March 2010
36 posts
Gkk.
Might need to get a new phone soon…
Not because the phone is bad, but the cable that I use to charge it (through laptop USB) is starting to fray on both sides. x_x
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I could make TIC groups play Schism this summer.
Aw, but they switch so often… hm.
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Doomsday
Gonna be witnessing thesis defenses all day long, from 11:00am to 5:00pm, with a lunch break. (and they’re providing lunch.)
I wish I had gotten more sleep, but I am grateful that I at least have all my slides finished and that I am proud of about half of them. I’m a little concerned that my presentation might be on the long side, but a good number of my slides are quick...
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“If you let a player level up their character, Eskil told me, “then people...”
– “Love” Is The Game That Earns You Respect.
Nothing like finding an article and a game that ties into your thesis in such a way that it needs to be mentioned as a prior art example… THE DAY BEFORE YOUR DEFENSE.
Also annoying that someone else is releasing a game that primes on...
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WatchFabulous.
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In conclusion...
HOW DO I WRITE A CONCLUSION FOR A PROJECT THAT ISN’T DONE YET.
ARGH.
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Dry Run?
Would anybody be interested in “attending” a sort of dry run of my thesis defense? Basically it would entail a presentation on my part (of the abbreviated variety, likely) and then you’d get to ask whatever questions you have about what I said… and I have to come up with feasible sounding answers…
I don’t know how else to prepare for this. ::skerred::
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0.6a release →
gogogo
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2010 online games trends →
Moderately sized article. I was less interested in the actual predictions than I was about the efficient summation of what’s been happening.
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Disney doesn't want princess cooties →
“Concluding that it had too many animated girl flicks in its lineup, Disney has shelved its long-gestating project ‘The Snow Queen,’ based on the Hans Christian Andersen story.” And just to be on the safe side, the studio has also “renamed its next animated film with the girl-centric name ‘Rapunzel’ to the less gender-specific...
Call for artists
I’m in not-quite-desperate-but-certainly-will-be-soon need of one. Anybody? ;_;
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Sushi Cat →
>_>;
I’ve actually studiously avoided playing Peggle, but trying this has made me at least partially understand the addictive quality of it.
Pachinko is so evil.
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Tron Legacy trailer →
::OM NOM NOM:: Looks sooooo good. Too bad it’s so long from now.
We’ll have to watch Tron this summer so we’re ready for the sequel during winter break. D:
Soooo.
Who wants to play. >_>
http://ptr.schism.metaminstrel.net/
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The Opposite Of Poker Face →
Penny Arcade comic about Shadows Over Camelot.
Dammit!
I really wanted Coraline to win best animated feature. :(
Oh well. I guess coming in second to the second animated feature film to ever be nominated for Best icture isn’t half bad…
(the first one, fyi, was Beauty and the Beast.)
Is monogamy good for technology? →
The problem, of course, is that most of us can’t afford to live exclusively within Apple’s (or Microsoft’s) ecosystem. Work often gets in the way of personal preferences, whatever they may be. We’re also more and more inclined to experiment with new devices, and most of these aren’t built by Apple or Microsoft.
When this happens, we’re left scrambling...
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Google’s Open Manifesto Tells It Like It Is →
One thing I really liked about Rosenberg’s essay was that he basically comes right out and ‘fesses up to all of this. “Our commitment to open systems is not altruistic,” he writes.
There you have it. I don’t question Google’s commitment to openness across many of its efforts (though not all), but I don’t believe for a second that Google approaches the concept of openness absent...
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Checklist till alpha 0.5
Scouting (medium)
don’t permit scouting of areas that have already been scouted
create log messages
award slightly reduced XP (3/4? 1/2? … 3/5?)
generate 1-3 “nearby” adventures
Scripts/pages to display logs from encounters (friggin’ annoying) (good enough…)
Message boards (easy)
Leaving games releases citizens back to hiring pool (easy)
On a related...
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Why We Play Games, And Why We Grumble About Them →
Simplified examples, but general idea is worth keeping in mind.
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Pet Peeve #324
I friggin’ hate when websites make me change my password every x weeks.
And not only that, they’ll do things like require that your password has at least one letter, one number, one CAPITAL letter, and eight characters minimum. Like… grargh, really? It’s hard enough for me to remember one of these, let alone a dozen.
AND AND AND… they will actually keep track of...
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New Media and Its Superpowers: Learning, Post... →
This is a fairly long article, but I found it to be a decent read. The first half is a little plain, but my interest picked up greatly at “Friendship-Driven and Interest-Driven Participation”.
There’s also a couple paragraphs about a program in NYC called Quest to Learn, which is apparently a program where kids learn with a “games-based pedagogy”, which in light of...
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I can TASTE it.
I’ve been programming my proverbial behind off in the last 48 hours. Consequentially, I am OMG SO CLOSE to the planned alpha 0.5 release. Which was, you know, supposed to actually happen like… two weeks ago. Or maybe more. Grargh.
What do I have left, let’s see…
Scripts to generate citizens and adventures based on need (easy)
Scouting (medium)
Scripts/pages to...
Misplaced Pride
Everyone at IMD is beamingly happy about the recent Princeton Review … review of the top 50 schools for Game Design, which sat USC/IMD squarely at the top in the number one slot.
I’m as proud as anyone else, I suppose, but everyone else has been tootin’ about it, so I haven’t really bothered. Still, it’s funny to see the reactions.
For example, in this USA Today...
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Behaviourist Game Design →
It doesn’t strike me as ethical to train a player to want to do something that they wouldn’t want to do in the absence of an external reward.
One particular example that always sticks with me is how closely the reward system of item drops in most modern roguelike games closely mirrors psychological research on the most effective methods to encourage repeated human (and animal) behaviour....
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Frick.
March. Argh.
At least this means Alice in Wonderland is coming out soon, though.
Also, this is cute.
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External Rewards and Jesse Schell's Amazing... →
[Schnell] rightly points out that actual game designers have the power and skill to make sure the future external reward systems that will permeate our lives will actually improve our lives also. These systems could cause us to read more and better books, to brush our teeth as much as we should, and so on. Yes, that could happen. DanC of lostgarden.com made that exact point as well, and...