My son Marty has a good friend Thomas who now only lives three doors down from us in our new place. They’re both in third grade and Cub Scouts together, and Thomas often comes over to play games after school. Thomas calls today and says that he’s just found out that his cousin—actually his cousin’s husband—is a friend of mine, someone I’ve known for almost 20 years. He also mentions that his cousin’s family is on their way to his house right now and would like to stop over and say hi.
“Who’s your cousin?”
Could have knocked me flying with a feather.
Sure enough, a few hours later, Thomas and his family bring over Jordan, Dawn, and their three boys for a short, fun visit. The Weismans live in Seattle, of course, but they started out in Chicago and are back this way to visit relatives, including Thomas’s dad, a.k.a. Dawn’s uncle Rick. To cap it all off, it turns out that Rick works at the next desk over from Monica Valentinelli of Colonial Gothic and FlamesRising.com fame (among many other things).
It’s a nanoworld after all.
December 27th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Thanks for the mention, Mr. Forbeck. I’ve told him about your rock star self; I think the two of you will get along famously!!
December 27th, 2007 at 9:53 am
We already are. Thanks, Monica!
December 28th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Man, to swim in your circles. I only know Rich Rowan, Jesse McGatha, and some people from Antarctic Press.
Not to mention Stan! via a roundabout Alliterates and Upper Deck route in reference to our Dead Space anthology. Which is currently on hiatus.
Guess its a nanoworld here to.
I wonder of one could play 6 Degrees of Matt Forbeck?
December 28th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
The gaming industry isn’t all that large. When you’ve been poking around it as a freelancer as long as I have, you get to know most everybody else. (Although I don’t know Rich and Jesse, for instance.) Any 6° game in the gaming industry would rarely make it past 2°, I’d think.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:15 am
True on both counts. Jesses currently over at Green Ronin, I believe. Evan Sass is over there too as is Nicole Lindroos all of whom worked on Everway. Jesse is Rich Rowans twin brother, Rich works at Microsoft and currently owns the rights to Everway and has worked with Wolfgang Baur on a d0 miodule from Gaslight Press.
Hmm..perhaps a 6 degrees of Games could be done to connect people who have worked on games together.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:49 am
That could be fun, combined with something like the RPG Database at Pen & Paper. Again, though, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge to get too close. Of those you mention, I know Evan, Nicole, and Wolf.
The funny part would be figuring out who we’ve all worked with. Often freelancers don’t know or even e-mail with their partners on any given project. That’s all under the developer or editor’s auspice.
December 30th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Nano world it is. Drop my name to Evan, would be interesting to see if he remembers me and our intitial conversations concerning “Realms of the Moon.”
We’ll call our game connect the dots game:
“The d6 Chart”
Chart your personal connection through game designers and the projects they’ve worked on, in 6 rolls/roles or less.
Brian Bird to Matt Forbeck
Roll 1. I codesigned “Pirates & Plunder” (Carcassonne spinoff) with Rich Rowan
Roll 2. Rich worked with Wolfgang Baur on “The Gryphons Legacy”
Roll 3. Wolfgang worked with…