps the speaker I was most excited to see, but unfortunately it turned out to be a bit of a bore for me. I instead spent my time tuning in and out while writing my editorial/write-up about the IGF awards the night before.

2pm
I met up again with Greg from DIYgames.com and before I knew it we had talked away another good hour or two of the day. Amazing how much conversation can go on among those with an interest in Indie games. David Michael of the indie book fame also stopped by to chat.

4pm
Walking back up to the floor we managed to catch Jeff Tunnel in the middle of a presentation about the Torque engine. In the wings were several developers who have done notable Torque engine games. I spoke with Justin Mette, who is a developer with 21-6 productions, maker of Orbz, about the engine and well mostly about the backlash that you get after writing pieces like my editorial/write-up about the IGF awards.

5pm-ish
Headed down to the Press lounge with the intent of going over to see the Special Press Preview of Fable, the new upcoming game for the X-Box. Unfortunately, due to an unexpected rain shower, and my desire to not go outside and get wet I found myself in the press lounge...writing this.

Highlight of the Day
During the presentation of the Eye Toy, Sony choose to show of an upcoming game where a player would dance with their arms and react to a song that was playing. Feeling a bit self conscious, Sony choose to call in the big guns to show off the game, getting William Hung of American Idol fame to dance while singing the Villiage People song YMCA. Just the picture that puts into your head should be as priceless as the moment was.

General Impression
Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? From John Carmack thoughts about game developing schools being useless to my thoughts on Savage winning the IGF awards that it received, everyone has an opinion to share, and in the end, to each his own. One great reality is that diversity drives the business in different directions, and that it is a necessary evil or a wonderfully good thing that people have their own opinions. What would happen if we all agreed?