Plucky Pixels

Sex and Viloence in Games

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:53:00 +0000

[via Bruce On Games]

Yes, the wedding is over, but hey just to keep things interesting and at a certain level of stress, we bought a house! We move in 2 weeks:) He's especially excited for the basement because he's got all sorts of terrain ideas for his Warhammer 40k game that he plays with his buddies.

Also, crazy time at work. They bumped up a deadline by a few weeks so we've been crunching hard. Game is looking AMAZING though. Will post info on it when it's announced:)

Left 4 Dead 2!

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:52:00 +0000

Video Games | Left 4 Dead 2 | E3 09: Teaser

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

squee! Can't wait! Chainsaws and frying pans:) RPS has a great article previewing everything, from the new special infected to the new characters.

PuzzleQuest Galactrix

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:17:00 +0000

Wow, I'm impressed by just how much more difficult the new version of PuzzleQuest is. Not always in a good, challenging kind of way wither. There are a few questionable design choices that make the game just plain frustrating at times too (at least on the DS version).

The buttons have a really small area to hit. Miss the button by just a few pixels and you're floating off into space, waiting to make the round trip to get back to your original location once again. It wouldn't have been that difficult to widen the buttons by that much. Or, my second major peeve with the game, allow the player to navigate using the buttons, it doesn't have to be 100% touchscreen. Menus especially. There's no reason that up, down and A to confirm shouldn't work...just like it does for almost every other game out there.

Thankfully, you don't require a lot of speed/accuracy to play the game, so while these points are endlessly frustrating, the game still remains addictively fun. And it's really nice to be able to play it in bite-sized pieces while travelling back-and-forth to work on the metro. All in all, I can foresee myself playing it just as long as I've played the original (still playing the expansion currently:)

Legends of Zork

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:59:00 +0000

(March was INSANE! But I'm back, tanned and married, ready for gaming once again.)

This morning, I started playing Legends of Zork, which, while taking place in the Zork universe is a whole lot more like ye ol'BBS door game, Legend of the Red Dragon. That's not a strike against it, mind you. I LOVED that game and beat it several times.

I can see myself enjoying it, when I remember to play it. It's easy enough to bang out a turn in about 15 mins. Not enough of a Zork experience for you? Then you can buy credits for more Action Points (turns) with their microtransaction/sponsor-based system. I think that getting additional turns is a bit more motivation for purchasing than buying special clothes like you can in some other free-to-play games. At least you get something worthwhile rather than just superficial.

I hope LoZ has the lasting power that LotR did. It looks like they've added some neat systems, like with the cards which I don't fully understand yet, though I did find one in my adventuring this morning already.

Want to friend me in the lands of Zork? I'm NilPixelCount, as always.

Blogging Around

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:03:00 +0000

While I haven't had much time to write my own rants and essays lately, I have still been busy posting on the interwebs. You can find me posting niche-news to 3 different IGDA sites.

IGDA Montreal Chapter - Here I post the reports (which I write on ocassion too) along with local industry news. I also serve on the Advisory Board for the chapter, which has been a great experience so far.
Women In Games SIG - Given that the focus of the Special Interest Group (SIG) is pretty obvious, guess what kind of news items I share here?
Game Design SIG - This SIG just launched recently, so if you're a Designer or are interested in game design, join in! You don't need to be a member of the IGDA to participate. You can check the blog for regular game design news that I post.

So check in on those sites if you're interested in the topics! :)

When life takes over

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:43:00 +0000

It's not that I've forgotten that I have a blog or something. I mean, there's all this stuff that I want to post about! Like the awesomely reactive AI in F.E.A.R. 2 or finishing Chrono Trigger DS or reading The Design of Everyday Things. There's tons going on that's worth talking about! It more a matter of finding the time to actually do these things!

Currently, time not spent at work is time spent on the upcoming wedding. The one that's in 12 days! With family coming in from out of town and details to finalize, it's been a bit hectic coordinating every thing.

It's not a terribly traditional wedding and with both of us being game designers there's a bunch of gaming geekiness worked into the whole thing, some of it subtly, some of it blatantly.

When we're back from the honeymoon (CANCUN!!!!) I'll be sure to post pictures and tell you how we kept it true to who we are:)

Steamed

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:11:00 +0000

For my birthday, one of my friends got me Left 4 Dead for the PC, which is cool since most of my friends seem to play the game on the PC and only a few play the Xbox version that I already have. So now I can play with everyone!

In other words, feel free to add me on Steam. My account is the same as on Xbox Live: NilPixelCount.

It's zombie killing time!

Breast is best... for video games, according to a study

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:59:00 +0000

The most brilliant video game study ever has concluded that playing video games is linked to... breast-feeding! Violence, anti-social behaviour, forget it! The newest information shows that people who were breast-fed as babies are most likely to grow up to play video games.

Hopefully this tongue-in-cheek study can be thrown around every time someone confuses correlation with causation.

Hanging with the cool crowd

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:50:00 +0000

Once again, I do have to say that I love working in the video game industry. I just got from a wonderful meal that took several hours and extended into drinks post-meal at 2 very cool venues in trendy Old Montreal. So much amazing talk and brain-picking went on since I was in the company of many fascinating people, including the producer on Price of Persia and two people from LittleBigPlanet.

Such a great exchange of ideas and expressions of passion, it was really revitalizing to talk with them for so many hours about gaming. From gushing over each other's games to discussing how we plan to take our upcoming projects to the next level, it really dragged me out of the hum-drum day-to-day experience and reminded me WHY I want to be doing this.

This is something worth being passionate about.

I can't wait to hear them present at tomorrow's IGDA meeting!

Beware of liquidation sales!

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:47:00 +0000

Yes, Circuit City is going out of business and there could be some great deals...but maybe not as good as you might think! This video from Good Morning America shows just how you could get ripped off. It's pretty astonishing that these companies can get away with this.

Chrono Trigger!

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Chrono Trigger for DS makes an excellent stocking stuffer:) So when I'm in transit, that's my game of choice now.

At home, my honey decided he was bored with his level 74 warlock in WoW, so we've started from scratch again. He's having a blast with a new warrior and I'm trying out a priest. And since he's off work for the holidays, he's trailing my little Draenei along with him, power-levelling us up to level 38 already.

While I love my crazy feral druid, I'm having fun with the priest. I chose to start a priest for my alt since the reason I avoided MMOs was because of the whole multi-player aspect. Other people, especially a lot of gamers, are douchebags online. Peopl go online, get a bit of anonymity and become total idiots. At least that had been my experience previously.

So when we did our first playthrough, we did no PvP, no dungeons, no guilds. Just me and my honey roaming the country-side. When we got to a higher level, I started trying some of the multi-player stuff and had some awful experiences. But the good experiences with groups out-weighed the bad. So this time, I wanted to create a character that was completely dependant on being played with others. So I've got my holy priest, with all talent points put into healing and nothing in damage.

As is, I can't solo. If I do, it's super slow. But with my warrior by my side, we make quick progress through everything. And this time we're doing all the dungeons as we go. It's a different challenge to keep tabs on everyone, adapting myself to everyone else's playing styles, having to get to know them quick so I can be effective. Playing a healer has a lot to do with reading other people because you need to be able to anticipate what's going to happen next. Just reacting to things as they happen gets everyone into trouble fast.

Overall, I'm enjoying the experience. But I'm looking forward to getting back to my druid in Dalaran.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention! Another xmas gift my honey got for me was this set of prints from Etsy:

So awesome:)

Happy holidays!

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:22:00 +0000

No holiday time off for me! I have to save up my vacation days, so I'm only off on Friday. I'll be curled up with Hotel Dusk Room 215 on DS during those long family moments. I'm really getting into this game, though it's much more an interactive novel than an actual game. I love the art style and the story is just mysterious enough to keep me going without being too cliché that I get sick of it. Playing it in 15 minute chunks on metro rides is hard, it'll be nice to sit down and have a good, long session with it.

I'm also likely to be seen playing another DS game since there's one under the tree that's the shape of a DS game, which just so happened to be on my list. I can't wait to open my gifts!

Family time will also likely involve lots of Wii gaming, since my sister-in-law got one for Christmas. I'm bringing along my collection of games and extra controllers so that they can have the full family gaming experience that's best suited to the Wii. Hopefully she'll adore No More Heroes as much as I did.

And I'm so thrilled to see No More Heroes showing up on so many Best-of-2008 lists! It's not a game for everyone, certainly. And given that it came out in January last year, it's impressive that it's stuck in people's minds given the recent slew of blockbusters that were released.

Have a safe and happy holiday season everyone!!

Pole dancing game

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:21:00 +0000

Last spring, a company had sent out a release saying they want to work with any dev or publisher who wants to make a pole dancing game. Apparently they had no bites since they've just sent it out AGAIN. Joystiq is polling the masses to see which dev studio they should be the one to make it. Of course Rockstar is in the lead. I voted for Platinum Games. Imagine Mad World-style pole dancing!

However, I have to say I really did LOL when I was reading the comments, especially the pair that said:

"Can we add 3D Realms to the list of developers so that it NEVER gets made?"

"Yeah. And 10 years later get 3 screenshots of different colored in-game poles."

HA! Too true!

Wet in action

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:28:00 +0000

Yay! I'm so happy someone FINALLY posted something about this game:) Looks like it was filmed at David Lightbown's MIGS presentation on the game (I think you can see the top of my head in a few shots). This video is unfortunately super deformed, it should be widescreen and plus it appears to have been taken with a camera phone.

Which is a shame, because so much of this game is in the details. It has an amazing stylistic look to it. There's a heavy filter over all he game, giving it a grainy flickering look of an old 70s-ish pulp film.

I'm excited that people are finally talking about this game, because it's what my hubby's been working on for the past few months. He's a level designer at A2M and the game sounds super interesting. I can't wait to actually play it.

Aside from the video, the rest of David's presentation on their graphic tools was pretty impressive. I'm no artist, but what they've built to work with the textures and materials for the models in the game is impressively robust. Which is why it's such a shame that the video quality is so poor. The tools that they have created have really given an impressive amount of visual depth to the game. Hopefully they'll put a proper gameplay trailer up soon.

[via videogame247]

What I've been playing now

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:10:00 +0000

It's been quite a while since I've posted about what games I'm playing, there's just been so many to play that I haven't had time to write about them! What's on deck now?

I finished Fable 2 pretty quickly. It was fun and engaging, easy and interesting. I'm happy they're releasing DLC so soon, great timing since it's easy enough to get through the main story. I like the breadcrumb trail, the emotive system, the way experience is earned and divided by skill. I also really loved the music in the game; it really added a lot to the game.

The bad were still very present, but not enough to make me put the game down for long. The co-op experience was severely crippled, unfriendly and actually discouraged us from playing the game co-op for more than 15 minute chunks. The inventory system that was horribly disorganized (can't even sort alphabetically?) and kicked you out every time you used an item so you had to re-enter to use the same item twice in a row? The choices in the game didn't go far enough. Your final and ultimate decision at the end, sure it has an impact, but it still feels as if nothing you did before even mattered if you playing the extra post-story quests.

We bought Fallout 3 (with lunchbox) the day it came out. I've only had the chance to reach Megaton. My hubby, on the other hand has collected all the bobbleheads in the game. But now that he's done with it, I've got my chance to play it!

I've had opportunities, sure, but I haven't really been motivated to pick it up. It's so...bleak. Every time I see him play it, it all looks the same. It's grey. Blech. I see enough of that outside every day with the coming (non-nuclear) winter. Even the original Fallout games weren't that dreary. There was Reno! And Vault City! Islands of humanity shining out from the post-apocalyptic world. And the radioactivity made things sparkle a bit too ;) I'm just not interested in relaxing into doom and gloom after a long day.

We're also slowly making our way through the latest WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. There's some neat variety in the missions, like airlifting survivors out of an area, driving around a tank and riding mammoths. I like how there are central mission hubs, but there are so many more secondary and tertiary hubs from those too. This expansion feels a whole lot less linear. Burning Crusade felt far too linear, going from one hub to the next.

We're in no rush to get through it. We play it more like a casual game, something to pass the time for an hour or two, with a few days off in between. Even with the new quest types, they can still get a bit repetitive, so it's nice to take a break between so that I don't go insane from fetch quests.

Left 4 Dead is the latest co-op game we bought. So much fun:) It's a rare game where I'm willing to play through a problem area time and time and time again. I've got a notoriously short challenge vs. fun threshold. And yet I can keep playing the same section again and again to try to pass it.

The only problem seems to be that you really need 4 people to play it. The AI, while surprisingly intelligent, can be so frustratingly stupid at times. When you want to hold your ground, close the doors and keep in a tight group, idiot AI will open the door, run out, and get stuck behind a wall. *sigh* It can be frustrating when you know you're failing not because of something you're doing, but because of something you have no control over and can't fix. When you reach that point of realization, it's a game ender. I need to find more people to play this game with, most people I know are playing it on PC.

I waffled for a long on which platform I should get Civilization Revolutions, but given its addictiveness, I had no choice but to go with DS. Easily portable! It's a dumbed-down Civ, for sure, but it's still civ. It's fun:) And it's always just...one...more...turn!

I haven't had much time to spend on it yet, but I know that it's one I'll play off-and-on for many many years to come.

We had also picked up Tales of Vesperia to play co-op. Unfortunately the co-op is as bad, if not worse than Eternal Sonata. The second player doesn't get to explore and doesn't gain any achievements. The game is also highly customizable, like any hardcore JRPG, and a second player really inhibits the amount of time you feel ok with tweaking, lest the other person get bored. We had high hopes.

Aside from the co-o stuff though, the game is amazing! The characters are exceedingly adorable and hilarious. And the art...it's the most beautiful game I have ever seen on the Xbox. The art style is so perfect, you're playing a manga cartoon. It's worth checking out if you like JRPGs.

And while I haven't picked them up for a while, I still need to make my way through all of Half-Life 2, Braid, more Wii Fit to unlock, Castle Crasher among others.

There's a bunch of games that I still want to buy, but haven't yet, like Chrono Trigger for DS, Dead Space, Afro Samauri, and oh so many more. It's just been an explosion of awesome games! yay!

Give someone else a reason to be thankful

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:08:00 +0000

Happy Turkey Day to you USA-ians out there! Us Canucks had ours more than a month ago. Copycats :P

Regardless of where you live, I'm sure that most of you have many reasons to be thankful. So while you're thinking about how grateful you are, why not pay-it-forward a bit?

Child's Play has started it's annual donor drive. Most gamers are familiar with the charity started by Penny Arcade where people can donate toys, books, movies and games to local children's hospitals. Sick kids who are stuck in the hospital over the holiday will get to keep some of the gifts donated. Game systems and some other items will stay at the hospitals so that sick kids can escape from their pain and loneliness for a while.

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation has brought back their Give One Get One offer where one amount will buy you 2 laptops, one that's sent to you and one that's sent to a child in a developing country. While they haven't yet reached their $100/laptop goal, they're pretty close. Your contributions will not only help a kid connect to the world, but will help the foundation continue its work.

Not all of us have been so fortunate this year that we have room in our budgets for charitable contributions. The economy has brought hard times for a lot of people. But you can still give from the heart. Literally. I've posted here several times about how to become a Stem Cell Donor. I've posted this because it has hit home to me and making the importance of this issue known has been a huge fight for my friend and neighbour, Tamu.

Less than a year ago, her brother was diagnosed with leukemia. He died 2 weeks ago. Minorities are especially under-represented on the donor registry, the numbers are frightening. He was lucky enough to find a match. Not only that, but the graft was successful! Unfortunately, it came too late and the cancer was too strong. He lost the fight a few weeks later.

But because Tamu and Emru raised awareness, the number of registrants this past year saw a significant spike. And already a few of the people they know have been contacted by the registry because they are a match for someone else. So please make the difference in someone else's life (and for their family too) and sign up to be a marrow donor. Scared it'll hurt? Think it's dangerous? Maybe you should check to see if what you know about marrow donation is a fact or a myth.

Links of the day...

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:39:00 +0000

The Ars Staff Gift Guide 2008 is as good, if not better than the Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalogue for geeky and wonderful toys, but at much more reasonable prices. Like the Sorapot teapot, Fuzebox programmable 8-bit system or the fully-automatic Nerf Vulcan.

Via videogaming247, I had no idea that Valve published the stats for their Steam games! You can see what percentage of players have each achievement, the heat maps for player deaths and which weapons produce the most kills. So much neat info!

And speaking of Valve, Rock, Paper, Shotgun featured this amazing and hypnotic video of people messing with the TF2 engine.

Watch more video games and play free games at WeGame.

From project to project

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:22:00 +0000

*sigh* Such is the life in the gaming industry. The project I was just on got cancelled. It came as a surprise to us since we had a date with a publisher this week to show off our lovely vertical slice. But we didn't even make it that far. The powers-that-be made a tough call and declared our project too risky.

It was a huge surprise to all of us, given the timing and the incredible progress we'd made in the past month. But given that it was an original IP, in an unfamiliar genre, with an uncertain audience, in an unstable market... well... it's easy to see why the safer path is going to be followed.

I'm sure that this is happening at a lot of companies out there. I know that the Vivendi-Activision merger left a lot of projects orphaned as they trimmed the fat and went with the safe bets. A lot of the more risky titles were left looking for new publishers.

You think we're seeing a lot of sequels in the market right now? Wait another 2 years when the effect of today's economy will show on the games that are being launched. Sequels, re-skins and licenced IPs. At least from the big companies, that is. I really hope that all the start-ups and indie developers will be able to weather the economic changes.

Jason Rohrer featured in a great Esquire article

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:25:00 +0000

What a great article! Jason Rohrer, creator of the indie sensation Passage, has been featured in a very wonderful article in Esquire. I had the chance to play Passage at Kokoromi's Gamma event last year and I must admit that I did tear up at the end of my turn. It's simple, it's short but it packs a punch. It's wonderful to know that there's space in this world to showcase this kind of art.

[via Tiny Subversions]

MIGS party was, in fact, awesome

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:04:00 +0000

Yes, I went to the party, and yes, I had a great time.

I had made that post Friday at lunchtime after reading about the poster on the IGDA Women's SIG mailing list. I, and perhaps a few other people, wrote to the conference organizers and sponsors to complain about the ad.

When I checked my work mail Monday morning, I found that the Executive Director of the conference had written me back Friday evening, shortly after I left work. Now, having organized conference myself, I know just how crazy those couple of days leading up to the grand event can be! The fact that he put together a well-written response so quickly was really impressive. Here's what he wrote:

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to write us regarding the Official MIGS Party ad. We take these remarks seriously.

We would like to take this occasion to insist on the fact that we had absolutely no intention to offend anyone or to show any disrespect to the professional women working in the video game industry. We are strongly opposed to sexism and are deeply sorry if this ad was perceived as offensive.

Our goal was to take a humoristic approach and make a reference to the stereotypes surrounding parties in the game industry. Our sole target was to show and communicate that it is an inclusive event, where everyone is welcome. We still hope that this event will be fun and inclusive and that we will be able to make it a great celebration after a big day of work for the participants of the Montreal International Game Summit.

We are strong supporters of talented men and women in the videogame industry, both as developers and players.

Thank you again for your comments.

I can understand that they were trying to make light of how things used to be and that they were trying to point out that it's not like that any more. And frankly it's pretty shameful that my first thought, and the first reaction of most of the people I spoke to, was that they would have to hire women to make it seem like a wasn't a sausage fest. It's our own ingrained idea that there aren't going to be enough women. Really quite unfortunate.

The ad was pulled from the MIGS website by Monday morning. And at the conference on Tuesday, while they didn't have time (or money) to reprint the program which featured the ad, they did have flyers for the party on the seats for the first keynote which featured the art with new wording "Mingle with the best in the industry and have fun!

Again, doing that on such short notice is pretty commendable. Putting in the effort to redesign, print, and distribute the new ad in so little time really shows how much they cared about the perceived message.

I also stopped the Executive Director when I saw him running by one time to thank him for his email and the effort they put into making those changes. My email had been a tad harsh, as are most that you send off in a flurry of anger. But his calm and collected response really shamed me.

That all told, I went to the party. The place was PACKED! There were men and women there, all ages, students and professionals, speakers and attendees. It was tons of fun and I met some really great people.

MIGS party will be a total sausage party

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:29:00 +0000

Like someone on the IGDA Women's SIG said, this is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The ad for the Microsoft and Ubisoft sponsored event for the MIGS conference is...pathetic.

I've already written to Alliance Numérique, Microsoft and Ubisoft about how I feel. And now I'm going to jump on my little blog soapbox and rant to the faceless internets as well.

Fine, people in the past may have complained that MIGS parties are sausage fest. So what should you do? Try to attract more women? Oh no! You do something that will turn off any female attendees!

I can't imagine that the poster is going to attract a lot of females, since it's obviously aimed at lonely men who crave the attention of women. It's not aimed at people who want to network, it must be an event for people who are looking to get a little out-of-town action. Lonely guys, who need women to be hired to pay attention to them.

It really sounds like the party is going the "hired guns" route, getting models or something to make the party look more attractive to lonely men.

And how does that make me feel as female attendee? Well, for one, I'm not very likely to attend the event now. As much as I would love the opportunity to network with people, I dread several all-too-likely situations...

The guys who have taken the poster to heart and when you try to strike up a conversation they say "Alright! MIGS really came through, this isn't a sausage party after all!"
My credibility being in doubt, because when I say I'm a game designer, people will think that's just my acting classes paying off while I'm on the job.
Being judged by people who wonder if I'm just being nice and talking to them because I'm a hired gun.

How on earth could any of that sound like something anyone wants to go through? I can't be taken seriously if people think I'm just there as eye candy? It puts me in an uncomfortable and creepy situation.

I would really have hoped that the industry could be past this kind of attitude by now. So much for encouraging women to get into the industry!

Thank you, grandpa.

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:41:00 +0000

Today, in Canada, is Remembrance Day. It's a time to reflect on the sacrifices that so many people have made in the name of freedom. For me, it's a time to remember my grandfather.

He was born and raised in the southern part of Sweden. He and one of his brothers left home at an early age to move to Canada. When they got here, they worked out west as farmhands and doing other handiwork. It was simple, honest work.

When the war came, my grandfather joined the Canadian army and was stationed in several places before ultimately landing in Hong Kong. At the time of his capture, he was injured and in the hospital. The Japanese took the region and all the enemies in their territory became prisoners of war, including my grandfather. He lived through it, although his mistreatment and malnourishment would affect his health for the rest of his life.

I know next to nothing about my grandfather's experience. He never talked about them to me or my father. He would meet up regularly with other Hong Kong vets because only they could understand what he went through. He didn't tell us what horrible experiences he wen through because he did all that so that we would never have to.

It's not as though he never thought about it, he had numerous books and videos on the topic. But he never discussed it with family. I tried to read one of the books he left behind that was specifically on the experiences of Hong Kong (Long Night's Journey Into the Day) and I haven't been able to get past more than 50 pages of it. It's heartbreaking, full of diary entries and recollections from people who did and didn't make it through. It's hard to fathom that my own grandfather must have gone through those same things.

What I have left from his times as a POW is a photo taken in Hong Kong just after they were released. My grandfather, a tall and skinny man, looks absolutely gaunt. My father has his discharge papers from the army with only a few notes as to what his experiences had been like, in typical government paperwork form. And I have a Nazi belt buckle, complete with swastika. I don't know how he got it, if it was during the war or through trading with his army buddies afterwards.

But it's physical evidence that I can hold that proves to me that all this happened. And that war happened for a reason. Even if we can't agree with any of the wars that are happening in the world right now, we can be thankful that there are people out there who are willing to risk their lives for the hope of something better for the rest of us.

When my grandfather passed away, several vets came to the funeral. When his urn was lowered, they took the poppies from their lapels and threw them into his grave. I broke down crying. And I still tear-up every time I see poppies.

CliffyB, all grown up?

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:56:00 +0000

“Gears of War 2” lead designer Cliff Bleszinski no longer wants to be called “CliffyB,” a name he’s used since the 90s. It’s “time to grow up a bit,” he wrote in a quick note.

How do you make a game girlfriend-friendly?
You have very cool and bad-ass main characters that have a very human side. And you make sure that the female characters in your game don't have ginormous tits and aren't bad stereotypes. "If the sequence is overwhelming for your significant other, he or she can just sit behind cover, blind fire a little bit, and you can handle all the shenanigans," Bleszinski says.

A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, "yeah, I f*cked her." I know that sounds crude, but it's the honest-to-God truth. Once you play a beta, you can check it off your list -- you can say, "yeah, I played it." Then you might not feel motivated to get that initial cherry popping from the proper, final game.

You've got to have a thick skin. If I had a nickel for every time I was called a fag on the internet, I could retire. It's just the way the fans are sometimes; you do a good job and they'll hold you up in a chair and carry you through the streets. You screw up once and they'll be the first to tar and feather you, and that's the risk I take when I stick my neck out there.

And guys like this don't even realize how what they're saying might make some people uncomfortable. I know. I've worked with a few of them. No wonder women so few women want to work in the industry and so many leave after having to deal with guys like this. In any other industry, no company would stand to be represented in public by a person like this.

Grim Fandango Design Docs available...and hilarious!

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:07:00 +0000

It's like Christmas has come early! Tim Schafer has released the Grim Fandango design document to the internets! *glee*

[via videogame24/7]

Stem Cell Awareness

randerson@gmail.com (Rayna) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:32:00 +0000

I've mentioned this here before, but it's worth mentioning again since this it's Stem Cell Awareness Week in Canada and Month in the US. Here's a quick FAQ taken from my friend, whose brother just received a marrow transplant last month.

1. 70% of people requiring a stem cell transplant need an unrelated donor.

The first choice is a family member, but more people will have to rely on a stranger.

2. Register by providing a blood sample in Quebec or the UK, or a cheek swab sample in the rest of Canada or the US.

In the US, UK and most of Canada, you can even fill in your registration online and get a kit sent to your home.
This is a free service in many countries, and in the US, there are ways to register for free.

3. Donation is safe, fast, and not risky.

You never donate stem cells or bone marrow at risk to your own life. Whatever is donated replenishes itself naturally in the body.

4. There are 2 ways to do it.

70% of people will donate in a process that takes a few hours and is similar to donating blood. For a few days leading up to the extraction process, the donor receives injections to produce additional stem cells in the body.

30% of people will donate by having liquid marrow extracted from within the back of the pelvic bone.

5. Many people cannot find matches.

Giving blood is important, and people who need transplants (in addition to many other people) need blood to survive. There are 8 blood types, but several million combinations of possible human leukocyte antigen (HLA) profiles - 150 billion different possibilities in theory.

Where to go for more information:

OneMatch (Canada) free
Hema-Quebec (Quebec) free
National Marrow Donor Program (US) free in person if you are in a minority donor pool, subsidized or free at some bone marrow drives, free online registration this month
DKMS Americas (US) Find out how to register without leaving home for free or by paying what you can
Anthony Nolan Trust (UK) free