Downtime

So if you hadn’t noticed the site has been down for awhile. The whole story involves a group a space ninjas that colluded with a local antigames movement in order to seek and destroy all games related material on the internet. Fortunately they underestimated our newly found agility (thanks entirely to the wiimote) and found our palid skin and strange acronyms to be too confounding. Ok maybe not, but the story of my domain name hosts being asshats really isn’t as compelling.

In other news I’m now posting from my blackberry. Quite a cool concept and makes me feel very geeky in a good way.

My most recent focus of my ocd (beyond wow) is most definitely zombies. If you can find them, read World War Z and Monster Island. Both are critical additions to any walking dead aficianado.

Have to go, I think I hear the space ninjas again.

Been awhile…

since i last posted something interesting here, so maybe its time for an update?

Biggest change? I no longer work for Relic!

It was a big choice to make, given Id been there for 6 years, and had shipped so many fun games and met so many smart people that it had become my definite home away from home. But, it was time to move as I was craving something fresh, a new experience, new people to share thoughts with. So I went to EA, for 6 weeks. That was…. basically everything you would expect EA to be. Hence I was there for 6 long weeks.

After my stint at EA, i spent a month or two in siesta mode, playing golf, having beer with lunch, generally doing not much, then I decided that Id eaten enough into my savings, and it was time to get a job (and ironically, a haircut).

My search didnt need to go far till I found my fit at Hothead Games (http://www.hotheadgames.com). A newish company here in vancouver, they are focused on making fun (gasp!) games. Shock horror, I like what I saw, especially in the game that Im now Lead Designer on, Swarm. After 2 weeks here, things are going fantastically, everyone Ive met is smart, committed to their work, and great to work with. Shipping in the not too distant future will be the first title from hothead, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Its beyond funny and fun to play so far, and with work left it can only get better.

I have an idea for another article, which should be coming your way soon.  In the meantime, why not reread the existing ones!

Drizzle

Ahh Vancouver weather. As I write this Im looking out over a wonderful autumn morning in Vancouver… with a good solid dose of rain coming down. Suppose I cant complain too much we havent seen much bad weather so far, but its definitely getting to that point in the year when it starts raining pretty much non-stop and being inside is a really good thing.

This week was a massive furniture upgrade week for me. I decided to get a new couch awhile back and have been looking ever since, and recently decided on a dark brown/black leather three seater from urban barn (click here for a picture). The upside was I got a stunning new couch to replace the 5-year old ikea blue thing Id had since I got here, the downside was it made the rest of my 5-year old ikea furniture look pretty outdated. So, after a quick trip to Ikea and a session in problem solving as to how to get all the furniture in my audi, I now have a new set of bookshelves for my den, a new TV stand and a set of floating shelves for one of my walls. Up next will be some stools for the bench so we arent always relegated to eating dinner on the couch and to give guests an alternative place to sit. Im also on the lookout for a large, long painting for the wall behind my couch, something to bring color to the room as most of the furniture matches the couch, as well as a new coffee table, something funky though to spice it up a bit!

I quite enjoy this whole “nesting” thing so far, especially when its raining outside like it is today. Its a lot of fun breaking out the tools and building furniture, making sure everything is lined up really nicely, and then you get a fantastic reward when you sit back on your couch and take it all in. I still have some more work to do, but once its ready Ill send some updated photos out for all to see, and you can feel like youre at the martini party ill br throwing when its ready to go!

SQUAWK!

That is what I imagine most farms across the country would have sounded like a few weeks ago as preparations began for the big event this weekend, Canadian Thanksgiving! A day when all Canadians gather to celebrate the giving of all this wonderful and fruitful land by the natives to the settlers. Ok not so much giving as forcibly wrenching through the ubiquitous use of slavery, gunpowder, alcohol and the common cold. Really it was giving though, I mean after they were slaves, or drunk, or dead from gunpowder and the cold, what do they need the land for? So we celebrate our plundering by killing and eating turkeys and generally getting fat off the land they gave us! How very viking of us.

As I like to consider myself a kinda guy who likes to celebrate plundering and general viking activities, I graciously accepted an invitation by Kari-Annes parents to join them in celebrating a henious act which their ancestors didnt employ directly (but Im sure the Chinese plundered and did Viking style stuff at one point so its really just like comparing apples and oranges). In true viking fashion we had a feast of turkey, potato and mead (thats beer for you non-viking types). We even engaged in some glorious combat (we played Halo2 on the xbox), and as is required of all viking gatherings, blood was spilled (Joshua, Karis cousin fell and cut his finger open on a ceramic plate). Am I taking the viking thing too far?

I had a great time, and really enjoyed being surrounded by the family atmosphere, but it certainly reinforced just how much I miss my own viking kin back in the motherland (ok now the viking thing has gone too far). As always its fun and interesting being exposed to new cultures in familiar settings and seeing the differences, or just how different it really isn’t.

Now my belly is full and Im happy, and Ill give thanks for a few things, but those things wont have anything to do with slaves, gunpowder, alcohol or slavery… and I think Ill keep most of them to myself.

But for my family back in australia… thanks.

Methods of Progression Pt2

I finished writing my short article on the methods of game progressions tonight after watching a particularly creepy episode of Lost.  If you’re interested you can take a look at it here, and please feel free to comment!

Methods of Progression

This will be a very short entry. Its a reminder for myself of what design things I need to cover and explore in my blog here.

1. Z-Axis of design

2. Horizontal and vertical progression through a game (horizontal being exploring the content, vertical being player skill)

Freedom!

Ive discovered another glorious thing about this laptop, freedom!  Im writing this from a starbucks where im sitting with a coffee, a blueberry scone (which is greatly endowed with copious amounts of sugar, which may explain the slight buzz Im having).  Im here doing some writing for work, but I’m fascinated by just how anonymous I am here.  You can look at people and wonder what it is they are doing, you can listen in on random conversations, you can watch life go by and be merely a static moment amongst it.  Did you know there were starbucks regulars?  There are people who come and meet each other every week maybe, and get to know the staff, possibly they started out as strangers.  Im going to call thes fallout from the tv sitcom Friends, or the “Friends phenomenon”

Toys!

Weeee I got a laptop! After looking around for a little while and talking to some friends I decided on the Asus W3J. Its an incredibly nice machine. I’ve had the chance to play with it for a little while now and am quite enjoying it, though getting used to this keyboard may take awhile. So why the upgrade? My home desktop was getting a little long in the tooth, specifically the video card was in dire need of replacement, but in order to do that I would need to also replace the motherboard, processor, ram, etc etc, at the end of which I would have yet another new desktop machine. Given how much all of that would run me, I figured why not explore whats out in the mobile world. I had a few requirements:

1. Must be light
2. Must run games
3. Must be able to do video/photo/web editing

Pretty simple really, but getting a light gaming rig thats mobile isnt as easy as Id thought. Alienware make a good machine but its a behemoth and only has a 30 min battery life! Not to mention its rediculously expensive. Eventually a friend of mine suggested looking into Asus, and I came upon this one. So how does it stack up?

Light - very, easily portable. At only 5kgs it comes in nice and easy to move around the house and take to work/trips. Its also only a 14″, so fits in most bags (thought not in my nice leather firenze bag!)

Gaming - stunning, this thing runs World of Warcraft better than my home rig, not to mention it does a nice job at HL2. Ive yet to see how it does on the non-primary screen running full 3d apps though, Ill test it soon as I have my 24″ widescreen lcd and it needs to be hooked into it for a true gaming experience.

Video/photos/web - wireless is the way everything needs to be. I can take this puppy to starbucks and blog away happily for an hour or 3 on the weekends and its great at it.

Of course, there are some cons:

Stupid function key placement - they decided to put a function key in the bottom left corner of the keyboard in place of teh traditional CTRL key… seems like dumb design to me, as most people I know use that key for copy/paste… something thats used a LOT.

Vertical scroll - on the touchpad theres a vertical scroll bar thats hard to tell if your finger is on it or not. Not a biggie I guess, but something that will take a bit to get used to.

Custom install programs - Asus ship a very nice recovery CD that includes windows and all the drivers you need to get it up and running in case of meltdown, but it also adds a ton of things which Id really rather live without. Of course, doing a barebones install off a Windows CD is impossible as all the drivers are quite noodly. OK, impossible is extreme, but really, I dont want to spend a week installing drivers on this thing.

So, all in all, very happy. Once Ive had the chance to play with it some more maybe Ill come up with a few issues, but for now, im in love

Welcome!

If this is your first time here, welcome! If youre returning, welcome back! If you havent noticed, Ive decided to write a blog. A couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, I fully admit I am utterly shocking at emailing my friends and family on a regular basis to keep them up to date on the ins and outs of my life, so this is a way to “cheat email”.
Secondly, as a designer I spend quite a bit of time playing games and reading about games and design, and would like a place to share and store the information I gather over the years.

Third, photos! Some of you may remember awhile back I had a photo blog, and Ill be trying to keep that up now, providing you with some visual insight into the world around me.

I hope you all enjoy reading my mad ramblings here, I know Ill enjoy writing them.