gewgaw

Thanks to Justin’s hospitable (and forgiving) family – I had a lovely Christmas Eve. The food was delicious, the conversation both educational and humorous (my favorite combination)… and we played Katamari. I think that pretty much says it all, don’t you?

Even mass was an unusually exciting event. CBS (Channel 22, cable) films at 4th Presbeyterian every year… so afterwards, I got to see myself on television, right under the pulpit! How often does that happen? For me – not so often.

Apparently, the TV crew was savy enough to guess this. During the part of the sermon where Pastor Buchanan joked about holiday attendance – they cut to a shot of moi et Justin, smiling privately to ourselves. Busted!

I didn’t take many photos today – I was too busy enjoying myself (which, if you know me at all, means I had a wonderful time). There were a few snaps tho – you will find them here. They include one shot of Justin’s new look, and a little x-mas message from yours truly.

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I really do hope that this year is a bright one for all of us – these have been some rough times, I think. Not that I could complain – with friends and readers as encouraging and generous as all of you.

And, of course – presents from Father Crimbo. You know, as much as I love egg nog, I have to admit. They’re kind of right about the beige. Tho it can’t be nearly as disturbing as these things. Talk about the ultimate re-gifting opportunity. Gah!

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Hugs, hugs, hugs.

Well it’s finally reached the tipping point over in my Orkut community: Shoes. When I started it I had no idea it would become so popular… but now, it’s huge. Since Brazil came on line, membership has skyrocketed from 4,000 to over 16,000 members! As a result, the language of our threads (like many on the network) has been, predominantly, Portuguese.

I’m fine with that. If you love shoes, you love them – and you should be willing to pass over some posts about topics you are not really interested in or can’t read. I actually read a lot of random threads – questions about men’s shoes, comfortable sandals, anonymous posts asking after “good shoes” in Palestine or Iran. In fact – it’s often in these discussions that I learn the most interesting things about footwear!

But there’s been unrest in the community. Some English readers are frustrated with the sheer volume of Portuguese posts (those Brazillians LOVE shoes). I’d seen this coming a few months back, and pinged the group for a co-moderator (Brazilian, ideally) who could vet Portuguese threads for spam, or start a companion group for Latin shoe lovers…. but it didn’t happen. Not until now – after a somewhat nasty thread, I must say – did a candidate emerge.

Hello Shoe Fans

As I posted a while ago, there is no easy way to sort threads by language. I have absolutely no problem with non-English posts on this network – though I do understand it’s frustrating to have to comb through and find your language of choice.

As it turns out – lovely friend Liv has started Shoes BR for those of you who wish to post in a Portuguese-only thread. Let’s all give her a round of applause!

*applause*

:)

A note to posters: Please do not admonish non-English speakers. It’s a big world out there – and not everone has the critical mass to start a group in their own language. Let’s allow this forum to be what it was intended to be – a place for like-minded individuals to meet and discuss something they love. I delight in seeing posts about shoes from a variety of countries – and hope you can do the same!

Happy Holidays to all of you! Peace on earth, and goodwill towards… SHOE LOVERS!!!

roBin

Maybe some day Orkut will implement a language-based thread sorter… but until then, this kind of parallel community development seems to be our only hope. While it makes me sad, I get it. Of course, there’s no way to tell if the bulk of Portuguese speakers will emigrate to her community – they may stick around just on principle (for which I wouldn’t blame them!). It will certainly be interesting to see how it works out.

Here’s to shoe love! May it unite us despite our cultural differences!

Today, I cut Justin’s hair. After a solid week or so of campaigning, he capitulated – leaving my house with short sides, some product, and a clean-shaven face.

To caveat: I suggested that he visit my stylist, but he insisted on a home-cut. Before starting – we discussed various designs… including the “side part” (think Ashton Kutcher), the old-skool Tony Hawk (basically, bangs in face), and the standby (cleanly shaved head). If only we’d had this guide handy as well! So many options for a young man these days….

In the end, Justin’s desire for long fore-locks was outweighed by the fact that he wears his glasses so often these days. We cut in stages – working on the back, then the sides, then the top. The end result: a rough-cut electro-mullet, with short, whispy sides, some length across the crown, and a long duck-tail in the back. My sketches are pictured to the left – because all the photos we took are in his camera. You’ll have to wait until he posts them to see the evidence.

Honestly – I had a lot of fun doing it. I experimented quite a bit as I thinned out the bulk of his hair – significant despite it’s previously flat appearance. Razoring along the back I was able to create some interesting textures – which scruch up nicely with product. That is – if Justin actually uses any. If not, eh. It will grow out shaggy and eventually necessitate a trip to a real barber. Or a visit to LA?

I’m sure there will be a few bits to adjust when I see him again, requests for trimming and so forth. In fact – I think I’ll bring the shears when I go over on Christmas eve. The fade from sides to top, my roommate noted, could use a little work.

I just hope his family speaks to me at dinner!

I worked hard today. I got up early, ran errands, showered, ate and was at the kitchen table writing by noon. I wrote a lot – first on paper, then transferring my notes to thesis format. I can feel the shape of my next two chapters now – where before they were just nebulous, gaseous clouds of thought. I probably have two days of work before I’m done with my current task – but I feel so much better, now that the ball has started rolling…

On days like this I have to take breaks or I get fried and cannot write – but if I linger at a break, I can lose my train of thought and that’s no good. So mostly I do chores and email. This guarantees that I get up and out of my chair every hour or so – but that I’ll tire quickly of the activity and return to work as relief. Short emails to a distant friend, paying my bills, taking out the trash, a quick jaunt to the store for eggs and milk. These were the highlights of my afternoon.

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Towards the end of the day, I had a sudden craving for Christmas cookies. I hadn’t called home in a while, and there’s been some news about my Grandmother (heart problems – curse of many elderly southern folk). So I figured check in, say hi – and get my favorite recipe. They’ve been making them for 3 generations (possibly more) on my mom’s side of the family. Can you guess where those heart problems come from?

Pressed Butter Cookies

1lb butter
1 cup sugar (great grandma’s note says: “FULL!”)
4 c flour
1tsp baking powder
1 egg
1tsp vanilla


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar together, adding egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients (I add a pinch of salt and an extra dash of Vanilla).

Press onto cookie sheets. Too small and they burn, too big and they are mushy. Experiment!

Bake 10-12 minutes, removing at the first hint of brown edges.

For those of you who don’t know – a cookie press pushes cookie dough through small cutouts in a metal plate – so that the dough mushes into shapes (stars, “Christmas” trees, reindeer – stuff like that) against the cookie sheet. I use an old-school press which I thrifted for one buck. Newer versions use a pump mechanism – but the end result is still the same. Delicious, light butter cookies (amazing fresh out of the oven) that fill your house with a wonderful smell.

Of course – my $1.00 cookie press has a limited selection of plates. And for some reason – I couldn’t find any of the standard shapes in my cupbord. I was rummaging as I talked to my mom – now it looks like I’ll get her old press as part of my Christmas package. I protested, but I guess they’re avoiding butter cookies – and hopefully, heart problems! In lieu of her gift, I was able to use the star-shaped funnel tip to create some pretty (if odd) designs.

Regular readers will not have to think too hard to guess what these remind me of.

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And speaking of regular readers, young Lucas has graduated, and found a job! He’ll be working at Griptonite, out Washington way. Yay!

I am so happy that Lucas stuck with his dream despite feeling like an oddball (after all – who doesn’t?). And on top of that – he sent me a cute x-mas gift! Everybody – dance like there’s ass in your pants! Red and jolly – just like my hair… it survived a day of hard work, chores and baking.

Hrm – maybe these Achewood shirts are enchanted?

Good morning! Courtesy of gamesindustry.net:

“I’m so in love you you … I wanna roll you up into my life. Let’s roll up to beeeeee a single star in the sky!”

Wow. Pretty soon everyone will be working together – just like all the Prince’s cousins, running around on that giant space mushroom.

One big… happy… family?

Yesterday morning, Paul sent me this NY Times Magazine article on sex and blogging – which features several quotes from Justin. Later that night, we discussed Justin’s recent party and adventures while drinking tequila at Karen’s party. And man, was the gumbo delicious!

This afternoon (Hurricanes = sleeping in), I got an email from Jen. Apparently, Tiny has started to smell the Danimal’s butt and say”Poo Poo!”, after which she changes his imaginary diaper! Inspired by memories of her ever-evolving cuteness, I finally posted my photos of the Thanksgiving trip.

While cataloging photos and responding to personal email, I sat in my sun-lit kitchen (thank you, wireless). Throughout the day I chatted with several people: Jurie about dining in Vienna (and the new Katamari screenshots), Doug about his cold (which, if I’m not mistaken, is the same virus Ian is just getting over), and Brian about … pancakes, love and various related subjects.

I worked some, then ate dinner – watching a special holiday episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force that featured Danzig and a pool full of elf blood. As in Santa’s elves. I was able to share screenshots of the episode with far away friends – minutes after washing up my dishes.

Then I set about posting this entry. I bumped into Lulu online – and we began chatting. We were talking about the Thanksgiving pictures and Justin’s party… when Souris AIMed me to say she’d posted her wonderful photos of the event as well! Have you ever seen such stunning beauties? No, I didn’t think so! Regardless, I think we can all all agree that there are enough documents of the weekend out there, and let poor Lulu off the line-art hook!

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At his party, Justin wanted us to spend some time discussing our “journey” – where we’d been, where we’re going. As that conversation developed, it became clear that Svente and Anna (and I would assume, most people) find our often-blogging, frequently-flying, move-prone circle of friends a somewhat strange and uniquely modern occurrance. Possibly, they suggested – it is these very activities that make you feel so alienated from the rest of the world – and at times, from yourselves?

Does today’s unprecedented connectivity come with unexamined costs? Most certainly. Does it affect how we relate to the world, and each other? Undoubtably. Are we skipping happily towards the dark future posited in this commentary?

Hopefully not – but it’s worth considering!

So I had a meeting with Ian yesterday where I explained the developments of the last week – and outlined the new work I would be doing over the break (mostly writing/organization on the current 4 chapters). His response was basically: “Great ideas – wonderful formalism – but you should save this for your book!”

My book?

He provided an alternate strategy: I can publish two or three new papers on this material – and then incorperate them as my committee sees fit. “It all depends on how soon you want to graduate.”

—

The thing is – I’d love to get this stuff out of my head and onto paper – but (as usual), Ian is right. It’s a significant undertaking that, while worthy, will set me back at least 3 months. Plus there’s the whole committee thing… filtering the language and organization to appeal to CS people and Communications people – and my third (if predominantly imaginary) audience – developers.

So I’m compromising. I’ll include one of the proposed chapters (which is really an older one, slightly augmented to fit the thrust of this new organization), finish the next scheduled 2, then approach the committee with this work and an outline of the other chapter. Gives me the chance to expose my logic (opening it up to debate and getting helpful feedback) without doing the heavy lifting until it’s really necessary.

And as important as this stuff feels to me – I recognize work when I see it. In fact – I can already feel the outline settling into the lower reaches of my mind, where connections are formed and snipped during sleep, shower time and commute. Hauling that puppy out and turning it into a concrete message will not be easy.

—

Good thing I’m scheduled for a little relaxation: celebrating the birthday of my friend (and aspiring novelist) Karen Sheets.

Karen loves to cook – and for this party she’s making gumbo. During a discussion of what drinks go best with N’awlins food – I came across this site. It led us from Hurricanes (which are insane, basically) to Red Hurricanes… slightly less alcoholic, easier to prepare – but still a nice comliment to spicy, salty food. If you are trying to make drinks based on general likes/ingredients – the sidebar here is really helpful! Doubly so if you’re as mentally exhausted as I am right about now.

I did, however, compose a brief toast in advance of the celebration. “Happy Birthday Karen. Here’s to your book emerging long before mine has to!!”

In addition to the awesome official squel announcement, the English section of Katamari’s Japanese site has several cute updates, including a screensaver, new papercraft projects and a silly little puzzle shooter! And from a reader (older link – but somehow I missed it) – the qbasic tribute. Not bad!

Each new Katamari-related smile or giggle brings me one step closer to convincing myself that I should build a Prince costume for TGS next year!

Today I think I finally worked through a problem that was making it very difficult to proceed w/my writing. Rob was a huge help. Talking it over with him in about an hour, I think I managed to synthesize all the back-of-brain stuff that I’ve been carrying around this last two or three weeks. Hooray for kind, communicative and intelligent co-workers! Unleash the genius!

And while we’re on the topic of genius…. there’s this (duh – what is the rating system for???), this (Matt sez: Check out the Skeletar!), and …

Happy Thursday!

I had to run an errand today – which means taking the train… which means waiting for the train… which means, GameBoy. I finally finished Superstar Saga, and rummaging through my carts, I found Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire. Holy crap – I borrowed this game from a friend almost a year ago, and had forgotton all about it!

I walked to the train and checked the platform temp – in the heated shelter, it was windy. But behind one of the pillars down aways, I was able to get free of the gusts and play. After almost 9 months off (yes, this is me bragging about a Pokemon game), I played one ball all the way from Thorndale to the North Avenue stop – losing it on way out of the station when my finger slipped off the left flipper (where I had the ball crooked). Two balls later – I made top score!

My involvement in this game today surprised me. For some reason the pinball + catch Pokemon gameplay really amuses me – despite the simple tables (there are really not many moves to make, and you can play for a long time if you just pay attention). Part of it is that I’m a spazz who sucks at actual, physical pinball – so winning at the baby version makes me feel smug (see above paragraph). But also – I like to see the little creatures walk around all bitmappy style, and to “evolve” them into progressively odder versions of themselves. Evo! It sounds so … scientific!

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Yesterday afternoon I was reading through a stack of printouts – papers and articles related to the ideas covered in my thesis. I came across a couple of “academic” or “theory” papers on “immersion” – good ones that made a lot of sense and considered a lot of important connections between games and film. But there it was again, right on the page. Story vs. gameplay, immersion “in the game” versus immersion “through the gameplay activity” – along with claims that games without characters don’t allow people to create narratives while playing. Huh?

I think about today – and there it is: a story about me, and my gameplay – that comes from playing something relatively light on narrative (excepting the Pokemon backstory – which is pretty much “aren’t they wacky and cute? collect ‘em all”). And as for immersion – my commute was virtually nonexistant – even the its-cold-outside parts. Imagine if I’d had it at the hospital this past August! Ok, maybe it wouldn’t have been so helpful then! – but still. Pretty cool – characters or no.

I wish I had time to read every paper that comes out, examing gameplay and immersion. I wish I had time to talk to each author, and delve deeper. I wish I had time to fill the high score slots with a little message to my friend – apologizing for keeping the game so long! Hrm. I’ve got three left to go on the Ruby table….

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Anyhow – the good news is that my errand commute zoomed by in no time flat (at least, it felt that way). The better news is that the errand was a trip to visit Susan! Yes – I decided that my “subtle and refined” disguise had to go – and am now a superholiday red head. Woo Woo – if only the color would *stay* this intense. I will attempt not to wash it for at least a day or two, in the hopes of keeping it… ornamental!

Hopefully hard thinking won’t wear it out. Randy and I had a long chat tonight about Jam and GDC stuff – so I have all that to process on top of my reading and writing. Oh oh oh, if only you could visit the hairdresser and have your brain dyed bigger!

academics… Ian (my advisor) was recently featured in the McCormick School of Engineering’s bi-annual magazine. He was recognized by the Walter P. Murphy Society – for work advancing the connection between design and engineering.

Ian will use the gift to help develop the Animate Arts program – an interdisciplinary major that aims to evangelize programming and “programatic thinking” as an essential skill.

“Teaching good programming,” he notes, “is not unlike teaching good composition. When students learn good basic skills as a core requirement of their education, it makes everybody’s job easier.”

Along with a new (posh) lab and introductory curriculum, Ian’s developed a programming language for the course. “Meta” as he calls it, is based on Scheme, and supported in part by Microsoft Research. The hope is that by training artists to program, and programmers to build art – we can eliminate some of the vocabulary and communication issues discussed in the previous post.

As it turns out – the second profile covers Professor James Conley – who I worked with on a Maxis case study last year (soon to be published, if I’m not mistaken). James’ recent work at Kellogg (on innovation processes) has led him to develop undergraduate coursework on the engineering side of innovation – and patents. Essentially – the course teaches students to data mine patents for innovation directions of their own. Now *that’s* meta!

You can check out the full article here. Note the lovely photo of Ian (and his luxurious flowing scientific hair) – next to my computer. Apparently my office is “artistic”. Awww! Screen images provided by the students of Animate Arts.

When I got home from my trip, there was an email in my inbox from an AI/Game developer, regarding the MDA paper. Seems as if he came away thinking we intended to scientifically determine fun, or the nature of good game design. Yikes!

The paper was targeted to a very specific audience – as is usually the case with academic writing. I’m due to re-write it – this time focusing on the development community – perhaps as a post-mortem of the upcoming workshop. But for now, this is what I have – so I work with it.

And in writing my response, I realized that I had to offer quite a bit of background knowledge – clarifying my own beliefs, the origin of the work, information about the developers who teach at the workshop, and the fundamental underpinnings of the philosophy as a whole (ie: that there is no grand unified theory of fun – only vocabulary and critical tools that help make discussion and construction efforts easier).

Later, reading Jurie’s recent post on the value of game studies, I felt a similar tug. So much to explain, so much to agree upon – before any productive discussion can even start! I may just be bitter due to thesising – but it seems like so much work – for not a lot of payoff.

In the interest of maintaining coherence, I posted my comment to the thread (instead of posting it here, or mailing Jurie directly). I’m curious to see how people react to it – as it as it captures several weeks of discussion I’ve had with various scholars and developers on the subjects of “academic blogs”, “academic game studies”, “relevance” and so on.

Call me crazy – but it just seems like there has to be a better way to get to the bottom of this – without going in circles!

Justin turned 30 this weekend, and had a little party at his new place in LA. I went expecting to sleep very little and drink a lot – but the exact opposite occurred (which is probably for the best).

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Upon arrival, I helped sweep and organize the porch and house for guests – cleaning, shopping, stringing lights… and generally being of service. Then I enjoyed two days by the outdoor fire pit – eating and chatting with a mix of friends and strangers about a mix of subjects. It was nice after my weekend in SF, where conversation tended towards the technical/games.

Highlights included Salt Lick BBQ (flown in from Texas!), bitchin latkes and samosas, a lovely Swedish family, mask making, and the Culver Hotel (I recommend the Clark Gable Room). My vote for best gift goes to Seamus and Van – a slim PS2, coupled w/Katamari Damacy. Because of this – I got to share the game with several new people – including the next door neighbor’s girl – who absolutely loved it!

We aslo made a trip to the Museum of Jurassic Technology – which is just around the corner from Justin’s new place. I hadn’t been to the “museum” in several years, and was pleased to find it expanded. In addition to my favorite exhibits there is now a second floor theater and tea room. The gift shop carries several new catalogs of the work presented – as well as books on a variety of Jurassic subjects. I picked up three Wooden Books on the science of Harmonographs, Astronomy, and Platonic solids.

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This was a short trip. I flew out Friday and came back Sunday – just making the final call for an earlier flight and avoiding weather delays. Riding home in the cab I saw the first snow of the year. The windchill today is 12 degrees – not even a firepit can fight that! I cannot *wait* to move to California.

Happy Birthday Justin – here’s to 30 more!

More good news from Keita: Katamari was featured in last week’s Time Magazine!

Read Chris’ full list here. The Prince – right up there with the Sims, Gordon and Master Chief? As my friend would say: Sugooooooooooooooooooooooooooi!!

Yay – this month’s Game Developer features a full-length post-mortem of Katamari Damacy!

My favorite quote from the “what went wrong” section:

This game is all about “getting bigger”, but sometimes I wasn’t able to truly feel that we had accomplished this feat. Again, this is my personal opinion, but when you become big, you instantly forget about when you were small.

How true that is! Unless, of course, you are humble – in which case you write a very insightful post-mortem, and get back to work on your next game.

On inspiration and design:

The idea behind Katamar Damacy just came to me. It’s not as if I had been walking around town, saw a large ball with something stuck to it, and suddenly was hit by inspiration. Current games suffer from a distinct lack of originality, and this sparked my desire to create something totally unique.

It’s great that there are so many types of videogames, but I’ve always wanted to create something different that can only be done in a game. If you are going to play a game that resembles a movie, you should just watch a movie, and if you are going to play a game that shows realistic cars, wouldn’t it be more fun to drive a real car?

Of course I do understand the fun aspects of these games. Moving freely in beautifully drawn environments or driving a car you’ll never be able to own – those are definitely fun experiences too. But lately, there are just too many of those types of games, and I think it has become boring.

On the creation and production process:

In making Katamari I learned that at a game studio, we don’t need partitions or instant messengers. The most imporant thing is to talk directly to each other as a team. By doing so we were able to develop a game exactly as we wanted. I think that really shows.

I worked on the basic concept on my own. I found that if I started to listen to to others, the concept tended to become diluted and unfocused. However, once the basic concept was decided, it was helpful to have open discussions with the team. There were many more ideas that were not used in the game, but I still got something out of all the different ideas that were brought up – even if I didn’t use them as they were presented….

Finally – on innovation:

I am honored that most of the reviews (in Japan and the US) recognized the uniqueness of the game, which proves that many people are tired of the games that are currently available. However, we couldn’t make the game quite new enough.

We are living in a strange world when I see that this “half-baked idea” is being prasied as something totally new. I’m not trying to be humble, but it would be great if the favorable reviews of this game motivated other people to create something new, without focusing on the bottom line for once.

Go Keita, Go!

gaming and the surreal…

Heather pointed me to the trailer for Steer Madness this morning – which appears to be a vegetarian-themed GTA-style game (made by a lone developer and an artist intern, in Vancouver). All that is cool – but watching the trailer, I fantasized that it was just.. “GTA: An Artist’s Statement” – where the young thug is transformed into the animal of your choice. Cows, chickens, apes… manipulating crates, riding bikes, talking to NPCs…

It reminded me of that Daft Punk video, with the dog, and the beat-box? I always felt sorry for that dog.

Anyhow – when you load up the trailer (if you’re lucky), you’ll get the Leisure Suit Larry advertisement in your sidebar … which features a couple of… really bad jokes. If you’re *extremely* lucky – you’ll meet one of the High Voltage guys at a conference, and recieve their business card – a smaller, glossier version… with two poly-nudies, instead of one. How’s that for clever cross-marketing?

One thing I forgot to mention last week – I played around a bit with the DS – which as you probably already know is selling like hotcakes and has already appeared naked on line (the slut). First impressions: the sound is great, and the screen fairly responsive. It felt nice just to tap through the setup stuff – hearing it “cick” each time you touched the panel. Sure – it does “bear a striking resemblance to a woman’s compact” when closed – but I’m not gonna compain about that.

I only had time to play the first 15 missions of XX-XY – which (while silly and simple) sparks the imagination. Sure, it’s basically WarioWare with a mildly-lame and potentially alienating theme (I’ll be nice and assume there was no “boy” version because they had zero time to develop it, and little room for the extra assets). But there’s potential in it, too. Even just blowing on the microphone to make a little ship sail around made me giggle. When was the last time you did something that toy-like with a digital device?

I was particularly interested in the game’s use of short comic strips (animated panels that appear in 4 parts starting on the top screen, two to a screen) to illustrate narrative and instruct the user. It reminded me of the book intros from Taiyo Matsumoto’s Japanese site. Imagine what could happen here if the content were more surreal and less… cute and cheeky? While expensive, it might be fun to develop some slightly-interactive manga for it, and release chapters over a period of time.

Wondering what happens after the scorpions get let out of the box? I’ll give you one guess. If you get all of them fast enough, she shimmers and giggles in mock ecstasy. And if you poke her in the wrong place, she yelps – and turns to scold you. Top screen – her expressionless black face. Bottom screen? All boobs.

The weekend after Game Tech was mostly consumed with impromptu dinner-table discussion about the next Jam, next-gen game tech, design and so on. We ate tons of great mediterranean food, half a box of clementines, consuming many bottles of wine and even some Chartreuse in the process. Thanks to Sir Gothenstein (aka Jon Blow), this was not just *any* Chartreuse – it was a Centenaire – bottled to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the order. Fancy pants, indeed.

Jam talk was… animated and …. interesting. It sounds like I’ll have some interns this year to help with machine setup – and I’m looking forward to seeing how the current proposal for tech works out. March is pretty damn close – and we’re all very busy. Checker keeps pointing out that every year people worry we’ll fail, and every year a bunch of stuff gets made anyway. Still – it’s like… 60 days away! And then there’s EGW (our call is up now – submit cool stuff!) and the Game Tuning Workshop to consider….

On Saturday evening, we ended up talking about simulation and narrative/dramatic immersion in streaming game worlds. It was a long, rambling chat – lots to scribble about in my notebook… even a bit on DDA. Discussions about dynamic game adjustment (at least, discussions with developers) always leave me with a twinge of saddness. On the one hand – I really do believe that it’s a step in the right direction. Even the most basic, crude adjustments work for a percentage of non-skilled or non-sport gamers – and there’s plenty of room to improve upon current techniques and applications. But in the long run – DDM (as in Dungeon Mastering) for interactive story goodness is what I really want… and we seem light years away from a cost-effective, repeateable solution. After encounters like this, I wish I had unlimited time and funds to work on my dissertation.

Then I think better of it.

What did survive was a re-kindled interest in my old prison game design. Originally, I wanted to focus on mapping a social network/simulation onto a physical/game-mechanical system. Gameplay actions would twist and ripple the fabric of a persistant social landscape. This would lead to game-mechanical changes – opening and closing avenues of gameplay and choice. The challenge would be to make it compelling, and transparent – and really emphasize consequence in a way that built up your empathy with the characters.

Not a new goal, perhaps – but a hard one. At the time it seemed like an overwhelming task, which probably wouldn’t produce an evaluable system (for academic requirements, that is). 4 years later – I see it through slightly different lenses. With the right constraints, it could be simpler, and still produce results…

But not tonight. In lieu of more design rambling, I’ve posted a few photos from the conference – mostly the backs of smart guys’ heads, with an occasional shot of Jon’s ink-stained KOL shirt or Checker’s feet. You reap what you sow, dude, and female tech leads don’t grow on trees.

At least Tiny is starting early…

I slept in a bit on the last day of the seminar – arriving just in time to hear the tail end of the binary vs. text file format discussion that followed Mark’s Collada panel. Rather than go into all the details of what the system proposes to do, and the arguments made on both sides of the binary/text fence – I’ll just refer interested parties ( i.e. anyone dealing with those hefty game art files) to the official discussion boards. If I learned anything during my brief education on the subject of this file format tradeoff… it’s that now would be a good time to voice your opinon!

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The other thing I took away from this last day of the conference was that while implementing physics is hard, integrating it into the toolchain is even harder. For starters, it’s hard to know the limits of a system until you break it (a lot). Beyond this, physics systems tend to be bulky and tweaky – and rolling your own doesn’t guarantee a workaround for these problems. In addition, the interaction between actual, simulated, physical objects (crates, bodies, what have you) and semi-simulated, kinematic objects (things that obey some – but not all – of the physical rules of the world) can be really tricky to predict and deal with.

In his talk, Brian gave the example of an elevator. Designers say to the physics programmer “Hey, we want an elevator. It needs to go up and down, so nothing should really be able to occlude it. Move it up and down on tracks. If anything gets in its way, just crush it.” The physics programmer thinks about it for a while… then asks “What if someone puts something in the elevator shaft – something they need for the mission? Should I crush that too?” The designers roll their eyes, the programmer grumbles. Even if everyone knows what they want from the simulation, a lot has to be discussed, clarified, worked through.

The minute you start constraining *certain* objects in the simulation (special-casing them to facilitate a particular string of events) – you’re asking for trouble. Yet building a highly reactive world where everything behaves “as physically as possible” can lead to odd behavior that breaks the player’s sense of immersion – or cripples the game (as the physics simulation sucks down massive amounts of memory). Gah!

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Brian’s advice: put someone who is a good communicator in charge of your physics programming. For this role – go with a coder who can help define where the gameplay programming stops and the physics coding starts. Make sure they have the right background knowlege… and the skills to arbitrate disputes about special cases and their resulting feedback.

Other observations from post-talk discussion: of the attendees who implemented physics in their games – about half apply the rules of physics to the player – while the other half keep the player kinematic in order to facilitate smooth, accurate control – particularly on the PC. Only half were satisfied with the results of their current physics implementation (custom or liscensed). Yet they all expect to keep using physics – so there are converts to be had!

Jay made some interesting points about AI and speculative collision detection, and another about the perception of gravity. Apparently, the slightly distorted field of view implemented in most first-person games has a direct impact on how fast players expect objects to drop from above. If someone knows of a paper on this subject (the correlation between FOV and preception of gravity – in any computer graphics application, really), please send me a link!

CPU-bound, GPU-bound, Memory-bound… or Communication-bound? That was the broad take-away from today’s 4 big post-mortems on Tech Direction.

• Jay’s presentation focused on how Valve has structured tech to allow for flexible updates and lots of iteration on the part of both coders and designers. Starting out with a group of senior engineers, and a codebase/tool chain from the previous game, they were able to develop and protoype several new systems and tools – most of which made it into the final game. Message: Every time we decoupled two processes to allow people to work more independently, we won.

• Chris’ talk championed a more data-driven approach that enabled a lot of on-the-fly scripting by artists and designers. Because their legacy system started out on the Mac, they’ve developed a unique, tag-based architecture, which allows very lightweight tools to manipulate many of the design-critical properties of game objects. Message: Every time we invested more in this abstraction, we gained design flexibility and iteration time.

• Charles spoke about the defensive developement practices he’s instantiated at Oddworld. I think his approach speaks to the reality of deveploment at many studios – where resources are tighter all around. And given how rapidly teams have to scale up – even the biggest groups are subject to the threats of junior programmers and artists at some point in the production cycle. Charles’ system of checks and balances, built with cheap (or free) tools – was a sight to behold (not unlike Charles himself). Message: Using super advanced C++ features to customize your pipeline is a win!

• Andrew presented a post-mortem of development at Maxis, on the Sims2. A compelling example what happens when design-driven tech feeds back and leads to overengineering, slip and frustration for every member of the team. I really appreciated Andrew’s frankness about mistakes and lessons learned. Message: You need good tech direction, and major design decisions should happen in pre-production.

What I found most interesting about these presentations was their vast differece, despite what appeared to be similar core goals or issues. It was a testament to how a multitude of factors (team size and experience, target platform, financial and time pressure, legacy tools and production methods) compete for attention, and drive overall tech direction. And on top of that – how the personality and outlook of a tech director filters down to every aspect of a tool chain.

We need to train senior game industry management for specific roles – because without training, they can make very expensive mistakes. I think about the expertise that Jay et al have amassed in the last 10 years, and I wonder: how can we duplicate and share it? And what happens… if we don’t?