GDC: A guide to caffeine satisfaction

The annual Game Developer's Conference (or GDC) is a bitchin' yearly event in San Francisco which has people like me flying halfway across the world to experience a unique and uncomfortable blend of jet lag, American culture and industry peer engagement -- often without the assistance of even the most rudimentary illegal narcotics.

Didn't get violated by US security on the way in, but there's always hope for the journey back.

For many, this will be a simultaneously exciting and draining experience. And if you're not psyched enough to fight off the despair and/or Thai food poisoning, you're going to get doubly fucked over. Techniques for beating back the madness differ from person to person -- a little "time out" here and there, an extra hour of sleep per night or maybe just a simple hotel bathtub filled with custard and/or rabbit blood.

But let me tell you this right now, dear reader: if the mere thought of caffeine deprivation has you in tears faster than watching The Descendants on a (hypothetical) booze-soaked international Emirates flight, then don't make the mistake of coming to San Fran unprepared.

Until approximately three hours before writing this, I hadn't touched coffee in a week. I regretted this decision more than the time I punched that kid in seventh grade. I was on a miserable anti-binge of socially disastrous proportions, and the GDC Moscone Center provided me with just the fucking remedy for that:

Bottomless. Motherfucking. Coffee.

Look at that shit. LOOK AT IT.

And this isn't just some whiny, bitch-ass "yeah I'll spinelessly sit down at some restaurant forever and be happy with it" bottomless coffee. No, we're talking about a smooth $12 flask that bags you a right to refill it forever.

FOR-FUCKING-EVER.

As long as you're packing one of these metallic-finished tickets to heaven, you can haul ass to one of several stations that exist throughout the conference, shove your face under the taps and begin chugging your way to a medically irresponsible oblivion of caffeine intoxication. I have seen it with my own eyes, brothers and sisters: Jesus has returned, and he's baptising kittens in the fucking Cafe Mocha river.

Now, you may just be thinking right about now: hey, that sounds pretty nice dude, but it's not as if I'm saving enough money to snort coke off a hooker's ass or anything. And you can just shut your brain the fuck up right now because IT IS WRONG.

SHUT IT.

So you're nice and cocky, and you think that you can get by on, say, a single cup of Starbucks magic per day. Just spend a little bit here and there and that'll do you, right? Yeah, good luck with that -- especially if you're swinging over from a place like South Africa. A single drink from Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe can cost up to ten US dollars -- in SA money, that's approximately seven hundred thousand million BILLION Rand. This is bullshit, and you should get that damn bottomless coffee already because it will also turn you into a fucking viking.

It turned me into a fucking viking too. Look at that damn hair.

If I don't start seeing more of these glorious orange-and-metal flasks doing the rounds at GDC tomorrow, I will *officially* declare the whole conference a failure and do my best to single-handedly ensure that the entire industry collapses upon itself out of sheer shame.

Developers, I am coming for you.

These damn flasks were formed from the steel-coated titty hairs of Odin himself, and have been single-handedly responsible for bringing the light back into my life. Thank you, GDC 2012, for definitively showing me the true joy of being a game developer.