Jonathan Blow

My new (video game) hero is Jonathan Blow, the creator, designer, and programmer for the XBox 360 game Braid. Braid was created literally only by him and David Hellman, who did all the artwork. Unfortunately I haven't been able to play the game at all since I don't own a 360, but Jonathan is putting together a PC version that I will definitely buy the day it comes out. So far it has received literally the highest rating ever for a XBox Live Arcade game, and 10th highest ever for the console as a whole, and that says something.

What makes me so excited about this is that Jonathan is and always will be an independent game creator, doing nearly everything on his own. He does it not for the money, but for the love and the Art (yes, with a capital "A", more on that in another post I think), of video games. Video games can be a method of communicating an idea or concept rather than simply for entertainment - and this is something I've been looking for myself. Using video games to teach creates, I believe, a bright future for the medium.

Anyway, I've been reading an interview with Jonathan at gameculture.com, and I saw an incredible quote about video games and teaching that I wanted to save. Thus, the impetus for this blog post:

"...all games teach things and the way they teach is by guiding you toward the goal by giving you feedback about whether you are accomplishing your tasks successfully or not, and that entire guidance is a communications process."

This communications process is the essence of video games. Without effective communication between a video and a player, the player is lost and has no interest in continuing the game. I have a feeling Jonathan Blow and Braid will affect how Omnivore turns out in a deep and exciting way.

A New Year Begins

School year that is. I don't remember the last time I've been this busy - it's the craziest time of year for my job, my grad course started yesterday, and Emmet's Essentials has had more stuff going on in the last few weeks than probably ever.

My grad course this semester is Computer Graphics, and I'm incredibly excited for it. We'll be programming graphics with OpenGL and making some great looking stuff...

Man, it's hard to think right now. My brain is just fried... and I'm not seeing any rest in my future. This weekend we're heading to Burlington, Massachusetts for an Emmet's Essentials event. Tomorrow is the first day of classes at my job. Every night we're working on a big EE account for a person out in Oregon. I've got homework again for the first time in a month because of my grad class. All the equipment I've been programming for projection in the classrooms has been doing weird things and not working correctly.

Rest, relaxation, oh how I miss you...

Nintendo DS

It's happened! I've purchased my first-ever portable game system, the Nintendo DS. It is just plain great. Two screens, nice bright graphics, a stylus and touch screen, quality sound, awwwww yeah. First game: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. I've never played a game like this, a courtroom drama, and I'll say that I'm pulled in already. It's so exciting that I hardly know what to say!

Another sad day...

Wow, two in a row here, sorry about that. Yet another icon has died, this time George Carlin. Here's a link to his wikipedia page.

Carlin was in my opinion one of the funniest and most insightful people I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. I actually saw him live a couple years ago right here in Northampton, and it was an awesome show.

I don't want to get too morbid here, but I'll bet his funeral will be one to remember. He was certainly an unbeliever, and probably has it somewhere in his will that he not be buried in a cemetery. I'd say he wants people to laugh about his life - I think I'll find some youtube videos to watch to commemorate this genius of comedy!

Perfect! Here's a short 10 minute video of the man himself talking about death. I think this is the way he'd want everyone to remember him!

A Sad Day

Stan Winston, special effects master, died on Sunday. His work is one of the main reasons that today I love movies, computer animation, and special effects so much!

Drumming

Last Friday night we went to a party up in Goshen at probably the most amazing back yard I've ever had the pleasure to explore. There were stone walkways, iron and glass sculptures, a trickling stream with a little waterfall, a fish pond, and a big stone tower about 10 feet tall, among many other amazing sights. They had a large dragon head sticking straight up into the air with a place for a fire underneath, so when a fire was raging smoke would come out of the dragon's mouth.

I ate, I drank, and I had a really great time. At one point I joined a bunch of people playing drums, and I didn't stop for about two hours! I realized that I loved drumming. I used my hands, and when they hurt from too much rhythm, I asked for a drum stick, and used that.

I found that I have a very good ear for patterns and drum-slapping, and it is such a satisfying feeling to drum along with a whole group of other people. One guy, who happened to be really tall, actually came out in front of us and the fire and just made up words and sung a song as we played.

Then we moved over to another area that was larger so people could dance to our drum and cowbell playing. It was so amazing to watch people dance and move to the sounds that I was a part of creating! Then, it got really crazy - a couple people came out with these ball and chain things, but the balls were on fire. Their balls were burning, as it were! They swung them and looped them around like a battle straight from the middle ages.

The highlight of this time of the evening I'd say was when a woman came out with a hula hoop that had attachments along the outside that were on fire. Here I was, drumming loudly with a bunch of other people, to the sights of this woman using a flaming hula hoop. I'll never forget it!

Grad Class #2

Well, my second-ever grad course has started. I did incredibly well on the first one, and I'm really looking forward to this course, called Appropriate Web Technologies. You too can see my progress on this course - some work will be on display on my WPI webspace at http://www.wpi.edu/~damo/awt/

This course is online-only, so I won't have to drive to Worcester or Westborough every week. It's the first time I've ever taken a completely online course, though I certainly have tons of experience with online education thanks to my job. Judging from the course description and schedule, I'm going to be very busy in the next two months! I'll be learning a ton, and quite a bit of it will be stuff I've been wanting to learn for a long time (Ruby on Rails, more Javascript, etc.).

Here's to a great class!