We are getting closer to our departure to San Francisco, with Game Connection and GDC on the agenda. To celebrate this occasion we will entrust you with a little story about the last time we were there. It is about what can happen when blindly trusting your instincts, after having a few drinks too many in a city you don’t know all too well. It is safe to say that this wasn’t one of our brightest moments, but now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. 

About a year ago Black Drop Studios went to San Francisco for GDC, or to be more precise Game Connection, to do some promoting. You can find a collection of photos on Flickr, although it is admittedly quite sparse since we were too busy to take good pictures.

As is customary during these kinds of events there were a number of parties/gatherings in conjunction to the conference. After spending an entire day in meetings people are often quite inclined to participate in one of the aforementioned celebrations. For the sake of keeping in line with the previous statement we went to the Great American Music Hall to bask in the stained rock n’ roll glory that was the Nördic Game Party.

After a long, exciting evening filled with open bars, mingling industry people and Skid Row we suddenly found ourselves at the Double Fine offices drinking whiskey and talking shop. We must’ve had a really good time, because when we finally decided that it might be good to start thinking about retreating to our hotel the clock was somewhere around 4 a.m. After saying our goodbyes we set off down the street towards what obviously must have seemed to be the best way to get back to our hotel.

After walking for quite a while we began sensing that perhaps we weren’t where we were supposed to be. This became painfully obvious when we passed under what seemed to be the foundation of a bridge (the proof is in this posts banner image). It turned out to be the Bay Bridge, and since we were going south at the time this meant that we were way off course. We continued south from Bay Bridge, and now we were getting a bit nervous. It was past 4 a.m. and we weren’t exactly in the safest area of the city, based on what we’ve heard about it.

We started looking for a taxi, but there wasn’t anyone in sight. Instead we noticed a car following us slowly at a distance, which wasn’t the most reassuring thing to notice at this point. The car came closer and closer, and suddenly it passed us and parked right before us. It didn’t seem that friendly, so now we were getting even more nervous. We were more or less expecting someone to jump out of the car and pounce on us at any second. But then we saw a taxi in the distance, driving towards us, so we ran out into the street waving and got it to stop.

By looking at the image below you can follow our tragic path through the city. The green line is the way we thought we were going/the way we were supposed to be going, the red one is the way we were actually going and the blue one is the way we went once we were picked up by the taxi.

We know, not exactly our brightest moment, but all in all it felt kind of like an adventure. We were really glad to get back to the hotel, but before going to bed we went to the diner next to the hotel and ate a much needed meal. Then we went up to our room and collapsed on our beds. Five hours later we were back in our booth having a meeting, and it went surprisingly well. We wouldn’t recommend this kind of behavior, so please kids, do not try this at home.

Stay tuned for updates from San Francisco and the Game Developers Conference ‘09 in the coming weeks.

Tags: bay bridge, double fine, game connection, gdc, san francisco