Enigmatic Brain Mind

With a New Story Done, I Continue

2011-08-14T14:31:00.000-04:00

The latest story I finished, In Queue, was posted last week on Monday. The amount of view it has received was phenomenal! As well as the amount of positive feedback has received was jaw-dropping for me. Such feedback just keeps fueling motivation to continue writing. I think I found my place in this world: Creative Writing. I may have gotten my Bachelor's in Game and Simulation Programming, and I do enjoy what I do for a living. However, it has become just another job for me. Working the Unity Game Engine has been giving me good experience that I could use to get another job in the near future working with indie game companies. In the end though, I'm a creative writer, I am absolutely in love with writing. I create these worlds, characters, and scenes that people enjoy reading.

Now that I have finished In Queue, I have moved onto my next story which is nearing completion by the end of tonight. Proofreading and editing will commence tomorrow afternoon during my lunch break. This brings me to my next topic: My grammar sucks. It is absolutely horrible. How am I bettering myself as a writer? I am taking a grammar class at USF to amend my grammatical mistakes. I never liked editing my own work because I am one of those stubborn people who feels when I finish writing that I'm done. This is why I love my last story because In Queue opened a door I kept lock. For the first time I sat down to proofread and edit my work. For nearly a decade and a half when I wrote papers for school I would never ever edit it. I blame my stubbornness for the grammatical mistakes of now. I want to better myself as a writer to garner more fan base among people.

Now that I am proofreading and editing my own work, I decided to go back to read my first real venture into writing. I read The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter which is my work of genius in my opinion. That is what I thought until I sat down to read it, and I could not get passed the first page. It was so horrible! I kept stumbling through sentences, running out of breath with run-ons, and noticed common splices. The first page alone was riddled with grammatical errors! No wonder people I knew did not want to read it. For those who pushed themselves to read it from beginning to end; I thank and apologize for doing so! For almost a year now I been trying to get someone to proofread and edit it for me. But The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter is quite honestly beyond editing. When I was editing In Queue, I was able to edit 20 pages within a few days. The Departing Tale... is a little over 70 pages, so there is no excuse for me to sit down and edit it myself. Honestly, I'm not going to bother editing, I'm going to sit down and rewrite the entire novella. Logically it makes more sense because of all the grammatical errors is just too much.

I'm going to end this blog with thanking you all for stopping by and reading my endeavors in writing. I implore anyone out there to go after what they are passionate about. Peace and Love.

PS Just one more thing to mention: two people have messaged me saying I have inspired them to start their own writing projects. Hearing that just made me feel all kinds confident because to inspire people to go after something is an amazing feeling!

My Continuing Endeavors

2011-07-31T15:38:00.001-04:00

I am working as hard as ever to make something myself both career and hobby wise. In a previous post I had mentioned that I would follow the example of acclaimed author Stephen King. He read four hours a day and wrote in the other fours of the day, he easily wrote 3,000 words on average. Following that, I would read chapters/passages of a book after work and then write to meet a quota of a 1,000 words before going to bed. There have been days I meet the goal, some days I got beyond 1,000 words, some days were I am shy of a 1,000 words, and there some days I do not write at all. And that is okay because this is a new venture in my life I am now focusing on. Over time I will get better and better as I continue this focus on my serious hobby.

It's a Constant Inspiration

Exactly what it states, I have a constant inspiration to write now because I read so much now. Let me put it to you this way: my PlayStation 3 was recently fixed back in early July, and I have only turned on average about 3 hours during a work week and 8 hours on the weekend. What does that mean? It means I have no distraction nor a desire to play video games as much as I used to. I would rather read a book than play video games. Do not get me wrong I will turn the PS3 and play some downloaded games or 3D Dot Game Heroes but in the end I do more reading. When I do this leisure reading it helps give me an idea how I would write my own stories. At this very moment I am a little over 8,000 words in my new short story. I should be working on it now, but I want to update my blog because this is basically where my writing began.

Recent Reads

Under the suggestions of my good friend David J. Sushil, to read the books The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and On writing by Stephen King. Strunk's book I have thumbed through to get ideas of how I should word my sentences, paragraphs, etc. However, with Stephen King's book I cannot for the life of me put it down. I bought it on Friday (July 29, 2011) after I finished the book Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, which I finished around Monday or Tuesday (July 25 - 26, 2011). With this book On Writing by King is hands down a great read. I am only over a quarter way close to half way now through the book and I had started yesterday (July 30, 2011).

On Writing is such a page turner because it is part memoir depicting King's experience in writing and how his experiences influenced his writing. Then it is part a guide of how authors should write. Sushil is just like my father when it comes to Stephen King. They are huge fans of his work, and I, for one, never read his work until recently. My father had a large number of King's books and I remember growing up I would thumb through them, but I lacked the attention span to ever read them. Recalling my earliest memories to relate to my father, Louis Dieppa, I would watch movies based on Stephen King's work and I have always enjoyed them. The same day I started On Writing, I decided to call my father and talk to him about this book. As soon as I told my father I was reading a King book he went off talking about how much he enjoyed his work. The other week I asked my father to send me some of his Stephen King books, specifically The Dark Tower Series which I do not know is a good place to start, but I want to read them.

Reading the Stephen King book, I am noticing how much he and I relate as authors/writers. On Writing just really resonates with me in the way how King draws from his experiences with people and life in general that influences his writing style. Some of his habits I can relate to as well. I never had a drinking problem or a drug addiction, but there was a point I was addicted to playing video games for a while. Especially became addicted to playing an MMORPG by the name of Final Fantasy XI. I never wrote as a kid as King did, but I did have a very active imagination and I used to improvise stories when I was at school. Stephen King's book has really resonated with me and I am taking everything he says to heart. Love him or hate him, Stephen King knows how to write a book and capture a reader's attention.

Opinion Time

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I recently finished a book titled Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. This was quite an interesting book and for the simple fact I purchased on a whim after reading the description of the book on Barnes and Noble's website. I bought it and downloaded it onto my Nook (loving that piece of technology). The book has a sense of quirkiness and eeriness surrounding its text. The book recently came out over a month ago and it is the author's first attempt at writing a novel. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Have to say the whole thing like A Tribe Called Quest) really captured my attention from the get go. It describes a boy named Jacob who heard these stories from his Grandfather about this home back in Wales of this children that were peculiar. One child had bees living in him, a girl that can levitate, a brother and sister that can lift more than their own weight, a girl who can create fire, and a boy who is invisible. These children were watched by a little bird who kept them safe from people that would not understand them.

Here comes criticism time, the book has a solid plot, but its story was pretty predictable. I pretty much knew the ending less than half way through the book. However, I really enjoyed the main character's interactions with the other characters such as his father, his psychologist, his mother, his grandfather, Miss Peregrine and the peculiar children. All of that was very solid writing. The characters were not mundane, but full of color (or life). Another place where I felt like faltered but I ended up forgiving it was when the main character fell in love with the female protagonist rather quickly. Like I said, I forgave it because the main character is 15 years old, and I remember falling in love too quickly with girls when I was his age (Holy shit that was 10 years ago....smh). Overall, if you have time and looking for an odd book to read, then I suggest you pick up Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

As always thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Peace and love! Be Good!

Best of Orlando Weekly

2011-07-20T23:21:00.000-04:00

Recently I have received the honor of placing 3rd as Best Local Author in Best of Orlando 2011. For the past weekend I have been very much in disbelief, but I'm pretty damn elated as well as proud of myself. Even though it is 3rd I feel pretty damn proud of myself. At this moment, I want to go ahead and thank everyone who voted to get me to that place! THANK YOU EVERYONE! The two people that bested me were Jana Waring in 1st place and Bob Morris in 2nd place. I want to extend my congratulations to them. Interesting fact is this is the first time Orlando Weekly has done Best Local Author. Furthermore, the two people that best me were also published authors. As seeing I am an unpublished makes this an even more of an accomplishment to me. The feeling that I have garnered a pretty good fan base of people who want to read what the stories I write is simply fantastic.

What's next for Dieppa

I have taken my writing of fiction pretty serious, but after receiving this honor I am really going to take it more seriously. I am going to do a condensed version of how Stephen King does it, which means when I get home after a workout I will read passages from what I am currently and afterwords I will write. The daily goal to write about a 1,000 words at the end of the day. Still going to keep working on main career because that is logical to me, but writing is serious hobby for me at this point.

My readers have told me many times that I write such great and colorful characters as well as paint a picture with the narrative. What is the only problem? My grammar is pretty horrible. Something I have difficulty with and past editors have given up on trying to fix it up. Then again I been finding people I associate myself with to kind of fall through. I need to find an editor who can edit my novella The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter. There is a lot of potential in that novel to be a fair success when it is released.

Little Opinion Here

I have recently purchased the Nook and I have to say it is hands down a fantastic purchase. I am getting a lot of reading done and it is such a convenience to have it around. First book I finished was John Dies at the End which was recommended to me by my Professor Sushil. The new book I am reading I will talk about later when I am further into it.

As always I want to thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Hopefully get more fiction out soon. OH! Thanks for reminding me you can read my works now at http://andrewcdieppa.pandamian.com/ And once again thank you all for your votes it was real confidence builder for me.

New Direction

2011-06-24T22:56:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since I last posted any content on my blog, but I been really busy with work and finding a new place to move to for the last few months. I am now settled in Tampa, closer to where I work, so I have a lot of free time on my hands. Work at Technology Transfer Services (TTS) has been work. Developing in OpenSim is not an ideal development environment for someone that learned how to do game/simulation programming. On the lighter side we are slowly but surely migrating to something better; Unity Game Engine. Hopefully, things will get progressively better working at TTS.

Web Fiction

It has been made clear I enjoy writing a lot as seen through out my previous post. I especially enjoy writing fiction; as last year I wrote a novella for the National Novel Writing Month. I really want to participate in that event again this year. My one problem with the novella I wrote is the grammar and I want to get it edit, but I don't think I am the one for th job. I'm looking for someone to edit it on their free time for me while I can work on some other projects. One project I have in mind is posting fiction online. Recently I stumbled onto a website that gives people advice on being an author, but specifically on the web. In this one website called NovelR pointed me to another website called Pandamian which is meant to work as a blog but for online fiction. Via Pandamian a web author is able to have a place to post their written work as one whole web address and publish it to Amazon as well as other ebook stores. I would be stupid not to look into this and attempt to take full advantage of it. I have began posting on the website with a collection of short stories that come to my head and I dubbed the collected works as The Macabre Vaudeville of Franz K. Dieppa.

I have also taken it upon myself to set up an Author Page on Facebook to promote the website as well as me. This is the direction that I am being pointed in, and that is to be a fictional writer. I enjoy making up stories and telling them to people. The only thing to do is now focus my energy into making it happen

As always, thanks for reading and for following my blog. Enjoy yourself! Love and peace

Best of Orlando Weekly

2011-05-10T22:31:00.001-04:00

Hello to all my readers out there please vote for me Andrew C. Dieppa as Best Writer/Author and Enigmatic Brain Mind as the Best Blog.

You must include your name and address along with a phone number and/or e-mail address where you can be reached. This is for verification only and the information won't be shared.
Everyone who correctly fills out a ballot is eligible to win two tickets to our super fabulous Best of Orlando party. (You have to be at least 21 to attend. We like to drink.)
You have to vote in at least 15 categories.
You can't use the same answer in more than 5 categories.
You can encourage people to vote for you.
You can link to the poll on your web site.
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You can't print out this poll and mail it to us. Online voting only.
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Remember, the interns who tally this poll cry when you cheat.

Please and thank you! You guys make me awesome!

Diving Into Concert Photography: My Meeting with Jim Carchidi

2011-05-01T20:45:00.000-04:00

This weekend starts as any other before it; Friday after work I'm back in Orlando having a drink and smoking cigars with my old boss Joe Adams from Adam Jones Productions. The time is 8:00pm EST sitting with me are my best friend Dillon and Joe's date Alex. Dillon has recently been taken under the wing of Ben Sawinski an artist and upcoming curator as well as a good friend of mine. Dillon, Joe, Alex, and I are sitting down around this table at Corona Cigar Bar smoking and having a drink (non-alcoholic for me) all conversing about what we are doing in our lives. Dillon spoke about how he happy he is working as a personal assistant for Benjamin. For the first time in a while I never heard such a passive voice of content tone in such a long while. I was happy for him as I was happy for Ben who needed someone to do some of his workload. I was happy for Ben who had found a very cool girl to have a relationship with named Kayla who is an artist as well. In the midst of our conversing a waitress who is pretty regular for me accidentally spills water on my arm and my mobile. She was quite embarrassed and I was a bit shocked from what occurred. I explained to her it is not a big deal that the water just spilled on my left arm and only on my phone and nothing else. My phone is still working, so thank G*d for that. However, the waitress explains to me she has been having an off week and not just having an off day due to a family member passing away the other week. I gave her my sympathies, but it felt like she was trying to make me look like a jerk in front of my friends.

At 9:23pm EST Dillon and I decided to make tracks to an event that was taking place at Taste Orlando featuring a photographer, belly dancing, and a burlesque show. How could I resist a temptation to see the works of a professional photographer and attractive women dancing, so off we went into the night. Arriving at Taste was a short drive and I noticed I was running on one bar of gas in my Toyota Yaris (The Yaris gets 29/36 MPG, and is now affordable at your nearest dealership). The first person I see is the artist Cake, but he was engaged in a conversation, so I let him be and not bother him. But there I see Ben, Kayla, Tracy, and John Snapp. I shook hands, hugged everyone, and then sat down with them to converse about our weeks. Funny story about Tracy Brown is I chaperoned her children during the The Muppet Art Show where they became fans of my little novella The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter. I told my friends to give me a moment I was going to go inside and check out the set up with Dillon.

Entering Taste was a gentleman managing the podium taking entrance fees and donations for The American Cancer Society. I gave the man $10; $5 for the entrance and $5 for a donation. Entering through Taste and making our way down to the event section to see walls and walls of photographs of musicians during concerts. The sight of these photos were breathtaking! All these photographs were taken by a gentleman named Jim Carchidi. In the back of the room I see someone looking like King Diamond, but I recognize the woman as Anna who sold me the painting that Cake did of Morrigan from Darkstalkers (Vampire Chronicle in Japan). Anna gave me a hug whilst wrapping me in her cape. I asked her who took these fantastic photos and she pointed at a man wearing a snazzy ensemble. Anna introduced me to Jim Carchidi who took almost a decades worth of photographs of bands and musicians performing live. I told Jim Carchidi that I was very much blown away of how he captured each moment of these performers. Jim was humbled by my compliments and here is the part that got me; all he wanted to do is hear about me. I explained my back story to him of how I'm a simulation designer at an e-learning company, and I'm a writer as well. He then asked me about my book, and I explained it to him.

Later on in the night the performances began first starting with the belly dancers who moved their bodies to a very relaxing melody. I was in tranced by how they moved and coordinated themselves to the background music. After they finished my friends and I recessed outside to smoke cigarettes and joke around. During the conversation I brought up how I been looking for someone to edit my book for a price so I can then self publish the novella already on some online stores. Enter John Snapp who offered his services and would do it in one day. I gave him a number, shook hands, and verbally agreed he would edit The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter. A man came out by the name of Matt (the husband of Anna who I also met earlier in the week when I picked up my Cake painting), informed us Grotesque Burlesque was about to perform, and we proceeded inside to watch the ladies perform. The women performed to such great tracks of music and baring their skin for the audience to see. Of course this was all tastefully done. I talked to the technical coordinator between the performances how I enjoyed the two acts, but I had not money to tip them. Katia was her name and she informed me I can also purchase them drinks which I was more than happy to oblige to. As her and I talked waiting for the drinks to come up we watched the next performance of two young ladies doing a silk performance. Once again I blown away. The night was fantastic filled with humor, friends, beautiful photographs, and pretty women. I could not ask for such a great night on Friday.

The Writing Technique of Andrew Dieppa

2011-03-28T03:49:00.000-04:00

What Motivates Me to Write

I been ask how can I just sit down and just crank out a short story in such little time. The answer is quite simple I enjoy writing. I log onto Grooveshark, put on a playlist of music, light up some incense, and open up Microsoft Word. It does not matter what I end up writing, as long I write something by the end of the week. This may sound corny, but I feel like my friends and family are another element to my motivation of writing. This is because I like to weave them stories of my experiences, and my thoughts projected onto paper (word document). Everyday I wake up from in Sunnyville Florida my mind percolates many ideas that may or may not come to fruition.

Sometimes the people or the situations I write about are not just drawn from real life, but from the depths of my imagination. I am a very observant person and the world is my muse. For example the weekend nights of Downtown Orlando features a menagerie of characters. I'm talking about friends going out to celebrate, a woman with her friends on a bachelorette celebrations, and the Christians on the megaphones calling everyone sinners. Observing how these people act and interact with another always catches my attention.

Humble Beginnings

As far back as I can remember and according to my family I have always made up stories. When I was a child I would make up far fetched tales to entertain my family and friends. Even to this day I still make up stories and people can never determine if they are true or not. People end up calling me a liar, but I don't think I am a liar. My real life is boring, why not make up a story to make me sound interesting. I like to think of myself an Improvisational Story Teller. I recommend you try it sometime because it can increase your creativity.

The Inspiration

My inspiration just draws from pondering of several things: life, death, love, relationships, religion, existence, and social interactions. I like to feel these things should be the motivators of our daily lives. These elements occur several times in my head throughout a given day. Quite honestly, I fall in love with different women and I think about different ways I can die and a daily basis. When I see a woman, observe how she acts, how she articulates when she speaks; then what follows a love story I create in my head and see I can use it for a story down the line. When I think about death, I think about different ways of dying. I'm not talking about taking my own life, but how I would just die from an accident or being murdered. For example: I cross a street to run an errand during my lunch break at the Bank of America. I had enough time to make it ac across the street before the light changes but it changes green and a guy was speeding down the street but didn't see me because his view was blocked by a semi truck. The guy who struck me with his car was a 18 year old kid going to see his girlfriend to ask her to go see a movie this weekend, but now his life is ruined because he killed me with his carelessness.

The Writing Process

When I am finally inspired to write something I go through this process to put it into words for someone to read. One of the approaches I take is I think about a situation, then I think about the characters who are going to be involved within the situation, and then I think about the dialogue between them. I feel it is important to write about the character first before writing the story because what happens when you write the character it evolves itself and forms the story. For example: I thought about a little boy who lost his mother, he had no other friends, and would do anything to see his mother again. This how Christopher Lamont was born. Another time I was given the idea to write a story about a zombie boy that falls in love with a living girl. However, I ran with the character and decided to think of the zombie boy as an outcast who suffers through bullying by living kids. This is why when people read one of my short stories they feel the characters are pretty identifiable. I put a lot of concentration into developing a character

The part I write about is the scene. One of the thing people most likely notice about my writing is how I over describe a scene in the text. The reason why is because I like to imagine myself as someone viewing everything. I then ask myself a series of questions: what am I seeing; what do I hear; what do I smell; who's there in this scene; what are they wearing; do they have a scent; etcetera. I want to paint my readers a picture that allows to see a vivid scene in their heads. Doing my best to leave no imaginary stone unturned for them.

The last thing is the dialogue between the characters. This one takes me a bit of time to write because I have this odd approach of taking on the persona of my characters I write about. One character says one thing and then I think about how would I react if someone said something to me in a given situation. Very often I catch myself talking to myself in different tones. This makes me look very crazy, but the end result is hopefully good dialogue that progresses a story.

Challenges

Some of my challenges happen to take the form of overwhelming thoughts of ideas to write down. Another challenge I face is when someone request I write a story about them. As much as I want to; I feel like in the end I will disappoint them. One of the last thing that challenges me is sometimes I just don't feel like writing. I want to write; I have this story in my head I want to write, but I cannot bring myself to write it.

Hopefully this might shed some light on how and I write. I thank you for being a reader and following my blog. This is Andrew C. Dieppa saying Love & Peace.

Seminars and Being Informed

2011-03-23T21:14:00.000-04:00

My Journey into an eLearning Conference

In March 23rd of 2011 my job had me attend an eLearning Conference in Orlando which is where I live. Beneficial to me because I got a chance to sleep in for once, but I did not because I woke up at 5:30am. The reason why I had to attend this conference was to be present at key seminars that would explain experience in working in a virtual world environment. I noticed at a certain point from attending two seminars that they were talking about things that I already learned from previous seminars I already attended from other conferences or from a class at DeVry. What did I end up doing? Well, I went exploring like my favorite Hispanic explorer, Hernán Cortés. I did my best to absorb what was around me, but really the conference had nothing to offer me in terms of virtual world development.

During my explorations of the Hilton Walt Disney Resort where the conference was being held I found a kiosk that was selling books about eLearning development. There I found three books that caught my interests including the one by Jane McGonigal called Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. For those of you who do not know who Jane McGonigal is and work in the game/simulation industry; slap yourself for your ignorance because she is one the leading game researchers out there in the perspective field. I learned more from reading the first chapter of her book than I did listening to a few people at each seminar. When I finish reading this book I will post a review about it and share my thoughts on it.

Well, that is it for now boys and ghouls. Keep a look out for my next blog post in the future. Thanks for following, and thanks for reading. Love & Peace

Genitorturers and a Local Film Festival

2011-03-20T23:36:00.002-04:00

The Story of My Mis-adventured Vampire Weekend

A friend of mine who's name I cannot reveal in this blog invited me to accompany her to a rock show on the 19th of March, Saturday. Now not having been to a rock show was thoroughly intrigued to come to this particular show because it was a Genitorturers show. When I was way younger and full of hope and dreams I was heavily into the heavy metal genre of music. I remember reading an article from Hit Parader about the band and how they have these provocative shows. Before I get into that I am going to rewind back to 9am in the morning on March 19th.

I get a phone call from my masseuse who I schedule an appointment with for a massage. Once I get to my masseuse's place I am blown away by the amount of well known figures that have been his clients one of them including Game Designer David J. Sushil. Jorge the Masseuse gave me a magnificent treatment of deep tissue, hot towels, and paraffin treatment. I walked out of there feeling a Phoenix rising up from the ashes that were my stress and despair. Thank you Jorge for a great treatment!

In the afternoon I go to a BBQ hosted by my friend and local artist Benjamin Sawinski. I hung out eating bratwurst and burgers while kicking a hackey sack around. I felt like I was in 1992 all over again! My best friend Dillon was there to explain to me that I just committed a sin; I had broken one of my Lent promises! I was supposed to be fasting for the entirety of Lent; I have failed. I will be punished for this treachery to my own beliefs.

Flash forward, I sent a text to my friend (a fake name will be in place of her real name) Lane Senna Elm, asking her how long she is going to be for you see I wanted to catch a nap before this rock show. Bzzt! Bzzt! Loud rings go off, and I answer my phone "Hello Lane?" From the receiver of the phone came "Andrew, I got off the wrong exit to get gas and I am really low right now! I am just really scared to get back on I-4 because I think my car will just run out of gas!" I explain to Lane to calm down, that I will go out and purchase a gas tank to fill up, bring it to her, and escort her to a gas station.

Now I am at a Wal-mart my most hated place in the world. I never thought one of my worst enemies in the world would take the form of a super store with low prices and convenient locations nationwide. After dealing with the lousy customer services of this store, I was able to find one of those gas jugs to fill with gas. Let me stop this fictional story for a moment and ask my readers a question: How does someone not know what a gas jug is? I am sure it is pretty obvious the name is describing without me going into detail of its main functionality. It's a jug you fill up with gas for emergencies such as the one Lane gotten herself into (Resuming the story in 5...4...3...2...1). As soon as I get to the cash register, swiped my debit card, enter my pin code (which is 0000), and asked for cash back I walked out of the store with the intention of rescuing Ms. Senna Elm from her distressful situation. All of a sudden Bzzt! Bzzt! "Hello Lane, I got the jug and I'm going to fill it up then head over your way," I said. Lane's response was that she found her way to a gas station and is heading her way to friend's house now. Needless to say I hang up the phone and spontaneously combusted.

I picked up Lane Senna Elm from her friend's house and we promptly went to the Firestone venue to watch her favorite band perform. This is where is gets interested. Let me describe the genre of music the Genitorturers play industrial rock, so imagine the appearances of their fans look like. A lot of black, gothed out, piercings, and tattoos. I am wearing a bright red Old Navy shirt, dark blue jeans, and my orange Puma shoes. Not exactly following the crowd at this point, but I was not scared; I was terrified. No, really I was fine I used to hang around these people in my youth.

The lights go down and these two people come out on stage each holding their instruments of rock (bass and six-string guitar). Hansel und Gretyl an industrial rock band from Deutsch Land. They honestly rocked the house, and I enjoyed their performance. At some point of the night I had the chance to meet which I got to wear Hansel's awesome German eagle helmet. Conversing with Hansel und Gretyl I explained to them I never heard them nor heard of them, but I thoroughly enjoyed their show and I asked for a hug from. Upside to this story is I got to hug two crazy Germans ::crosses off something on his bucket list::

During the intermission my friend Lane needed to grab a drink as I stood there looking around the Firestone venue admiring the scene of black clothing audience and how pale they are. Out of the distance I heard some yelling. The voice was so familiar that I ended up shaking my head and slapped my face into my palm because I knew what was happening; Lane was getting into an altercation. Apparently this person kept hitting on Lane asking her if they could buy her a drink. Lane got so frustrated with this person that she yelled at the top of her lungs that struck the venue almost near silent. I ran over to the bar to see if I can mediate the situation before it gets out of hand. Finding Lane I asked her what is wrong, she pointed and filled me in on the situation. I turned and asked Lane where is the guy, but Lane said it was this woman who was making a pass at her. My eyebrow raised I explained to the woman to please leave Lane alone because she is currently not looking, but asked her what she would have done with Lane Senna Elm. I learned something that night I cannot take a punch, and Lane really knows how to throw a punch.

The intermission was over and crowd was gathering back to the stage to watch the headliner Genitorturers begin their awaited performance. As Lane walked back to get a good spot, and I followed behind her with a bag of ice on my injured eye we waited for the performers to come to the stage. Once again the lights go dim, three musicians walk on stage with their instruments in hand. To explain what happens Genitorturers is pretty easy to describe. Do I want to describe I saw: No. Does anyone here want to read what I saw: Most likely no. Therefore I am going to describe it in a few words with one event that took place. Genitorturers description: loud rock, female lead singer, S&M apparel, rubber phalli thrown, floggin, bondage, and on stage sodomy. At a certain point Gen from Genitorturers likes to get a volunteer from the audience to join on a performance. This particular gentlemen was put up on stage in his undergarments on all fours, and then he was somodomized with a wine bottle -- a full bottle of wine. The crowd around was bouncing up and down "rocking" out watching this as I sipped my water with a twist of lemon said to myself "Huh, did I leave the oven on?" Really I said "Huh, this is something I do not see in my average life," and then I proceeded to cross another thing off my bucket list.

After the Genitorturers finished their set we got the chance to meet the band and the front woman Gen. Lane was super excited, she has met her before, but she just idolizes her I guess. I got two good shots of her and Gen. Then I had my little talk with Gen and explained to her I never heard her music before. However, I have read about her performances and the show she puts on and she did not dissatisfied. She thanked me, and then I told her she was no Disney's Imagination Movers, but I still enjoyed the show. Once again I learned the a similar lesson from the earlier lesson; I cannot take a punch, and Gen can really throw a punch. Now, with two black eyes I then took Lane Senna Elm to her friend's house to get some sleep.

The Next Day

I been looking forward to this other event since Sunday one of my good friend's brother entered a film festival which was called a "Film Slam." Alex Sushil who is the younger and better looking brother of my friend/mentor David J. Sushil made a short film called Vestiges. I have been to these types of film festivals and I have been disappointed with what they show in terms of "art house" films, but this one had a lot of good short films with unique narratives. Of course Alex's film was the best one of out of the bunch in my opinion (and no I am not being biased you terrible reader). At the Film Slam I had the chance to meet Clan Sushil Representatives included David's mother, grandmother and father. This was such a surreal moment for me. I talked to David's mother and she asked me how I felt about her son. I explained to David's mother that it has always been an honor to know David because every time I talk to him on the phone, online, or whatever I always walk away a better person. I also explained to her that I haven't gotten the chance to really get to know Alex, but I know he is a sweetheart and obviously has an eye for film. Then I got a group hug from Sushil's mother, grandmother, and father. I know I am huge hugger; just love to hug people.

Thank you for reading my blog. My next blog post will be about something more creative, but come on what is more of a creative journey of than seeing an on-stage sodomy and a mini film festival. I have somethings going into the works at the moment which I will more than happy to talk about next time.

Side note most of this blog is fictional and therefore it was an average post for Andrew C. Dieppa's Enigmatic Brain Mind Blog :P

As always thanks for reading, thanks for following. Peace and Love and take it easy.

My Spiritual Brain Mind

2011-03-02T21:56:00.000-05:00

Inquiry of the Spiritual Nature

Recently, I been having a conversation with a co-worker of mine about religion, spirituality, and overall the idea of god. Her and I had agreements as well as disagreements what it means to be spirituality. What we agreed is that we both want to believe, but find it difficult to believe. It is no secret that I stopped believing in Catholicism when I 18. However, there lies a journey of self discovery. If anyone here that follow my blog knows I have friends that are Atheists, Christians, Jewish, and Agnostics. They seem to be comfortable in the answers they found (except for Agnostics of course), but I am not comfortable with a simplistic. Saying there is no higher power is just as arrogant as saying there is higher power.

A Simple Breakdown

This is what makes sense to me: Knowledge, Wisdom, and Spirituality. Knowledge: the gaining of experience or education to understanding of subjects. Wisdom: the deep understanding to realizing of people, situations, events to have the ability to choose how to act in a manner that optimizes the individual's time and energy. Spirituality: the inner path to discover the reason of an individual's being. What does that mean? It basically means the answer is not as simple as we want it to be. We are human beings and we have this tendency to simplify so we can have an immediate understanding of the world around us. The problem with that is end up cutting corners, and we miss some find print that is written in the world around us.

I find it is very important at some point in someone's life to have an internal search to find themselves. Explore the world around! Read up on mathematics, read about other religions and philosophies, go out to commit mistake. The more you learn the more you realize how much you did not know before. This makes you a better person in the end. If G-d exists then he/she/it asks one thing from you be a good person. You can be good with G-d and you can be good without G-d, but in the end just be a better person tomorrow. Remember, the answers are never that simple, but if you are comfortable then more power to them. However, for me as an individual find things not to be as simple.

Obviously I can keep going on and on, so I will be sure to continue this another day, but until then this is Andrew Christopher Dieppa and just want to say "God Bless You. Namaste! Amen! Take care! Love you guys :)"

The Creative Challenge

2011-02-22T01:11:00.001-05:00

What It Means to be Creative

Creativity is the point where one reaches a phenomenon manifest itself physically into something tangible for people to view and/or hear. Back in 2002, I was 15 going on 16 attending middle school I am reading this magazine article of PlayStation Magazine interviewing Hideo Kojima. If you are familiar with Hideo Kojima he is the creator of the Metal Gear Series and Zone of the Enders and owner of Kojima Productions. I cannot remember what said, but I remember it influenced me to get into game development as a career. Since then I remember I would look at schools that offer some kind of training courses for game development. Long story short, I graduated and I now work as a simulation designer for a E-learning company. On the side though, I try to make it a point to do my own projects. Most of these projects happen to be one of creative endeavors. I have written a small novella, a small music project, and a game project. This brings me to my point Being Creative is about going after our dreams.

Creative Encouragement

At my job, I work with some people who majored in graphic design and I been encouraging them to go into doing some small graphic projects then post them on websites. My professor David J. Sushil who is a dear friend to me, went and created a game called Vanessa Saint Pierre Delacroix and Her Nightmare. After Sushil created the game he submitted it to various contest; he has blown up like a balloon filled with dynamite. Sushil, has always encouraged me to go after things that are creative. When I had an idea for the book The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter, so when November rolled around I hoped on the NaNoWriMo and wrote over 50,000 words. He is now encouraging me to develop a game idea I have had since 2009. Bringing me to my next point: encourage creativity. Surround yourself with other creative people, make time to sit down and just have a small brainstorming session. If you have friends that you know do creative hobbies, but feel they are just "hobbies" encourage to go after it! I have a friend who wants to do more things in art, so I been motivating this person to come out to local art shows to surround herself local artists to give her advice and encouragement. You should never let creativity die out because we will miss out on something that will probably be amazing in the future.

The Creative Disadvantage

I had read a few articles that being creative comes with a disadvantage of being mental disorders such as clinical depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia. It has been known throughout moments in history the most creative people have suffered through major mental issues such as Sylvia Plath, Vincent Van Gogh, and Hunter Thompson. Apparently there is a link between being creative and depression. Is this a disadvantage or an advantage? Are creative geniuses doomed to show mankind beautiful projects and then collapse on themselves like a dying star? By the way, I would like to point out that I do suffer from Clinical Depression. This runs in my family and as do other mental illnesses. However, I am lucky to have friends who know about it and are willing to be there for me when I have my little "moments," but at the same time these are the same friends who encourage me to be the creative me. This is the final point of this post: being creative a double edge sword. I ask my fellow people who are creative who do suffer from any mental illnesses to be sure to inform those around you. Life is short enough as it is, but I know we have a lot of new things to see before our lives end.

I am Andrew Christopher Dieppa and I thank everyone for reading. There is more to come in the near future about my life in technology, indie project, and artistic endeavors.

Terrifying Thoughts

2011-02-15T21:03:00.000-05:00

The Manifestation of Fear

It is the day after the Ever Popular Commercialized Holiday of Valentine's Day and I came to a sudden realization about my life. On Valentine's Day we want to be able to say we have someone close in our life. The one thing is I don't have someone in my life at the moment; it really is not a big deal for me because I been in this place before. However, I had this bit of an epiphany about the emotion we call "love," and what it really means to me. Saying "I love you" is said very often by people who really have no idea what the emotion's manifestation. What it truly mean to love someone is meaning to truly open yourself up to another person. To make yourself just purely and emotionally naked! In other words, you are emotionally vulnerable and being so vulnerable leaves you open to magnitude of pain if the relationship goes awry. Honestly, that truly is the most terrifying thought ever! To show yourself bare to another person who is not related to you and has known you for a short period of time.

I am pretty used to being by myself, but sometimes I wish I can be in a relationship. To put yourself out there like that to share yourself with another person. Metaphorically it is as though you open chest up and say "Please invade my heart, but I ask that you be most careful in there because it is the most fragile part of my body and my soul." To reiterate, that is a very terrifying thought. That is fear manifesting itself as another emotion and you ask yourself "Should I risk it with this person." But Life is an adventure and sometimes we got to take the good with the bad. A broken heart can be healed over time, but that brings me to an interesting thought: I have a love/hate relationship with Time. I say this because Time can heal all wounds, but at some point Time makes fools of us all. Then it really upsets me is Time is cyclical which basically means: my wounds are healed and I get on with my life, meet someone, heart broken, and now I look like a damn fool, but overtime I will be okay again. Life is Pure Irony Sometimes. So suck it up and learn how to live with it because these roommates are terrible at times but have their beautiful moments.

Once again this is another bit of a thought as opposed to something that is worth reading. For that: I apologize to my readers and I promise my next post will be something worth knowing :) Love & Peace
Andrew Christopher Dieppa

The Eve of Valentine's Day

2011-02-13T18:59:00.000-05:00

Mark the date: February 13, 2011

Hello to all my followers of my blog. I post on the Eve of Valentine's Day, and I did something I never done before. Most of my friends and my family will tell you that I, Andrew (Middle Name Left Out) Dieppa have never been one for Valentine's Day nor other holidays. However, something is different about me; I feel open. Almost as though I have been touched by some kind of spirit that influenced me to dive into this commercial based holiday which is really about martyrdom than love.

What Did I Do?

I decided to take it upon myself to sit down and write my own Valentine's Day cards. Then go into PhotoShop to make digital cards, and finally make a website to host all the cards. This is where it gets good; since I am Andrew (Middle Name Left Out) Dieppa I decided to put a twist into the mix. All eight of the cards I made are part of a series that are actually one big puzzle. Each card has a deeper meaning then its intention, and when a reader has them all together and figures each of them out they add up to something bigger. There is a hidden message within the collective whole of the cards. I am of course Andrew Dieppa the Enigmatic Brain Mind and I had to do this. However, no one really has to participate because the cards themselves meaningful individually to the specific person I written for.

This is my entry for the time being, but I will be back for an update about my life in the world of game design, technology, satire and literature. Ta, for now readers :D and Happy Valentine's Day <3

My Novel Is Finished

2010-11-28T03:22:00.000-05:00

NaNoWriMo

As of November 28, 2010 at exactly 3:08 AM I have finished writing my novel for National Novel Writing Month. It was a grueling 28 days of solid writing. Well, technically It was 24 days because there were days I did not write anything at all. However, that is neither here nor there. What matters is I have officially finished writing the rough draft of The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter. There were times I did not feel like writing, and there were times I could not stop writing. All in all I am satisfied with the book and I cannot wait to post online for everyone to read it. That is it everyone that follows my Blog I want to thank you for reading.

Thank Yous

Before I end this I want to go ahead and thank some people who supported me in my efforts to write this book. I want to thank all my friends Jevon Alexander, Tiffani Franco, Pierre Borges, Roderick Hossack, Gil Barrett, Kimberly Sushil, Lara Savage-Bukens, Katie and Robert, Ron Marrs, and May Marrs. Honestly, David gets a special thanks for being the one to tell me "fucking do it man." Honestly, thank you all for supporting me and you all have my love :D

Looking for a Job; 4 Projects; NaNoWriMo

2010-11-01T04:11:00.000-04:00

Up to Speed

It has been a while since I have done a blog post on here. Lately, I have been busy with a few projects and looking for a job as a software developer. There are four projects that I am currently working on at the moment which include two fictional writing projects and two game development projects. One of the writing projects involves a friend/colleague of mine by the name Jordan A. Card whom we teamed up to finally making one of our many comic book ideas into a reality. The other writing project is for a novel I am up with a few weeks ago in early October.

National Novel Writing Month

The book is about a little boy who journeys through the afterlife to see his departed mother. I decided to write the book during National Novel Writing Month in November. I already finished writing the first 1,700/50,000 words of the book. I am thoroughly excited to write the book, and I am encouraging my friends to pester me to make sure I am on top of writing it. I remember the day I came up with it was during the mist of writing some game design ideas for Sushil and my game we are working (Another section). I ran the idea through Sushil and he said I should go for it. Also, I have received numerous encouragement from other friends to write it.

A Game Project with Sushil

One day I get an e-mail from Sushil while I was at work about he had this game idea that sound similar to my idea. When Sushil ask me that both game ideas were too similar that if he should back off. Proceeding to giving him the go ahead to develop the game on the condition we both team up to develop the game. As of now my responsibilities are to find an artist to work on game assets and to do cut scenes. My other job is to program the menu and the world map of the game.

Well, readers that is it for now. I will come back soon for another update halfway through month of November. I will not leave you hanging because I am going to leave an excerpt from The Departing Tale of Christopher Lamont and the Hereafter.

Prologue

Where does this story begin: once upon a time, or a dark and stormy night? How about if this story ask the question: what would you do if you had one more chance to see a past loved one? Would you go through great lengths such as sleeping in the bathtub with a toaster; make a deal with the devil; conduct a seance; pray to God?

Well, there was one little boy who wanted to see his mother again, and went through one perilous journey to see her. The little boy was only ten years of age, and only knew very little of the world around. However, he would go through the spiritual world known as the Hereafter to his beloved mother. This little boy was not aware of the risk, but he would endure everything for just a few moments with her. The little boy I speak of is Christopher Lamont, and this is tale of journey through the Hereafter.

Attempt Failed

2010-09-26T05:43:00.000-04:00

"I am without guess,

staging my life to be odd.

Around me are confused,

Attempting to understand

breathes Enigmatic Brain Mind"

Indie Game Developers are the New Garage Rock Bands

2010-09-05T17:58:00.005-04:00

Let’s Start a Band!

Remember back in the older days when a group of teenagers who would meet during their music class and talk about starting a rock band. Then they would meet after school assign themselves the instruments of bass, guitar (lead/rhythm), and drums. After all positions were decided then they will begin to “jam,” come up with songs, and write lyrics. However, it seems times are changing and youngsters want to develop the next top selling game.

Resources Offered

The resource tools for game developed that once belonged to big name game companies are now available to the mainstream public. Frameworks such as SDL, OpenGL, DirectX, SDKs, XNA, Unity Game Engine, and Unreal Game Engine are now available for download on the internet. Along with the primary websites offering the development kits also feature tutorials on how to use them properly.

There even exists websites and blogs which are dedicated to teaching people how to program their own video games simply and quickly. Now a person who has the drive, someone to do art, and another programmer is able to build a simplistic game to test the waters of game development. The further they dive down into it games will become more elaborate and feature better graphics and unique game mechanics.

No Corporate Strings

One of the beauties of indie game development does not exist the higher seat of power that will limit indie developers’ creativity. Therefore, games can feature some unique game play features and intuitive game mechanics. Deadlines do not exist unless the developers themselves want to them to be present.

However, indie developers want ways to monetize on the games they release to the public, and need to find a place to that offers that service. For Flash video game developers there exist a site called Mochi Media which places ads within Flash based games as so the publisher of the game will receive money for each ad that is viewed. Another way is through the Xbox Live Indie Games where developers pay $100 to Microsoft to publish games on their Market Place to monetize on the games they sold.

With all these ways to learn a new game development framework and researching ways to monetize on creator owned products is why indie game developers are similar to garage bands. A small band of creative minds assembling together to produce a product for people to enjoy.

http://www.examiner.com/game-design-in-orlando/indie-game-developers-are-the-new-garage-rock-bands">Check out the article on the Examiner

The Art of Video Games

2010-08-05T02:49:00.000-04:00

When people think art the first thing that immediately comes to mind are the brush strokes of Van Gogh, Picasso, and others that are similar in the sense of the word. However, never the names such as Yoshitaka Amano, Akira Toriyama, or Joe Madureira come into mind. These are the artists’ work in video game industry, specifically in the character art sections of the video game development.

Having the mindset when it comes to art, video games do not fall into that category because games such as Halo, Gears of War, and Modern Warfare 2 immediately come to mind. Honestly, anyone can look at those and say that is not anywhere near a type of art because they are mindless shooter games. From the perspective of someone that has met with developers, level designers, audio engineers, and artists within the game development industry I can tell you it is broader than what most people think.

Character Art

One of the basic ideas of art is the conception of character art. Looking at video games such as Dragon Quest Series, Final Fantasy Series, and Lost Odyssey there are a lot of emphasis on having characters that stand out from everything else in each game. This is because these games are known as Japanese Role-Playing Games (JRPGs) which are popular in both Japan and the US. These characters go from being conceptualize in sketch books, mock ups, criticize for editing, re-drawn, and to finally being put through another process of character modeling.

Character modeling is another process where a 3D modeler uses a 3D modeling program (3D Studio Max, or Maya) to take a sketched character from a sheet of paper to add more depth to them. This process gives a character more life, and receives the features of animation. An in game character needs to be able to have several animation (running, walking, and attack), but 3D animators need to make sure that character emote expressions during cut scenes of a game’s main storyline.

Level Design

I happen to be close to this topic because I have had a passion for level designing for two years now. In video games level designing is where environments are built using assets created by 3D Modelers/Artists and Audio Engineers. Level Designing gives a game more depth because levels within a game build a world unique to a video game’s theme.

For example the video game Resident Evil which was released back in 1996 was one the scariest games I have ever played because how the atmosphere was set up. As you are moving the character through this mansion out in the woods you can see the grandfather clock, hear it ticking, the rain hitting the windows, the silence of a deserted dining room and upon entering another room a zombie ambushes the character. The way the level designers set it up was to give the player a feeling of alone, dark, and marauding on the fear center of the brain.

Another example this sense of immersion can be seen in the game Beyond Good and Evil has a traveling mechanic of using a hover boat vehicle to get to different locations of the game. Traveling on the water of the game’s world would allow a player to catch the sight of creatures, cities, villages, and huts are seen inhabiting the game’s world. I can recall a time I was traveling to a mission location and saw the game world’s sun setting behind mountains as these whale-like creatures emerged from the water to dive back in. It was absolutely a breath taking sight and I was able to capture it on with a screenshot mechanic featured in the game.

Unique Art Styles

In the recent games Super Street Fighter IV and 3D Dot Game Heroes used very unique art styles to make their games stand out from the rest of the competition. In Super Street Fighter IV Capcom had their 3D artists use a technique called cel-shading (a 3D model mimicking a more hand drawn style). All the characters, level environments, etcetera were model using this technique. Super Street Fighter IV’s art style is heavily influenced by the Japanese art style known as sumi-e. The characters were given heavy brush stroke outlines on the outlines of their bodies.

Another game had a unique art style was 3D Dot Game Heroes for its use of a retro style graphics in a 3D world. All assets that were feature in the game’s world were built using this block looking system that made everything look like a pixelated 3D model. The game featured this unique style as a way to homage old games that were on Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System also known as the 8-bit era of video games.

Where VGs Stand Now

This is just from the perspective from someone who works in the industry and who has been playing video games for four-fifths of his life. Video Games for years now have featured some beautiful styles of art a character walking across a screen to environments of a game’s world. Video games are the living canvas that people can explore with just a controller, a console, a television, and of course a game to play. However, there is more to just 3D models, and hand drawn character concepts that makes video games an art. Just talking about the art is only scratching the surface that goes into game development.

More Arcade Games, Please

2010-06-24T14:16:00.003-04:00

Over the recent years my collection for the next generation console games has not really grown. I have had my PlayStation 3 for about 2 years now, and I only own 7 games in total with the last games I purchased being Resonance of Fate, Super Street Fighter IV, 3D Dot Game Heroes, and Red Dead Redemption (which I just sold). However, within the several months my collection of arcade games from the PlayStation Network has grown exponentially. In other words most of my hard earned money is going to spending it on games that are not big titles, and I have to say I absolutely am ecstatic about the situation.

Which brings me to the point I am making for this entry; the games on PSN/XBLA are 5 times better than the big title games that are coming out. I believe more video game companies should put a little more effort into releasing a game on these markets. Allow me to make a few points on my proposal of why video game companies should saturate the PSN/XBLA markets.

2.5D versus 3D

The games I been playing have been falling in the realm of “2.5D Games.” Basically this dimension of games means it is a 2-Dimensional, but with the illusion of 3D. The games I have been playing are Bionic Commando Rearmed, Revenge of the Wounded Dragon, Rocket Knight, and Trine. Even though these games are one dimension less than most big titles coming out they are much more playable and enjoyable. I definitely have more fun when it comes to playing a game like Bionic Commando Rearmed rather than a game such as Red Dead Redemption.

Most of the games I am looking forward to play are all coming out on the PlayStation Network. Games such as Shank, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and Bionic Commando Rearmed 2; these are the games I am waiting to purchase and play. From looking at screenshots and game play videos on the internet I can tell that companies are making a consideration and an effort to develop these games.

Simple Yet Robust

Another reason I prefer these types of games over the other type is because they are inexpensive. Bionic Commando Rearmed cost me $9.99 as opposed to Red Dead Redemption costing me $63. I buy more of these games because I can afford them versus to saving my money to purchase a $60 game I will probably play one time. One thing I noticed about the PSN games is they feature quite a replay value to it. They are simplistic, but have a tendency to be robust with extra features. I can beat a game such as Revenge of the Wounded Dragon in less than a few days (less with a second player), but I can go back to play it again within that same week because it is there for to me play.

What I really enjoy about these PSN games is such a throwback to the old school gaming. When I play I cannot help but be reminded of old NES games such as Contra, Castlevania, and Ninja Gaiden. The irony of course is that Bionic Commando Rearmed is a refurbish NES video game. Playing a game that is on 2D brings back that frustration and that motivation to keep on playing to complete the game.

Opportunities Galore

Before I end this entry I have one other thing I like to say: bigger name companies taking an interest in PSN/XBLA games can create more jobs/opportunities for people who want to work in the video game industry. Capcom had a company by the name of Grin to develop the game Bionic Commando Rearmed for the PSN/XBLA.

What makes this an interesting idea is that another company can employee an independent development company to make most of these games for the PSN/XBLA markets. It is a sort of a win/win situation as long as the games are marketed and sold in the same manner as a bigger title game.

Ending this blog entry with a “thanks for reading” and visiting this entry of my blog. If you have an Xbox360 or a PS3 I say go out right now and purchase the following games from their perspective markets:

· Bionic Commando Rearmed

· Trine

· Rocket Knight

· Revenge of the Wounded Dragon

· Shatter

· Switchball

· 1942 Joint Strike

· Novastrike

· Matt Hazard Bloodbath and Beyond

These are some of the games I have currently on my PS3 and they are amazing to play J

This: I am

2010-06-17T23:06:00.008-04:00

You know I always tell myself I do not like being sucked in theological discussions or arguements. However, for some odd reason I cannot go a week without debating the existence of a creator. I have friends who straight up do not believe in the existence of one, they are on the fence about it, or they do believe in a creator.

There is this running joke that I change my religious beliefs as Lady Gaga changes outfits in a given hour. I go from Taoism, Agnosticism, Judaism, Catholicism, and Atheism in that same period of time. However, when I act out certain belief I tend to do it out of complete satire. When it all boils down I am a spiritual individual and I believe in a creator.

Everytime I say I believe in G-d around people who are of the Atheist or Nontheist persuasion tell me I am in some sort of wrong. I think the problem comes from the organize religions themselves. Let me lay it down for everyone: I do not follow G-d in the Biblical sense, I believe in a G-d in a more spiritual, and cosmic sense.

I have approach the existence of a creator in a logical and rational way that makes sense to me. Even before watching the episode of "Through the Wormwhole," I have pondered the topics they explored within that episode. The existence of a creator within the mind, the cosmos, being a mathematician, and a programmer.

As I said before it makes the most sense to me, and I feel that should be respected. I should not have to go through a week defending that belief. The irony of my way of thinking basically gets me ostracized by both Christians and Atheist. However, I am who what I am; I am Andrew Christopher Dieppa.

PS I am also known for keeping a very open mind to incorporate to my day to day life such as the Eastern Philosophies/Religions.

Senior Project: Done, DeVry University: Done

2010-06-10T19:19:00.010-04:00

Another two months have rolled on by real quickly! After next week I will officially be done with DeVry University’s Game and Simulation Programming major and I will have my BS in Computer Science. At this moment I am developing a web page for my fellow senior project comrades to host the game we been working on for the last 4 months. Working on this project was quite a struggle and it has taken its toll on all of us. This was first time the GSP major was separated from the rest of the other majors in senior project. We were our own independent entity (we were indie), which allowed us to be open to anything we can work on.

In the senior project team which comprised of myself (Dieppa), Leo, Dex, Jevon, Nick, and Magda to work on this project called Chimera Sanctum. I worked as Team Lead and Lead Game Designer while I had Nick and Leo on Audio Programming, Dex as Lead Programmer, Jevon and I worked as Programmers, and Magda worked on Art and Programming. I came up with the name of our mock company which was known as 9.81 Game Studios (if you know your physics then you would get the pun). We worked together as a team kept cohesion, communication, and diligence to make this game happen.

This led to the final build of our game; it may not be perfect but we did it with the functionality we wanted. You can read all about the trials and tribulations of Chimera Sanctum’s development cycle on GamaSutra (A link will be provided at the bottom for those who want to read it). The presentation of the game will be held at DeVry University Orlando Campus at 5:00 PM EST (06/16/2010). As of now we are setting up a website to host Chimera Sanctum for public downloading to be played on the PC. Which brings me to my next exciting news: I have purchased the domain name Enigmaticbrainmind.net on GoDaddy.com. Now it is official Enigmatic Brain Mind will be a website soon hosting the projects I will be working on (me or with a team). As always I want to thank my readers for stopping by my Web Log  You guys help keep me going!

PS I would also like to thank David J. Sushil for being my mentor throughout my career at DeVry University. He was the first professor I had in my first class and he was the last professor in my last class at DeVry.

PPS I would like to thank Joseph Adams at Adam Jones Productions for allowing the opportunities and understanding as I went through all the stress of college J

PPPS As of June 14,2010 links are provided below, so you readers can now visit the website where the game is being hosted, as well as visit Sushil's website, and read the postmortem on GamaSutra J

Links:

Enigmatic Brain Mind

Visit David J. Sushil

The Postmortem

Senior Project; AJP; Creative Writing!

2010-04-29T17:45:00.004-04:00

Being allowed to live up here and grow up as my own person is quite a benefit. I am learning more and more about myself with each passing period of time. Recently I had finished the first half of my senior project at DeVry University. Even though I got a B in the class my group received a 68/100 on the alpha build of the project.

Starting Senior Project II with Professor Sushil as the instructor of the class opened my eyes. This was of course after Sushil scolded me for performing as a weak leadership. However, my team supported me giving positive that I was doing a decent job. I was given advice by Sushil that I now have to really be on top of everybody in senior project to the point that no one will like me when I give them a direct task with a deadline.

Now seeing that I am close to graduation at DeVry with only two months left; I am absolutely ecstatic. Even though I lack the physical prowess to express the emotion; I assure you the reader I am very much content. Graduating DeVry will give me time to work more at Adam Jones Productions with whatever projects I am assigned.

Speaking of Adam Jones Productions I have been assigned to do some audio engineering for one of the projects they are currently working on. Alongside with me as always is Jordan Card who of course is my collaborator for our upcoming comic Clarington City Blues. This will give me the chance to write more short stories that connect to the Clarington City Blues storyline.

Been a While and a Lot Has Happened

2010-03-05T15:30:00.009-05:00

Quick Catch Up

It has been quite a while since I have done a post on my web log. The reason why is that I have been busy at work, school, and my internship at Adam Jones Productions. Recently I finished up a class on engineering an entire game engine with three other people. I was working on the physics and math modules for it, and the others worked on the other modules. I ended up passing the class with flying colors.

Looking Forward to What is Ahead

Now that I am finished with this game engine class I am now moved onto my final three classes as DeVry University. I am now enrolled and attending Senior Project, but they are doing it differently now than in the past semester. Instead of the Game and Simulation Programming (GSP) students working with the other disciplines on a mock company. We, the GSP students, are now are own independent group, so this allows the freedom to make whatever we want. As of now they are in the concept stages of our project details will follow on another post :)

I have been doing some thinking for the last few weeks and I realized I been going to school nonstop for the last 19 years of my life. As opposed to going into the FIEA program at UCF after I graduate; I am going to take on a full time position at Adam Jones Productions after graduation. I think this a good move for me because this will allow me free time to focus on getting experience in the industry while building up a respectable portfolio. I will most likely apply to FIEA next year in 2011 for now I am want to take it slow and concentrate on some other things. Such as creative writing because just recently I finished up a short story I wrote one night when I could not sleep last weekend. I wrote the story based on a dream I had a day prior to the night I wrote it story. I am looking for anyone who would like to give their constructive criticism on the literature.

Here is the link to the story

http://www.mediafire.com/?zyqzzozwdvw

Postmortem: Adam Jones Productions’ Word Builder

2010-01-15T14:34:00.007-05:00

Introduction

With the recent release of the Flash game Sandbagz: Medeval! here at Adam JonesProductions we want to keep the momentum going by releasing another game wedeveloped. This brings us to the game WordBuilder and in many ways it is largely different from Sandbagz. Even though WordBuilder has little in common with our previous game it was still done bythe same team that worked on Sandbagz;with exception of the artist. At Adam Jones Productions we like to makeourselves varied in the genres we tackle from action, puzzle, adventure, and soon. The company wants to show that we are capable of going from one side of thespectrum to the other without any hiccups. Without further ado, here is asummary of development of Word Builder.

What Went Right?

ActionScript Programming

Jordan was the lead, main,and only programmer on Word Builder’s development time. Overall the developmentof Word Builder went smoothly. Since the game takes place by dropping tiles onto a grid, Jordan startedby building a functional grid system for the each wordblock’s placement. Also he was able to gothrough and build the overallfunctionality of the game with moderate ease. While he did hit some bumps inthe road he was able to solve the problem quickly and move on to the next partof the project.

The Audio & Art Assets

Here at Adam JonesProductions we pride ourselves on the quality of the games we release for eachgame we produce. When programming a sophisticatedpuzzle game we in turn want art and an interface that reflected that look. Incomes Roa to design and create all the art assets for the game. Roa has hasa unique style that sets himapart from other artists. Every piece of art asset was able to reflect thesophistication of Word Builder’s persona.

Since Word Builder wasdifferent from Sandbagz the music had to reflect that idea; ergo no beatboxingfor the soundtrack. As much as we wanted it this game had to contain an audiotrack that would let the player think calmly to execute words in Word Builder.Dieppa, who did the audio for Sandbagz, came onto the project with an audiotrack that was a good fit into Word Builder. Using Sony Acid Pro Dieppa wasable to engineer an audio track that featured pianos playing in the background.A looping song with a nice, smooth, calming air aimed to encourage the playerto slow down and think while creating words.

What Went Wrong?

Functionality in ActionScript

At first we created a grid and then created the tiles, and originally wewould have the tiles drag-and-dropped onto the grid itself. However, twoproblems arose. One: having the tilesreference the grid location was a challenge. Two: the layering itself with sometitles appearing behind other tiles regardless of the z-loc. The way we fixedthis problem was by using a sleight of hand technique where the tiles wouldrepresent a trigger that would change the grid square from being an emptysquare to a square with a letter in it according to the tile dropped. Thissolved the layering issue as well as the referencing problem.

The Differences from Sandbagz and Word Builder

It is quite obvious that WordBuilder is on the opposite side of spectrum from Sandbagz as a game. Sandbagz was an action game and WordBuilder being a puzzle game, respectively. Programming a straight forwardsimple action game can coincide with how a programmer can code the base syntaxlogic. However, programming a puzzle game brings a lot more complexity to thelogic; e.g. as we stated before referencing the grid locations was a difficultfeat to overcome.

Conclusion

Overall, working on WordBuilder was a different experience for the team at Adam Jones Productions.The approach to programming the game was more complex, and the music was a bitmore sophisticated. Here at Adam Jones Productions we believe we were able toshow off that we are not just programming action games all the time; we candefinitely develop a variety of genres.

Credits

Programmer – Jordan Card

Artist – Michael Roa

Audio – Andrew Dieppa

QA Lead – Andrew Dieppa

QA Testers – Matthew Santiago, Mike Albanese, Claudia Rolle

Producer/Game Designer – Adam Jones

Programs Used

Adobe Flash 4

Sony Acid Pro

Adobe Photoshop 4

Links

http://www.adamjonesproductions.com

http://www.andrewdieppa.blogspot.com

http://www.mochimedia.com/games/word-builder/

New Year's Eve with a Blue Moon, and Rolling into 2010 with new Opportunities

2009-12-31T02:07:00.000-05:00

Reflection in the Year of 2009

It is New Year's Eve today I take this time to reflect on the events that happened to me this year. All that was set in motion that led up to this Final Day of the Year. I am excited today that when the clock strikes 00:00 ringing in January 1, 2010 there will be a Blue Moon. I want to see it and think, reflect, and move on with my life. . Near the end of last year I was laid off from my job, and then I was given a job at Paychex in January of 2009. This year I was able to meet a gentleman that gave me the opportunity to work in the independent video game development.

Moving onto 2010

Near the end of the 2009 I was given the opportunity by Adams to take on a design position at Adam Jones Productions. Also, the last two weeks I had received an e-mail from a gentleman who is an Marketing Research Executive from Packt's Publishing. He saw that I was interested in developing Unity Game Engine and approached me to review his company's book that was made to teach Unity which was aptly named Unity Game Development Essentials.

I am really excited to read this book and to gain the knowledge necessary to develop in Unity. This book is written by Will Goldstone who also has a website with video tutorials on working in Unity. The book it self is written with the purpose to expand on techniques from the video tutorials from the website.

Conclusion

All these opportunities coming my way makes me think heavily and reflect on this year. 2009 has been an quite experience in my life. These thoughts run through my head as everything seems to be falling into place for me at this point in my life. I am looking forward to 2010, graduation, interning at AJP, working at Paychex, working in Unity with the aid of the book, the GRE, and hopefully FIEA in the Fall of 2010.

Links

Unity Game Development Essentials:

http://www.packtpub.com/unity-game-development-essentials?utm_source=andrewdieppa.blogspot.com&utm_medium=bookrev&utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=mdb_001943

Sample Chapter from Unity Game Development Essentials:

http://www.packtpub.com/files/8181-unity-game-development-essentials-sample-chapter-4-interactions.pdf