tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-172825002024-02-20T19:52:55.148-08:00Evolution Live!exploration in game designaxchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-44461455969580773142017-02-18T14:18:00.000-08:002017-02-18T14:19:33.395-08:00Finding My Other HalfLast May I went to <a href="http://campgrounded.org/">Camp Grounded</a>.<br />
<br />
It's kind of like Burning Man, except shorter, in the woods instead of the desert, and without any drugs or alcohol. Summer camp for grown-ups.<br />
<br />
I just got a letter in the mail, one I had written by hand on the last morning of camp, addressed to me - my future self. It was enough to move me to fire up the old blog after nearly three years <i>(oh god)</i> of inactivity.<br />
<br />
<i>Dear Onyx,</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm at camp. I don't know what to say, really. But I'll just keep writing till something comes out.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Just, good luck out there in the real world. Maybe we'll come back to camp sometime to try the next level. Maybe we'll be ready for a sweat lodge then. Or maybe we'll be learning the same lessons again, but deeper. What I really hope, though, is that you are inspired to be the person you felt glimmers of at camp, that singing, dancing, naturing, connecting, hugging, facilitating person doing what fills him up and then sharing that overflowing energy with the people around him.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>You did make an impact, memorable positive traces in quite a number of people, even if you don't know who they are and they don't know you. You can have so much to give you don't need anything in return, you just want to share. When you drop the fear of rejection, the belief in unworthiness, nothing bad happens. You just feel better because you don't feel the pain of holding yourself back, just the soreness of new mental muscles you have not often exercised.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>That sweat lodge. It sounds so scary. Maybe the sword needs more hammering before it is roasted and then plunged into the ice water. That's okay. There's no need to complete now. No need to finish the journey. Not every step has to be taken at once. The steps are useful because they each happen at a different time, and place.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm so glad to have a supportive, pretty wise subconscious for a teacher, if I may say so myself. Thank you. I love you. You are a great subconscious, by the way, and so many people would be lucky to have you.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I love you. It's okay.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I am grateful for the relationship we have, verbal mind to visual, intuitive, creative, insightful, elegant, brilliant, sensitive, loving, visionary, compassionate, and many other words, I'm sure. I'm so grateful to be sharing my life with you. We're going to live an amazing life together. It's going to be great, and terrible, but mostly great. I want to make space for you in our life, the space you need and deserve to flourish and make our life, and the lives of those around us, great.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Love,</i><br />
<i>Onyx</i><br />
<br />
As I wrote the last paragraph, I found tears streaming down my face and I was struck by the tangible sense that there were two distinct beings inhabiting my consciousness and that they - we - were lovers. Verbal and nonverbal. Conscious and subconscious. Critical and creative. Masculine and feminine.<br />
<br />
My nonverbal self had felt so trapped and neglected, and it took this intense, three-day camp experience to realize that I was being a bad boyfriend to my feminine self, and that I was suffering greatly for it.<br />
<br />
Of course, awareness is only the first step. Only now, nine months later am I beginning to put into practice some of the tangible changes that I have been so desperately needing.<br />
<br />
<i>If you are wondering what may have happened in the last few years to cause such an imbalance in the first place, you may find some clues <a href="http://custombodyfuel.com/2014/06/my-soylent-story/">here</a> and <a href="http://superbodyfuel.com/about/">here</a>. :p</i><br />
<br />
Camp Grounded has <a href="http://campgrounded.org/location/">another session coming up in May</a>, if you'd like to experience it for yourself. Sadly, this may be the final session of Camp Grounded, as the founder, Levi Felix (aka Fidget) succumbed to brain cancer earlier this year.<br />
<br />
If you're at all interested, make sure to <a href="http://campgrounded.org/register/">sign up soon</a>!<br />
<br />
See you there. ;)axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-80679263529537317822014-03-20T07:50:00.000-07:002015-12-01T17:32:55.031-08:00RIP Mochi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://mochiland.com/articles/mochi-media-winding-down-services-end-date-of-3-31-2014" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLduV1l7oFk17oNMzzTUWs7gLzKMLqVVXaPYAy1QP0oFHYtfcQzBKE5LboJK60jR7M3A_cV4Kb65prZIb0EeIdxzhZU41Ar2KYKH-Sm0LbfaBPkvCzHQX34xAp0U8zmSdSIf0Ejg/s1600/rip_mochi.png" /></a></div>
<br />
I don't know if you heard, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi_Media">Mochi Media</a> is shutting down. I guess no one at Mochi wanted this to happen, but they were bought by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanda_Games">a big company</a> and now that big company wants to shut them down.<br />
<br />
Specifically, that big company <i>is</i> shutting them down, and along with them, all the hosted games, all the preloader ads, all the high scores, and all the live updates that Mochi had been providing as a service. All gone.<br />
<br />
I've been using Mochi for all my published Flash games. Fortunately, I'm not depending on MochiAds as an income source (I made very little money off of that) but I have been using MochiScores for the leaderboards in <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/search/label/flydrill">Flydrill</a> and <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/search/label/space%20lord">Space Lord</a>.<br />
<br />
Soon they'll be all gone. Flydrill will no longer hint at a more glorious past when it got more than a few plays a week, and more tragically, the Space Lord Hall of Fame, nexus of player-created shmup levels playable in <a href="http://axcho.com/spacehero/">Space Hero</a>, will cease to exist. Now <i>that</i> is a shame.<br />
<br />
You can still share levels in Space Lord, actually, if you click the button to share on Twitter after you beat the game. I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that though. :p<br />
<br />
So what does this mean? End times for the Flash game renaissance. Here's to the end of an era.<br />
<br />
What's next? I don't know, but it seems that every single game developer I know has been switching to <a href="http://unity3d.com/">Unity</a>. It's living up to its name.<br />
<br />
I might even have to make the switch soon.<br />
<br />
:( <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Flydrill-441345456" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGAOZ9BpOpXlyIJux-C1l7tUSVFF79ygK-aqoEaRUQZIDUoOKkJ6K3aFUV1pPUYcQQukzjwK_AFQgD-Sn_bk7cmkkIRJGG1OCMOdaYA16H222wWq276MjsvMx7zRJUraO9Yrkww/s1600/flydrill_icon_deviantart.png" /></a></div>
So now that I can't take advantage of free Mochi hosting, I've finally gotten around to putting <a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Flydrill-441345456">Flydrill on deviantART</a>. Now <a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/gallery/12467980">my dA portfolio</a> actually reflects the games I've made. More or less.<br />
<br />
<br />
Anyway, <a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Flydrill-441345456">check it out</a>. Maybe you can leave the first comment. ;) axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-83962867381218209822013-07-22T10:03:00.002-07:002013-12-10T20:51:06.206-08:00Space Lord rising<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.com/spacelord/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhivZBwRQywhXR5UUgRASZ_d-m1LLFmH-fWjtdOauRoIiPo8n4JrnVidpqToCpHhXarFHSXR7uDf8ywbYg-qDTwfbuXXoPnk2a0yWbTWmbC9YsHcMZmQb0MrPfpbr2CS7RP9Sms3A/s1600/spacelord_icon_large.png" /></a></div>
I made a game.<br />
<br />
It's called <a href="http://axcho.com/spacelord/">Space Lord</a>. I've been working on it since March, on and off, and now it's finally out. Originally it was a game jam game I made last December for <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/category/ld-25/?author_name=axcho">Ludum Dare 25</a>, with <a href="http://patkemp.com/">Pat Kemp</a> (knivel) and <a href="http://teoacosta.com/">Teo Acosta</a>, the same guys who made <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-letter-released.html">The Love Letter</a> with me, plus another artist friend Jim Burner.<br />
<br />
The theme was YOU ARE THE VILLAIN and once again, knivel came up with a <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=8060">great little concept</a> that eventually turned into the final Space Lord that we all know and love.<br />
<br />
Or something like that.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.com/spacelord/">Space Lord</a></div>
<br />
Play it! Don't give up right away, there's a bit of a twist. ;)<br />
<br />
At the beginning of this year I <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/01/making-games-not-excuses.html">decided</a> to go for the <a href="http://www.onegameamonth.com/axcho">#OneGameAMonth</a> challenge. I was doing fine for the first few months, but it all broke down with Space Lord. After all the <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/category/ld-22/?author_name=axcho">success</a> of <a href="http://axcho.com/theloveletter/">The Love Letter</a>, I wanted to take all my other old game jam games and polish them up too. So I thought I'd start with Space Lord, since it seemed to be the most promising, and the closest to being really finished. Sure, it was. But it took me way more than a month to finish it, and I <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/category/ld-26/?author_name=axcho">fought until the very end</a> to keep to my one-game-a-month commitment, but ultimately, I failed. And it was very painful to finally reach that point.<br />
<br />
For the first month or two, I was really getting into it, working on Space Lord whenever I could, staying up too late and getting sleep-deprived in return. I got pretty burned out after a month or two of that, and just wanted the project to be over. But I refused to give it up, or to release a game that I know I could improve upon, so I kept going. But I worked on it much more sporadically after that point. I went for long periods of time without working on any creative projects, and started feeling listless and stagnant, which made it even harder to get back into it. But whenever I did, I felt better. Making stuff makes me happy. That's just the way it works for me.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.com/spacelord/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9-do2Lrgj6flBgPrjcvQ4qhBbO5iffa2Et3LfM5fBLK9qBXXw66w9xMrDV-0FFEr0LgzA7Ov0PmZjIgA8f2Unpcn55ZWS2S3dM9kaIoBzMGhLixIrnGi856iW-_JwRIf2ozDFLg/s1600/spacelord_screen_play.png" /></a></div>
<br />
So, eventually, four months after I started, I finished. More than anything, this was a design challenge for me. I've gotten to the point where I can code these little <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/10/where-to-start-with-as3-flashdevelop.html">Flixel</a> games without too much trouble, but game design is still <i>really hard</i>. By that I mean the process of taking an <a href="http://axcho.com/ludumdare25/">interesting concept</a> with a lot of rough edges and turning it into something actually fun and accessible to a decent number of people. It's even harder when you're the one coding everything, because you feel the pain of every potential design change that has you undoing a bunch of your hard work or creating a bunch more for yourself.<br />
<br />
For Space Lord, one example was going from real-time to turn-based gameplay. I knew the game went way too fast for anyone to tell what was going on, but it still took a fair amount of willpower to actually choose to invest the effort into making it turn-based. This is another reason why it really helps to have good collaborators to work with - knivel didn't end up joining forces for the Space Lord redesign, but he was there to bounce ideas off of and help strengthen my resolve to do what I knew was right.<br />
<br />
So, the game is <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/axcho/space-lord?referrer=axcho">on Kongregate</a>. That was really disappointing, actually - it got only a couple hundred plays, a few comments, and a rating less than any of my other games on the site, even the really old ones. Then it sank without a trace. Ouch.<br />
<br />
Then I put it <a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/621618">on Newgrounds</a>, without much optimism. It was received a bit better there, as is typical in comparing the two portals. But no momentum. I was prepared to give up on the portals and see if I could get some people to blog and tweet about it, as I think the game is <i>quite interesting</i> to write about, even if the players haven't been particularly excited. :p<br />
<br />
But then it was featured <a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/fpa/games/7/2013">on the front page of Newgrounds</a>! And suddenly there are dozens of comments, and thousands of views. Yay? :) It's interesting what people are suggesting in the comments - there are actually people who want the game to be longer, and just want more - more space, more ships, powerups to place. Definitely a fair number of complaints about the AI. Yeah, I know, it's really simple. :p And some people who perhaps don't get it at all.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.com/spacelord/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisC-Zl8ldF-wiHWH09iTLWumJc7Jy8O8C5GlxugmQuyI40uQyCTnTsmf0NsQb2pRCLKAyVNeWyoFrZdfItvRHmyaePLRCR7jA-Qo8D4lTISe9PN4r8qC6lN7wruDAEdLVxVrdnow/s1600/spacelord_screen_edit.png" /></a></div>
<br />
In case you're wondering, Space Lord is a <i>level design</i> puzzle game. Possibly the only one of its kind I've seen so far. You are the game designer. The AI player gives you a fun rating and trashes your game when it's not fun enough. It doesn't really hold your hand or structure your experience because I wanted it to feel more like the experience of actually designing a game. :p<br />
<br />
And if you "beat" the game (if the "player" beats the game) then you can submit your design to the Hall of Fame, where other people <a href="http://axcho.com/spacehero/">can play it</a>, <i>as the player ship</i>. More on that later. ;) But in any case, it's been fun seeing the designs that people come up with.<br />
<br />
I might even say it's been worth it.<br />
<br />
Of course it's been worth it! :) This is what I'm doing, polishing up my old game jam games, working on my game design skill, trying to eventually get up to the point where I can make <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-i-care-about-games.html">games for education and social change</a> and actually succeed.<br />
<br />
I've already started polishing up my <a href="http://axcho.com/wordloops/">next one</a>. Hopefully it will go a little quicker this time. ;)axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-83613788331961058872013-06-17T19:17:00.000-07:002013-06-17T19:17:00.482-07:00Interview with a Software Engineer - Part 2<i>A couple years ago, my cousin interviewed me for a school project, which I posted as <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-with-game-programmer.html">Interview with a Game Programmer</a>. Recently, a number of students have found my blog and asked to interview me for their own school projects! Here for Part 2 is the second interview, by Anthony Hammen.<br /><br />Needless to say, the views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Linden Research, Inc.</i><br />
<br />
<b>What hours do you typically work?</b><br />
<br />
I usually get to work anywhere between 9am and 10:30am, and leave between 5pm and 7pm. This is pretty typical of my coworkers as well. I'm trying to get myself into a stricter 9am to 5pm schedule though!<br />
<br />
<b>Are your hours constant?</b><br />
<br />
No, as you can tell from my previous answer, there's no real incentive to be at work at exactly the same time every day, though it might make for a more efficient routine if I did! As a programmer, it's hard to know when I'll be leaving work any given day, as I don't like to leave until I've gotten to a good stopping point so I don't forget what I was doing when I come back the next day! Though I have heard some people say that it's better to stop in the middle of a task, so you won't procrastinate on starting up the next one when you get going again. I guess it depends on how good you are at remembering!<br />
<br />
<b>Who do you report to?</b><br />
<br />
The way my team is structured at <a href="http://lindenlab.com/">Linden Lab</a>, I report to both a manager and a product owner for the project I'm working on. The manager keeps track of the productivity of myself and the other developers on my team, estimates how long it will take to finish the project based on our previous progress, and helps negotiate when other teams want us to help them with stuff. The product owner comes up with the goals that we are actually working toward, basically taking the perspective of a customer and describing the product that we developers are supposed to actually build.<br />
<br />
<b>What education or training do you have?</b><br />
<br />
I have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington (BS with College Honors). I also had a couple internships with software companies while I was in college, which taught me a lot. Even more so, the jobs I've had working full-time as a programmer after graduating have really developed my skills over the last few years. And of course, I've taught myself a ton of stuff from free resources online, like how to program in ActionScript for <a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/gallery/12467980">Flash games</a>, or how to make <a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/gallery/12467947">ragdoll physics engines</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Are your tasks scheduled? Who handles that?</b><br />
<br />
Our work is divided into two-week periods called "sprints". At the end of each sprint, we decide what we will take on for the next sprint, with the aim of planning out exactly the amount of work that we can finish completely in two weeks. Our manager and product owner oversee this planning process, but they don't directly break our work into tasks for us or tell us what we need to do when - that's our job, as developers. Since we are the ones who actually know how to do the work, we have to estimate how long things will take and commit to an appropriate amount.<br />
<br />
<b>What languages do you currently code in?</b><br />
<br />
I've been mostly coding in C++ for the last few years, both at Linden Lab where I work now and at my last job at <a href="http://www.fugazo.com/">Fugazo</a>. I've recently started coding in Python as well. For my side projects, I use ActionScript 3.0 for Flash.<br />
<br />
<b>What's your work environment like?</b><br />
<br />
I work in a building that originally was a brewery, and now is an office building with three floors and lots of open space. It's pretty cool. Desks are clumped together, and spread out in clusters around an open office plan - no cubicles, though a few people work in separate offices. Most of the separate rooms are used for meetings though - there are lots of those scattered around. Of course, everyone has a computer or two on their desk. I use an exercise ball for a chair, though most people use normal office chairs. There's a fair amount of natural light, though there's a lot of fluorescent light too, unfortunately. I was able to get the lights above my desk turned off, at least, so they're not in my eyes while I work.<br />
<br />
<b>What is your actual job title?</b><br />
<br />
I'm a Software Engineer at Linden Lab.<br />
<br />
<b>How do you progress in your current workplace?</b><br />
<br />
My understanding is that if you're a Software Engineer, you can become a Senior Software Engineer if you become awesome and experienced. From there, you can continue along that track to be a Senior Architect, or switch over to a management role as a Dev Manager. There's not a huge ladder to climb, though. Most people will just be Software Engineers, which is totally fine. Of course, there are other tracks at the company in addition to the Software Engineer track, but I don't really know how those work.<br />
<br />
<b>What development processes are used at your company?</b><br />
<br />
As you may have guessed from my description, we use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development">Agile</a>, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_%28software_development%29">Scrum</a>. This is actually a relatively new process at the company, as originally it was just a bunch of programmers working on whatever they felt like, more or less. Now we have dev managers and product owners and daily standup meetings and two-week sprints.<br />
<br />
<b>If you could change something about your job, what would it be?</b><br />
<br />
I'd much rather be working on experimental new games (or "shared creative spaces" at Linden Lab) instead of just adding more stuff to the giant machine that is <a href="http://secondlife.com/">Second Life</a>. I like working on smaller projects where I can build from the ground up, and I have lots of ideas for cool projects I'd like to try, so I'm really hoping I can switch over to that.<br />
<br />
<b>What do you like about your job? Dislike?</b><br />
<br />
I like that I'm constantly learning new things and improving my skills. And I like the people that I work with, and the respect and autonomy I have in general. What I don't like is that I'm not working on what feels most meaningful to me right now, and that I struggle to find time and energy for my own projects outside of work.<br />
<br />
<b>What do others think about what you do?</b><br />
<br />
I don't know, I guess I've never really asked! Well, sure, my parents are proud of me. ;) Generally, within the industry, programmers have a lot of respect - we make everything actually happen, and we deal with arcane, technical stuff that other people get confused just looking at, so they generally assume we must be really smart! Maybe people in the outside world think we're weird or nerdy or geeky, but I've never really had to deal with that kind of thing myself, so I don't know. I mean sure, every programmer understands the stereotype, and there's some truth in it, but I've always found that there's a strong undercurrent of respect. I mean, when you're in demand, as programmers generally are these days, people are going to think of you more highly!<br />
<br />
<b>Does this job leave you very much free time?</b><br />
<br />
Generally speaking, no. The game industry is notorious for demanding long hours, especially if you're a programmer. The joke is that once you get into the game industry you no longer have time to play games. I've been lucky enough to avoid the worst of that, but even in my last job I spent at least half of each year in a moderate crunch (working long hours for an extended period of time) and then the rest of the year recovering from crunch, so I didn't have as much time or energy as I wanted to pursue other projects and activities outside of work. At Linden Lab things are a lot better, since it's not technically in the game industry - it's more of a typical software company. A lot of people at the company have kids and families, and simply won't tolerate the terrible work-life balance that is stereotypical of the game industry. I have to say, though - even when you are working reasonable hours, programming itself is one of the most mentally exhausting activities you can do, so it can be hard to have enough energy for your own projects after work!<br />
<br />
<b>What inspired you to become a video game programmer?</b><br />
<br />
I've always liked making things. When I was a little kid, I was always <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/05/fourfold-formline-folly.html">drawing monsters</a>, building with <a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Lego-Army-136943371">LEGO</a>, and <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2010/11/origami-zergling-and-hydralisk-tutorial.html">folding origami</a>. In fourth grade I found out that it's possible to make computer games by this weird thing called "programming", and I loved the idea of making my own little worlds on the computer, so I decided to figure out how to do that! By the time I was in high school, I had been programming <a href="http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/61/6138.html">tons of games</a> on my TI-83 Plus graphing calculator, and had dreams of creating my own game company.<br />
<br />
<b>What kinds of math do you use, and how did you learn it?</b><br />
<br />
I don't often use math directly when I'm programming, but certainly in order to understand programming you have to be adept in a mathematical way of thinking. You have to be very familiar with how algebraic expressions work, and evaluating formulas made up of variables and functions operating on other variables and functions - it should be second nature to you. Or rather, it will become second nature as you get better at programming. So it's not that you have to be good at calculating stuff in your head - that's the computer's job - but you have to be very comfortable with understanding the formulas and expressions themselves.<br />
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However, as you get deeper into specific areas of programming, particularly game programming, you may need to use more advanced math. At the most basic level, when you are laying out buttons and text on the screen for the user interface of a game, you'll most likely be dealing with numbers for the sizes and positions of these objects, and doing lots of basic addition and subtraction to put them in the right spot relative to each other, or dividing the widths by two to get the center, for example. If this is not second nature to you, it will quickly become confusing. Or if you are making an action game where objects are moving around and colliding with other objects and shooting and all that, you'll be working with simple Newtonian physics and tweaking numbers relating to velocity, acceleration, friction, and so on, where you must be very familiar with derivatives - not in the sense of doing calculus, but in how things behave when they are connected by the mathematical relationship we call the "derivative". Or if you are dealing with things rotating, and converting angles into vectors and velocities and all that, you'll need to understand how to use basic trigonometric functions to switch between these formats. All of that stuff is pretty easy, not as hard as it sounds. But once you start getting into making your own physics engines you'll have to learn tricky geometric algorithms and maybe even do some vector calculus, which I still have some trouble with. And 3D graphics is a big mess of matrix algebra and quaternions and stuff that I've been able to avoid completely so far.<br />
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So really, I started learning programming on my own at the same time that I was learning the relevant mathematical concepts in school. I started reading about programming at the same time that I was just getting introduced to algebra in school. And not too long after I started learning trigonometry in school, I discovered that it was actually really helpful for making a turret rotate and shoot in a game! And when I was learning about physics in school, I started exploring physics in games. Unfortunately, game programming isn't really used as a way to teach math in schools, even though for me it was the best way for me to really understand it. I ended up learning this stuff mostly from online resources and tutorials. If you have a basic foundation in mathematical and algebraic thinking, learning the math you need from online resources is no harder than learning programming the same way. Doesn't make it easy, though! Just start small - only learn as much as you need to do the game you're working on now. As you make more complex games, you can learn more complex math.<br />
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<i>And here is <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/06/interview-with-software-engineer-part-1.html">Part 1</a>, if you missed it!</i>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-51791739800875436362013-06-15T19:03:00.000-07:002013-06-17T22:17:27.010-07:00Interview with a Software Engineer - Part 1<i>A couple years ago, my cousin interviewed me for a school project, which I posted as <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-with-game-programmer.html">Interview with a Game Programmer</a>. Recently, a number of students have found my blog and asked to interview me for their own school projects! Here for Part 1 is the first interview, by Yair Granados.</i><br />
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<i>Needless to say, the views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Linden Research, Inc.</i><br />
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<b>Could you explain a little about what exactly Linden Lab does?</b><br />
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<a href="http://lindenlab.com/">Linden Lab</a> is the company that created <a href="http://secondlife.com/">Second Life</a>, which is probably the most well-known online virtual world. Second Life launched in 2003 and started getting a lot of media attention around 2006, which was when I first heard about it. The unique thing about Second Life is that anyone can create things in the virtual world - clothes, buildings, artwork - and fully own the rights to their creation, including selling copies of their work in the Second Life marketplace. As a result many people are able to create or participate in a wide variety of virtual experiences that they would not be able to in more gameplay-focused virtual worlds like World of Warcraft, where your only option is to kill monsters and earn gold.<br />
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Today, Second Life continues to be the primary source of income for Linden Lab, so most of the company's resources are devoted to maintaining and improving Second Life. And that's what I'm working on - programming new features and fixing bugs in Second Life. But last year the company started branching out, with four new projects - <a href="http://www.creatorverse.com/">Creatorverse</a>, <a href="http://www.buildpatterns.com/">Patterns</a>, <a href="https://www.dio.com/">Dio</a>, and <a href="http://www.versu.com/">Versu</a> - that all fall under the theme of "shared creative spaces" kind of like Second Life. The hope is that as Linden Lab can continue to have some people developing new projects like these, and eventually at least one of them will become big like Second Life has. This is definitely what I'm most excited about, as I really like the idea of building virtual spaces where you can use your creativity and share with other people.<br />
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<b>How long have you been programming, and how did you get started?</b><br />
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I've been programming professionally (getting paid for it!) for about three years now, but I first started learning about thirteen years ago now. So it took ten years between my first attempts and when I started making a living from it! Of course, I was about twelve years old when I first started so things were pretty slow at first. I didn't know anyone who could teach me programming, so I started out trying to find books about programming at the library and at bookstores - but it was hard to find books for beginners back then! It wasn't until I got this educational software in fifth grade called "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Learn-To-Program-Basic-Macintosh/dp/B000N3W2L4">Learn to Program: BASIC</a>" that I actually managed to try out some of the stuff I had been reading about. I remember working on a simple game like Frogger, where you are an ant trying to get to the top of the screen while avoiding slugs and snails that move back and forth, but I never completely finished it. Not too long after that, my parents signed me up for a summer course on Visual Basic at a community college right before I started middle school, and I ended up making my first finished game in Visual Basic as part of a science project that year, in sixth grade. After that I started reading about C++, and tried making an artificial life simulation in C++ for my seventh grade science project, but failed spectacularly as my lack of programming experience finally caught up with my ambitions.<br />
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Fortunately, around that time we started using graphing calculators in math class, and so I began learning to program the TI-83 Plus graphing calculator using the language TI-BASIC. This was great because I couldn't get too ambitious - I made tons of little experiments and games, and just ended up doing a lot of coding, instead of spending so much time reading about it! In eighth grade I released my first calculator game on <a href="http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/authors/61/6138.html">ticalc.org</a>, and also started learning z80 assembly language, which is used to make more sophisticated games on the TI-83 Plus. By that time, programming games on the calculator was my main hobby, and I continued to release more games and grow in my programming skill over the next few years in high school and even college. As I got busier, becoming a university student and taking real computer science classes, I stopped doing much calculator programming, but it wasn't long before I found a new platform for making games - Flash. I taught myself the ActionScript language for making Flash games, and made <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/search/label/drive">a number of games</a> in Flash on the side while studying computer science for my university degree. By the time I'd graduated, I'd gotten pretty comfortable with Flash and had done a few internships (some paid, some not) making use of my Flash programming skills.<br />
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My career goal has always been to make a living by making my own games, and my parents were nice enough to give me a year to try the whole indie game development thing while living rent-free, so that's what I did. I learned to use the <a href="http://flixel.org/">Flixel</a> game engine for making Flash games, and started making little experiments, hoping to come across an idea that would be worth developing into a full game. Unfortunately, I found that my lack of experience was really holding me back, not just in terms of programming but in terms of how to be consistently productive and how to manage my energy and all that, and on top of all that, I realized that I was really lonely trying to spend all day coding in my room. So, when that year was up, I had finished one game, <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/search/label/flydrill">Flydrill</a>, but it wasn't successful and I wasn't able to finish another one, so I realized that I had to get a job.<br />
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I was fortunate enough to get a job soon after at <a href="http://www.fugazo.com/">Fugazo</a>, a casual game studio, as a C++ game programmer. Despite my initial reservations about becoming an employee and working on other people's games, it was exactly what I needed. I ended up staying there for over two years, learning much more there than I had in any two years of college, leveled up several times in my game programming skill and understanding of the business, and emerged as a very valuable member of the team and a desirable target for recruiters, which brought me to Linden Lab. And I kept making Flash games on the side, of course. My most popular game so far, <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20love%20letter">The Love Letter</a>, was released last year while I was at Fugazo, and I'm looking forward to releasing even more games this year while I'm at Linden Lab!<br />
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<b>What exactly does a Software Engineer do?</b><br />
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Generally speaking, the term "software engineer" is pretty much interchangeable with "programmer" or "developer", but it tends to imply a more systematic approach to creating software than just hacking things out in a quick and dirty way. As far as what a software engineer actually does, that of course varies from company to company, and from project to project, but you can be pretty sure that if you're a software engineer you'll be spending most of your time writing code. Programming.<br />
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You'll probably also spend a fair amount of time thinking about how you'll program something before you actually do it, and investigating possible ways of doing things, and learning new technologies and tools and programming languages as needed, and debugging and revising old code, and talking with other software engineers on your team about all this. And depending on how big of a company you work at, you might have to spend some time in meetings, but hopefully not too much. ;)<br />
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In other words, there will be non-technical people (game designers, producers, product owners) telling you what they want you to make, and then your job is to get with the other software engineers on your team, figure out how to actually make what you're supposed to make, and then make it. You're the maker. You know how to make things happen. Other people tell you what to make, but they don't know how to make it, so it's your job to actually do that. It's not always easy, but that's why there are smart people like you to figure it out.<br />
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At first, this was kind of frustrating to me, because I like thinking of my own ideas for what to make instead of just making what other people tell me to. But one thing I discovered is that there is a creative aspect to building software that is entirely invisible to non-technical people, which means that as a software engineer, you can have a lot of creative freedom in designing the structure of the software itself, even if you don't get to decide what it does. Software engineering is largely about this invisible structure, and one of the nice things about having the job title "software engineer" is that you are more likely to have the opportunity to give this structure the attention it deserves, instead of having to do things in an ugly way just to get the job done, as you might find as a mere "programmer" or "developer". But of course it varies a lot from company to company, and project to project.<br />
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<b>What skills or training does a student like me need to become a programmer? Especially a game programmer.</b><br />
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Well, as a programmer (or "software engineer") you really need to get good at programming, because that's what you'll be doing! If you are good at programming, it won't be too hard to find a job as a programmer. And if you're not good at programming, why would anyone want to hire you? Of course, when you're just starting out, you don't have to be perfect - there's something to be said for raw potential - but you still need to be good at programming. Kind of like if you want to be a professional athlete - if you want to be paid to play basketball, you better be really good at playing basketball. Except that there are a lot more jobs out there for programmers than for professional athletes!<br />
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The point is, you can't just decide to start learning programming when you want to get a job - you need to start programming now. It doesn't really matter what kind of programming - as long as you enjoy it, and can start getting good at it, there's probably going to be some demand for that skill. And even if it's something like TI-BASIC for the graphing calculator, which no one would pay you for, the skills you learn in one programming language can transfer very easily over to other languages and platforms. What really matters are the fundamental skills. So start learning one programming language, and then if you're not too into it just try a different one. There are a ton of languages out there, and a ton of different types of software you can make (or even types of games, for that matter) so keep trying until you find something you really like. And at some point you may want to branch out and you can try something new. The important thing is just to do it. This may take years - it certainly did for me - but so does any real skill, whether it's learning to play the saxophone or getting a black belt in Taekwondo.<br />
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Of course, there are easier ways to start and harder ways to start, and it can be tough to know where to look if you've never programmed before. So I can give you some suggestions. First of all, don't start with <a href="http://www.simpleprogrammer.com/2012/12/01/why-c-is-not-back/">C++</a>. I know there's some macho thing about C++ being a more "serious" programming language and that you're a noob if you don't know it, but seriously. Don't waste your time learning C++ if you can help it! Until you've had several years of experience with other languages you won't really "get" what C++ is all about even if you technically know everything about the language. That was certainly the case for me in seventh grade. Nowadays I code in C++ for my job, but I still use Flash for my side projects. I don't hate C++, but I would only use it when I absolutely have to. It's powerful, but it's heavy and cumbersome, and unless you're working on a huge project with a bunch of other experienced programmers it's like carrying around a big sledgehammer when you could be using a nice, ergonomically shaped hammer that fits in your pocket instead. No matter what you think, you don't need that extra power. Seriously. Just don't.<br />
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Okay, so if not C++, where should you start? Well, there are a lot of possibilities out there, but for general programming your best bet would be <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=learn+python">Python</a>. Python is just an awesome language overall, whether you're completely new or have years of experience. I use Python just as much as C++ in my current job. But if you try Python and you're not too into it, you could try <a href="http://www.processing.org/">Processing</a> instead. I don't think anyone would call Processing an "awesome" language, but it really lets you dive into graphics and input right away, so if you're drawn to programming because of games this may be an easier place to start. Then if you try Processing and it's still not game-focused enough for you, you could give <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=learn+lua">Lua</a> a try. In particular, you should try the free <a href="https://love2d.org/">Love2D</a> engine, which lets you make games with Lua. If you try all of these and you just can't seem to get the hang of typing in all this code, I'd suggest checking out <a href="http://www.stencyl.com/">Stencyl</a>, which is a game-making tool where you can program by dragging code blocks around, which can be a little easier to learn at first. Then once you are comfortable with that you could try learning an actual programming language again.<br />
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The important thing to keep in mind is to just make stuff. Don't try to make your big, ambitious dream game - just mess with code and make stuff happen on the screen, and shape that into games. Make small games. Make lots of small games, and finish them. And release them online! As you do this, your abilities will scale up, and your experiments will start to become interesting games in their own right.<br />
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If you've made a few games and you're looking for your next challenge, I'd recommend learning <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/10/where-to-start-with-as3-flashdevelop.html">ActionScript 3.0</a> and a free game engine like <a href="http://gamedev.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-learn/how-to-learn-flixel/">Flixel</a> or <a href="http://hub.tutsplus.com/tutorials/an-introduction-to-flashpunk-the-basics--active-9638">FlashPunk</a> to make Flash games if you want to get further into 2D, or check out the <a href="http://unity3d.com/">Unity</a> engine with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp_%28programming_language%29">C#</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript">JavaScript</a> if you want to go 3D. That's basically where I'm at now, so don't feel like you have to go any further to be a "real" programmer! But if you have your heart set on C++ for some strange reason, make sure you're very comfortable with making games in Flash or Unity first. And if you want to make iPhone games, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C">Objective-C</a> is hardly better than C++ in my opinion, and you should check out the <a href="http://www.coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/">Corona</a> game engine for iPhone, which uses Lua.<br />
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As a game programmer, you also need to be able to collaborate with people in other disciplines, like artists and game designers. Once you've made a number of games on your own and feel ready to tackle something bigger, I highly recommend you seek out other creators online and try to make a game with them. Most collaborations fizzle out or fall apart before finishing a game, so don't get discouraged if that happens, but learn from the experience and try again another time. If you're used to making entire games all by yourself, I'd say it's easiest to collaborate with a music composer, so try that first. Then you could try collaborating with an artist too. Then you can try collaborating with a game designer or level designer if you want. But I think the hardest would be collaborating with another programmer! Because you really have to coordinate when you are both working on the same code. So start simple, and don't be surprised if things don't work out at first.<br />
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Lastly, while I have emphasized the importance of actually coding a lot, there's also something to be said for the kind of theoretical knowledge you can gain from a computer science degree (or if you are very self-directed, from learning on your own from the many resources available online). But for the first few years, you're not going to be able to really appreciate most of it, so it's much more important just to start coding a lot, and learning from your own mistakes. Eventually, if you want to get hired as a programmer you'll probably need a computer science degree from a university to even be considered, but really, having a bunch of games that you've made yourself that you can show off is just as important. And if you're going to try to make your own way as an independent game developer, the university degree is only as good as what you make of it. So start by just making a lot of games, and then once you start to get curious you can delve into the theory of computer science and maybe even get a degree in it.<br />
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<b>If it isn't too personal, what is the range of income you can make working as a programmer?</b><br />
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According to the <a href="http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/1108/game_developer_salary_survey_2012.php">Game Developer Salary Survey</a>, the average annual income for game programmers who have been in the industry for three years or less is around $60,000 while the average for game programmers with more than six years of experience is around $100,000. I'd say the actual range would start around $40,000 and then potentially up to the low six figures if you've been in the industry a long time. Outside of the game industry, programmer salaries are actually a bit higher, as I understand it, but the same general range still applies.<br />
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<b>What is good about your job, or what do you like about it? And what do you not like about it?</b><br />
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I think one of the best things about being a programmer is that I get to constantly exercise my brain and learn new things. That means that my work can often be frustrating and confusing, but even then I don't feel too bad about it because I know that eventually I'll get through it and I'll have gotten lots of programmer experience points to help me level up my skills!<br />
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As far as the actual programming goes, I have always enjoyed building things, whether that's LEGO sets or game engines, and when I understand what I'm doing well enough then programming becomes a very enjoyable process of building, and designing an elegant and aesthetically pleasing conceptual structure for whatever I'm building. I really enjoy that, and at its best programming can give me that feeling better than just about anything else. But programming isn't always like that - you're often running into snags, or encountering problems that you can't solve without delving into some new technology that you don't understand yet, and so you have to be prepared to spend a lot of time puzzling over some tricky problem, or trying to figure out why things aren't working the way you expect them to.<br />
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It's also nice that programming is a very meritocratic profession - if you write good code, you will have respect. Because it's about the code that you write, you don't have to dress a certain way or keep a strict schedule of working hours, and while I don't know how it is in every company, I've been lucky enough to work at companies with a very friendly, casual atmosphere.<br />
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The biggest problem I have with programming is that I have to sit in front of a computer all day in order to do it. I've learned to take breaks to keep my mental energy and productivity high throughout the day, but it's still a struggle. Because programming is such a mentally taxing activity, managing my energy has been a crucially important skill for being a consistently productive programmer. And that's another drawback - I like to work on my own games on the side, but oftentimes I'll be so worn out at the end of the day that I won't have the mental capacity in the evening to work on my own stuff. However, like any kind of exercise, you do get stronger over time, so I'm still able to get some stuff done. Just not as much as I'd like.<br />
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<b>Is there anything else I should know about this job?</b><br />
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Probably. But words can only get you so far. You really just have to try it. And the most important thing to know is that you can just try it. You don't need anyone's permission; you don't need anyone's help. If you're going to be a programmer, you have to be willing to persevere in pursuit of your goals, to fail and fail and keep trying until you figure it out. Because that's what programming feels like, most of the time. Even when you've been at it for thirteen years, like me. ;)<br />
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<i>And on to <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/06/interview-with-software-engineer-part-2.html">Part 2</a>! </i>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-16194057144432315852013-05-28T21:12:00.000-07:002013-05-28T21:15:47.728-07:00Hi GabyWhen you asked me how a high school student could get a job without any previous experience, I didn't have an answer for you.<br />
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But now I have an idea. Let's see you what you think of it. ;)<br />
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So, the best way to get a job is through connections. As the saying goes, "It's not <i>what</i> you know, it's <i>who</i> you know." This is more important than your resume.<br />
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And the thing is, now, you <i>have</i> a connection. Me. I can't get you a job at a fast food chain, but I'm in the game industry now, as of <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-with-game-programmer.html">about three years ago</a>. And I've helped three friends break into the game industry since - two programmers and one designer.<br />
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But who says you actually want to work in the game industry? You like playing games, but you never said you wanted to make them. Sure. But do you want to be flipping burgers or serving people coffee, either? The only reason to aim for those kind of jobs is to help you realize <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/">how much they suck</a> and get you motivated to go to college or something so you can try to aim higher.<br />
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One of your goals is to be an artist. That's awesome. I <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-im-excited-about.html">want to be an artist too</a>. As far as making a living as an artist, there are at least three routes that I know of. One is to be artist making installation art for art galleries and getting money from grants and such. Another is to make lots of paintings or sculptures or whatever, and try to sell them at art shows and craft fairs and such. Since moving to San Francisco, I've met one of each kind of person, totally coincidentally. Pretty cool.<br />
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But the third way is to make art for video games. I know a lot of game artists. If you're not into the kind of art that galleries or collectors or tourists would want to buy, being a game artist is probably the best way to keep a steady paycheck as an artist. And I know you like playing games. That's always a plus.<br />
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So maybe you're considering the possibility of being a game artist. Maybe it's worth exploring. But how could you even start? I mean, you probably don't have the skills that a game company is looking for, at least not yet. You haven't learned them yet.<br />
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There are a few options. One is that you could try to find an unpaid internship at a game company. If you have some skills, there might be a company that would be willing to let you learn on the job, in exchange for whatever little you could contribute. That's where a lot of people start, just to get that first bit of experience on their resume.<br />
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But you might not even have the skills yet to interest a game company in letting you work for free, let alone for money. So what do you do? Simple - just start learning and practicing and improving your skills on your own time. Simple, but not easy. Still, you don't have to do it alone. You can find people to collaborate with online - maybe someone with more experience would be willing to let you help out with a small project they're just doing for fun. It's a big internet out there. If you can find a handful of like-minded people at the same school, and maybe get some guidance from an artist who's actually in the game industry, so much the better. I had something like that going in Seattle, except for game designers instead of game artists, and we were all out of school, but it's the same idea.<br />
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I'm not a game artist. But there are still some ways that I can help you, if you so choose. I can get you connected with an actual game artist who's willing to be your mentor - I don't know who that would be, yet, but I can find someone. For example, <a href="http://celestemasinter.weebly.com/">here</a>'s a female game artist who lives in San Francisco. I don't know her, but she was at the Global Game Jam here in January, and maybe she'd be willing to help you out, or at least talk to you a bit and answer some questions. If that's what you want, I'll see what I can do.<br />
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Or, I can let you do some art for one of my projects. I'm always up for collaborating with artists, and I get a lot of fulfillment from helping people to achieve goals they are truly passionate about. Since <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-second-life-in-san-francisco.html">leaving Seattle</a>, I've missed my volunteer teaching <a href="http://pscs.org/blog/profiles/alex-cho-snyder/">at PSCS</a>, and I'd be willing to start again with you, if you want it. You can learn the process of making art for games through simple projects with me. A taste of freelance work, or remote collaboration - working from home is what artists tend to do. You can start here.<br />
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<b>I'm your connection now.</b><br />
If you want my help - well, you have my email address. :)<br />
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<i>Oh, and here's the game I was talking about: <a href="http://axcho.com/theloveletter/">The Love Letter </a></i><br />
<i>This one may be more to your liking, though: <a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/">Flydrill</a></i>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-64220088038764440582013-04-11T22:48:00.000-07:002013-04-11T22:49:07.511-07:00California Culture Shock?Someone asked me recently what stage of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock">culture shock</a> I'm in now, three months after <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-second-life-in-san-francisco.html">my move to San Francisco</a>.<br />
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I'd say I'm in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock#Adjustment_phase">Adjustment phase</a>... ;) My transition has been pretty smooth - really, San Francisco is not that much different from Seattle, and the biggest differences have simply been a result of living on my own instead of with my parents. And I have to say, for the most part, these differences have all been quite positive!<br />
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I've surprised myself by how comfortable I am with solitude, when I have things to work on and toward. I do have a couple friends in the city, and I've been making friends at work, so I haven't been totally antisocial, but I have been spending the vast majority of my time alone and quite enjoying the mental space. It's also a nice improvement to live a block away from a grocery store, to have a kitchen all to myself as I learn to cook, to walk to work and back instead of taking a bus, and to be free of scheduled classes and volunteer duties.<br />
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In the couple weeks, work at Linden Lab has suddenly gotten a lot more interesting (and just in time, as it was starting to wear thin) as I have started focusing on a new project within Second Life and have finally learned enough that I can build with pieces I understand instead of slogging through a confusing mess, and so now my contribution and enjoyment is finally getting to that <a href="http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/there-no-hockey-stick/37824">bend in the exponential curve</a>. Still pushing the experimental stuff too - hopefully that will pick up in the next couple months as well.<br />
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And of course overall I have been appreciating the time I have around the edges now that I am no longer stuck in a cycle of alternating crunch and recovery from crunch. Many mental piles of clutter have been revisited and processed, many more to go, but still a promising sign. Over the past several weeks I have also been getting into developing the new version of <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/category/ld-25/?author_name=axcho">Space Lord</a> in an experience that has mirrored the development of the polished version of <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-letter-released.html">The Love Letter</a> last year. Of course, as this means working hard at my day job and then eagerly coming home and working for several hours on Space Lord in the evening, I have not been getting as much sleep as I'd like. Still, I am very grateful for this opportunity - developing The Love Letter was one of the most enjoyable things I did all of last year. Space Lord may not be the perfect storm that The Love Letter proved to be, but it's been getting more and more interesting, and it's been nice polishing up my game jam backlog.<br />
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Right now, and I expect this to continue for several months more if not to the end of the year, my focus has been on getting things in order - trying to establish a sustainable routine, working through my mental backlog, dropping sources of friction like Google Reader, revisiting old projects. Fortunately, Linden Lab is the kind of place that is very flexible about a schedule where I go outside for a half hour of exercise before lunch, and a half hour of music practice for an afternoon break (perfect for refreshing my code-addled brain!). Like my sleep schedule, it's a work in progress and always in flux, but overall it's going in the right direction.<br />
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I have started doing some new things though - most notably, I took an introductory <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour">Parkour</a> class this weekend for the first time! I can't believe I waited this long before trying Parkour - it's always been something I've thought would be a lot of fun, but never got around to actually doing. But now that I've started, it's obviously perfect for me. I can draw upon my previous experience with both Aikido and Capoeira, and it's something I can practice on my own time without having to find a partner.<br />
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So, I'd say it's going pretty well. I need more sleep though! Looking forward to getting Space Lord out there. :)axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-40582351688335218352013-03-14T20:40:00.000-07:002013-03-14T20:45:01.332-07:00A Minor Flydrill UpdateNot too long after <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2011/09/revising-flydrill.html">my last Flydrill update</a>, almost two years ago, I kept tweaking the game but never released anything after that.<br />
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Until now. :o<br />
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<a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8iqqg5Hupo2BekiFcobO4uEZ59FAqZqrcTtDodn1KzupwEN3CM4Aw-2I3v2j0yKLcZgqcfxE5mIH-TdVSObLiMeNEYntYP9nt2815yRDerOhGXrwFaNRXCPeoDX7bYUQFDkHadw/s1600/flydrill_outline.png" /></a></div>
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Don't get excited, it's just a tiny update. ;) I added white outlines to the enemies so you can see them better, with a slightly darker background color. I also made the giant wall thinner in the beginning. Honestly I was just tired of having to drill for ten full seconds every time I started the game. That's why I went ahead and released this update.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/">Flydrill </a></div>
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I guess it's spring cleaning time for me, polishing up and releasing <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/03/active-sketch-06-runway.html">old stuff</a> I've had sitting around on my hard drive for the past year or two... :)<br />
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On that note, I noticed that Google Reader will be <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-cleaning.html">shutting down</a> in a few months! :( As disappointing as that is, I think it's a good opportunity to revisit my content-consumption habits and perhaps let go of my daily blog reading. Looking through all my feed subscriptions, it strikes me how few blogs are still active - really there are less than a dozen that I see updates from regularly. And I've gotten to the point where none of the stuff I read is really that valuable to me - the game design articles are not blowing my mind with new insights, the productivity articles are teaching lessons that I've already learned, and really, I think I'd get a lot more out of spending that time working on actual projects or reading books or even... playing games. I mean, it's been years since I've really sat down and just played a game, for serious. I think the last one must have been Portal. Yeah. The truth is out! :o<br />
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Well, I hope you enjoy the <a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/">Flydrill update</a>! :) May there be plenty more to come, soon.<br />
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<i>Oh, and I almost forgot - Happy Pi Day! :D </i>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-18243877540441750102013-03-13T21:04:00.000-07:002013-03-13T21:04:19.884-07:00Active Sketch 07 - Quilt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi03MVIybHsJSw_u9h91FLO9G4wti3Pl7CF47WGDRjoEtci7ODpCkh-7jSI0oDyKrUlUKee7Lz7JdYCgPNgsbACc45yK9mF_Rx5KQTHjoz5OdBm8gxMYSwh0mEEF4Rs1Fe347EZA/s1600/icon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi03MVIybHsJSw_u9h91FLO9G4wti3Pl7CF47WGDRjoEtci7ODpCkh-7jSI0oDyKrUlUKee7Lz7JdYCgPNgsbACc45yK9mF_Rx5KQTHjoz5OdBm8gxMYSwh0mEEF4Rs1Fe347EZA/s1600/icon.png" /></a></div>
Not only has my <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-second-life-in-san-francisco.html">new job</a> at Linden Lab been inspiring me to <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/02/water-it-down-and-burn-it.html">post</a> <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/02/linden-lab-and-lego.html">more</a> <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/02/interactive-jane-austen-novels.html">often</a>, I've also been doing a lot more prototyping! :)<br />
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I used the platformer engine from my <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/category/ld-24/?author_name=axcho">Ludum Dare</a> game <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=8060">Ninjural Selection</a> to make this infinite "quilt" of platformer levels. When you go off the edge of the screen, a new level is randomly generated and placed alongside for you to fall into.<br />
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<a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Active-Sketch-07-Quilt-358190064">Active Sketch 07 - Quilt</a></div>
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The levels are generated by randomly drawing and erasing horizontal and vertical lines of tiles, and then placing random emoticons for you to collect and avoid. But imagine what it would be like with fully featured platformer levels with roaming enemies and cool stuff to play with. Imagine that each level was created by another player - in fact, in this prototype you can already edit the platforms by holding shift and drawing with the mouse. Imagine that there were other players roaming around the quilt with you in real time, collecting coins with you or racing to find special items.<br />
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I think that could be pretty cool.axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-88236627293696270482013-03-13T20:19:00.001-07:002013-03-13T20:21:26.978-07:00Active Sketch 06 - Runway<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Active-Sketch-06-Runway-358139232" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9vXb1LH5SYfu83FRaNBu3-PBHThyDk81O4bPOAXlitps5vpFTXJaaX8ew_xxqmSSgbsGc9LhxqhCfLax2WbubaX8GrVSLIkIVKRytWDLGluCG2j6ZlKk5nZ1YFd73JOD0up_Tzg/s1600/icon.png" /></a></div>
Almost two years ago I posted my <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2011/04/active-sketch-05-planets.html">last Active Sketch</a>. The thing was, I had made another one around the same time that I never got around to putting online! So I decided it was time to finish it up and share it with you all.<br />
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It's a test of a one-button runner control scheme. I added new artwork, and random blocks to avoid.<br />
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Press and hold to run, let go to jump, and press again while in the air to fall faster.<br />
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<a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Active-Sketch-06-Runway-358139232">Active Sketch 06 - Runway</a></div>
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Maybe not the next Canabalt, but I think it has a nice feel. :p The real challenge will be designing an environment that is fun with this control scheme - right now it's a bit too hard to avoid the blocks. I'd guess that it might actually be more fun if you were running on rooftops...axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-91163984510100632502013-02-21T20:24:00.000-08:002013-02-21T20:24:06.316-08:00My first podcast appearance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2013/2/20/critical-casts-episode-3-trigon-b-side.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTkfSTh3p65w-HqXKhQxxMXgYsElGU0f3-LuW1hHHn8ZZE_I3aItQNbKx_Li7TCvUeHIV8xNsbxglY-ier508JNU9cf8AetwZGYd29xzLKc4EggLhIuqgxFzd5_8woiWuLArA2OQ/s1600/trigon.jpg" /></a></div>
I wanted to let you know that I had my very first podcast interview, and you can listen to it <a href="http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2013/2/20/critical-casts-episode-3-trigon-b-side.html">here</a>, on the <a href="http://critical-gaming.com/blog/">Critical-Gaming Network Blog</a>!<br />
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KirbyKid had reached out to me a few weeks ago to see if I'd talk with him about my game <a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/">Flydrill</a> and the ideas about its mass appeal, or lack thereof, which I'd written about in <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2010/03/flydrill-and-logistical-gameplay.html">an earlier blog post</a>. I've been spending a lot of time lately listening to podcasts featuring conversations between indie developers, particularly my favorite, <a href="http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/tag/podcast/">Infinite Ammo</a>, so I thought it could be fun to try being in one myself. :)<br />
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And yeah, it was fun! I talked about Flydrill, and a bit about <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-letter-released.html">The Love Letter</a>, and even a little bit of ranting on the attitudes behind typical free-to-play monetization schemes, which hopefully no one will quote me on. :p<br />
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The entire podcast is two hours long, but you can hear me starting at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBtzwiMBwR8#t=04m35s">04:35</a>, and then snippets throughout until the interview segment concludes at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBtzwiMBwR8#t=30m00s">30:00</a>. KirbyKid has interleaved interviews between myself and a mobile-social game developer named Matt Fairchild, so as he switches back and forth I end up representing the more gameplay-focused, "indie" side of things. Fine with me! :) It's funny hearing myself in a podcast - I used to hate hearing my own voice recorded and played back, but now I'm just intrigued by the unfamiliarity of it. Actually, I was very curious to listen so I could find out what I had actually said, because I had forgotten most of it! :p<br />
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Here's a quote from the podcast to give you a sense of it:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On the other hand, Alex is very concerned with gameplay, or games as art. He's focused on conveying information, guiding the player, and building systems that have meaningful interaction without cluttering the experience with leveling up, experience points, and other hooks that complicate what games are. Remember, there are common gameplay features that, when taken to an extreme, work against games as art. It seems that Alex is very aware of this balancing act in game design.</blockquote>
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Unfortunately, KirbyKid has announced that he won't be doing any more podcasts, only <a href="http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/category/podcast">three episodes in</a>, because he can't afford to spend so much time on them. Well, I know how that is. But it's too bad.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBtzwiMBwR8">Have a listen</a> to my first podcast appearance!axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-77173679923502621032013-02-14T12:40:00.000-08:002013-02-14T12:40:10.176-08:00Interactive Jane Austen Novels<a href="http://www.versu.com/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ptCpqXx1ixgeERezfzf__YSlbt5W01UyF4lJuMoe4sh9aOTmfyR-2ap8Pk0YsMloSX2BxMI3fmT-L8n3qNoyg7XxJwpn-_RNjCHKOaljlYgBtgGuwtt0e4ehff5zifG_zg9DCw/s1600/versu.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.versu.com/">Versu</a> is an interactive storytelling platform just released today by Linden Lab.<br />
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Basically, I see it as Chris Crawford's <a href="http://www.storytron.com/">Storytron</a>, except done right. It's a collaboration between IF author <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Short">Emily Short</a> and AI expert <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Evans_(AI_researcher)">Richard Evans</a>, combining written stories with sophisticated character and drama AI. So far it's basically <i>interactive Jane Austen novels</i> (seriously!), but it can support any genre of fiction, and more stories (and the tools for making them) are on the way.<br />
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You can read Emily Short's <a href="http://emshort.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/introducing-versu/">description of it</a> and see <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/186262/Linden_Labs_Versu_wants_to_make_hobbyists_storytelling_superstars.php#.UR1GdqUqZpB">some quotes</a> from the Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble if you want to learn more.<br />
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I first came across this when it was <a href="http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015920/Beyond-Eliza-Constructing-Socially-Engaging">demoed at GDC</a> (before LittleTextPeople was acquired by Linden Lab) and I've been eagerly waiting for it to come out. Unfortunately, right now it's only available for iPad, and I don't have one. :( But it sounds like it will be coming out for other platforms eventually.<br />
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I <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-second-life-in-san-francisco.html">recently</a> started working at Linden Lab myself, and this project is a big reason why. Can you imagine something more revolutionary being done right now? :D<br />
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So, here we have interactive experiences fueled on storytelling, <a href="http://notgames.org/">not gameplay</a>. Sign me up.<br />
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<i>Oh, and I almost forgot - Happy Valentine's Day! :) No new game from me this year, sorry (I went for something a bit more... <a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/First-Bouquet-354190349">personal</a>). You could always just play <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-letter-released.html">The Love Letter</a> again... ;)</i>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-65242595353526988172013-02-06T20:08:00.002-08:002013-02-07T14:45:03.540-08:00Water it down and burn it<i>Wow, I'm posting a lot more often than normal! I guess you can thank my new job at Linden Lab for that. :) We'll see how long this keeps up...</i><br />
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<a href="http://orkekum.deviantart.com/art/Burning-water-215063391" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO2oaOMDGRj9pr6GlXjTVyvMxPrA67PbU_iZompFjPY6M64yU_FASOTyEfcuZ4GW58RJIsLFa9zPIELqi61rg-wdF7r97bd2BEO8Ts6w_YhOnYs-t_Z3gQK4NRwLeQQlx6144ryQ/s1600/burning.jpg" /></a></div>
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As far as I can tell, there are two types of games that people play for a long time: games that water down content and stretch it out through RPG grinding or FarmVille-style appointment systems, and <a href="http://everybodyedits.com/">games where you create</a>. Okay, I guess there's a third - games with evergreen content complexity, like <a href="http://spryfox.com/our-games/tripletown/">Triple Town</a>, but these are very rare and I don't know of any very successful online games based on that principle.<br />
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World of Warcraft is the obvious example for games with lots of content, and even when it's watered down there is still a ton of it and it's very expensive to develop. FarmVille is an example that combines a thin layer of grinding with a thin layer of creativity. Minecraft is an example that combines a layer of grinding (harvesting resources) with a much deeper system of creation.<br />
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In all of these examples there is a social element as well, which is essential (even in Minecraft, minimal as it is), but even non-games have it (chat clients, forums, social networking sites) so I won't dwell on it here. Just keep in mind that the longest-lasting games tend to be <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6735/what_makes_social_games_social.php?print=1">social</a> in some way.<br />
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In games with a creative element, like FarmVille and Minecraft, the grinding gameplay serves to give structure and <a href="http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/10/princess-rescuing-application-slides.html">ease the player into the creative play</a>. As the player begins to tire of the grinding gameplay, the creative part is there to take up the slack. But the initial gameplay structure is essential to provide that hook and that ramp into the later experience.<br />
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In games where the creation experience is separate from the gameplay experience, there will be some players who only do creation and <a href="http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/20/user-created-content/">many more</a> who only do gameplay. In this case you could set it up so the creators are providing gameplay content to the players. However, without watering the content down (with grinding), it is likely that the players will burn through content much faster than creators can create it. And because playing is separate from creation, most players who burn through gameplay will not transition to creation - they'll just leave.<br />
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I've imagined making a game where you create platformer levels like in <a href="http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n.html">N</a> or Super Meat Boy, and earn points when other people play these levels and rate them highly. I still think that would be a cool idea, but I'm realizing that it would not work very well as an ongoing community experience. I doubt that anyone would spend months playing Super Meat Boy, as good as it is, while millions of people play games like FarmVille or World of Warcraft for a very long time. There's just not enough gameplay in a platformer to keep people going on level design alone.<br />
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But you could <a href="http://www.clicknothing.com/click_nothing/2010/11/convergence-culture-part-three.html">imagine a game</a> where people create watery <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/185353/focusing_creativity_rpg_genres.php?print=1">RPG content</a> for other people, and where the creation and gameplay aspects are connected enough that there is a steady flow of players becoming creators. If you connect the creation and gameplay in a sloppy way, the two could collapse into each other, with people exploiting creation to farm gameplay progression (creating easy dungeons with gold everywhere and no monsters, for example). There could also be problems with finding appropriate content for players at various levels. But it should be possible to tune everything so it works as a self-sustaining ecosystem of playing and creating and moving between the two.<br />
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What would that look like? axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-79623241129820517232013-02-04T21:15:00.000-08:002013-02-07T14:43:50.753-08:00Linden Lab and LEGO<i>Now that I'm working at Linden Lab, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about creativity software and discussing ideas, and sometimes I'll even come up with something worth sharing on my blog! :) Just keep in mind that this is me talking, and what I say here is not an official pronouncement from Linden Lab.</i><br />
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<a href="http://sa-dui.deviantart.com/art/OC-LEGO-City-267525692" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFEo-ybm8xvYtbC0POpR6NRJLw5J_RJcfXAl2pqESZncaLe0jKWL6VWre-5rJftIn2C_AbUteW1uoJ6hszMOCb2sJu0IAtzmB63zkALHplFQkbjIamtN6SFpOaTFENuJbG3Ep-w/s1600/lego.jpg" /></a></div>
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Talking with a coworker at lunch today, I realized that LEGO is a perfect example of sort of "shared creative spaces" that Linden Lab is <a href="http://lindenlab.com/products">trying to make</a>. When it comes to LEGO, playing <i>is</i> creating, there is very little room on <a href="http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/20/user-created-content/">the pyramid</a> devoted to pure consumption, shopping, or decorating - it quickly ramps on to full-blown creation. There is also very little inaccessible expert territory at the top - even the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29844928@N07/4368522936/in/set-72157623336807855/">amazingly ambitious stuff</a> that people create feels accessible, like you could have done that too if you put enough time into it. That's what "high skill floor, low skill ceiling" means.<br />
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And why is this? A significant part of it is that everyone understands LEGO bricks and how they fit together. Very little ramp-up is required to become fluent. Easy to learn, and well, pretty easy to master too. And yet it is not trivial. You can do so much with it, both in terms of building things and in terms of playing with the things that you build. It's important to remember that make-believe play with and within the things you build are also a significant part of the experience of LEGO. Most kids will spend as much time acting out imaginary adventures and battles as they do building them! Of course, different people will focus on different things - I happened to be more of a builder than a storyteller, but I still liked that my creations stood as evocative worlds that could imply stories or scenarios, whether or not I actually acted them out.<br />
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LEGO also excels at making the creation process fun in itself, as gameplay. I realized this when introducing a six-year-old to LEGO for the first time, examining my own experience with a game designer's eye. I discovered that building something with LEGO, especially building a model from instructions, is very similar to playing a <a href="http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/14754/committed-mystery-at-shady-pines/index.html">hidden object game</a>, in terms of the skills exercised.<br />
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To read LEGO instructions, which have no words, is to play a spot-the-difference game between the image of each step and the next, to see what has changed, identify the pieces involved, and imagine how you will put them there. You might not think that takes much skill at all, but you would be amazed at the performance gap between a six-year-old who has never seen LEGO instructions before and a twenty-something-year-old with an entire childhood of LEGO experience.<br />
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Similarly, once you know what pieces you want, you must play a hidden object game where you visually pick out the specific pieces from a cluttered jumble of dozens if not hundreds of other pieces, recognizing them from any angle, partially obscured or otherwise. I could see those pieces like an eagle spotting a mouse from high above the savannah, while my six-year-old apprentice took much longer, often to the point of giving up and asking for me to help.<br />
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Then of course there is the mechanical process of snapping the pieces together, which is not very sophisticated, as far as gameplay goes (though try teaching a robot to do that!) but is still a skill to be learned, and has a very satisfying payoff (click!).<br />
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This all may seem trivial, and not worth thinking about, but when you are making a digital game, you <i>don't get any of this for free</i>. Dragging an image onto another image is not equivalent to mechanically snapping in a plastic spear into a plastic hand, and choosing a brick from a menu is not equivalent to searching for a brick in a jumbled pile on the floor. I think it's very much worth thinking about.<br />
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The interesting thing is, while we're making comparisons with spot-the-difference and hidden-object gameplay, I actually find building with LEGO <i>more</i> fun than the computer games that cater exclusively to this activity. To me, searching for a LEGO piece that I can actually then use to build with is <i>so much more interesting</i> and rewarding than searching for a random piece of junk in a list in a hidden object scene that I will end up using in an arbitrary puzzle in a generic mystery adventure story. I think creative tools can be <i>more</i> fun than those things we call strictly "games", at least for people like me, and I don't think we should shoot for anything less.axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-63303010703858582122013-01-31T21:06:00.000-08:002013-01-31T21:10:09.843-08:00Making games, not excuses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.onegameamonth.com/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.onegameamonth.com/icon.png" /></a></div>
At the last minute, I've decided to accept the challenge of <a href="http://www.onegameamonth.com/">#OneGameAMonth</a>. It's time to <b>make games, not excuses</b>.<br />
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What a great tagline.<br />
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Anyway, <a href="http://www.onegameamonth.com/axcho">here I am</a> on the site! I'm already a <b>Level 6 Game Developer</b> - cool, huh? :)<br />
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Not much on there yet, just <a href="http://axcho.com/jumpstarter/">the game I made for Global Game Jam 2013</a>, which I haven't yet shared with you here because it's crude and unpolished. :p But it is complete, which is more than I can say for most other game jam games I've made.<br />
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Probably helped that we made it by modifying the code for <a href="http://axcho.com/theloveletter/">The Love Letter</a>, which incidentally is <a href="https://github.com/axcho/The-Love-Letter">on GitHub</a>, in case you missed it. ;)<br />
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Here's to making many more games this year! :Daxchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-69002596801369357982013-01-21T21:39:00.000-08:002013-11-17T11:57:03.228-08:00My Second Life in San FranciscoGuess what? I moved to San Francisco.<br />
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I got a new job, at <a href="http://lindenlab.com/">Linden Lab</a>.<br />
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This is the first time I've been living entirely on my own, in my own apartment. I have to say, it's pretty nice. Let me show you!<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Welcome to my apartment! Here, I'll take you to the living room.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>There's plenty of light, with the windows facing east.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Here are some tables and my laptop desk and ball chair.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>There's even a tree! Also you can see my wireless router.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Lots of apartment buildings nearby. Also the only lamp I use.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>And here's my futon, all folded up. The closet is on the right.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Some clothes and stuff on the closet shelves.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>On the right side are my musical instruments.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Onward to the bathroom. Small but it works.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>To the right we see... Towels! And soap. And a waste basket.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Stuff I use goes behind the mirror. The rest is under the sink.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>To the left we see the entrance, and the kitchen.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The kitchen! With a folding table and chair for quick meals.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>My cleaning station, on the right. Who needs a dishwasher?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Dishes above the sink. But usually I just use the drying rack.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The stove and oven, on the left. And a water filter.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Cooking supplies above the stove. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Potholders, strainer, salad spinner, mixing bowls, on the left.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhwMJlxmW5tNskqxYmdWVSrbViz243xdrfegkQ0vFpuXt8Jr5EfNtP5IfReGSKZAwnaXG0oMppjZzNnSp2hADxZr1mkT0jfZNxqCy6LLh5ZK1LyZq4_Kss2ThGA0rW5yZg5onV2g/s1600/18kitchen7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhwMJlxmW5tNskqxYmdWVSrbViz243xdrfegkQ0vFpuXt8Jr5EfNtP5IfReGSKZAwnaXG0oMppjZzNnSp2hADxZr1mkT0jfZNxqCy6LLh5ZK1LyZq4_Kss2ThGA0rW5yZg5onV2g/s1600/18kitchen7.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Pots and pans, cutting boards, knives, utensils on the right.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEXClYYTL51hxapgov7lQH25g8sgmSR0kAdFBUXSKNpizBSgrXMLh0lBBUuNpe-vC6iSpbYZy8eB5uJLdnGlrDVNbTVV0vOLz7HSkWUpmdfpcCos6JlZjgQ_hnjLK5mivhYbq5Jg/s1600/19kitchen8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEXClYYTL51hxapgov7lQH25g8sgmSR0kAdFBUXSKNpizBSgrXMLh0lBBUuNpe-vC6iSpbYZy8eB5uJLdnGlrDVNbTVV0vOLz7HSkWUpmdfpcCos6JlZjgQ_hnjLK5mivhYbq5Jg/s1600/19kitchen8.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The microwave! And chips, and pineapple, and applesauce.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJy8L6ADX3O7Ks7nUSRm2zXc5vJxNFBKyzaVp3f-sNT9-QGSxJb-RKivDERLR_eB2JGcsZHHCdkBTBHG7ZMxhtW2asd4A_lskIwNhgreFaM6qQiNRLaNUxXYc9qqnLXyHtq7sAw/s1600/20kitchen9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJy8L6ADX3O7Ks7nUSRm2zXc5vJxNFBKyzaVp3f-sNT9-QGSxJb-RKivDERLR_eB2JGcsZHHCdkBTBHG7ZMxhtW2asd4A_lskIwNhgreFaM6qQiNRLaNUxXYc9qqnLXyHtq7sAw/s1600/20kitchen9.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Finally, the fridge, and the freezer with meat and berries.</i></span></div>
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I've been here for over two weeks now. My first challenge has been acquiring and cooking food. While I have a lot of experience making delicious salads, I can't say I've ever really had to manage the logistics of keeping a refrigerator and pantry stocked, and rarely had to take raw meat or grains and turn them into something edible. Fortunately, it's not that hard! And as long as I add enough olive oil and balsamic vinegar and nutritional yeast, pretty much anything tastes good. ;)<br />
<br />
I really like having the kitchen all to myself. It's a lot easier to learn to cook when I only have to worry about feeding myself and cleaning up after my own messes. I've been reading about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684800012/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=evoliv-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0684800012">the science behind food and cooking</a>, and starting simple without recipes so I can understand the principles and learn to improvise from the very beginning. Also started reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547884591/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=evoliv-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547884591">The 4-Hour Chef</a>, which is maybe more than I need right now, but it's fun and it will be a good guide as I start reaching beyond the basics. :) <img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=evoliv-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0684800012" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=evoliv-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0547884591" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
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I haven't tried doing much more than feeding myself, other than going to my new job - no new (or old) projects or martial arts yet. But I'm planning on going to the <a href="http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2013/san-francisco">Global Game Jam here in the city</a> next weekend, and hopefully that will be a good chance to meet some indie-minded game developers and make some new friends. :) I've already met a number of kindred spirits at Linden Lab (even someone who had tweeted about <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-letter-released.html">The Love Letter</a> when I released it last year!) and everyone there has been really friendly and often interesting.<br />
<br />
In fact, I've been surprised to find how much Linden Lab's focus - making "shared creative spaces" - really resonates with me. Linden Lab is not quite a game company, and I'm not quite a "gamer" - what I really love is creating things and exploring worlds and sharing with other people. Turns out that's pretty much exactly <a href="http://lindenlab.com/about">what Linden Lab is about</a>. I'm right in their target market.<br />
<br />
So I'm realizing that I have this really unique opportunity here, to influence what sort of new projects this big company, with all its resources, will try next. Will this be chance to see my dream game (or world?) get made, as a player, and also explore <a href="http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/">some of the avenues I am most excited about</a> as a developer?<br />
<br />
Maybe! I'll try not to get my hopes up, too much. :p<br />
<br />
I'll be over here, posting on the internal Linden Lab forum with all my crazy ideas. We'll see if anyone pays attention to me...<br />
<br />
<i>Update:</i><br />
<i>You can now check out this photo tour <a href="https://www.dio.com/album/2494-my-san-francisco-apartment/photo/5289193ad2f8f92465000483">on dio</a> too!</i>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-1149473640174626582012-02-14T02:10:00.000-08:002013-04-11T22:24:55.712-07:00The Love Letter released!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.com/theloveletter/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeDk9KEfqUTRM1-4IPVGY0LVKn76W74Ya36kHuhYmne9U5pPOr0qM96tPU7f-VqyJp1SoA0ZcjsTbe2PhwjP4smo1ZKWfZ7p5FjcxcLg-PH6SM0Zy6OQ4ADS7zlKmhqna55QYEw/s1600/letter_icon_wide.png" /></a></div>
I've been pretty quiet on the blog here lately.<br />
<br />
But under the surface, my game development life has been roiling with barely constrained productivity and awesomeness! :D<br />
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In December, I participated in my first official game jam, the <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=top&cat=Overall%28Jam%29">72-hour jam</a> for <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/category/ld-22/">Ludum Dare 22</a>. It was awesome. I teamed up with the artist, fledgling game designer, Flixel programmer, and all-around amazingly creative guy <a href="http://patkemp.com/">knivel</a>, and I had the most intensely fun, productive weekend of programming and game development I'd had all year. No exaggeration.<br />
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The theme was ALONE, and after I suggested a game where you try to get away from all these people who keep bothering you, knivel basically came up with the entire concept of <a href="http://axcho.com/theloveletter/">The Love Letter</a> right then and there.<br />
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Oh, did I say "The Love Letter"? That's the game we made. Of course, we didn't have time to add a tutorial, or make it so you could <i>actually win the game</i>, but even then <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?uid=8060">people seemed to like it</a>, and told us to finish it, and voted us to <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=top&cat=Theme%28Jam%29">first place in the "Theme" category of the game jam</a>! Yay! :D<br />
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You can read more about our adventures here, in <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/category/ld-22/?author_name=axcho">my Ludum Dare blog posts</a>.<br />
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But anyway, that brings me to the point of this post, which is to kindly inform you that WE FINISHED THE LOVE LETTER AND IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY AND YOU SHOULD PLAY THE GAME NOW IT'S REALLY COOL!!!!!!!! :DDDD<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://axcho.com/theloveletter/">The Love Letter</a></div>
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<a href="http://axcho.com/theloveletter/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY-IP79kBZzFqhBLa0x2oaQ26JTkoI8hBFnPU1vtTvW_TzI9RTTlSvTUrxZbOtro1QRqx6PQ78Gh6mEYMcQ0OWcAk0Ub631Ewlpu-gOtJkfoNYu0vMNiZgFRtVAk8QpVWj4ykVqw/s1600/letter_screen_title.png" /></a></div>
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This project has marked a turning point for me in many ways. For one thing, the game has done much better in playtesting than any of my previous games. People like it, and it's easy to understand and get into. Kind of like <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/12/active-sketch-04-pillars.html">Pillars</a> in that way, except an actual game instead of just a little prototype. Of course, we still haven't had a full public release yet, but even so far it has had a very promising reception. (By the way, have you played it yet? You should.)<br />
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But more importantly, I discovered that I can enjoy <i>being the programmer</i> on a game, working with a designer, and that this can be just as much fun or even more so than simply trying to be the designer myself. What I realized is that when I fully trust the designer - knivel, in this case - to the extent that I feel like he would make the same design decisions that I would make except faster and better, and when we occasionally disagree it is an opportunity for us both to expand our own perspectives and make a better game together then we could on our own. It's hard to be the programmer and the designer at the same time. It takes time to mentally switch between roles. When I work alongside a designer whose creativity and design sense I really admire and trust, it frees me to focus on the groundwork of programming while he scopes out the game design possibility space from above.<br />
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It also really helps to work with an artist and designer who also knows programming and can hack in features without my help if necessary! :) Just like I can fix pixel art mistakes if I see them. After my experiences making games with knivel, I don't think I would choose to work with a code-illiterate designer unless I had a really good reason to. It's so nice to be able to explain to a designer what I'm doing, what problems I'm running into, or what awesome thing I just figured out, and have that designer actually understand me. It's all about that connection, like we are just parts of one unit, the team. Without that common understanding, it's easy for friction to come up in our interactions.<br />
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So there, I'm getting more picky. ;) But in a good way. :) I'm learning what works for me.<br />
<br />
The Love Letter was also the first project where I got really into working on it, fitting it into every crack in my schedule I could find after the game jam ended and we started fixing up the game for the release I now have the pleasure of announcing. I'd bring my laptop on the bus and work on it there. I'd work on it while eating dinner. I'd keep working on it and stay up late. I was so into it, I didn't want to stop. And I couldn't wait to get back to it. :)<br />
<br />
Finally! :p A year ago I remember being similarly obsessed with reading <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality">Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality</a>, and thinking to myself, "If I wanted to make games as much as I want to read the next chapter of <i>Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality</i>, I'd be making a lot more games." And now I've gotten to that point. I know what it feels like. I can tap into this with my future projects too. Which is great to think about.<br />
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But I also need to get some sleep, if I want to stay motivated, not to mention... alive? So I think I'll wrap this up.<br />
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I also participated in the <a href="http://globalgamejam.org/news/2012/01/27/and-ggj-2012-theme">Global Game Jam</a> for the first time this year, and made <a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2012/word-loops">another little game</a> with knivel and <a href="http://teoacosta.com/">the same composer</a> (and this time you can actually get to the end). It's not quite ready for prime time yet - we're planning to give it the same sort of treatment as The Love Letter, but I'll be sure to let you know when it's done. :) Now that we're finished (or are we?) with The Love Letter, I'll probably be getting back to this game pretty soon. After I get some sleep, of course. ;)<br />
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<i>Oh, and also, I <a href="http://www.fugazo.com/archives/1818">wrote about my first ever game jam</a>, back in October, on the <a href="http://www.fugazo.com/blog">Fugazo blog</a>. It was not nearly as successful as my latest adventures, but it was educational. Hehe. :)</i>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-9686624613392213522011-11-24T20:36:00.000-08:002011-11-24T20:38:44.061-08:00The Hug Initiation Protocol<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://antontang.deviantart.com/art/Hug-164785295" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2j0zFVhMHO_zQ5IaV1jTjZcVmWw_UpzDQjVWgS-chL7EAfO4cCnsOQMhri5YsX88hC74txb0qVICnteczoId36v8Ojr4pIdWYczHLZVhsiPwgPQh1dUq7tgsz029ZAQKxCd07yw/s1600/hug.jpg" /></a></div>
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When I read Steve Pavlina's blog post <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/07/just-frakkin-hug-me/">Just Frakkin Hug Me</a>, I was inspired. I like hugs! Why couldn't I just hug people more often instead of being all shy and inhibited?<br />
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Well, for one, I'm shy and inhibited. Also, hugs are unusual, at least among guys, and so people might read more into my actions than I really intend. But mostly, I just don't know how to go about it in the first place. How do you give someone a hug, especially if they're not used to it?<br />
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So naturally, I did some research, and put together this handy Hug Initiation Protocol that breaks the process down into clear, concrete steps. You might think that this is a bit much, but socially awkward nerds like me need all the help we can get. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. ;) You tell me.<br />
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<b>Hug Initiation Protocol</b><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>1.</b> Make eye contact with your intended hug recipient.<br />
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<b>2.</b> Stand still. Do not rush at your intended hug recipient.<br />
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<b>3.</b> Hold your arms out, in front or to the side, palms open and up, in an inviting gesture that clearly signals your intent to hug.<br />
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<b>4.</b> Keep a neutral or positive facial expression. Do not scowl at your intended hug recipient, unless you are a little kid who looks particularly cute and huggable while scowling.<br />
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<b>5.</b> If your intended hug recipient does not respond, you may either abort your hug attempt or verbally offer a hug in case your intended hug recipient did not recognize your intent to hug.<br />
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<b>6.</b> If your intended hug recipient responds by hugging you, then congratulations! You have successfully initiated a hug.<br />
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<b>7.</b> Attempt to sustain the hug for at least one full inhalation and exhalation of breath. A quick hug indicates that you are hugging out of a sense of obligation rather than a sincere desire to connect.<br />
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<b>8.</b> But if your hug recipient attempts to disengage, you must respond with immediate disengagement as well.<br />
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<b>9.</b> While hugging, do not rub or pat your hug recipient on the back. Patting is a sign of insecurity, and rubbing is just awkward. Don't do it.<br />
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<b>10.</b> That's it! </div>
</blockquote>
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Yes, I know I'm silly. :p<br />
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Have fun putting it into practice. And I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving today! :)axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-30014419738569055232011-09-11T00:14:00.000-07:002013-03-14T20:45:20.802-07:00Revising FlydrillAfter a year and a half, I finally updated my game <a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/">Flydrill</a>. Yay.<br />
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<a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_6DUqK11lceKVZ0MC2FnZGdG3f7sBuoh-6tEL9GdyhIdtQQrTDTIJRbtpvGSUUGB1sSQ-8VBT8EOggKzQgScRnlEzSerQ541XX0see_Wr8EItm3susa_E1Ig_lFtm5TTveJUZfA/s1600/flydrill.png" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">You just added achievements!</span></i></div>
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Ever since releasing Flydrill in March of 2010, I've been dissatisfied with the game, and embarrassed to show it to people. It wasn't a bad game - in fact it has been my best so far, but there were just so many problems I saw in it, so many things I wanted to change.<br />
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In particular, I thought that they key ingredient the game lacked was <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2010/03/flydrill-and-logistical-gameplay.html">logistical gameplay</a>. Later on, I realized that this was just one of many shortcomings, and that the core of the game and the overall structure of it <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2010/03/flydrill-and-logistical-gameplay.html?showComment=1274081704704#c7816120390558023994">could stand to be improved as well</a>.<br />
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So what I've done this past week is improve the core gameplay.<br />
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First of all, the arbitrary dream-logic rule that you could only drill to the right is gone, and now you can drill in all four directions. This opens up a lot more possibilities for burrowing and evading through tiles, slipping out of danger through narrow gaps which you can widen into caverns as in the screen shot above. It's also a lot less confusing for new players. <i>Why can I sometimes drill and sometimes not?</i> That question doesn't come up anymore. <br />
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Next, I got rid of the extra lives. Now it's one hit and you're dead. Why so cruel, you ask? One answer is that this is inherently a very hardcore game, requiring the coordinated use of many skills and actions, under significant time pressure. I'd originally tried to make it more casual, and weakened the game as a result. Now, I embrace its hardcore nature. Having a single life sharpens the focus of the entire experience. You stop paying attention and you die.<br />
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Getting rid of the extra lives also means that you can no longer feel the despair of being down to your last life, with no hope of recovery. The complacency associated with having two extra lives safely tucked into your back pocket is no longer an option. No false sense of security.<br />
<br />
And it's much less confusing. Before, I noticed that many people would lose a life and not realize it, never learning the lesson that running into a swarmer is hazardous to your health. Now, there's no question. When you touch a swarmer, you know something bad happened. And because you've learned something, you decide to try again, armed with your new knowledge. Clarity is more important than coddling.<br />
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Finally, having a single life makes it much easier for me to balance the game. I've increased the frequency of invincibility halos and decreased the frequency of portals, so that the experience alternates between frantically dashing through clouds of enemies long enough to find a halo and racing to get the most out of your halo while it lasts, maybe taking out an enemy or two just because you can. Halos are not rare experiences anymore. This alternating rhythm is now the core of the game. If you had more than one life, it wouldn't work as well because the game would drag on and on, and the extreme focus of the halo-less portions would be dulled by a false sense of security.<br />
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Along those lines, I've also greatly improved the pacing of the game. In Flydrill's very first release, the game started out very slow, and to many players, <a href="http://forums.flixel.org/index.php/topic,1157.msg8110.html#msg8110">boring</a>. In response, I crudely <a href="http://forums.flixel.org/index.php/topic,1157.msg8114.html#msg8114">ramped up the pace</a>, throwing everything at the player right away. This was not optimal. But I figured that overwhelming the player was at least better than boring them. Now, however, I think I've succeeded in making the game interesting from the very beginning, while also gradually introducing new enemies to the experience to keep it feeling fresh.<br />
<br />
The first thing I did was increase the speed of the swarmers. Back when the game gave you multiple lives, the swarmers would start out really slow, and very gradually get faster as you progressed, slowing down whenever you lost a life. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Championship_Edition">Pac-Man CE</a>. However, with three lives, this meant that the swarmers started out so slow as to be totally harmless, and eventually got ridiculously fast, neither of which were fun situations.<br />
<br />
So I made them speed up much more quickly. To compensate, I made them slow down every time a swarmer dies, whether by colliding with another enemy or with your halo of death. This creates a nice feedback loop - the swarmers get fast, but once they reach the point where they're so fast that they're running into each other, they slow down. And it means that if you can dodge the swarmers long enough, they'll slow down so you can escape safely. But as soon as you travel out of range, they'll have gotten fast enough to catch up with you again and the cycle repeats. This alternating cycle nests nicely with the larger cycle of halo having and not-having, and makes the core gameplay much more enjoyable.<br />
<br />
The next pacing improvement I made was to space out the introduction of enemies. Now that the game was interesting just with swarmers, I could wait to introduce the other enemies, without fear of boring the player in the beginning of the game. Puffers come in shortly after swarmers, teaching you to watch where you're going as you dash madly away from danger, and then later the gunners, teaching you to use walls for cover instead of hanging around in the open, and then finally the diggers, teaching you that sometimes a cozy little burrow can be the worst possible place to hide.<br />
<br />
Lastly, I made big solid walls appear every so often, to provide some milestones in your rightward journey, and throw in some opportunities for serious drilling. At first I'd assumed that these walls would be very dangerous places, where you are stuck frantically drilling as your enemies nip at your heels, so to speak. But as it turned out, with the four-way drilling now available, these walls became safe havens that I'd look forward to - places where I could burrow safely, feeling through the gaps in the tiles that my enemies could not fit into, where I could be pretty sure to find a halo or two in the safety of the solid wall. Unless a digger stopped by for a visit. But that made it all the more exciting. :)<br />
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And the portals, those bubble things that change the background color and clear all enemies from the screen, now have a more pronounced effect on what type of enemy you are likely to find. The colors have stronger associations - red for gunners, green for diggers, and blue for puffers - and the difficulty does not go down so much when you enter a portal. So it's not always something you want to go for, especially if you see a green portal in a nice, safe blue zone. You have to make a choice. And that makes it more interesting.<br />
<br />
Also the portals now have big halos around them to make them easier to hit. New players often have trouble with the timing-sensitive flapping controls, and hitting a portal shouldn't be a challenge in itself. But the portals also don't appear as early to tempt these new players either, since the color changes and corresponding enemy distribution changes would totally throw off the gradual pacing I have set up.<br />
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The last change was to add a persistent high-score display, inspired by iPhone game <a href="http://bitpilotgame.com/">Bit Pilot</a>, to replace the now-useless extra lives in the upper-left corner. This game is entirely about pushing your score a bit further than last time, and I decided that I'd give this goal the attention it deserved by making your best score constantly visible as you play.<br />
<br />
The other last change, the <i>last</i> last change, was to add achievement notifications.<br />
<br />
<i>"Achievements?"</i> you gasp, <i>"How crude!"</i><br />
<br />
Yeah, that's what I thought at first too. But wait, there's more to this than you might at first think. I didn't go with the typical trophy-style achievements, where there is a list of things to achieve, and then you achieve them, and you are told that your achievements have been "unlocked" and now you can see them shining magnificently in your list. I mean, that would require a whole new interface to design and implement! No way!<br />
<br />
Instead, I went with the second option.<br />
From Chris Hecker's <a href="http://chrishecker.com/Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F">Achievements Considered Harmful?</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>For interesting tasks,
</b><br />
<ol>
<li><b> Tangible, expected, contingent rewards <i>reduce</i> free-choice intrinsic motivation, and
</b></li>
<li><b> Verbal, unexpected, informational feedback, <i>increases</i> free-choice and self-reported intrinsic motivation.
</b></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<br />
There's no list. When you do something cool, like travel 1000mm, or kill 10 enemies, or hold a halo for 20 seconds, the game tells you. When you do something even more cool, like travel 2000mm, or even 3000mm, or kill 20 enemies, or hold a halo for 40 seconds, the game tells you again. And that's it.<br />
<br />
Short of adding coins everywhere, it's one of the few things I can do to make the player actually feel <i>good</i> about what they're doing in the game, instead of just making them frantic and terrified or temporarily relieved at having escaped with their single life for a few precious seconds of respite inside the safety of a wall.<br />
<br />
The only shortcoming is that this feedback is not entirely <i>unexpected</i>, since the pattern is pretty easy to pick up on, and it tells you every time. I might experiment with the game only telling you the first time you do something, making its announcements much more rare and precious. But for now I think the system works pretty well.<br />
<br />
And I didn't even have to design a new interface for it. That's the best part. ;)<br />
<br />
The changes I'm considering next are more drastic, like adding baby fliers to guide for upgrade points and adding upgrades to spend those points on. <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2010/03/flydrill-and-logistical-gameplay.html">Logistical gameplay</a>. But I'm not sure how it will all turn out.<br />
<br />
For the moment, I'm just glad that Flydrill is finally, at its core, a solid game. I'm not embarrassed to tell people about it anymore. :)<br />
<br />
So <a href="http://axcho.com/flydrill/">try it out</a> and tell me - what do you think?axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-28319434906583258962011-05-10T07:14:00.000-07:002011-05-10T07:14:10.529-07:00Space Isn't<b>Experimental Gameplay Project</b>: <a href="http://experimentalgameplay.com/blog/2011/05/zoom-in-may/">ZOOM</a> in May<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Step 1. Inspiration</span><br />
<i>(from <a href="http://boingboing.net/features/morerock.html">Less Talk More Rock</a>)</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjzaba/5216361897/in/photostream/lightbox/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJjbx-8P6Tdndt2Fd7spdHlTWZr1AF4Fx1_gxoBSMxHZ3ygZ4H57aIJXyn8W38K5G3b7Z6Abu0D-hoDtb5vUDhSJtrmkqeTBm3e2kKRsOV5kATUkC3CnDoX5NQqGouPzZzIekEZA/s1600/watcher.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<a href="http://brontosaurus.deviantart.com/">brontosaurus</a> wrote:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>skydome</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>zoom in and out</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>galaxies</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>nebula</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>dawn</i></div><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjzaba">brontosaurus</a> wrote:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>super nova</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>black holes</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>intelligence</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>from this distant vantage point,</i><br />
<i>adrift in an ocean of space and time....</i></div><br />
<a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/">axcho</a> wrote:<br />
<br />
<i>When I came to the word "dawn", the image of it brought a smile to my lips like the last line of a haiku. Thank you.</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://twitter.com/bjzaba_">brontosaurus</a> wrote:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">:)</div><br />
<a href="http://axcho.com/">axcho</a> wrote:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/316701">Space Isn't, by SineRider</a></div><br />
<a href="https://github.com/axcho">axcho</a> wrote:<br />
<br />
Zoom into a star that you see.<br />
Watch it get bigger, reveal itself to be a flaming ball of gas.<br />
Planets?<br />
Pan to empty blackness.<br />
Zoom into the blackness, more blackness, more...<br />
Then a faint hint of something on the left, a speck, a smudge.<br />
Center on it, zoom in, don't lose it...<br />
See it resolve, grow brighter, more defined.<br />
It is an entire galaxy.<br />
Zoom out so it is again small.<br />
Double-tap to name it.<br />
<br />
This is like exploring a fractal.<br />
This is like Jason Rohrer's <a href="http://insideastarfilledsky.net/">Inside a Star-Filled Sky</a>.<br />
But without the shooting gameplay.<br />
It is like Eric Svedang's <a href="http://eriksvedang.com/kometen/">Kometen</a>.<br />
But without the orbiting mechanic.<br />
It is like <a href="http://htwins.net/scale/">The Scale of the Universe</a>.<br />
<br />
Is there a story? Characters to know?<br />
Only the story of your fellow observers.<br />
Read the names of stars, competing names.<br />
Touch one to lend it your support.<br />
You can name one star every day.<br />
One name to add, like one cow to click.<br />
A name grows with every click, until it is tweeted.<br />
As your names are favored by your peers, you grow in influence.<br />
<br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Step 3. Rock</span></div>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-51931572565887964622011-04-17T08:14:00.000-07:002011-04-17T15:25:04.850-07:00Active Sketch 05 - Planets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Active-Sketch-05-Planets-204453872" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3iqfVp1kud7veQufQDm5C2bWl35w9o74bPq-INWw2U2ZS2LniK1HTXeL-gOLmKcgMwrnR-AzgVAvXGxHTuRTJvO-_DvzgRLXfPjUIJLjF3RZVE3FCVZuZIn_0Bpl3MAgiZnmCDA/s1600/icon.png" /></a></div>It's been more than a year since the <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/12/active-sketch-04-pillars.html">last one</a>. Time for a new Active Sketch. <br />
<br />
I made this to test out an idea my coworker suggested for indirect control through gravity wells.<br />
<br />
In this little physics prototype, you can click to add planets and drag them around, and your little face person will zoom around, orbiting them according to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation">Newton's laws of gravity</a>.<br />
<br />
Can you imagine playing with this on a touch screen?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://axcho.deviantart.com/art/Active-Sketch-05-Planets-204453872">Active Sketch 05 - Planets</a></div><br />
Nothing fancy. Just a little experiment. Turns out that gravity among all these planets is a chaotic system, where it's almost impossible to predict where the orbiting face will go next. That might make this a little too confusing for a game, though who knows - maybe if you slow it down and draw motion trails showing the future paths of all the objects, it might be pretty interesting.<br />
<br />
Still, I think <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/Kabomb/zwingo?referrer=axcho">springs</a> might make a better physics-based mechanic than gravity, at least for a real-time action game.<br />
<br />
So this Active Sketch was pretty quick to make - maybe an hour to get the basic mechanic working, and another hour to polish it up for release. This is encouraging, because it means I might be able to make more of these, even in the limited time I have now that <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-with-game-programmer.html">I have a job as a game programmer</a>.<br />
<br />
I don't want to make any promises, but with any luck hopefully you'll be seeing a lot more of these little prototypes from me in the near future. I'm looking forward to it. :)axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-82732834053761914582011-03-06T22:19:00.000-08:002018-10-10T22:25:53.067-07:00Interview with a Game Programmer<i>One of my cousins asked to interview me for a school project, since I'm a real game programmer now! I went all-out on these questions and thought I'd share them here, so if you know anyone who's considering a career in games or programming, feel free to send them over for a bit of behind-the-scenes with a recent college grad who has just broken into the game industry.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Needless to say, the views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Fugazo, Inc.</i><br />
<br />
<b>What is your name and job title?</b><br />
<br />
My name is Alex Cho Snyder and I work as a Game Programmer at the casual game development studio Fugazo, Inc.<br />
<br />
<b>How long have you had this job?</b><br />
<br />
I started this job on August 9th, 2010, so I've been working at Fugazo for about six months.<br />
<br />
<b>Please explain what a typical day of work is like for you.</b><br />
<br />
I have breakfast at home, pack a lunch, and take the bus downtown to the office. I usually get there around 9:30am, but time is pretty flexible there, so it's no problem if you get there a bit late. I go to my desk - all our desks are together in the same big open-studio-style room - turn on my computer and wait for it to start up so I can check my work email, download the latest images and files that my teammates have added to the project from the SVN repository, and start up Visual Studio, which is kind of like Microsoft Word for programming code. I also look through my work notebook to refresh my memory about what exactly I've been working on and what I was thinking about the day before.<br />
<br />
I work on a team of about three or four other people, making Fugazo's next hidden-object adventure game. There are about two other such teams at Fugazo, each working on a different game. Each team has one designer, one programmer, and two or three artists. I'm a programmer. I like to think of it in comparison to building houses. The designer is the architect, who draws the plans for the house and manages the overall process. The artists are the ones who prepare the pieces of the house - boards, doors, roofs, siding, etc. And the programmer - me - is the contractor putting the pieces together and actually building a functional house. I like building things, so it works out. But I really don't like remodels, where I'm taking an old building that someone else made and have to tear out old parts of the building and fix it up and add new rooms and features. You never know if one wall or pillar is okay to take out or if the whole building will collapse when you do. That's the annoying part.<br />
<br />
In more specific terms, my designer will come to me with a feature or puzzle or something that he wants me to add to the game, and describe exactly what he wants while I ask questions until I feel like I understand completely. I usually like to write out the details of the task in my notebook by hand, because it helps me wrap my brain around the problem. Then I'll either start writing ideas for possible solutions, or look through the existing code of the game to get a better understanding of how the solution will have to fit in. Then I start actually writing code, and testing it out. Most of my time is spent going back and forth between thinking about the problem, reading code, and writing code. If I get stuck I'll ask the designer for clarification, or talk to our lead programmer to ask how he would recommend solving the problem. Once I've got something actually working on screen, I'll show the designer and ask him for feedback. Either he'll suggest more things to change, or he'll give me the next feature he wants me to build.<br />
<br />
At noon we have an hour for lunch, and I often walk down to a nearby alternative school to volunteer-teach game programming to some middle-school kids. After that I'm back to work, until around 5:30pm when everyone leaves and I take the bus home or to martial arts practice for exercise.<br />
<br />
<b>What have you enjoyed most about your occupation?</b><br />
<br />
That is a hard question for me to answer. I love thinking of ideas for games, and hashing out designs with teammates, but as a programmer that is something I am rarely involved in directly. In my role as a programmer, my enjoyment comes from exercising my near-magical ability to create imaginary worlds that live inside a computer screen. When I have gained enough understanding and familiarity with my tools that this process is no longer a confusing struggle but a mildly stimulating problem to solve, I find this very enjoyable. This usually happens when I am asked to create a smaller puzzle within a larger adventure game, where I can visualize the end result I want and then figure out how to actually build it with computer code. When things are going smoothly, I can go from start to finish in this process within a day or two.<br />
<br />
I like seeing the fruits of my labor up on the computer screen - the quicker and more immediate, the better. I like to take something that works, that I can see and play around with, and tweak it and adjust it until it's just right. It is very rewarding to me to see and appreciate and savor this thing I have created, and when I am deprived of that gratification for too long I can easily become frustrated. I'm quite stubborn, so I don't give up when things take a long time to sort out. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though! :p<br />
<br />
<b>Do you believe most of your fellow colleagues or workers enjoy their work? Why?</b><br />
<br />
I think they do. But not necessarily in the way you might assume. Many people mistakenly conflate the fun of playing games with the hard work of making them. I like to compare the process of game development to cooking or baking. Most people love to eat pastries and cookies and donuts, just like most people enjoy playing games. But not everyone likes to bake those cookies, and not everyone likes to make games. If you want to become a baker, it certainly helps to like eating pastries. But it's not enough.<br />
<br />
Some game companies are more like donut factories. They are not fun places to work. Fugazo, where I work, is more like a successful neighborhood bakery. The work isn't amazingly fun, but it's usually interesting, and the people are nice, and it's not a bad place to be all day. And at the end of a project, after a few months, you have a finished game that's pretty cool and you can feel proud of it and show your friends and family and all that. And you get to think about games all the time.<br />
<br />
<b>If you could change anything about your occupation what would it be?</b><br />
<br />
If I could make games without ever having to sit at a desk and stare at a computer screen, I would. If I could run around in a virtual forest, climb inheritance trees and swing from conditional branches, build towers with blocks of code, and just use my physical body and my stereoscopic vision and my musical ears and my agile primate fingers, I would be so much happier. I love plants; I love being outside. I also love the ability to create virtual worlds that other people can experience, through computers. But every minute that I spend in front of a computer screen is a sacrifice that I make in exchange for this power to shape (virtual) reality.<br />
<br />
More realistically, if I never had to renovate another programmer's poorly encapsulated user interface code, that would be awesome. Most frustrating part of my job right there. Also, if I had more teamwork throughout the day, I think I would enjoy that. I love collaboration, and I get just enough of it to avoid feeling unbearably lonely throughout the day, but I really get very little. There's something called pair programming where two people share a computer and take turns writing code and observing, and I've done that a few times in school and I think I'd very much like to do that again. However, it's obviously not as feasible in a small company like Fugazo where each game has only a single programmer to work on it.<br />
<br />
<b>Have you gone back for more educational training since you began the job?</b><br />
<br />
Nope. For me, working at this job is all the educational training I need! It has been at least as educational as an equivalent time at school was, in the six months I've been at Fugazo. In computer programming, school can be essential to getting started, but once you're actually working, you should be learning a lot as you gain experience and your company starts branching out to new technologies and platforms. At the least, you can learn a lot from your own side projects as well.<br />
<br />
<b>What educational background do you have?</b><br />
<br />
I graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. It took me a little less than five years at the UW to decide on my major, take all my required classes, and graduate. Throughout college, however, I had a summer internship or two working as a programmer and also made quite a few of my own games on the side, which is crucial if you're trying to get a job after graduating. Just a Computer Science degree doesn't cut it. You need to have experience working at a programming job, at least as an intern, and show that you have the passion, skill, and discipline to make your own games in your free time.<br />
<br />
<b>If you won the lottery and did not have to work, would you? Explain.</b><br />
<br />
For a while, at least. ;) I decided to look for a job last summer so I could earn money, spend my days working on a team instead of by myself, and get experience learning from people who know what they're doing instead of fumbling around on my own. The lottery would only take care of one of those things. My life's work is to change the world through games. The most important thing I can do right now is to hone my skill at designing and programming games, and become fluent in all other aspects of the process as well. I will work at a company for as long as I need to until I'm ready to strike out on my own and form my own team, and I can't imagine finding a better place for that than Fugazo right now. A lot of game companies are not fun places to work. Fugazo is a notable exception.<br />
<br />
<b>What kind of strategies do you use when your job gets stressful?</b><br />
<br />
Programming is often frustrating and can easily get stressful if you are not careful. I find it important to take breaks whenever I am really stuck or not thinking clearly, and I find that taking a walk right before lunch is very helpful in clearing my head. I also have started giving myself permission - with my boss's encouragement - to take short naps when I feel sleepy, especially in the afternoon. When it comes to jobs like programming that consist almost entirely of difficult problem-solving, it is often much more efficient to take a twenty-minute nap and come back refreshed than to fight back sleep deprivation for three hours without getting anything done. As with any sort of activity that involves sitting at a computer and staring at a screen all day, I've also found it very helpful to take a few minutes every so often to get up and move around, do some handstands, stretch, get my blood flowing, and help loosen whatever mental rut I might have gotten into while hunched over at my desk.<br />
<br />
<b>In your career field, is it difficult to balance work with home/family or personal life?</b><br />
<br />
The game industry is one of the most notorious when it comes to poor work-life balance. This is a problem that is slowly improving, but it is definitely a real concern. Many companies, because of poor scheduling, can have months of forced "crunch time" at the end of a project, where people are working evenings, even weekends, continuously until the game is finished. Obviously, this is a very bad thing and it is arguably counter-productive in the long run, but many companies still do it. Even at Fugazo, where I work now, there may be a week or two of crunch at the end of a project, where I stay late in the evenings, but I've never worked weekends. Even then, no one is forcing me to stay late - I choose to keep working because I have a long list of things I want to get done, and I tend to be a perfectionist about these things. And I'll usually be the only one working late on most occasions, since no one is forced to crunch.<br />
<br />
Outside of extreme circumstances like crunch time, I do often struggle to balance work and personal life. I wouldn't necessarily attribute this to the game industry itself. I think this has more to do with my inexperience (I've been working full-time for less than a year) and my tendency to cram way more things into my life than I could reasonably have time for. Though maybe the game industry tends to attract people like me anyway, so who knows!<br />
<br />
<b>What was it like when you went to high school? What kind of career planning did you have in high school?</b><br />
<br />
I started high school about eight years ago. Back then, I wasn't thinking about jobs at all, but I knew that I wanted to do something with games. At the time I was doing a lot of programming on the graphing calculators we used in math class, making little games and releasing them online. I was also starting to read about using games for education and social change and became inspired to make that my life's work. As it turns out, those were the perfect things to be doing if I later wanted to start a career in game development!<br />
<br />
<b>What do you feel is most important when choosing a career?</b><br />
<br />
There are a lot of ways to think about this question. One approach that I like is to think of something that you could see yourself getting really good at, if you spent the next ten or twenty years doing it for a living. That doesn't mean something you are already good at, necessarily, but something that you could see yourself learning to get really good at. I started learning to make games about ten years ago. The reason I choose to make games for a living now is not that I'm particularly good at it now, but I could see myself becoming really good at designing and making games over the next ten years. And that has less to do than the skills I currently have, and more to do with my passion and what I'm excited about and what I enjoy doing and learning and thinking about in my free time.<br />
<br />
If you really love to do something, chances are that you could get really good at it - that if you kept doing it for a living over the next ten years, you wouldn't get bored and drop out - you'd keep learning and exploring and getting better and better as time goes on. I wouldn't suggest that you think about money right away. The jobs that tend to make a good amount of money are the jobs where you can keep getting better and better, where someone who is really good, with a lot of experience, can be worth ten or a hundred times what someone might be worth when they're just starting out. Like programming. Or game design. And you're going to have a hard time getting better and better unless you really love doing what you're trying to do. So try a bunch of things, find out what you love to do, and then ask yourself, "Which of these things could I really become good at, if I did this for a living for the next ten years?" Start there.<br />
<br />
<b>What advice do you have for me as I think about my future education and career plans?</b><br />
<br />
Explore! Try lots of things, read about lots of things, ask lots of people about the things they do, and follow your curiosity when something attracts your interest. I was in fourth grade when I first learned that it was possible to make your own computer games. Before that, I guess I just assumed they spontaneously materialized in the store, fully formed, like action figures or LEGO sets. But once my eyes were opened to this possibility, I started reading every book I could find about how to make games, buying educational software, signing up for programming classes. At the time I had no idea what I was doing so my efforts were surprisingly ineffective, but I was persistent. I just wouldn't give up. And this interest gradually grew from a drip and a trickle here and there into a full-fledged flood of obsession that has significantly shaped my life and taken me to where I am right now.<br />
<br />
But game development was not the only field that caught my interest. In high school, for example, I read tons of books on biology, philosophy, and how the mind works, just because I was so fascinated by these subjects. I thought I'd end up studying evolutionary biology or psychology or neuroscience in college, even though I ended up in computer science. And there's nothing wrong with that. In middle school I was big into music, and I started learning to make bamboo flutes in high school. Throughout the last several years I've been doing a lot of martial arts practice. And I'm still working as a programmer. But the key is to keep exploring. Be curious. There are so many things you could do with your life. Your life's work and passion may turn out to be something you've never even heard of yet. Before fourth grade, I'd certainly had no idea that I could make a living making games. If I hadn't been willing to explore, I would never have found this path.<br />
<br />
And, if you want to get a job in the game industry, the best thing you can do right now is start making games. I made my first computer game in sixth grade. It wasn't a great game, but it was something, and I learned a lot in making it. And more importantly, after that I made another one. And another one. And another one. If you don't know how to make computer games, go and find out how. Look online, read books, take classes - whatever you can find. There are so many more resources out there now than there were ten years ago when I was starting out. Download a free tool like Game Maker to get started - you don't even need to learn programming. Or make board games, and test them out with your friends - no programming required. Just make games, and keep making games, and by the time you are actually trying to convince someone to hire you, you will be able say, "Look at this. I made this. And this, and this, and this."<br />
<br />
If you want to make games, make games.axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-16087373132912603732011-01-12T16:24:00.000-08:002011-03-06T22:31:27.148-08:00Lucid Sight DreamingI had two lucid dreams this morning. The last lucid dream I had before that was less than a month ago. A year before that <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/11/briefly-lucid-dream.html">I had another</a>. And <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/01/adventures-in-lucid-dreaming.html">my first one</a>, more than a year before that. I like to think that the process is accelerating, that this reflects some underlying spiritual or psychological growth that is just beginning to manifest itself in the form of these dreams.<br />
<br />
Perhaps.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/stevepavlinacom-podcast-010-lucid-dreaming/">Lucid dreams</a> are those dreams where you realize that you are dreaming, and "wake up" within the world of the dream. Often this means that you can then control the dream, or at least influence the course of it. I've never had much success with trying to control my dreams, though. It's something that takes a lighter touch - you make something happen by <i>expecting</i> it do so, not by concentrating really hard and commanding it to happen - and I've had little opportunity to practice such controlled expectations in my dreams so far.<br />
<br />
However, there is one thing that I have experienced in every lucid dream I've had. That is, a particular clarity and sharpness to the visual details of the dream world. Everything looks so much more real when I'm lucid, much more than the vague and muddled state of my ordinary dreaming. And the more lucid I am, the more calm and aware I am in my mental state, the more my sight improves. It's like putting on glasses.<br />
<br />
To illustrate, I'll tell the story of my lucid dream last month:<br />
<br />
<b>2010/12/26</b><br />
<i>This morning I had a lucid dream after going back to sleep. It was my longest and most calm lucid segment yet. I was telling someone that I was dreaming, then decided to try to become lucid and started writing on a piece of paper, "I am dreaming." I saw the letters change as I read them, as they do in dreams, and continued to write on the paper and watch how my writing changed. Then I walked around, and I found that the level of my lucidity would correspond to the brightness of the space around me. I would start to lose it in dark areas, then become more aware again in bright areas with their windows open to the light and visual details outside.</i><br />
<br />
<i>That's it. The dream was notable in not feeling rushed or frantic at all. I was able to maintain my lucidity for a long time, relatively, with a calm and open mental state. It was like my mind was a net, holding everything together, and I was able to keep it from collapsing without much effort as long as I stayed in the light.</i><br />
<br />
The key here was the light, and the visual details that went with it. But it wasn't until my dreams this morning that I realized the significance of this factor.<br />
<br />
<b>2011/01/12</b><br />
<i>I had a lucid dream. It started when I went outside to the backyard, in my dream. The openness and brightness and visual detail opened my eyes, and I became lucid. I collected my mind and did some breathing checks to confirm that I was dreaming - I found I could still breathe, even while pinching my nose shut. However, it must not have lasted too long, since I can't remember what I did after that other than walk around in the grass.</i><br />
<br />
<i>I had another lucid dream. I fell asleep again after writing about the first one, and dreamt that I came across some of the guys from <a href="http://www.novelincorporated.com/">Novel</a> that I used to work with after graduating. I started walking along with them, near the university, and some others were with us too, talking about balance issues with <a href="http://empireandstate.com/">the new MMO</a> they are working on. There were a lot of students around, walking, too, on the sidewalks and street.</i><br />
<br />
<i>And then I opened my eyes and became lucid. Again, everything sharpened, the visual details popped out, and I realized I was in a dream.</i><br />
<br />
<i>But I found that I couldn't control the dream. I couldn't even walk anymore. When I tried to move my feet in the dream, focusing in on the feel of them pressing against the ground, I just felt my own feet in my bed, faintly but stronger and stronger the more I tried. And I realized it must be after 9am, and I must have fallen asleep again accidentally after writing in my notebook. So I allowed myself to come into my own body fully and woke up.</i><br />
<br />
The interesting thing about these dreams is that they seemed to happen spontaneously, triggered not by some dream check or verbal reminder but just by the act of opening my eyes.<br />
<br />
But with the experience of these last few lucid dreams so fresh in my memory now, I have realized that there <i>is</i> a particular trigger behind the lucidity I experienced, and that it is actually much easier to practice than a more conventional check like pinching my nose and trying to breathe.<br />
<br />
What came first, the lucidity or the enhanced sight? Neither. It was the act of <i>looking</i>, wide-eyed, out and up, in awe, holding my entire visual field in perception, like <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/01/games-and-perceptual-apathy.html">this</a>, that did it. The lucidity and the visual detail came together, in response.<br />
<br />
Stepping outside in my first dream this morning triggered this act of looking. Looking outside, into the light, strengthened it in my dream from last month. And somehow, looking out at all the people, walking in sunlight, triggered it in my second dream this morning.<br />
<br />
What this experience has told me is that <i>the way to inspire more lucid dreams in the future</i> is to practice this "wide-eyed" mental state often in daily waking life, rather than obsessively doing weird dream checks throughout the day that I can never seem to remember while asleep.<br />
<br />
Because this state of mind - as well as the correspondingly muddled state of non-lucid dreaming - is one I recognize from my waking life as well. It's the same in both waking and dreaming, and <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2009/01/games-and-perceptual-apathy.html">I know it well</a>. Having experienced the contrast so recently and often, relatively, I am now able to see this.<br />
<br />
Just look up, open your eyes, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spell-Sensuous-Perception-Language-More-Than-Human/dp/0679776397?ie=UTF8&tag=evoliv-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">let the details emerge</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=evoliv-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0679776397" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />, and <i>become lucid</i>. Not a bad habit to have, even while awake. Especially while awake.axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-32116421543194454732011-01-01T11:38:00.000-08:002011-01-01T11:46:49.569-08:00Yugen and Games<i>"As the taillights of that last ride grow small and wink out, the horizon gathers itself to your singular perspective. There is no grandeur to bait expectation, no promise to invite distraction, only the quiet of ditch and litter and grass and self; without preconceptions you begin to see your place in a different way, from the ground up. You warm to how consummate this place is in its becoming: the perfect pattern of stones along the shoulder; the fast food wrappers, their logos clinging just so to the sage; there at long rest in the shadows, that old trilobite of the highway, the fallen muffler. And so you become consummate yourself; instead of a face lost in an embarrassed crowd, you become unique and necessary to that moment, your perspective creating, for better or worse, this one place in the world. It is a time to whistle."</i><br />
<br />
That was a quote by John Landretti, from his essay "On Waste Lonely Places" in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Future-Nature-Writing-Ecology-Magazine/dp/1571313060?ie=UTF8&tag=evoliv-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Future of Nature</a>. I had written it down by hand in my notebook close to a year ago; looking back through my notes of the past year in reflection, I found it again and decided to share it.<br />
<br />
It reminded me of <a href="http://worldonetwo.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/emptiness-in-the-graveyard-and-an-encounter-with-yugen-in-liberty-city/">this blog post</a>, which I had just come across earlier this week. The author describes playing the small art game <a href="http://www.tale-of-tales.com/TheGraveyard/">The Graveyard</a>, then the bigger and decidedly-non-art game GTA IV, and how both of these games created in him an experience he called <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aesthetics#Y.C5.ABgen">yugen</a></i>, "the sudden perception of something mysterious and strange, hinting at an unknown never to be discovered."<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Playing it, I found an odd thing. I found my head starting to clear. It wasn’t so much that I was sensing the emptiness around me - rather I <i>was</i> the emptiness. My thoughts were coming and going on their own - frothing up then melting away again - and slowly the oceans of my mind began to fall calm.<br />
<br />
There was nothing mystical or arcane about it, merely an experience of being right here, right now. It was very ordinary.</blockquote><br />
To me it sounds like the experience of meditation, or at least the kind of meditation that I am familiar with.<br />
<br />
And it sounds like a fruitful area of experience for <a href="http://evolutionlive.blogspot.com/2010/09/walk-or-die-and-other-games-that-are.html">notgames</a> to explore, since this is something you are left with when you strip the "game" from "games", letting only the <a href="http://notgames.org/blog/2010/08/12/the-future-of-tourism/">interaction and immersion</a> remain.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>The feeling of <i>yugen</i> hovers in the background of many games - filling me with the desire to explore those green hills behind Super Mario World’s flat levels, say - but it usually only breaks through fully when the mechanics of narrative and threat have been removed. My mind can’t empty in <a href="http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/">Another World</a> - despite the barren, evocative landscapes - because it is so focused on avoiding death and finding a way home. It is when the designers take a step back from filling our time with obstacles and rewards, and allow us just to experience the realms they have created, that the subtler emotions like <i>yugen</i> are given room to manifest.</blockquote><br />
Still, I think there is something missing, something that we will have to identify before we can really make compelling <i>yugen</i>-ish experiences that are <a href="http://notgames.org/">not games</a>. When you strip the distracting goals and challenges from conventional games, what you get is rarely worth writing blog posts about. If nothing else, such "gamification" is good at getting people to care about what goes on in a virtual world, and the other ways of creating engagement and involvement with a story and characters common in movies and books and such tend to be more difficult in interactive media. But I think we just don't know enough.<br />
<br />
I suspect that there are ways to direct this experience more subtly, still from a game designer's perspective, but not so heavy-handed with goals or points or typical game-y things. More toward <a href="http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Knytt">Knytt</a>, perhaps, but further. Much further.<br />
<br />
I don't know. I guess I'll just have to try it sometime.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year.<br />
<br />
<i>"Offering your attention to a waste place is like finding a book in a library, a book nobody reads. Or perhaps a book harboring a single due date, one purple smudge thirty years old. And there it is in your hand by the effortless design of coincidence. You look over its pages and before is effort and presence; whether the contents have appeal is another matter, but the book does exist and is open before you, full of its telling. And so it is with these shelves and sheaves of world that daily surround us: every rock, blade, and bottle, every leaf, an invitation to an understanding."</i><br />
<br />
- John Landretti, "On Waste Lonely Places", <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Future-Nature-Writing-Ecology-Magazine/dp/1571313060?ie=UTF8&tag=evoliv-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Future of Nature</a>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17282500.post-42154429841801215922010-12-05T17:59:00.000-08:002010-12-05T18:02:35.903-08:00My First TimeI killed Starshine. I slit her throat.<br />
<br />
I held her a long time before that, feeling the pulse at her throat, the warmth of her body, the movement of her breathing. Chickens can sit very calm if you hold them the right way - crouching over her, hand around her neck gently, fingers in the soft feathers of her belly.<br />
<br />
Then upside down by the feet, similarly calm. Tied her up on the pear tree right above where my last treefrog was buried. Bright red blood dripping down through the decaying leaf litter. Phil held her wings as she convulsed in death, like a person violently vomiting, blood from a gash in the neck. I hope that she did not suffer; I fear that she did. Three times, deepening the cut. How terrible, how incompetent...<br />
<br />
I was barefoot. My toes were painfully cold, I realized once the blood had stopped dripping and her eyes had closed. Sitting on a beach towel on the bathroom floor, drying my feet, I cried to myself, partly in pain, partly from nausea, and partly out of guilt and horror over what I had done. Maybe not long enough, but it was something. I didn't skin the body, though I helped pull some feathers out. I watched Phil do it and held the pan for the organs and meat.<br />
<br />
Crouching there, with my knife to her throat, feeling her pulse with my hand - it was like standing on the edge of a high-dive, looking down at the water far below. We're all waiting for you. How could I do this? How could I let anyone else do this instead? But oh, it was far too easy to take that plunge. I'm sorry. And thank you.<br />
<br />
I don't want to write about this anymore.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0nVy9AhFVdoxbP_Yv9qXtopgGNqopmXpbfRadHd65q7S9ku9dOOlzNRutiDeP7vCwkFL0UnAJCTrIEbVhPmA6KpkEmMhFiO16hj8sIy3ECaPjh-l-4LFbJIzArMqOL_PcRW8GTQ/s1600/chickens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0nVy9AhFVdoxbP_Yv9qXtopgGNqopmXpbfRadHd65q7S9ku9dOOlzNRutiDeP7vCwkFL0UnAJCTrIEbVhPmA6KpkEmMhFiO16hj8sIy3ECaPjh-l-4LFbJIzArMqOL_PcRW8GTQ/s1600/chickens.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Midnight, Starshine, and Princess Buttercup in their early adolescent years. Year.</span></i></div>axchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476494070603611505noreply@blogger.com6