Shmoozl at GDC 2010 San Francisco

The Baxters want you to make meaningful connections at the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. And, natch, we want you to have fun. So we created Shmoozl, a free networking microgame that puts some smarts into schmoozing.

Shmoozl encourages players to press flesh with new and interesting people, and reward recommendation badges to the most remarkable of the bunch. That recommendation badge lets other players know that, hey, this is definitely someone worth engaging. And just like your LinkedIn profile, multiple recommendations imply a level of wholly uncommon cred. Essentially, Shmoozl empowers players (and non players) with a real-time, organic, visual recommendation system to better identify potentially meaningful connections within a daunting crowd of 20,000+ game hounds.

Players are also encouraged to bounce over to the mobile-minded Shmoozl microsite and register their unique Shmoozl player ID. Not only can they publish their LinkedIn and Twitter details to keep connections alive with other players, but every time one of their recommendations also registers, the originating player nabs an entry in our random drawing for a nifty Shmoozl prize. (Players can rest assured that Natron Baxter will never spam them with marketing blather, either. Registration isn’t required to play, and you can provide as much or as little information as you’d like.)

Shmoozl is designed exclusively for attendees of the GDC, and is initiated the old fashioned way: with a handshake. So while you’re nursing your Nintendo thumb, keep an eye out for Mr. Natron Baxter himself. He’ll supply you with your Shmoozl starter pack and help get you connected.

Throughout the GDC, we’ll post status updates and additional clarification in the comment thread of this post. You can also track the whereabouts of Natron Baxter on Twitter.

[Jah love to the log-gnawers over at Busy Beaver Buttons for their heroic buttoneering.]