kismetism

Apparently we’re actually one of the few guilds to make it...

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:30:00 -0700

Apparently we’re actually one of the few guilds to make it this far, considering none of our members do 25-man raids at all. >_>

Disney doesn't want princess cooties

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:02:00 -0700

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 ‘Tangled’” and beefed up the male lead.

Call for artists

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:57:41 -0700

I’m in not-quite-desperate-but-certainly-will-be-soon need of one. Anybody? ;_;

Sushi Cat

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:48:00 -0800

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.

Tron Legacy trailer

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:03:51 -0800

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.

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:42:50 -0800

Who wants to play. >_>

http://ptr.schism.metaminstrel.net/

The Opposite Of Poker Face

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:02:52 -0800

The Opposite Of Poker Face :

Penny Arcade comic about Shadows Over Camelot.

Dammit!

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:13:56 -0800

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?

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:00:04 -0800

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 for workarounds to the otherwise flawless experience technology “monogamy” provides.

Google’s Open Manifesto Tells It Like It Is

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:00:00 -0800

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 self-interest. Make no mistake: Google serves openness because openness serves Google.

Checklist till alpha 0.5

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:14:00 -0800

~~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 note, it’s a pretty amazing feeling when you find that your code foundation/groundwork was well thought-out enough for you to add new features relatively easily and with very little debugging necessary. :)

[edit] ::crosses everything off but message boards:: OH MY GOD. ;x

::lololol:: I was doing some research on Mulan, don’t ask...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:57:00 -0800

::lololol:: I was doing some research on Mulan, don’t ask why. But… I found out that Jackie Chan voiced Shang for the Mandarin version of the Disney film.

Which meant… he sang Shang’s pieces too. So I had to YouTube it. XD

(p.s. dunno why the beginning is English… I think they used an English version video and just put the recording of the Mandarin lyrics to it.)

(p.p.s. apparently Mulan is credited to giving Christina Aguilera her start, because she sang the pop version of Reflection. :x )

Why We Play Games, And Why We Grumble About Them

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:01:52 -0800

Why We Play Games, And Why We Grumble About Them:

Simplified examples, but general idea is worth keeping in mind.

Pet Peeve #324

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:40:00 -0800

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 your old passwords, so that you don’t just type in the same one in. So not only are you being forced to come up with something new, they don’t even purge the database of your old one, so if THEIR site was compromised…….

I get it conceptually; yes, yes, it’s more secure, to change your password on occasion. But besides all the points I already mentioned, it really, REALLY annoys me when a website has an inflated sense of importance by including this “feature”.

Like I logged into USC’s School of Cinematic Arts website for the first time since I registered for the stupid thing two point five years ago, and the first thing I see is, “HAY. CHANGE PASSWORD PLZ.”

Rrrgggghhh.

New Media and Its Superpowers: Learning, Post Pokemon

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:02:01 -0800

New Media and Its Superpowers: Learning, Post Pokemon:

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 the my recent flurry of links… I thought it was appropriate.

I can TASTE it.

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:34:00 -0800

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 display logs from encounters (friggin’ annoying)
Message boards (easy)
Leaving games releases citizens back to hiring pool (easy)

… omg OMG omg OMG omg OMG.

… Seriously. OMG.

Just going to keep coding through tonight and the early morning. It seriously HAS to get done. If there’s no release tomorrow or the day after (or the day after), it means that I’m really seriously screwed because I can’t keep to a viable work ethic.

But if I work at the pace I have in the past couple of days… for the rest of the year? I might still be able to pull this off. ;_;

… crap crap crap. Art. >_>;

[edit] Okay. Definitely not tomorrow, cause I’m in meetings all day. -_- And now I just realized there’s kind of a big snafu in my database design for logging. Hur dur. Arggh. So have to adjust for that. STILL…

Misplaced Pride

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:47:00 -0800

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 explication, they of course make reference to Jenova Chen’s flOw and the more recent Misadventures of PB Winterbottom. But the list is supposed to be about undergraduate programs, and both those games technically came out of the graduate program. ::lol::

But funnier, and maybe more inflammatory, is this comment that I saw on Kotaku’s coverage of the article.

That’s funny that DigiPen is second even though they’ve won the top places at the Independent Games Festival for 8 YEARS IN A ROW.

… mmyyyeah. And the fact that DigiPen happens to also be the “platinum sponsor” of the IGF student showcase has absolutely nothing to do with it, I’m sure.

Behaviourist Game Design

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:01:53 -0800

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. By which I mean they could train mice to hit buttons over and over again by rewarding them in a certain way for this behaviour, even though the mouse would never normally perform that action.

Frick.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:32:00 -0800

March. Argh.

At least this means Alice in Wonderland is coming out soon, though.

Also, this is cute.

External Rewards and Jesse Schell's Amazing Lecture

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:01:50 -0800

External Rewards and Jesse Schell's Amazing Lecture:

[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 we’ve already seen the benefits of it in exercise games like Wii Fit.

I’m with Schell every step of the way in his lecture, except for that last bit though. While it’s true that skilled designers could use all this for good once sensors and points take over our real lives, it seems almost certain that they generally won’t. If Facebook is any indication, they will simply create the most effective mental viruses that drive whatever commercial behavior they want, with little regard to the victims (consumers).