The official adventure game developer gathering ..mittens.. > home mittens 2002 round-up Mittens 2002 took place in the small village of Laleham in Surrey, England (UK) in late July. Twelve people camped out and one other person (Matt Goble, who lived near by) came and visited a few times. We did several things, including a trip to a local theme park, a trip to a computer game exhibition in London, a trip to the cinema and also plenty of on-site activities, including sports, chatting & socialising and consuming alcohol. We had some lovely weather, but also some extremes! The first day was exceedingly hot and for a lot of the travellers it was very uncomfortable. On Wednesday it rained quite a bit but everyone still managed to have a great time. Listen to some of the comments about Mittens 2002. (190kb mp3) Who comments? In order: KANDYMAN, Magintz, Dark Stalkey, Chris Jones, 2ma2, Chrille, Andail, FruitTree, Viporizer, m0ds Monday 29th July First on the scene was m0ds, shortly followed by AGA at about 11am. Sitting in the sizzling heat of the morning, and pitching our tents, we then went to the near by Spar shop and met up with Matt Goble. Coming back, we met Magintz. Next to arrive was JetXL, shortly followed by Das_Kandyman. We sat around chatting about adventure games and so forth, and then Chris Jones turned up in his car, with a windshield held on by sticky tape! Everyone lined up to shake his hand! Then the Swedes arrived, and we met them as they got off the bus. Making a trip back to the campsite we decided to get the barbecue underway and cook some food. Making our introductions, we sat around and ate dangerously cooked food and finally, Dark Stalkey turned up. Das_Kandyman decided it was time to get very drunk, so he did. Everyone was a little quiet at first, but that was to be expected. As the night progressed, we talked about many things (including vector scaling) and people became more open to each other. However, as we all started to sing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", a near by camper shouted "Shut the f**k up! My kids are trying to sleep!", which prompted us all to go to bed. Tuesday 30th July We went and took a look around the infamous Staines. Naturally we visited a couple of computer game shops and everyone had time to look around and buy anything they wanted. We all went to the cinema to watch Austin Powers 3: Goldmember too. That evening, we played football and then attempted to get into several pubs. Only one of which would serve us. D'oh! Wednesday 31st July Today was a trip to Thorpe Park. We left fairly early in the morning, only to realise we'd just missed the bus from Laleham to Staines, so we ended up walking a few miles to Staines. Once at Staines we boarded the "Thorpe Park" bus and headed off. Thorpe Park was quite fun. We all went on several rides (although some people didn't want too, because they were obviously too scary for them). We all ended up getting pretty wet, and the rain that day didn't help much either. Everytime we dried off we managed to get wet again. On the way back, we comendeered the bottom of a double decker bus and drew pictures all over the windows using the condensation that had formed. This included pictures of "Andy Penis" and such alike. Tired and wet, when we got back we had a shower, played some football and had some drinks. Thursday 1st August We travelled into London by train to go see an exhibition called "GameOn", a look at the history, present and future of gaming. There were lots of interesting displays and everyone seemed to be kept amused for a couple of hours. Much fun was had on the Monkey Island machine. In the evening we held a quiz in which many prizes were won, including 'Hopkins FBI', 'MS Works 6', 'MS Dangerous Creatures' and a CD packed with porn. Hehe. Friday 2nd August Was the end of Mittens. We took some group photos, packed up and left.