gewgaw

Ben turns 35 in LA – and a good time is had by all. Really.

:)

Compliments to team HP for the Japanese food, carpool and photos!

Open for Business is now in the review bin – and so far, it looks like we’re holding up just fine!

:)

This pack was a lot of work and everyone who participated in its construction was a trooper. Packs are made on tight deadlines with tight constraints (mostly because it’s just so darn expensive to model and animate things to the right level of care and detail!). Adding business gameply to the Sims was not easy – and chasing down the edge cases was not always fun. But despite all the hard work – I had an almost embarassingly good time on the project!

Three cheers for all EP team members and for the fans who motivate such high-quality work!

While once professors may have expected deference, their expertise seems to have become just another service that students, as consumers, are buying. So students may have no fear of giving offense, imposing on the professor’s time or even of asking a question that may reflect badly on their own judgment.

For junior faculty members, the barrage of e-mail has brought new tension into their work lives, some say, as they struggle with how to respond. Their tenure prospects, they realize, may rest in part on student evaluations of their accessibility.

Professors compain about email! Read it here

Via Justin, from a mailing list I’m on:

“The visuals in Fight Night Round 3 are so excellent that they
actually enhance the gameplay.”

The biggest visual improvement — an improvement so important that
it plays into the actual gameplay — is the level of detail included
on a boxer’s face. When a boxer is hurt, you can see the pain in his
face. When he’s low on stamina, you can see the fatigue in his body
language. When he’s just been clocked by an impact punch, you can see
the tears in his eyes and the fear in his very soul. With all of this
visible in the game, EA went ahead and removed the HUD, eliminating
the health and stamina meters. Keep in mind that the stamina and
health system is exactly the same as last year; the meters are just
hidden. This creates a much more instinctive fight, and you’ll move
in for the kill when you see your opponent slouching or cringing, not
when you see a red energy meter nearly depleted. It’s just as
exciting to see that you’ve hurt your opponent and move in for the
knockout as the actual knockout blow itself. All of this adds to a
much more visceral boxing experience that more closely resembles real-
life drama in the ring.

Well I never thought I’d say it – but my life has now personally been touched by the phenomenon of reality telvision. Jeanne, my brother’s fiance – is now on the Golf Channel’s “Big Break” show.

Wow!

What does one say about such a thing, other than… good luck?

Keita’s put a new game up on the KD japan site!!!

Scroll to bottom of the page, click Dr. Katamari and start the game.

There is no game over, no losing!!! How big can you get????

“Guide the Katamari by moving the King of All Cosmos with your mouse.
Objects stuck to the Katamari will scatter once you click on the mouse.

enjoy!!”

And on top of this – there is a great surprise!!!

Yay Keita! It is AWESOME!!!

My temporary desk setup (treo photo from a friend) displaying some of the world’s coolest toys… Creature Mix!

Every time I move, I acquire more toys. This can’t be a good trend!

Coolest, ever!

As pointed out in the email I got today – not much of a game, but wow!

Fast commentary in an interactive format! Wave of the future!

At one point, Scott Roberts and I we were both living in Chicago, but we didn’t know each other. Later, we exhanged some email about Depaul’s emerging games curriculum – and agreed to get together. But every time we try to meet up in a city, one of us gets totally bogged down by some professional obligation or other – or, called away at the last minute entirely.

As a result, we have one of those great “sometimes I’ll write you a really long email” correspondances that remind me of hand-written letters. Today he pointed me to a really great project of his – where he animated sequences of interview dialog from GenCon.

It is so amazing how much you can tell from a person’s body movements, focal and vocal patterns. And how much the shape of someone’s face and body influence how you feel about them and what they say!

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’m thinking a lot lately about how to reach new players.

Do we get to them with boxed product at Best Buy, flashy online banners, television and print advertising, word-of-mouth? Which markets respond to which methods and how does the message of a game’s soul come across in each of these mediums?

I have to admit – the retail game experience is pretty crappy – even for gamerz like myself. I don’t like going to Jamba Juice much, either – for similar reasons. Noisy, cluttered/crowded environments, often crossed with grouchy/attitudinal service. Though at least Jamba smells better…

Even if Microsoft’s crowing is the result of less-than-glowing results in the retail space, it is part of a larger discussion that we all need to address. What can we do to increase our support at the point-of-sale, as it moves from the showroom floor to keyboards and browsers?

And even more importantly – am I the only person who thinks NextGen’s “I Get It” campaign has a sad, “the gentleman doth protest too much” quality? Even if you ignore the sexual undertone, it just doesn’t seem good to be looking serious, staring at a camera, telling the world that you “get it”.

Thanks Richard!!!

CG reels are often very interesting because they stretch your imagination. This one manipulates the notion of category or primitives (especially w/r/t motion and sound) in ways that remind me of early experimental 2-d animation.

Great stuff.

Now compare it to this stuff which has no sound. What a difference it makes!!!

Revealed.

haven’t these clueless recruiters changed their friggin art? It’s been at least a year since I saw one of their horrid web ads… possibly two. And still – the high-school-notebook-doodle stripper girl!

Looking at the site, a co-worker said “I feel like the next time I refresh she’s going to be topless!”

*shudder to think*

If you must go with cheesecake, for the LOVE OF GOD… hire a professional/talented artist!!!!

How much do you want this annual report/recruitment doc/style guide?

Excerpt from inside (machine translated and posted to the link below)…

20 years or more passed from the family computer appearance in 1983, and the game industry accomplished rapid growth as industry in very few entertainment fields that passed to the world from Japan. NINTENDO kept creating an original commodity intended for the world with the birth of the game industry up to the present time, and established the brand known to the world as a pronoun of the game culture.

The game industry faces the turning point as the stagnation of the market by “Game parting” phenomenon comes to light for these several years though we have pride that the stuff of dreams and the enjoyment have been offered to the customer. We who lead this industry owe the mission that keeps creating original happiness with the surprise that not is so far for further prosperity of the game industry.

What makes that original happiness part of a game? How do you capture the bright feeling of discovery? What new joy do we have to offer players in this day and age? These are hard questions, and things that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about lately. When it doesn’t make my head hurt, it’s a nice feeling.

Thanks to Jurie for the link!

Yee Haw!

Mark did a little stat tracking with Bush’s State of the Union speeches. Take a peek at the results – and pray that public opinion has actually made some impact. Then pray for more!

…with the WOW crowd. Will Kim’s prediction really come true?

This Full Auto ad from Sega is kinda funny- especially when you see the in-game explosions after watching “real” explosions.

But the much more interesting part is watching the salesman dude animate after the movie is over. It’s one way to avoid the uncanny valley – and one I don’t think I’ve seen done before (certainly not this well).

Great art direction!

And on the opposite side of the spectrum… I blame chronic underemployment for this gem.