Burn The Witch

This weekend, I have been mostly reading about journalism, games journalism, and magazine publication.

This all comes after a recent vague feeling I had that newspapers are evil, before quickly realising that they're only as evil as video games, nuclear energy, and the entire human population as a whole.

I can take some of my own advice; if I don't like what people are broadcasting about the games industry, I can try broadcasting something myself. Although technically, I already am via this blog. As I went through all of my previous posts last night, I noticed that while a percentage of them were about work I produced for the course, a large amount consisted of brief comments on things I'd seen and found kinda interesting within the games industry, comments on life and philosophies and concepts, and rants against the demonisation of Computer Games by the media.

Bad disguised as Good vs. Good disguised as Bad...

So perhaps after uni, or even during, I'm interested in attempting to start something up. A tidy and attractive bit of entertainment with serious motives to defend the witch that is the Computer Games Industry from the demon that is Fear and Moral Panic, who screams "Burn them all! For the children!" Fighting fire with fire, you could possibly say.

Although when I think about it, there are two seperate ideas going on in my mind. One involves storming the world, exposing the demons for what they are and helping new kids to the industry become aware of the mob that metaphorically cries for their blood, while bringing them entertainment in the form of clever nonsense, and useful tips to get into the exciting industry of games.

The other involves metaphorically dressing up as an old lady, selling magazines targetted at mothers showing them all the games they'd find lovely, so that wild accusations like "Video games promote rascism, sexism and hatred" can be seen for what they really are.

...We'll see how it goes.

So... [Ping Pong / Tetris / Brain Training] promotes hatred, rascism, sexism, and rewards violence. Is it?

If you are a concerned parent reading this, please read the information on the following link before reading the rest of the blog post: The Byron Review [Wiki]

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So check it out, they're trying to make us look like the bad guys again.



It parades itself as a concerned look at whether video games are corrupting children, but it is quite clearly just another attack on the computer games industry. There are so many things wrong with this, I could write a book about it.

The Industry places age ratings on games. The Industry is aware of the possible effects of exposing children to violence, and the Industry has taken steps to prevent those kinds of games getting into the hands of the children. If children are playing violent video games, it's because someone old enough to know better [such as their own parents] have been buying the games for them. It's the responsibility of the parents or guardians to be aware of the content they are buying for their children.

Knowing all of this, it upsets me to hear people old enough to know better speak as ignorantly as Julie Peasgood did here. I was quite offended when she pretty much proclaimed that video games were evil [at least when I said it, I was sleep deprived. Also... I was joking].

She is writing off the entire video game industry [or did she merely forget to add the word "violent" onto the front of her statements about video games promoting hatred, rascism and sexism?], speaking as if the whole thing should just be exterminated. She is only promoting hate, when you get down to the bare essentials. And on television [oh, and on the Internet via ITV's Player], too. Nice.

What she needs to do is open her eyes and see how video games actually are, in their entirety; the good, as well as the bad. If she still doesn't like what there is to see, then what she ought to be doing is helping to change it positively, by promoting the positive aspects of video games, for example, the potential for use in education. This would attract more people to the industry who want to use games for "good", which in turn would result in fewer games about "bad" stuff.

If people carry on slandering games as evil, worst case scenario; those people who want to help the world will forget that using video games is an option, and so they won't use them. Only the people who want to make violent games are left, so only violent games are made, so people will complain that games are violent, so people will assume games can only be violent, because "that's just the way things is". It's a vicious cycle, and though it can be broken ["Making a game that's non-violent? You innovative genius, you!"], it's better not to let it get to that stage in the first place.

Escaping from Life? Man up, will you.

Ollie sent me this link today: "The most dangerous drug isn't meow meow. It isn't even alcohol..." by Charlie Brooker

Combine that with the post I wrote yesterday, and it makes me wonder about people. Life is actually really interesting when you stop to examine and experience it properly. What is it that we are doing to ourselves, our culture, to make us feel like jumping the ship of reality?

Is it because we have shackled ourselves into lifestyles that feel so boring that we feel like we have to create virtual realities to escape to, and exaggerate the stories we write in newspapers to make life sound more interesting than it seems?

Look at Second Life.
What is stuff like that all about? I mean, fair enough if you have serious disabilities preventing you from getting out there and doing much, like connecting with people. But if you're perfectly "normal"...?

Or fair enough if you want to quickly see how it might feel to dress a certain way, or have a certain colour hair, or go to a certain place. But to do it in a virtual world is not the same as doing it for real.

Get out there. Wear those different clothes, for real. Try out that hair style, for real. Go to that place, FOR REAL. If you are capable of doing it, then why aren't you doing it?

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Stubborn Response #1: But I don't have the time...

Make time. Plan a time where you can do what you want to do, and just do it. I don't care if your job doesn't like you dying your hair. If you have a job, then you can probably buy a wig, and wear it out one day in public. That's all it takes to experience a day of purplehairness. Well, purplehairnessish. To do the job properly, dying your hair purple would help you experience true purplehairness. Wearing a purple wig would only help you achieve the experience of true purplewigness.

Whiney Response #2: ...But people will stare at me if I "wear that purple wig".

So what? If people stare, you can relax knowing that you've just made someone else's day more interesting. If you have to, make up an excuse to do it. Wear a sign around your neck saying you're doing it for charity. Even better: Actually do it for charity. Why wait for Red Nose day? Charity can happen any time of year.

Naff Response #3: ...But I don't know how to "get a purple wig".

Are you serious. One word dude: T'INTERNETZ.
You're reading my blog. Surely you know how to use a search engine.

Lame Response #4: ...But I can't afford "that purple wig".

Then start saving up. If you're not earning anything, start earning. Read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. If Siddhartha can go from being a ragged beggar to wealthy merchant, why can't you?

Decent Response #5: ...But I have mental issues. They're like physical limitations, except they be in me brains.

Professional help exists for a reason.
If you can't afford professional help, please see my reply to Lame Response #4.
If you can't think of a way for you to earn dosh, please see my reply to Naff Response #3.
If you don't have time to check out the internet for a way to help yourself, please see the first two words of my reply to Stubborn Response #1. If you have time to read my blog, you blatently have time to google something.
If your mental issues consist of you feeling slight apprehension towards the idea of doing something that's different to "normal", please see the title of this blog post.

I don't want your excuses, I want you to get rid of those mental barriers.
Accept responsibility for your own life.
Stop putting it off. Stop being lazy. You can start doing it today.

Observational Comedian's Response #6: ...But I don't want people here to discover how cool life can be and stop complaining about shit the world seems! It'll ruin all my observational jokes about how the British are.

Trust me, when people in their 30s and 40s start following a 20 year old Computer Games Design student's advice and start wearing purple wigs to their office jobs, the newspapers will go mental about the PWE [PurpleWigEpidemic], and you'll have plenty to joke about.



Warning: Charlotte Gyseman is not a certified advice-giver, although she has got lots of certificates that she got in school for various things. Some of them were even laminated. So if you're thinking of taking her advice and end up doing something stupid, please see the part where she told you to accept responsibility for you own life.
[This means: Don't sue me. Especially not if your kid does something stupid after reading this article. If you have kids, they are a part of your life, and therefore your responsibility, not mine. Two words: Parental Controls. If you don't know how to use them, google it. Or get your kid to show you.]

P.S. The important bit is the big bit in bold.

I watched The Truman Show last night.

So basically, I go this email invite from someone from the Shire:

Subject: Invited you to Miss Bimbo!

Hello

Your friend Nikalix has invited you to join the worlds premier fashion community at Miss Bimbo.com.

Miss Bimbo.com is a free to join community of fashion conscious girls, ladies and women. Enter fashion contests, make friends, socialise and gossip amongst the largest female population on the internet.

Click the link above to accept your invite and proceed to the coolest place on the web.



See you soon on Miss Bimbo!



The Miss Bimbo team

http://www.missbimbo.com

First of all, I laughed because I wouldn't say I'm fashion conscious. And then, I laughed when I checked out the site.



And then I thought how ridiculous it sounded:

Are you ready to become Queen of the Bimbos!?!

Then I clicked on the Blouzar Ltd. link at the bottom, and was somewhat surprised to find Papermint listed under the "Our Games" header.

And then I was actually reading the Papermint site, and this part caught my eye:

Escape to a cute 3D world!

And then I realised that I kind of dislike ongoing-virtual-worlds that are there for people to "escape" to, because it makes me sad that people feel the need for an escape from life. A brief retreat? Fine. But a full on escape from life...?

A game to me is a bit of fun. It should be no substitute for real life - the biggest game of all.

Happy Mummy's Day

The Internet told me it was Mummy's Day, so I made this video.



I didn't actually spend an entire day making it - it's currently 5:26pm and blue-sky outside, which means I've still got part of my day left to do some texturing and schtuff :)

The Butterfly Project with Ollie Elliott, and Dealing with Shizz.

We got a B12 in all areas and [surprise surprise] a B12 overall on it. Nice one.

Time to up the game I think though. My personal life is beginning to distress me to the point where I start getting in a childish strop over silly little things that don't really matter. I have two options.

1. Focus on my personal life and all it's silly little annoyances.
I could talk all day about how this would be a bad idea. The amount of energy I've been spending on tolerating situations I don't like is ridiculous. I could try putting more energy into it and try to figure out what to do about it all, but I think I my time would best be spent writing articles on Uncyclopedia about Carew's evil robot sheep [watch this space]. Or I could try option 2.

2. Focus on my professional skills, and let my personal life sort itself out.
Let's take a leaf out of the Tao-te Ching. I'll be honest, I've only read bits and bobs about the Tao, but I'm under the impression that if I'm struggling AND things are still going wrong, then there must be better ways of doing things. Someone said energy flows where attention goes, so if I spend so much time worrying about annoying things, they'll just grow out of proportion in my mind. Which they definitely have been.

"Doritos: King Of The Ads"

Scott gave me the last of his Doritos the other day.


The packet says if you make and enter the best advert by the end of April, they will put it on the TV and pay you for it... I'm seriously consider trying it, if I have the time. I'm also going to let my film-making friends know about it, because making short funny videos should be right up their street :D

WOF: "Look ma, no hands!"

No longer a floating head of doom, but still needs hands and feet.


The one on the left is the view of the actual polygons, the center one is what it looks like when I press [3] for the smoothed view, and the right one is... possibly asleep.

One of the things I Love about Humans.

I love how we can take One thought, One idea, One concept, and express that in so many different ways.

A Look.

A gesture..... An action.
A sensation. An experience.
A word. A voice. A song. A tune.
A sound. A video. A picture. A color.
A shape. A movement. A dance.
A story. A poem. A book.
A puzzle. A game.
A blog. A list.
A graph.
A...

And haha, the next post shall be my 69th.

WOF: Floating Cardinal head... of Doom.

I'm basically relearning how to model in Maya, except better than I knew it before, because I'm using orthographics properly. I think.

"Avatar da Hip Hop Musical on Ice"

Some friends of mine had to do a "hip hop musical based on Avatar" for their course. Check this out:

Essay Idea: Binaural audio / HRTF

Okay, I've changed my mind. I'm going to find out and write about binaural audio in games, because binaural audio is cool. Although, my question could be to do with what impact the research on binaural audio can have on digital games. Should be cool.

If you've never heard this before: put on headphones, close your eyes, and press play.



I found the following video just now - it's not quite to do with binaural audio, but it's pretty cool anyway.

If you read the whole of this entry: Haha, you must be bored :)

Today, I didn't do any work.

And by didn't do any work I mean, I did read some articles about the possible futures of gaming for ideas on what to write my essay on. I also went to a gymnasticy gym and learned how to front-flip into a foam pit with and without a trampoline. And then jumped out of my friend's [slow] moving van when he dropped me off - everyone else had and he said I had to too, so I did, because I'm a ninja in progress...

But I didn't do any Wings of Fate work.

Somehow, I managed to get the animatic done by yesterday afternoon, so I didn't need today free for emergency work-overflow. I spose I didn't need to spend any time creating audio with which to sync the scenes to because I wrote it out onscreen as subtitles for easy adjustment, so it didn't take as long as I'd anticipated.

Although, I could have spent some time taking the slides and putting them into a tidy printoutable storyboard doc, but I thought my time today might best be spent beating the "Smelly Unsociable Gamer" stereotype out of existence by doing womanly things like cleaning clothes to make sure I had clean socks and tops and tights.

...And learning how to be a ninja. Because as I learned in last Thursday's lecture: primary sources are the best. So it's better to make games about ninjas after you've tried being one for a day. Or two. Or three. I'm currently on a mission to learn how to front flip on grass without any aiding bouncyness. I think I've got diving rolls pretty much down.

Grow my pretties, grow!

During the research for Squeak's desk, I found that plants are supposed to help in the area of creativity. Failing a real nice pot plant on the desk, a tree outside the window is supposed to improve mood.


Two of my cooking onions started sprouting. I've put them in cups of water on my window sill to see what will happen. All I've noticed in the past few hours is bubbles appearing and the water turning very slightly brown.


Perhaps if they live and grow, their presence will improve my mood and creativity. Maybe I'll stick googly eyes on them and make a film about them having a conversation.

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Day 2: 11:30AM
The water is now twice as brown as it was, the one on the right being a slightly yellower hue. I've taken photos but for some reason the bluetooth connection between my phone and laptop is failing. [Update: Bluetooth now works..]


Most of the bubbles have disappeared, but I've noticed the one on the right developing lots of furry little hairs. I think it's mould regrowth, because it was starting to go a little mouldy under the outer layer, but I decided to try salvaging it because it wasn't really squishy and had the biggest shoot. It possibly won't survive. I put a tiny bit of antibacterial Listerine in the right one to see what would happen...

I feel like a mad scientist.

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Day 3: 01:00AM
Just got back from AberG, where a massive cookie was made and Father Ted was watched [I now have a song about a lovely horse in my head]. It seems the Listerine hasn't done that much to stop the tiny hairs growing in the right one, as there's now possibly 2 or 3 times as much underwater fluff as there was before. Although it does smell like Listerine, which can only be a good thing. And the water in it has turned a much darker tint, but not cloudy. I wasn't expecting that.

As for the left one, the water level seems to have dropped more than the right one, even counting the Listerine I added [it wasn't that much at all]. I'll take a photo tomorrow morning when it's daylight outside, it might show the fluff better.


12:20pm: I've decided not to put anymore photos up on this post, except for especially interesting occurrences... I will continue to take a picture daily however, and will probably edit them into a video. The right mould-grower seems to be doing fine apart from the mould, I'm fairly sure the shoot is still growing.

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Day 4: 01:45PM
THEY'RE GROWING NEW ROOTS!! ^_^
And both shoots are definitely growing :D My brother suggested I change the water, so I've given them some fresh stuff.

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Day 7: 03:45PM
The one with mould on. She's still ALIVE.


As for the other one, I put it into my bathroom to see if the dark would make it grow a bit faster. It hasn't really. Not sure why.


Day... whatever day the 10th of March is: 10:37PM
BEAST!!

I'm naming her "Medusa" after my brother's odd comment on the subject of growing onions. The other onion is sprouting well now, I think I'll name it "Kaa", after that discussion I had with some friends in which we couldn't remember the name of the snake from The Jungle Books. Cheers, google. I think there's another onion sprouting in the cupboard. I might put it in another cup and try a spot of time-lapse filming on it.

Day... whatever day the 27th of March is: 10:37PM
Haha, and I thought they were beast before.

The new addition is doing well. Kaa seems to be quite small compared to Medusa regarding shoots, but has 3 groupings while Medusa has 2 [nice, considering I live in flat KA3]. I'm thinking of renaming them as Kaaa and Metusa. When it comes to roots, Medusa's seem comparatively short. Oh! And I've only just noticed, by the roots on Kaa and Medusa have started branching.

"Who knows what tomorrow will bring?"

I'm listening to an RJD2 Breezeblock Mix or something. It's just under half an hour long, and there's a bit I keep wanting to listen to that starts around 25 minutes in.

"Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Maybe sunshine, and maybe rain.
But as for me, I'll wait and see.
Maybe it'll bring my love to me, who knows.

Who knows?"

So, today's post is about the future. Sort of.

---

After the lecture yesterday, we had a sort of seminar with Corrado. It was more of a, "put your names down for the slot you want for ten minutes of feedback". I did get the last slot, but then I gave it up to someone else because they were on their way to campus and would have got here for nothing if there were no slots left for them.

But before I left to go sort out where I'm going to live next year, Corrado mentioned to me that there was something he wanted to talk to me about next week regarding my essay. I was like, yep, okay. But then he said don't worry, but there is something I wanted to discuss. Then the automatic thing happened that usually happens when someone puts the word "don't" in front of the word "worry".

After I read back my essay for the first time since handing it in, I noticed a silly mistake or two, as well as the fact that I didn't really like how I'd written it [I was very tired and at my wits end after trying to finish a 30second flash FMV in the same night]. So now I'm trying to forget about it and relax into the fact that if it turns out I've done terribly, I would probably have done better had I not made the paired FMV project with Ben my priority over the essay [I'm not actually sure how I've done in that project either yet, but we'll see].

---

Back to the topic of the Thursday lectures: they've been about essays and research. It sounds boring when I write it like that, but the actual lectures have been pretty interesting to me. The next essay we're doing is going to be the introduction to the dissertations we'll write in our third year, and we were set the task of thinking of a broad area within games or animation on which to concentrate.

I, as usual, didn't know off the top of my head what I wanted to do. So I did a little soul search [woohoo for google] to find out what I'm all about. I think I wanted to see if I could compare what I found to the ideas and work I had come up with in the past.

I found out a while ago that I'm an "Idealist", possibly an ENFJ [Teacher] according to one online test. I could go on forever about how this matches me, but I won't do that here right now. One of the key things about Idealists is the idea that while Artisans live in the now, Guardians live in the past and Rationals live in the "eternal", Idealists tend to live in the future, in the world of possibilities and "what if". Sounds just like me.

It's true that, while I keep a lot of my old journals so that I can look back through them now and then, I don't actually spend much of my time reading through them. I spend a lot more of my time imagining the future and the possibilities and outcomes of my actions. I do it in all aspects of my life. I do it when I "shuffle paper" in my artbook because I don't want to stick anything down just yet. I do it when I write notes about characters for stories I could write one day. I do it when I have a billion conversations with people in my head and try to imagine their responses, but then never go on to actually have those conversations with them for real. I do it when I read about things that have been invented recently and think how they'd effect events in the world.

And then it hit me. Why don't I write mine on the future of gaming? I may have to narrow down the topic to something more specific like "The future of the games industry" or "The future of games in education" or "How games can help people in the future" or "How games can evolve in the future". But it's definitely a subject area that would engage me.

Haven't written a post in over a fortnight!?!?!

How naughty of me. The Interaction thing came and went, but apparently there wasn't enough drive or momentum in most of the groups because only three people including myself turned up to the showing... we ended up watching inspiring videos on Youtube on the big screen :D

Sebastian's Voodoo. I saw this ages ago and can't believe I forgot about it. It's so beautiful. Totally still makes me cry, haha

Watched this later in the evening with friends, but still posting it up because it's another one I'd forgotten about and couldn't believe I had. I love it.

My group didn't finish our film/animation, I think mostly due to technical difficulties [with not being allowed to use uni equipment, e.g. cameras, for it for some reason]. Shame. But never mind, Hains has said he still wants to finish it eventually because it would be a good showpiece for him. It probably wouldn't do that much for me except possibly teach me how to put film and animation together maybe, but if it'll help out Hains then I'm happy to help finish it.

As for actual course work, we've got a new project underway, 8 of us CGD designers working with 3 of the Games & Artificial Intelligence dudes. We seem to have a good group going people-wise, but we've got the brief that was rejected by one of the groups last year. Not sure exactly why they rejected it because we like the idea and are pretty happy to work on it. Here's the brief we're working from on the website Pete set up for the group. I may have to set up a blog especially for Wings of Fate pre-pro and production work.

"Interaction"

Went to a meeting last Friday - my friend Dave Ware has set up a little independant-of-uni event going on where people from different courses meet up and work on a project together for a couple of weeks, with the aim being to help people network. Basically we have to create a piece [be it performance, film, animation or game] under the theme of Interaction.

The group I'm in consists of Matt Hains and Matt Lee from 1st year Film and Video, Ollie Elliot from 2nd year CGD, and moi. So far the plan is to create a film/animation of a looping relay race, where live action, 2D animated and 3D CGI characters interact and pass a baton between eachother.

Here's a quick idea for Mr. 2D, based on a run cycle guide I found online. Not sure why but the animation sort of skips on the last few cycles..



For some reason, possibly because of my experience during the AIR project, I feel like doing some side entries done just by myself. There are soo many things you could do for this theme. Recently I went climbing at Boulders in Cardiff, and also went to a Capoeira session with Dave, and both of those things involve interactions...

I think I'll do it if I think of anything good, but won't neccessarily show them at the screening thing. We'll see. Hehe.

And then I was like, Yay

19th January 2010: FMV Critique

Well, Richard wasn't there because he came a week earlier because that was when he was free, and Babsi wasn't there today, but Surman says she will be looking at the work with him during assessment, which will be happening over the next couple of weeks. But I quite liked the feedback we got in the crit, especially the bit where Surman said the cutting and editing was good :D I think the main issue was the way the quick cutting was at odds with the complexity of the characters, so I mentioned the idea Ben had of doing like little animated shorts about each individual character. Kinda like the Team Fortress 2 ones.

In other news, I was chatting to my friend Sam today about what constructive things I could be doing over the next two weeks. He mentioned that he was intending to get some video's for teaching people Parkour, and what kind of things I'm able to animate. I think I'd quite like to help him with this. They'd be like live-action diagrams with labels showing things like centre of gravity. If I did help, I would definitely learn something about Parkour. That would be cool.

Urghh. My brain is hurting.

Handed in my essay and the FMV today. There was a sound issue where I'd imported some narration, but for some reason it was playing twice as fast and was high pitched, while none of the other sounds were. I felt well proud when I figured out how to fix it :D Also I've noticed that I learned how to change the volume of audio in flash, that'll come in very useful.

I finished the FMV first this morning at like 4am I think, and then started finishing my essay. My laptop was really hot though, so I paused to let my laptop cool down, but I ended up falling asleep. Luckily my alarm went off at 10am and woke me up thinking "Huh? Where am I?" because I'd been having some strange dream, whose details I couldn't actually remember. Then I checked through my essay and it was kinda weird because I could think slightly better, so those two hours ish of sleep actually might have helped.

Then before noon I went to hand in with Ben, then found out I didn't have to hand my essay in right away, so I went back to mine to tidy up the Research section [I had more links than some other people, yay for thorough research], commonly known as a Bibliography - except I didn't want to call it that because most of my research involved looking at the opinions of people which they had posted on the 'net, as opposed to stuff I'd read in books.

As for the FMV, I don't like it anymore. I'm not sure whether it's because I actually don't like it, or if it's because I know who did what so that differences in style jump out at me, or if it's because I've been stressing about it for the past 7 days because I wanted it DONE a week early so that we could have a whole week to polish it, as opposed to the zero minutes we had instead because the "proper" slides were only started on... what was it...? Friday? Grr.

Or if it's cos of the associated pain of the horrible horrible brain ache I now have because of all this intense concentrating I've been doing on it to try to get it finished combined with the slight sleep deprivation. I hate "crunch time". I hate deadline stress. I hate knowing that despite spending considerably less time procrastinating than I have done in the past and focussing over the Christmas holidays [which contained not just Christmas and New Years, but also my birthday] on work instead of play, I STILL had to pull an all nighter.

The moral of the story is that video games are evil, and that I want to be a recluse artist philosopher who answers only to herself and lives in a pretty mansion cottage with a tree that fairies live in outside for me to look at when I feel like looking at a tree or climbing one, but isn't actually a recluse because she has lots of friends that invite her around to watch films all the time or to play truth or dare or to have an innocent massage party.

I'm halfway there.

"Ti Ob"

Since last night, I've been taking another look at what the message that the team are looking for could say. Here's a section from my notes:

The story would end in the successful instance with the designers finding an ancient creed, which reflects the holder’s image, that says “LOOK FROM WITHIN.”

Or, they find a glass object, with a nonsensical inscription on it…

“…What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“Fuck it, why don’t we just make another action game. We can base it on what we‘ve just had to do to get here.”

They then make this very game that the players have just completed.

Basically, the characters would be looking at the message the wrong way round and wouldn't understand it, but because they have to make a game anyway, they just go ahead and make one about themselves.

“LOOK FROM WITHIN” “NIHTIW MORF KOOL”

“THE IDEAS COME FROM YOU” “UOY MORF EMOC SAEDI EHT”

“THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX” “XOB EHT EDISTUO KNIHT”

“LOOK AROUND YOU” “UOY DNUORA KOOL”

“USE YOUR HEAD” “DAEH RUOY ESU”

“LOOK AT YOURSELVES” “SEVLESRUOY TA KOOL”

“LOOK AT OURSELVES” “SEVLESRUO TA KOOL”

“OBSERVE YOURSELVES” “SEVLESRUOY EVRESBO”

“EVERYTHING” “GNIHTYREVE”

“LOOK AT US ALL” “LLA SU TA KOOL”

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME FOR” “ROF EM TA GNIKOOL UOY ERA TAHW”

“WHATEVER WILL BE WILL BE” “EB LLIW EB LLIW REVETAHW”

“MAKE A GAME” “EMAG A EKAM”

“JUST DO IT” “TI OD TSUJ”

Then I thought this:

“DO IT” “TI OD”

or better:

"dO iT” “Ti Ob”

I stopped there cos I quite like this idea. For a start, it's simple.

It fits in with the genre the game is aiming to be - a beat'em up action adventure.

It also fits in with the idea that games are supposed to be interactive. The player doesn't just watch, like they would watch a movie, or just listen, like they would listen to a piece of music or a story being told to them. To move the game along, they have to do. You could say the language of game is doing.

I hear that showing people in cinematics that the character they play is a certain way can be better than simply telling them that the character is that way, and expecting them to go along with it. I hear that it's even better to work it into the game's mechanics or the gameplay. Think Sonic the Hedgehog. Probably wouldn't quite work if Sonic was the protagonist of a game that turned out to be like Farmville or something [I probably shouldn't say that, since I've not actually played Farmville. But I imagine that it's a slow paced game, that involves a lot of waiting around for stuff to grow before you can harvest them].

"Do it" can also be quite wise advice in regards to any goal someone wants to accomplish, in that sometimes it's better to just try something and see if it works, and then learn from that then develop a new plan and try that, rather than sit around forever thinking about how to get it perfect the first time.

I had an idea that completing the game could unlock a short humorous animation explaining why the object say "Ti Ob", where the glass object is on a pedestal in a temple or something that feels a bit like an art museum. It starts off saying "dO iT" and then some naughty person comes along and looks at it, and chuckles, wanting to make some mischief, and the object is there looking at him, telling him to dO iT, so he does, and sneaks under the barrier to swivel it the wrong way round, so that it doesn't make sense anymore. Hehehe.

Headphone Jack: Version 3.0, and the other updates

Just noticed that I seem to have changed Jack's personality from what it was before, although he looks exactly the same. He isn't such a soppy git now:

Headphone Jack [The Sound Designer]
When he’s not slinking around like a self loathing cat, quietly contemplating the shadows and tortures of the world, or tinkering with technology to make it “better”, he’s a reckless, risk-taking cowboy. If you piss him off, he’ll jump on your head and torture you through music with his wonderful view of the world.

I think the change happened when I moved the bonsai tree off his desk and onto Squeak's. Speaking of Squeak, I've revised the description of her as well, although there aren't many major changes to her story:

Squeak [The Visual Designer]
Once upon a time, she lived on a ship as a princess of the pirates. Feeling like there was more to life than stealing from others, she rebelled, and ran away to assume a new creative identity as a games designer. She didn’t leave everything behind however, and retained a love of pretty or glittery things. Unfortunately, she found that her high pitched voice caused some people to not take her seriously and earned her the nickname “Squeak”. She was not amused.

She'll still use glue to stick people to stuff in the game, I've just taken that bit out of the brief personality descriptions. I may as well post the other descriptions up as I've written them just now...

I've just noticed that if you take the first letters from "Jagged", "Angry", "Blunt" and "Straight-to-the-point", you get "JABS". That sounds like a good name to me for the Key dude, seeing as I've noticed a lot of confusion in some people regarding this character. I only called him the Key cos he looked like one, but people were reading into it a bit much, saying, "Is he the key figure?" or something about how he shouldn't be the programmer because the key role in games design seems to them to be something else. So:

Jabs [The Programmer]
Easily frustrated and quick to anger, “psychotic” is often the first impression he gives off. Sometimes he feels like he’s surrounded by morons - that he’s the only one who can see things for what they really are, and copes by insulting everyone with his sarcastic, dry sense of humour. He doesn’t hate everything, however, and has a passion for [brutal] acrobatic movement. He may have no legs, but that doesn’t mean he can’t kick ass.

The BigOomphGuy I've started to call BOG, because I can't be bothered to keep typing "BigOomphGuy" when I write about him. Whether he finally ends up just being called BOG though remains to be seen..

BOG [The Manager, or Team Director]
He’s the “big boss man” of the operation, trying to co-ordinate the efforts of the rest of the team. Despite being taller than everyone, the unfortunate position of his face means he wrestles with the fact that he has to look up at everyone everyday… resulting in a strange “mean-little-man” mental complex.

And finally, the little potato guy, who's name we shorted to Po, partly cos I thought it was funny that he was supposed to be a little shit and the German term for the bum is "das Po" or something.

Po [The.. What’s his job again?]
Po is, basically, a cocky little runt. He wears a tie to work and thinks he’s a pro, but the rest of the team don’t actually pay much attention to him. They’re not even sure how Po came to be on the team. What they don’t see yet is the fact that, while Po may not be all he makes himself out to be, his imagination, ideas and determination are a force to be reckoned with.

Thing is, I randomly had a thought today that our game reminded me of Kung Fu Panda, what with the one character who's all lame and stuff but he's with this other people who are pros at what they do, but then he turns out to have a vital skill or something. Also the part about a special item, ours initially being:

"The story would end (in the successful instance) with the designers finding an ancient creed, which reflects the holder's image, that says "LOOK FROM WITHIN". They then make this very game that the players have just completed"

Then I googled Kung Fu Panda, cos I needed reminding about what actually happens in the movie. I'll be honest, I was surprised when I read that the Dragon Scroll was reflective, and then freaked out when I realised that the main character was also called Po.

Seriously, WTF.

It's not too bad though, because I realised the moral of Kung Fu Panda was that there was no special ingredient, that all you needed was to believe.
Our is slightly different, because ours focuses more on the power and importance of the imagination. Sorta.

Oh shit.. wait.. that's not different at all, is it 0_o

Story Telling in Games, and how I'd like my own secret time machine.

During my research for the essay I'm writing on emotional realism in Mirror's Edge, I found out that it was written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Terry Pratchett. When I was checking out the interviews section of her website, I found some articles that tugged on the strings of the storyteller in me.

I've been told I'm rubbish at story telling - when telling stories face to face, that is - but I also remember a time when I was good at writing stories, and not only good, I really enjoyed it. There's a big difference between telling stories off the top of your head and writing them, and that difference is in editing time. There's also a big difference between writing stories for games, and writing stories for books - in games you have to keep interaction of the player in mind...

Before I start getting too much into the idea of story telling in games though, I should probably finish my essay. Oh how I love deadlines.

Speaking of deadlines, I've noticed some of the blogs of the others in my course, and I'm worried I haven't been mean enough. A time machine would be handy so that I could tell my past self to tell santa not to get Ben a PS3, because I feel like we're behind on our project. I also kind of wish I didn't have to do the essay at the same time, because I keep fretting about whether I should spend more time on the essay or more time on the FMV, which just wastes more time. I also feel like I'd be getting more work done if I were in my room at uni. Life at home is not the best work environment for me, seeing as I keep getting moved from room to room with no desk of my own here, and often have one sister telling me to "Do something productive and tidy up!"

Unfortunately I have no time machine to help me with my time-fretting, nor a teleporter to teleport me to my uni room, so it seems I shall have to learn to stop thinking and start doing again.

Imagekind - Would you like a pretty picture for your pennies?

I've always liked the idea of walking into someone's home and finding a picture I've done, looking all pro, hanging up on one of their walls. So when I came across this Imagekind site that will sell prints of my images [that is, assuming anyone wants to buy any of them] looking all nice on posh paper or on canvas or framed up in a proper glass frame, I couldn't resist checking it out :) I've got a couple of images up on there at the mo, and a third is on it's way.

Since when does it snow in January here? :D

Had a bit of a play in the snow today, got a few nice action shots of my sisters throwing snow at eachother, tehehe :D

My surname is not actually pronounced "geezmun".

Before coming to the realisation that I will live until at least the age of 120, I joined some sites in a frenzied panic, just incase games design is the direction I end up going to for my career. Here they are, in order of creation.

- YouTube: I already had a YouTube account, but I decided to let that be my personal piss-about account, and made myself an account especially for professional porpoises. And yes, I do realise what I just wrote.

- dAportfolio: So, I checked out my deviantART account recently [it's been feeling extremely neglected], and it turns out they have this new thing where they let you have a "portfolio" site for free, and it's all nice and simple and easy. Why not, I thought.

- deviantART: My first dA account was under the username Marlwood, but since I've noticed that there is a school with that name somewhere, I'm claiming the name Geezmun.

- theGreatGamesExperiment: I can't remember how I came across this, but it looked helpful, so I signed up.

- IGDA: I was reading up on Robyn Hunicke to see what projects she's been involved in, and then came across the IGDA. Again, looked helpful, but I've only signed up with a free membership at the moment, instead of a paid Student membership.

Oh, and "Gyseman" is pronounced "Guys-man", if you were wondering.

In other news, my sister just showed me this. I love CollegeHumor, tehehe.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The End of the Naughties. Cough, I mean, Noughties.

Maybe it's because this year is the year I leave my teenage years behind, but I have been freaking out about my future during the past couple of days. In 10 days, I will be 20, and then 10 years after that, I will be 30. And so, I'm not going to make any New Year's Resolutions [...as if I even remember what they were by the end of the year. I definitely don't remember whether I made any last year, let alone what they were].

Instead, I'm going to make New Decade's Resolutions. This is a list of things I intend to do by the time we reach 2020. And yes, I intend to live past 2012, and expect everyone else to do so too [except for perhaps Michael Jackson, Brittany Murphy, and all the people I have actually met who ended up passing away in the past year. There were far too many of you]. I caught the last ten years of the 20th century, made it to the 21st century, and fancy seeing how things go into the 22nd century. I don't think it's too ambitious. But anyhoo's, onto the list:

1. Go to the Philippines

This is where my mother was born, and where I was conceived [...TMI?]. It seems that all I need to do this is to get myself a passport, and then wait for a time where I'm free and can tag along with the Fam when there's a nice deal going on.

2. Get a provisional driver's license

I think it would be nice to at least have the ability to drive, but mostly this is for ID purposes. It really wazzes me off when I find that a night out with friends gets sidetracked because I look young. As for actually learning to drive, I was originally going to learn ASAP, but now I don't really intend to start until at least after I have finished uni [...if ever].

3. Invent a new language for an imaginary world

I've always wanted to, and I don't see why I haven't started already. It'll probably be a mix of allsorts of languages, like Filipino, and english slang, and nonsense. All I have to do is get an English dictionary, take my pick of the words I want involved in my new language, and then write my translations next to them. Haha.

4. Set up my Life as an "adult"

This is the big one, the main thing that is freaking me out at the moment. At this moment in time, I do not intend to end up living at home in The Shire after leaving uni. Mostly because I dislike being told to tidy up a mess in the house by my sisters, because after living in my own space at uni I know that I'm not a particularly messy person. Or maybe I've just gotten used to being able to come and go entirely as I please.

...I did write a couple more paragraphs here, stressing about where to find a nice place, with nice people, and getting a nice job, and I'll marry a nice man like the lady in The Notebook, blah blah blah. I'll get there eventually, wherever there might be. When I think about my plan to live to see the next century, it kinda puts the timescale into perspective. But then, that just leads me back to the question: Other than live to see the next century, what do I really want to do with the time I have on this planet?

It's a bitch of a question. I think I'll let myself sleep on it.

Cheers, Steam Sale :)

I was quite stuck on what to write my 2000 word essay on, seeing as I was going to write about how Fable 2 expresses an emotional realism and yet couldn't really remember how it went, nor could I really replay it as I don't own any form of Xbox nor the game...

Enter the Steam Holiday Sale.

I bought myself Mirror's Edge for some lovely cheap price. Never played it before but I'm liking it, despite causing Faith to die a lot because I'm not very good [yet... well, I'm playing on easy, and she's dying lots even when there's no one shooting at her... hah..]. Although I did somehow seem to get quite good when I had to chase Jacknife around the rooftops before he grabbed a loose pole [*snigger*], but that was probably because I thought that if he could do it, then it could be done.

So, I'm still answering the same question [“While photorealistic animation and gaming visuals offer a graphic realism, in what ways have contemporary titles such as Half Life 2 (Valve, 2004) succeeded or failed in expressing an emotional realism?”], but I'm now doing my essay on Mirror's Edge.

I noticed earlier today that the question says "expressing", not "creating", which might be a little trickier for me because I keep noticing the ways it creates emotion in the player [which one has to argue is probably real if the player is really experiencing things like adrenaline rushes and satisfaction from getting it right and stuff.. ? Yeah... We established in the seminar sesh's that the term "emotional realism" has to be carefully defined...]. But I don't think "expressing" and "creating" are quite the same enough for me to go too deeply into it. We'll see, maybe I can carefully word it into a loophole, cos I'm finding it quite interesting.

And yeah... If you're anything like me [constantly being told to play more games], then go check out the Steam Holiday Sale and see if anything takes your fancy :)

Warning: The following article contains lots of unBleeped Bleeps.

I like the fact that Rage Against The Machine's single Killing in the Name is number one this Christmas. It illustrates some of the things I learned during the Games and Animation Studies module regarding the fact that [THIS IS NOT A PIPE].

Sometime in the past week, I saw what I thought was a silly but well written article that claimed that the Rage Campaign means nothing [unfortunately, I've totally forgotten who's FB profile I saw the link on, and I can't find it again]. I can't remember the logic behind it. It could have been the thing about both tracks being done by Sony, as opposed to an indie band being chosen instead of RATM, or about no one caring about Christmas No.1 one anymore, or something...

If I could have been bothered to register to the site to state what I thought [and I rarely am, this seems to happen a lot], I would have told him that people will attach meanings to anything they want to, regardless of whether he, the article writer, thinks it means anything or not. We can't help it. Take the word "FUCK", for example.

Warning: The following video contains the word "FUCK".

Some people are offended by the word "FUCK" - but why? "FUCK" by itself is not offensive. It's just four letters of the alphabet arranged in a certain way, representing the sound someone makes when they say "Fuck." At some point, people decided that "FUCK" means.. well, all of the things it means in the video above, amongst other things. You could switch the word "FUCK" around with the word "PIPE", and all that would change fundamentally is the word used to represent the things that "FUCK" and "PIPE" represent. And what thing or meaning does the word "FUCK" even represent? It means many things... which means whether the word "FUCK" is offensive or not depends entirely on the context.

The only time people should be offended by the word "FUCK" is when it is used in a context where offense is intended towards them. However, if they are aware that the word "FUCK" is sometimes used to offend, they can get offended whether they were supposed to or not.

The BBC had to apologise after RATM started swearing at the end of a live performance of KitN on Radio 5.

The general public shouldn't be offended by the word "FUCK" in the line "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me," because taken in context, it's not even aimed at them. They are not the "you" in "Fuck you", and in the same way, pissing Simon Cowell off or bullying Joe McElderry was not the reason I bought a copy of KitN. But some people do get offended because they may feel the rebellious energy behind the statement, and feel it is directed at them [okay, I'll acknowledge the fact that pissing off Cowell or taking the piss out of McElderry was on some people's minds, but those people were not representative of the whole campaign].

Now that I've been thinking about it, it seems kinda odd that to make a statement with a swearword in it less offensive, we would Bleep out the swearword. How does replacing an expletive with a bleep make the statement any less offensive? Is it to make the listener feel like they have someone on their side, if they are of the offend-able persuasion?

Hey, we're going to to play you a song with swearwords in, but we know you might not like them, so we've Bleeped them out for you. What's that? Why not remove them entirely instead of Bleeping over what must clearly be something offensive enough to be Bleeped over? Oh.. I dunno.. But I don't fancy the artist coming round to the studio, and Bleeping me up the Bleeping Bleep for messing with their message.

The Games Developers Characterers

Check out this post for the previous Character Mini-Bios.

Here are the [almost] final characters all nicely drawn out.. :)

Squeak: An ex-Pirate princess, she ran away from home to join the Games Industry as an artist, because she thought there was more to life than just pillaging treasures. She's really good at arts and crafts, and by that I mean, sticking people to things [such as the floor] using glue, and, dare I say it, chucking glitter at people. Meh, why not, it's pretty. I changed her hair to make her look more feminine, an then invented the new back story now that her hair looks a little like a tiara from the front, but a mohawk from the side; rebellious royalty that she be.

I did this today in Maya to see if it works in 3D. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

Keydude: Mr Angry&Jagged on one hand, but Blunt&Straight-to-the-Point on the other. He's rather good at being brutally acrobatic. After a little bit of discussion, we've decided to round his head off a bit, cos he looks a little bit too straight in amongst the other characters. Not sure yet if I'll make it properly round, or just slightly. I'll probably go with slightly. Also may remove those stumpy little legs of his seeing as he doesn't really use them [check out this guy for one-limbed awesomeness].

Some quick drawings of Keydude doing a cartwheel and a breakdance move that may or may not be called a swipe:

Jack: The Sound Guy, who is like some kinda emo, cowboy, Earth child, cat thing, with headphones for legs and a headphone jack for a tail. He's depressed because he's really into nature and feels like industries are ruining it, but that there's nothing he can do about it but go with the flow. Conversely, he likes to tinker with sound technology. Maybe cos he's kind of made of it and it seems perfectly natural to him. He walks like a cowboy strutting, can use his tail like a lasso, and jumps on peoples heads to play them music out of his headphone-feet. Don't think I need to really change anything on this guy at the moment. Do need to try modelling him up in maya to check how he looks in 3D though.

And here are the ones Ben designed:

GamesTesters: I don't really know the full story behind these guys yet, but I do know that they are intended to be NPCs in the game, and that they are generally always together. I think we've changed it so that there are now only two of them.

BigOomphGuy: The guy keeping everyone else in order. He can't stand being told what to do due to his strange mean-little man complex, which is why he's satisfied with a role that allows him to tell everyone else what to do. And let's face it, who would dare push him THAT far? Just need to define the face a bit better on this guy, through some colouring on the nipples. Cough, I meant, colouring on the eyes. And possibly move the eyes up a tiny bit.

Po: He's a little runt. Nobody knows what the point is of having him around, but they don't really care to ask. Nobody takes him seriously. They let him sit at his desk, furiously scribbling away. But when he gets really worked up, his imagination becomes a force to be reckoned with; literally. Shadows from his mind spring up behind him, and he controls them like puppets. Apparently this was the weakest looking character in design terms, so we're giving him some hair possibly and a tie to break up the "weird neck thing" he's got going on, and to give him some more detail. Also, he thinks he looks more pro because he wears a tie to work, and he thinks it's awesome that he makes games for a living. If he had any friends outside of work, chances are he would brag to them about it.

Bayonetta

Surman was talking about this the other day, and I hadn't heard of it. Sounded interesting..

Bayonetta

So.. she's a glasses wearing, four-guns-named-Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme-wielding, long legged, sexy, witch, mum with a British accent.. is it? Even if that's not quite right, I'm still definitely intrigued. I want to get it, play it, and then let my sisters play it and see what they say. The last badass lady they played was probably Lara Croft.

Yr2Proj2/"Game Designers"/We-really-need-to-come-up-with-a-decent-name-for-this-thing

Just chucked the characters together to see how they look together, and then messed with filters and such about a billion times on Photoshop...

I totally forgot to add the ActorMan though...

So far we've got a Concept Doc [a lame half hour effort because we thought the first pitch was supposed to be powerpoint stylee], which I need to update and expand a bit more, and the storyboard, which I need to redo the images for as they were pretty much quick little thumbnails done in my notebook and then uploaded to the doc via a camera phone...

Oh, I didn't explain on here what the game actually was, did I?

Basically, it's a humorous cartoony pisstake of games designers in the games industry trying to make the perfect game.

Here are the mini-bio's attached to the Storyboard- names used may differ from final product ;) See if you can figure out which is which in the picture.

Po [The... What's his job again? A.K.A. Little "Stereotype" Guy]

The team don’t quite know what his job actually is in the office, so they’ve decided to make him be in the commercial for the new game they have produced. All he needs to do is sit quietly and play the game while Mr Actorman does his thing...

Mr Actorman [Voice actor, and Narrator in the commercial]

With his career in the film industry flailing, he’s left it for what he believes to be the way forward; the computer games industry. And almost everything he says sounds like an innuendo.

Mr MusicGuy [The Sound Engineer]

He’s a bit of an emo/scene kid, if emo/scene kids were made of headphone equipment.

Mr KeyDude [The Game Programmer]

He’s a bit angry, a lot of the time. And also rather violent. I guess you could replace “angry” and “violent” with the term “psychotic”.

Squeak [The Concept Artist]

So named for her squeaky, and kind of annoying now you mention it, voice. She’ll be the one trying to make everything look nice and pretty [and no, not with pink paint and glitter].

The BigOomphGuy [The Design Director Manager... Man]

He’s the “big boss man” of the operation, trying to co-ordinate the efforts of the rest of the team. Despite being taller than everyone, the unfortunate position of his face means he still has to look up at everyone... resulting in a strange “mean-little-man” complex.

The Game Testers

There are three of them... but only two are in the pic above. Unless one has invisibility powers that I didn't know about.