Since then I have moved on to Chrome as my primary browser, but I still use Firefox for the Something Awful forums extension, various HTML developer extensions, and my Ümloud! logins (preventing acidental personal posts). I also started using 1Password (a future post!) for better security across all my browsers. The key component to my Firefox use are the extensions (also known as Add-ons).

When Firefox first rolled out extensions, the API asked developers to limit what version the extension would work for. An extension for Firefox 3 wouldn’t work on 4. This forced developers to test the new browser and for users to update when needed. That way extensions wouldn’t soft-fail on users, causing them to think the browser is broken when the fault was the extension. This process was fine when major Firefox releases were around a year or more.

Recently Firefox started going on a version number release schedule similar to Chrome: Release early and very often. Major version number updates occur in a span of months or weeks. This is fine, but flies against extensions. An extension that got updated for the shipping version won’t work on a beta. The updating messages aren’t removable; just “ask later”. Now I have to pick between seeing update messages every time I launch, or break extension support.

So we need two things to happen here:

• Make a third “wait till it’s released, not beta” option.
• Extensions move away from version numbers and more to capability testing.

While the “not beta” option should be there in any case, we’re starting to see a change that the old versioning system isn’t paired with the change of development schedule. Without knowing too much about the extension system, I can’t help but think of the disastrous history of using User Agent strings to assume capabilities. The better approach is using something like Modernizr¹ which tests what a browser can do, rather than the name/version of a browser. That way when a browser with a different name, but capable of the require actions, can still work. Past, present, and future.

Sadly, I can’t wait for these things to happen. Which sadly means on my Mac, I’ll be using Safari as my Ümloud! browser and only venturing into Firefox when I absolutely need to use an extension, assuming it still works…

¹ Shout out to Faruk Ateş!

For the past few weeks, I’ve noticed my trackpad was super sensitive to clicks. I haven’t notied it that much, but the bulk of my laptop use in the past three months is via Synergy and not using the trackpad. Now that Puzzle Agent 2 shipped, I’m back to working at my coffee shops. Today the clicking got so horrible I couldn’t do anything and had to shut down the computer.

Flipping it over to the back, the hood was bent out of shape a bit. I noticed this before, but I thought it was just use. Popping the hood, I remove the battery and see what’s under it. Didn’t see anything out of place, so I thought I’d see if there’s something wrong with the lid. Putting the lid back but without the battery, the lid clicked in place normally.

Looking at the battery, the “bottom” side which should be flat was bowing out:

Keeping the battery out, I started my computer up again and things were working fine. Who knows what would have happened if I didn’t look at that sooner…

No more battery power, but I can click again! The Internet says it’s covered by Apple Care, which I have till Nov. Figuring out when I can make an Apple Store appointment.

My music collection is roughly 22GB of music I’ve purchased in the past 15+ years; Moving to digital when it was easy to buy digital. I wasn’t much of a file sharing person in the days since I just didn’t have the time. Course with that large of a library, I’ve had to make some choices between all the devices I use for music play. While it’s changed over the years due to technology, my current layout works for me.

Central storage of music is important for me as it helps to keep things consistent between the devices, unless the device can’t store that amount. I also concerned about backups of this music data. While I still own physical CDs, the digital purchases can’t be re-download (except new Amazon.com purchases). So here’s my system I’ve established for myself. I’ll explain it in a typical workflow.

Obtaining Music

The only time I buy physical CDs is when they are signed by the artist or some preorder bonus is included. The rest is all digital. I do this for a number of reasons. Physical items are expensive to everyone in comparison to the delivery of bits. For me, physical media that doesn’t have a more meaning for me is largely wasteful. (I’m proud of buying MC Frontalot CDs from the man himself.) There are exceptions for when an artist is selling directly on their own service. Otherwise I prefer Amazon, followed by iTunes. I will admit that the Amazon cloud service makes that buy more attractive, but I’ll get to that later.

Where ever the source, the first place music goes is my MacBook Pro’s iTunes. This makes my laptop the most up to date storage of music. It’s my primary listening device by far, but I still have other places to play my music.

Home Storage

When I get home, I’ll do one manual copy from my MacBook Pro to my Windows 7 iTunes. While this is a manual step I haven’t been able to automate completely, I have added some things into that step that add a lot more bang for my buck.

My Windows 7 Music folder (which is essentially my iTunes music folder) is actually a network disk provided by my Network Area Storage (NAS) device, a Synology Disk Station 207+. This step alone enables the music to do the following:

• Interface music though iTunes GUI.
• Broadcast my music via the NAS’ iTunes Server (without my Win7 box turned on).
• Broadcast my music via DLNA.
• Stream music to my iPhone via DS Audio.
• Stream music to a web browser player.

While I admit I don’t use most of the other functions as much, there are times when I use the PS3 to play music and keep my computers closed down. It’s also great for guests staying at my place and have the music available to them. I confess I don’t use the DS Audio app much, but the places I want to listen to music with a solid 3G or WAN connection are times when I have my laptop.

Playing Music

My portable Mac is the main place of music, followed by my iPhone. I work a lot with my laptop and there’s no need to stream when I have my devices with me.

On my iPhone, I don’t do the streaming as much. The times I’m without my laptop and play music are usually the dead zones of cell service. Which means I’m listening to podcasts, of which iTunes is still the best solution for. There are times where I’ll plug in my iPhone directly to my AV receiver to listen to podcasts and don’t want to turn on my Windows box.

At home, I mainly use my Windows box for music listening, which is connected to my receiver. I have the flexibility to move to either my PS3 or Xbox360 and access the same music. Usually it’s the PS3 as the interface is better than the Xbox.

My car however is in the past. It’s a Ford Focus 2007 I got when I moved to the bay area. My father and I knew that in six months the Focus would include the Ford Sync system. This allows my iPhone to play though the car. Sadly I couldn’t wait that long for a car and settled for the 6CD changer. Thankfully it will read MP3 CDs so I can store more music than a Red Book CD. Slowly I’m moving to MP3 CDs of music I’d like in the car. I tried the FM transmitter thing, but it’s not the best with a phone physically connected. Once it’s available, I do plan on getting the BlueTrip DualConnect which should solve my iPhone as music player issues.

Long-Term Backups

While this adds a level of backup to my media files, it’s not the Final Solution™ for backups. For this I use another feature on the Synology and backup to an Amazon S3 Bucket; All automated on a weekly process.

S3 is a network storage service that’s more advanced than a service like Dropbox and much cheaper depending on your volume. You’re charged for the storage you keep and the bandwidth you use. The rates can very depending on what location you want the data stored, but for anyone in North America, US East (Virgina) is fine. My bill for last month was $1 to store the 22GB. Once my music is on my NAS, everything else falls into place.

Enter the new thing: Amazon Cloud Drive & Player. This service does what my NAS already does – A steaming music player and cloud storage of music. For me it’s reduced features to what I’m used to with my NAS. Not to mention extra manual steps to make it all work. The only benefit is redundancy from failures of my local devices. But that’s what my S3 bucket is for. My current plan is also much cheaper than Cloud Drive. I’d have to pay $4.25/month to upload my existing music manually at the 50GB tier.

Cloud Drive does allow you to redownload Amazon music purchases without counting against drive quota. Makes sense as Amazon simply links to the existing music download server and storage and fully recommend people do this. You can always download your music off the drive at a later date. The alterative is a one-time download so you’d be silly not to use Cloud Drive. The big bummer is I can’t re-associate my music I payed for on Amazon to the drive without Quota. They still have purchase history and could in theory. I suspect it’s a licence issue, but who knows.

But is this for you?

My system setup is this way as I know what I’m doing and don’t want to worry about it as much. While I’m not trying to sound like a product placement for the Synology, it’s a system that does a lot of things that are helpful and just plain work. I also use the device for a bunch of other things like Time Capsule and other features. The device is pricy in comparison to other NAS systems (current model at $300 without disks). Unless you’re doing security camera stuff, there’s no other costs besides the drives. All the iOS apps are free. I’d recomend a Dynamic DNS name service like DynDNS so you can always phone home, which is free. You’ll also need to poke holes for ports on your router.

With services like Cloud Drive and what ever rumored and future services from Apple, Google, and et all, there’s a simplicity that doesn’t require a hardware purchase like a NAS. We’ll see what these services offer, but I feel my current setup will end up being cheaper as I’m rolling my own services. So long as I don’t make the downloading of my library public, I don’t need to strike licensing deals to do it either.

Thank you to the many people who helped me Antidote! While I wish the project met the expectations I and others had, it still provided me and others the experience that helped all of us to become talented and successful practitioners of interactive media and beyond.

I would not be where I am today, making video games for a living, if it wasn’t for Antidote and all the people who helped to make this happen. For this I am forever grateful. Now, to formally announce the release in my traditional manor:

Please enjoy this game.
It was made for you, with love, in Kalamazoo, Northville, Ann Arbor, Boston and Berkeley.

Child’s Play, Ümloud!, PAX East Panels

For PAX East 2011, I reprised my role in the Child’s Play Charity panel. This time it was extra special as Kristin revealed the first full-time hire for Child’s Play, Jamie Dillion! You can see her interview process on PATV (Part 1, Part 2). Her roll with Child’s Play is to help expand upon the org and deal with community fundraiser people like me. I’m really excited about working with Jamie and see a lot of cool and awesome things in the future for Child’s Play.

For the panel, I wrote this document as an extended outline for the panel. It will soon be expanded upon and made into a Child’s Play publication with a lot more info soon.

Antidote

The other panel I was on was AJ’s “The Sorting Workshop”. It started out with a game “preview” in which attendees had to write about the game for 10 minutes. From there, the other panelest would read the writings and comment with notes on how to write for journalism, marketing, pr, etc. AJ asked me to be the dev to preview a game. She was expecting something of MSPaint quality — Something with little effort to use. Instead, I used a live-action video game called Antidote.

This got me thinking that I should release the thing, though I am nervous about it. I’ll just go out and say that this isn’t a good game to play and I don’t plan on fixing it. I don’t worry about people trashing it in reviews, but I worry a little that people think I’ve at that level with the art form when I’ve grown well beyond that in the years. So the website’s going to have notable disclaimer setting the exceptions low and pointing them to better games I’ve worked on like Puzzle Agent.

On the tech side, I was glad to see that the Mac build was able to run on an Intel based Mac. This is especially key as the version of Director that I used was before the Intel business and thus a PowerPC executable. The saving grace is the Rosetta layer on Mac OS X. It’s technically an optional install with a “just-in-time” download and install when the user first runs a PowerPC executable. However, Rosetta will be removed from Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”, so the time is now to release the thing. For the curious, it would cost me $300+ to get a version of Director to make the Intel version — which I don’t plan to spend.

The Windows version runs without problems on Win7. I did remake an installer last night using Inno Setup so the install process flows better. There is the requirement of having Quicktime installed, but if you have iTunes you have it. I also have the Mac installer redone, but still need to make the DMG background for it. From there, I’m going to clean up the website and make it pretty. I’ll be using Amazon S3 to distribute the builds as straight downloads and Bittorent. The download is big at 240-260mb, but bandwidth is much cheaper these days than five years ago.

I plan to get everything ready and released by the end of April, if not sooner.

This GDC, I talked to a super majority of non-art entry level and students that came to GDC. The Telltale jobs booth is one of the most attended job booths at the convention. I took great pains to be kind and give career counseling to people who are working the right direction but don’t have a fit to what my employer is seeking. I hope I gave the right kind of direction to help them grow. The kind of advice I wish I had when I was in their shoes.

When people see my business card, there’s a wide eye reaction that the met someone from Telltale. It is humbling to me that I have earned such respect with my work to incite this kind of reaction. I hope that I impress on them an openness and kindness when they meet me. I hope that I live up to and surpass the expectation from the work my fellow artists and I have created. I hope that the impression I left with the people I met at GDC this year

I hope that the impression I left with the people I met at GDC this year is that kindness and hard work do indeed lead to great things. I can not live in a world in which my success came exclusively by luck alone and that hard work and adaptiveness lead me to where I am today. That is why I will do what I can to give the kind of support to the people who came to the other side of my table the past few days. Four years ago this week, I was one of them.

Very few game developers work with non-profit organizations (NPOs).

As with any overly broad statement, there’s nuance here. I’m setting the bar to beyond monetary donation, but committed infrastructure involvement. I don’t have hard facts to prove or disprove this statement; Believe me, I wish I had hard facts. There are some developers who do great NPO work out there, some even volunteer with Ümloud!, whom do count and are doing good things.

What is clear to me is an overall lack of willingness from developers to work on NPOs. I’m trying to figure out is why I’m the only developer involved with these projects. Of the Child’s Play community organized events I know of, I can’t think of any developer that’s founded any (please tell me if I’m missing something). I see involvement on a corporation level, which is awesome, but I’m trying to find individuals acting on their own. I should not that I’m not limiting the argument to only Child’s Play, that’s just where I’ve done my research though the years.

One could say that development life is too demanding. To that I say bullocks. The first Ümloud! event was done in 8 weeks for both event and organizational setup while I was build engineer at Telltale Games. A crunch mode in the NPO and perpetual crunch mode as my game dev job. This earns me the right to say this argument doesn’t hold weight. If there’s a cause you believe in, I can’t buy the argument that you’re too busy for it. Nor does that argument hold with others who also have jobs and lives to live and still work for NPOs.

I don’t know why I’m the only game developer I know that works on NPOs. I don’t want to be the only person. Seriously, it’s bloody lonely doing this work. It’s frustrating when I try to get the game community together to work on these projects, the community that gathers contains very few game developers. I’m trying to demand better for my fellow artists in the game industry. I want this to change, but I don’t know what do so differently. The only thing I can think of doing differently is saying:

Get involved with something!

Synergy is a software KVM switch (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) but without the video. Instead, it allows you to work on one computer, move the mouse to one side of the screen, and start working on the computer next to it. All of which connected by the local network to control mouse and keyboard.

It doesn’t matter what OS the computers are using. Once they’re set up with Synergy, you use one keyboard and mouse to run as many computers as you wish. Have one computer with more than one screen? Synergy adjusts flawlessly. Even more amazing is that text-only copy and paste works across the computers!

The bugger is getting the system set up. Right now the project is recovering from a bit of neglect as well as a lack of user-centered focus on design. As you’ll read on, we’re now at a point where the setbacks are worked on. I invite you to use Synergy now as it’s stable. Just a bit curious to set up with Windows as the “server” (the computer with the physical keyboard & mouse).

As wonderful this software is, the development story was questionable in the late 2000′s. The maintainer for the original project at Synergy.sf.net went AWOL. New operating systems, namely Windows Vista & 7, required maintenance on the software. There were a few groups trying to make the software work, but a project named Synergy++ came out on top as the successor to the project providing a good chunk of maintenance to the Synergy code. Eventually the project moved to it’s new home, Synergy-FOSS. In the past few days they released the first release under FOSS, brining Synergy back to awesome status.

They’re far from done however. The biggest problem Synergy has for usability is a huge interface problem. As it stands, Synergy’s configuration of screens depends on either hand-editing a text file, or a GUI interface that didn’t take human beings into account.

“0 to 100% of the ‘left’ of ‘Screen A’ goes to 0 to 100% of ‘Screen B’” is the language you needed to figure out for arranging screens. Meaning you have to set up the reverse of what you intended to configure. When I set up a server on a Windows box, I have to draw out the screens on a sheet of paper to get it working. It’s a nightmare as someone who’s done it before and almost impossible for someone who hasn’t.

A while ago someone developed a Mac GUI to Synergy called SynergyKM. It uses the Synergy binaries but wrapped in a GUI and other tie-ins to make it work as a native Mac application. This includes a menu bar allowing you to switch profiles and turn it on and off. This is a boon to me when I have a home and office configuration. Most importantly, the server configuration is easy once you know the machine names of your computers.

Put the computer screen where you want it to be and hit “Apply Now”. Done. While the screens are all iMacs, it’s just cosmetic as one’s a Windows box.

The bad news is that SynergyKM as a project isn’t developed anymore. The good thing is that there’s a workaround to update SynergyKM with newer Synergy binaries. I use this with the new 1.3.6 Synergy-FOSS binaries.

Synergy-FOSS is planning on a Mac GUI for 1.4.1. I can’t find screenshots or early copies of this, so I can’t comment on how that’s going. But I’m hoping they took some pages from the SynergyKM playbook, using it for the PC as well. Still, using 1.3.6 is great with a few minor but recoverable hangups.

Once the 1.4 Synergy comes out of beta, Synergy will hopefully realize a level of usability for more people to use!

There are a few things that Google makes available to non-profits in their range of products. Some don’t need to check your non-profit status. One requires extreme but understandable scrutiny. Then there’s this middle ground which for a company such as Google, is surprisingly more complex and resource intensive than it should be.

Of all the programs and services Google offers, there are three levels of involvement to use these products. These are terms I made up since Google doesn’t classify products this way.

• No Application/Approval Needed:
  • Google Apps (Standard Edition)
  • Anything anyone uses personally (Gmail, Search, Analytics, etc).
• Non-Profit Status Clearance:
  • Google Checkout (for donations)
  • Google Apps (Non-Profit Edition)
  • YouTube (Branded Channel; Donations button)
• Full Evaluation & Decision:
  • Google Grants

No Application are products that work once you set them up with no need to confirm non-profit status. Besides Google Apps, these are products that are no different to anyone, individual or organization.

Non-Profit Status Clearance are products that require a non-profit status check, but not discerning beyond established rules. Checkout falls into this category as Google wants to make sure the entity has the non-profit status for tax and legal reasons. The idea being any valid non-profit gets clearance.

Full Evaluation is on the other end of the spectrum. It’s not enough to be a non-profit, but Google making the decision to go beyond what they do for any non-profit. For Google, it’s the Grants program which goes beyond free product and is a direct partnership with the company. High bars of entry are expected here.

The difficulty I’ve had with Google is in this middle category, status clearance. The problem with these Google products is the lack of centralized application process. When you apply to any one product, the forms are similar enough as far as status clearance is concerned. The prerequisites are the same which all focus around having an entry in GuideStar to validate status. However, each product goes though each step from square one, regardless if you have already established a relationship with another product.

I would like to see Google have a one-stop shop for this middle ground. As a non-profit, I want to establish and register with Google once. Where I as the non-profit admin go to one place and have Google recognize the entity of Ümloud! as a non-profit. Then when I go to other status clearance products, the process is simply setting up the tool, rather than a human being checking if I’m a non-profit again.

Besides the reduction of time for staff to go though applications for every product, it should be easier for current and future Google products to latch onto the status clearance. Then a non-profit set of features wouldn’t need to reinvent the approval process for that product.

I could see an expansion of this with the Grants program. The first step being on the non-profit clearance list, then an organization can apply to Grants. At least then the applications to Google won’t require basic validation and spend more time on the premium standards Google has for Grants recipients.

If this can happen, then non-profits can spend more time doing their work, rather than waiting on procedure. Not to mention Google having a better handle on the organizations who use their services.

If by the off chance someone from Google reads this, I would love to talk and consult with you and your staff about this. I’m in the Bay Area and wouldn’t mind stopping by for a chat!

Since I moved to San Francisco, I always end up backstage the first time I visit a concert venue. This comes from being a vegan baked goods delivery service for Jenny Owen Youngs. This was a favor for my friend Lynn, baker for the Rockstars. This time I didn’t have brownies in my hands, but I would have an audience with Amanda Palmer at the Filmore.

Meeting with Internal Staff

The morning of Sunday May 18th, I met with Margot Cannon, who would be my co-conspirator for this project. While I was planning the ARG assets to be completed by the Palmer Art Army, I needed someone to help me with the writing, planning, and general ‘I know a guy/girl’ task assignments.

While we had talked quite a bit before that morning, this was the first face to face about the project. We got a few things put together, but it’s extremely hard to plan this out when you have no access to the source material, regardless of its status. We were flying blind, thus our plans were pretty wide open.

Time was also the big issue. This was late May and the album’s street date in mid-September. These things usually run with 8 months of planning for a 4-7 month run time. While the ARG would run after the album release, we had less than 4 months to plan and implement. As a product of episodic games, we came up with a plan to break content drops in episodes. The Rabbithole (initial contact) in mid-July lasting two weeks, two content drops every two weeks, then a content drop each week after and though the release of the album. Still a very aggressive schedule, but spacing out the content to allow development to catch up on itself.

This patten is a little less organic than I would like. Structured more on media drops which result in specific calls to action, rather than giving more flexibility to the players on the flow of the game. Not ideal, but this way the game would be accessible to players who aren’t used to ARGs and more accommodating to the very short schedule.

Waiting for Palmer

Beth told me Amanda would meet me sometime after sound check. Having worked as in-house tech and psydo roadie a few years, I’m fully aware this means ‘unknown’. After parking near the venue, I hang out at a Starbucks around the corner as the only place I could chill out near by. The few hours here allowed me to think about this project, and more importantly why.

If I was approached this project any time before March 2007, this would have been the priority in my life. This project would be grand exposure for me as a game designer and lead into other high profile projects or employment at a major studio. This is the thing I went to Emerson College for. In March 2007, I got hired at the best independent studio in the world and working with people who’s work got me in this art form to begin with. I’m at my career path and don’t need something else to accomplish this goal. For the first time in my life, I can say no to a large opportunity and not be that regretful.

I still wanted to do this project! What has changed is the reasons. I wanted a project to call my own outside of Telltale to keep me current. Also, I wanted to get a few more people on my contacts list. Did I mention Neil Gaiman was writing the book companion piece?

There’s also a large moral reason for this project. Which, if I’m going to be taking on a second full-time job as this project would mandate, it needs to be for something more than money and fame. In part one, I talked about the Detroit Dream: Get the fuck out of Detroit. What I want to do is change the Dream. Give inspiration for people to create their own Dream, independent of an outside and physically distant force. It’s not just the money or the credit, it’s being able to make a change in someone’s life by showing them what they are capable of.

Meeting Beth

The call came in and I went to the stage door of the Fillmore where Beth greeted me at the door. She gives me a hug as I walk in and tells me that the sound check was about to wrap up. We walk into the venue and I sit down stage left on the wall. Palmer was onstage working out the rest of the sound check, followed by placing some flowers around the venue for one of her songs.

In my mind I’m figuring out on how to approach this meeting. I had all these ideas and conceptions, but the deficit I had was what the client wanted from the project. I needed to hear from her what she wanted and make a project everyone wanted to be apart of.

While waiting, I saw a fellow Emerson alumni, Jenny. Both of us were surprised to see each other so randomly as we haven’t seen each other since graduation. Though seeing someone I know from Emerson working for Palmer isn’t exactly a stretch. Caught up on what we’ve been doing since graduation and getting caught up.

The Artist will See You Now…

Finally it came time to talk to Palmer. There was a bit of a rush to start as I was being penciled in between interviews and other things Palmer needed to do. She introduced me to Brian V. and got to shake his hand. Being in rushed mode, I quickly told him I enjoyed his work and wish I could spend more time talking with him, but time was very short.

We walked up to her dressing room and told me to wait there for a few moments. I took the opportunity to take a photo, marking the occasion.

Palmer shortly returned and we started the discussion. I started by asking what were her intents with the project; Where did she want to go with it. She started explaining how she liked the concept with Zero Year from Nine Inch Nails & 42 Entertainment. Zero Year included a tight integration between the album (the primary product) and the game itself. The album was made for the album was made for the game. This kind of project involves a lot of time to plot and prepare, and most importantly integration with the album. It was also clear that no one had really sat down and talked to her on what an ARG was, what it meant, and the practices in the art form. Not that she was misguided, but I she was trying to grasp for a vocabulary to express what she wanted. Something I we could work out, but not in a 10 minute span before a concert. Certainly not while she was touring.

Where things started falling apart for me was the lack of access to the development of the album and/or book. I asked where the status of each of these objects were, and she responded that she wasn’t ready to share them yet. I tried to impart on her that I can’t make a project with the title “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” and not have access to the album and book I’m trying to promote.

Then the 10 minuets were up. We said our goodbyes and that we’ll continue talking though e-mail with her people. After saying good bye to Beth and Jenny, I walked out waiting for the concert itself to start.

Met up with Margot and Tara for the concert. Briefed Margo about the conversation which left both of us not too enthusiastic of the prospect. Time was not on our side, nor was the lack of access to the stakeholders. Still, the Dolls put on a wonderful show, as always. I also got introduced to a band that started the concert. In a place somewhere between the Squirrel Nut Zippers & the Dresden Dolls are The Vermillion Lies.

The E-mail Trail

After that weekend, the e-mail trail was short and not too communicative. Palmer was on tour and starting the Europe leg of it. While Palmer was being positive about the project, there was simply more important things on her radar. Finally, I sent an e-mail cutting my involvement in the project.

I don’t believe that Palmer was dis-interested in the slightest. The problems were between what I required for me to create a project and what the Palmer camp was able to provide. I could have produced something, but it wouldn’t be something I would be proud of giving my own resources and time limits.

Reflections

It’s been over two years since this interesting story happened. In that time, Palmer released the album, followed by her public wishes to be dropped from her label and then granted. She also got engaged to that Neil Gaiman. I’m still working at Telltale having released over way more games than you can imagine on almost every platform that isn’t portable, and two that are.

I also found my way of creating a venue for people to be creative themselves, and in a way that also helps children & families around the globe deal with illness. With Ümloud!, donators take to a concert stage and perform a song using Rock Band. Some of them go beyond simply singing, dressing up as various rock stars and making the performance their own. It’s truly amazing what these people do for the charity concert. So in a way, I’m accomplishing my initial goals with the Palmer ARG, but in a way that also benefits sick children.

What I walked away from all this was my ability to pass on projects of high notoriety. If this project reached my door before I started working at Telltale, I would drop just about everything to do it, even with the tough conditions. That’s just it; I didn’t need to take the Palmer gig to showcase my talents. I do that now with monthly video game releases and with Ümloud!. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to work with Palmer. I just don’t need to work with her.

Amanda Palmer (the person, not the idiom) gave this same opportunity two two people I know: Beth and BriAnna Olson. Palmer took a risk with them to create wonderful art. Both of which have grown stronger in their work by working with Palmer. For this I will still feel a debt for making my friends better artists.

This is why I still wear a “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” button on my jacket. When people ask why I killed her, I respond:

“Well, I almost killed her, but that’s another story…”

This is the story of “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” – The Alternate Reality Game (ARG)
The unrelased version by me, Seg.

Photo by kReEsTaL.

This will be a two or three part series of posts. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and one 3000+ word post isn’t good for anyone. It may take a day or two between posts, but I’ll get to it. This would be a good time to subscribe to the Seg On Media RSS feed…

Before I continue, I want to make crystal clear that there is no ill will between me and Amanda Palmer & associates. Things didn’t work out and it was nothing personal. Incidentally, the album is available pretty much everywhere. I also want to note that I’m not going to comment on the ARG that was released for the album as it’s simply not my place to comment. That said, I am glad that a project did happen when I was unable to produce the project.

Context

To give some context, I need to start this story when I was living in Boston and going to Emerson College. During my time there, a musical duo by the names of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione started their rise to fame as a punk cabaret duo called: The Dresden Dolls. I found out about them as I had a number of classmates at Emerson working for them in various capacities. Specially BriAnna Olson who was to work on my thesis Antidote, but other conflicts came up that prevented us from working together.

When I finally got to see them perform at the Avalon, I certainly became a fan. I have a soft spot for a woman who sings and plays piano (see: Amanda Rose Smith, Regina Spector). I also found myself watching Brian intensely. As a former jazz musician, let the record show that I would want Brian to be my drummer. He intensely listens and observes the other musicians in his work. I can put more words to this, but I’m detracting from the point of this post.

More important than the performance of Palmer/Viglione was the spectacle off the stage. Many members of the audience themselves were performers in their own right. Mostly along the lines of a dark circus performance acts, but creating an atmosphere transcending beyond the concert performance itself. This is what I love about Dresden Doll concerts; The audience becomes apart of the performance. At the end of each concert, I feel a lacking that these individuals will mostly hang up their traits until the Dolls perform again. This I find the most depressing part of a Dolls concert.

The participatory nature of the audience and my college buddies working with her illustrates a trait I see between Palmer and myself. We both share the gift of seeing the potential in people. Palmer has better success in turning what’s inside of people to the exterior. When I was living in Michigan, the general despair of the area made this goal much harder. Sadly, the only way of success is living the Detroit Dream: Get the fuck out of Detroit. I wish I could do more, but ultimately the best thing for me was to leave Michigan and hoping that my Journey greats hope for others to live the Dream.

I made these conclusions well before I graduated from Emerson and well before recent events. Interestingly, these thoughts would prove useful when I was called to work on the project.

“I know a guy…”

In March 2007, I left Boston for a job with Telltale Games in the San Francisco Bay area. I started working with people who created titles that got me into the business in the first place. In order words, I landed a job with my Dream company. No longer was I working to get into the industry of my chosen art form, I was now getting paid for it and working with the best people in the art form.

In Jan 2008, my close friend Lindsay realized a mistake she had made for the past few years. She had never introduced me to Beth Hommel. This was a mistake as we had been living relatively close to each other (Boston vs. NYC) and certainly would have benefited from each other as being artists and both of us play/screen writes. There are few people in this world that I will trust blindly, and Linsday is one of these few special people. For Lindsay, I trust Beth.

During this time, Beth ends up meeting with Amanda Palmer and all of the sudden Beth is her filthy assistant. Thus another person in the long line of friends that work with Palmer. I’ll let her tell her own story (Beth: Link!).

Shortly after, Beth asks me if I knew anything about ARGs. I give her the skinny and a few quick examples. Causally pass that it’s part of my realm of work, though I have not done an ARG myself. A few weeks later she tells me about Palmer’s solo album “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?” and my thoughts on an ARG based on that title. Like most things in the entertainment biz, the proposal needed to be done yesterday and with no prior context. There would be an album, and after some Internet sleuthing I found out a book by Neil Gaiman would also be penned. No context beyond that.

Killing a Rockstar

With little content to go on, I resorted to my existing convictions of Amanda Palmer and of her celebrity. The death of Amanda Palmer is not about the real existing person, but of the idiom of Amanda Palmer. What did this death mean then? For anyone familiar with the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman, I took a page of the mythology presented, blended with Clay Shirky‘s theory of the collective cognitive surplus. What I call the Clay Shirky Gin theory.

In practice, I would fashion the plot as ‘something’ killing Amanda Palmer, releasing the collective cognitive energy created by her fans. Her death creating a surplus and someone wanted that power to themselves. While the game progresses in figuring out who killed Amanda Palmer, it’s really about enacting justice over the killing by taking back the surplus. In other words, the players take back their own part of the surplus and invest the creative abilities in themselves; Not the celebrity.

After talking with my cohort Margot Cannon, I wrote what can be counted as an academic paper on the Amanda Palmer Idiom. A risky move, but I had no access to the originating material this game is to be based off of. Instead, I wanted to focus on what I knew, this construction of the idiom. Hoping that I would be given tangible elements to work from.

As for implementation, I would make good use of the Dresden Doll art army. There are a large number of artists on the rolodex of the Dolls, and I could not single handedly produce an international ARG. Nor would I think to quit Telltale to do this gig. My roll would be as ‘puppet-master’ or lead designer, then make art requests. This way costs will be low for the Palmer camp by using ‘internal’ labor and my small team (Margot and I) as primarily consultants. Time was also against us. These things usually take a year to plan. We had 4 months till the album drops.

Selling the Drama

Mistake #1: Way too academic of a proposal. I was on the phone with Palmer’s manager Harvey Leeds who said it was too cerebral. The talk I had with Harvey gave me some grounding with the client I was pitching for and the practical I should be aiming for. It’s Harvey’s job to make sure the album and concerts tickets are sold. Which shouldn’t be read as a sacrifice to artistic decision, but it is a parameter to keep in mind. More importantly: Keep. It. Simple.

I made a bad choice, and lucky to get a second chance. That weekend, Palmer would be performing at the Filmore as the Dresden Dolls in San Francisco with the Vermillion Lies. I would finally meet Beth in person and have an audience with Amanda Palmer for ten minuets.

Continue to Part 2…

Not pictured: Plastic casing; Shipping

For Xbox360, any online communications beyond buying/downloading digital products requires a subscription to Xbox LIVE. I don’t find this a problem outright (subject for another post). What I do find is the mixed signals in the costs of the subscription. Buying a physical object for the service ends up cheaper than renewing a subscription.

Here’s the costs of a the same product: An Xbox LIVE subscription for 12 months.

• Buying via Xbox.com:
  • $49.95 (automatically applied)
• Buying via Amazon.com:
  • $49.95 (No physical thing; E-mailed code)
  • $39.96 (Physical thing; Free Shipping)

For $10 less, a physical object is being manufactured and shipped to you. Even at Amazon.com having the option to e-mail you the code, it costs more to e-mail a set of numbers and letters.

I don’t expect an abolishment of the physical cards. I don’t expect online retailers not to carry them. What shocks me is that even when Amazon.com offers a non-physical and immediate delivery option, it’s the most expensive option. Can Microsoft, Amazon, and other online retailers work on a less wasteful way of selling this service?

Update (1/26/2012): As reported by Destructoid, it’s still happening.

In 8 weeks we rebranded, filed as a non-profit, and made a successful event for our first year. $7000+ to Child’s Play successful. We certainly learned a few lessons this year which we’ll implement along with our ‘for next year’ list. Right now I’m compiling my thoughts, specifically for a panel I’ll be moderating for PAX-East this year.

Oh, it looks like I’ll be talking with Chris and others at PAX-East this year in March. While PAX will always be in Seattle around Labor Day, a second one for the East Coast in Boston is happening. I’m gathering up other panelists from other events and Child’s Play itself. The direction I plan to take is illistrate the ‘empty box’ of doing a fundraiser, rather than listing specifics of any particular event. I hope to inspire others to do events with their own flavor, rather than copy/paste existing events.

For me, this is about how and why to file for non-profit status on our own. We wanted to do a local event, enlist sponsors, get a venue, and spend money on an event. We were ‘touching’ the money. We had to be a non-profit ourselves for our protection and the ability for donators/sponsors to count their contributions as charitable. It’s been a process, let me tell you! But most of it is start-up stress which will be much easier next year.

For the Internet based fundraisers like the wildly successful Desert Bus for Hope, the money earned went to a Chip-in button directly to CP. Sponsors (to my knowledge) donated mostly physical objects, so there wasn’t money taken in by the operators. Thus the operators were protected as they never ‘touched’ the donated money.

In addition to getting back to using this blog, I’ll be covering my process on creating this panel in the next few weeks. It will be mostly me and Chris developing the Ümloud! (a local event) section.

If you’re in the Boston area March , I highly recommend you come to PAX-East! The full 3-day pass is $45 if you order by Dec 31st. $55 after that, but there’s a cap at the amount sold.

Hope you all had an awesome holiday! Have a safe and fun New Years!

December 9th, 2009
DNA Lounge

There’s a lot of info about it, and it’s all on the website. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay area December 9th, please come!

• The event really hasn’t changed for San Francisco and is still on as planned!
• December 9th, 2009 will be a charity event for Child’s Play Charity involving playing Rock Band and much more.
• It will still be at DNA Lounge.
• It will not be called Fünde Razor.
• The Denver event will be Kotaku’s event, but still for Child’s Play.
• NYC, Portland, and Austin events will not occur this year.

Wed. December 9th, 2009 7pm – 2am San Francisco: DNA Lounge NYC, Denver, Austin, & Portland: TBA

The other cities haven’t reported in with an official date/venue yet, but they will happen. In the next few months we’ll have plenty of information about the event, but if you’re in the SF bay area, mark your calendars now!

On the Something Awful forums, Nickoten asked me the process I took to get into the games industry. I’ve told people in person, but I realized I never wrote that whole story down. To fix this, I’m going to start writing about my journey to working in interactive media. I should preface this by saying that I don’t think anyone else can take this kind of path anymore as the landscape has changed significantly. What I do hope is the overall themes of my story can help others in their own paths.

The Beginnings

Since around kindergarden, I wanted to work for Disney Imagineering. I was very interested in creating narrative environments of which a lot of the rides at Disney specialized in. Taking an audience member and making them apart of the story, rather than viewing the story unfold. As I grew older, I had less of a dependency on working for Disney specifically, but still wanted to create these thematic landscapes of which the audience participated in directly. Throughout all my life, I haven’t deviated from this ultimate goal. The tools and forms of presentation have changed, but that driving essence hasn’t.

Grade school was very limiting for me in working in anything arts and entertainment. Band was about the only thing available to me at the time and waited every moment to participate. The alto and later tenor saxophone was my instrument from fifth grade and lasting though high school. This was my first foundation in performance art and the basics of performing to an audience. There were a few plays in grade school, but due to ‘morality restrictions,’ which was limited to Christian plays such as the one John Brownlee wrote about on Boing Boing. I also the school announcements which were one of the few outlets of work in media at the Roman Catholic grade school I attended. It was the start of my carer in voice work, which I wish I did more of today.

In High School I had plenty of other options available. The theatre department was relevant which I took to as a fish to water. I am a card-carrying member of the International Thespian Society and can produce the card upon request. More music options such as jazz and marching band. At the start of sophomore year, I started getting involved with the video production team at the high school. In the three years I spent, Jeremiah, myself, and others built the program to a media production house with live broadcasting and other projects. While my family has supported me all the way, and the arts/theatre department of faculty were highly supportive, other teachers and especially the administration were less than supportive. Mostly along the lines that my work wasn’t applicable to ‘real life careers’. As you might have guessed, I didn’t listen much to them.

Senior year is when I started to gain more of a backbone and confidence that my work can be applied to a larger picture. I became heavily involved with the Thespian Society by being on the state of Michigan board. That year was the most productive year to date having produced two festival events and toured a show called “Guns Kill Kids: And Other Stupid Comments”. It was the first time I was appreciated for my work by complete strangers. What I learned is that I should have worked on outside projects much earlier in my life, but hindsight is 20/20.

My high school years showed me how I learned; I make my own curriculum. The best environment for me is a place with good teachers of established media who are also open to mix other fields of work. To me, the best teachers are the ones willing to learn new things. With my interests in storytelling, and the lack of established academics in the field of Interactive Media at the time, I needed a place where I can have the most flexibility.

College Planning & Limited Options

When it came to college planning, I was in a difficult position. My high school’s grading scale was rigged at every student’s detriment. While the national average was a 93% for an A, my high school’s level was a 96% and trickled down form there. This resulted in me looking dumber on paper. While the staff would make statements that schools adjusted for this, the dark secret is it only applied to colleges in Michigan, Ohio and maybe Indiana. For schools outside of this geographic, admissions wouldn’t realize this subtle but very dramatic difference. So in effect, I was too dumb, but only on paper. Cost issues aside, I couldn’t expect my 2.71 GPA for high school would be seen seriously. Which would be a 3.1 had I went to a public school (higher if the extra religion coursework was removed).

I should make clear that I knew I was good enough for these schools. I didn’t meet academic requirements due to the paperwork.

With this limitation, I had to pick a college which allowed me the greatest flexibility but with good foundations. To be honest, there wasn’t a school in the midwest that really sold me on this. The only schools that started to fit these goals were MIT, Emerson College, USC, UCLA. All of which I knew I didn’t have a chance due to my grades on paper. Instead, I applied to Western Michigan University. Having done work at the college in the Summer of ’99 with the video production department, it was the most comfortable choice for me.

Then and now, I knew I had settled into a college rather than picking a college I wanted. My plans were to build up my academic record and reevaluate either during my undergraduate work or make grad school the place where I started actually learning the way I wanted. This isn’t to say that WMU was a bad school. For the options I had a the time, it was the best school I could pick. There seemed to be enough flexibility for me to work on what I want. My plan was to walk in the door as a Cable/TV Broadcast major and work it out from there.

The admission process was embarrassingly simple. A WMU admission consoler was at my high school, where I sat and talked to her. In four minutes I was officially accepted into WMU. It was way too easy, and I didn’t even feel great after that. No challenge. Nothing I did in high school really mattered. I showed up, and I was in.

To be continued!

Background

Child’s Play Charity is a foundation created by Penny Arcade to provide video games, toys, and other financial support for children’s hospitals around the globe. The Child’s Play website can tell you more in detail about what they do.

Fünde Razor was founded by Joel Johnson (currently the editor of Boing Boing Gadgets) started Fünde Razor in NYC where Rock Band is played to raise funds and awareness for Child’s Play. Last year the event was in three cities: NYC, Denver, and San Francisco. The other cities run by other bloggers like Brian Crecente (Kotaku), Gawker Media, and Chris Kohler (Wired Game|Life). The idea is to have a nation wide event where all cites have the events on the same night. More cities and more people are involved, but I’ll wait for Joel to make that announcement.

The overall purpose of Fünde Razor is to raise awareness for Child’s Play. Come to the events if you can, but if you can’t, consider donating directly to Child’s Play. This makes the judgement of success less about the returns of the one night, but the overall fundraising goals of Child’s Play.

My Involvement

I attended the San Francisco event last December and as you can see from these photos, it was a great time with a lot of people for the 150 capacity at Shine. It was a fun time, but with a media push on the day of the event, I know that the SF event can hold a much larger audience with some additional planning. I decided to get back to the family “business”* and get back into fundraising.

You can think of Fünde Razor as a sort of franchise arrangement. Joel is the founder and above all things go through him. While we work as a team, each city’s planners are working on their own cities. We share resources, but each event has their own uniqueness due to the local and the venue they have.

The past few months I’ve been in talks with Joel and the rest of the Fünde Razor crew. My involvement is specifically is with the San Francisco event in getting the venue, planning the activities for the event, and other things around the actual event in San Francisco. I will need help in running the various aspects of the event itself, but my roll is to make sure the larger parts of the event are planned and managed with a small staff executing the plans. Not that I’m hands-off, but I can’t do everything. Chris Kohler is also a partner in the SF event and handeling more of the corporate communications aspect of the event.

My goals for this year’s SF event include increasing the number of attendees and establish the event as a large, yearly event. This means advertising at least a month or two in advance along with a larger venue and more activities. In addition, I want to activate not only gamers and Rock Band players in the area, but have more participation with all the game studios in the Bay area. At the minimum getting people working at these studios to show up; Bonus for helping to sponsor the event. Though I help here and there, the corporate communications are being done by others in the group. If you know of an organization that would be interested, pass them along to me.

Want to help?

Right now I’m attempting to lock down the venue and date. I’m in talks so I can’t reveal more details than that at the moment. Once we get the venue, date settled and talks with sponsors firmed a little more, I will need a few people willing to be in charge of specific aspects of the event. These positions will be higher-level management that will start working early on. Someone in charge of the main Rock Band stage, for example. Someone in charge of managing all volunteers. Upper-level stuff.

We’ll also need a small army of volunteers who will staff various things for the event. Hopefully we can get a sizable number so no one person is working more than two hours for the event. That call won’t happen till a month or less before the event.

Once we start having these positions open, you’ll all know.

* My family and I have worked for various charities though out the years including Festival of Trees for Detroit Children’s, my High School’s auction, etc. It’s not an established consulting business, we’ve simply done a lot of work in the field.

Scope of this Review

I think it’s important to realize that this is a culturally significant title on a platform never dreamed or intended to be on. There is much said on the game itself in the past sixteen years and I don’t think I have much to uniquely contribute from reviewing the iPhone version. What I intend to focus on is that nature of porting the title onto the iPhone and review the choices made. This review is about how this title works on the iPhone and less about the content.

As someone who claims himself as the resident Myst nerd, there isn’t much Cyan Worlds needed to do in order to buy the title. I own the Myst board game, so I can be counted as part of the base audience. My goals with this project is how this title can attract a new audience to the title. Stated different, how can the new platform revive the franchise. As I stated before, you can earn a one-to-one relationship between the desktop computer experience with a portable device. Success then is how closely the title can communicate the essence of the original experience.

Implementation

Basic Controls

The interface starts off naturally and as expected for an iPhone game. Touch the section of the screen in which to interact with or to move forward. The cinematography of the frame is the interface. Turning around in a node is done mostly with moving the finger across the screen. This is borrowing directly from the iPhone’s photo slideshow behavior.

What makes the iPhone different from other platforms is the lack of cursor. On the PC, your cursor changed based on the context of the area. If the cursor hand was pointing to the left, is showed you could turn left when clicking. With a direct finger input, a cursor would be too much UI and therefor not included. The problem that comes with this decision is communication to the user on what possible actions may be taken. Myst doesn’t allow you to look in every possible place as it’s not a 360 view point. When using a mouse, the cursor did a good job hiding the lack of viewing options. With the touch interface, not being able to go to the left may be either an action not allow, or the user did the behavior wrong. Or in some cases, the user doesn’t know they can look above or below them.

Myst was a unique example of the day by having a very limited inventory system with only pages of books and temporary limited inventory items. For example, the match in the shed.

While I won’t spoil much of what you need to do here and why, it took me 3 minutes to figure out how to obtain a match and then light it. All of which came around the hit areas of this match box. I had to hit the right side of the box to get a match, then strike it. Two minutes was spent on trying to obtain the #@*% match. In this case due to the size of the active area, dumbing down the actions may help with the interface. Let the whole match box be the area of action.

Device Orientation

While it’s very clear that Myst shouldn’t be played in portrait mode (Home button on the bottom), you are fixed to play the game with the Home button to your right and headphones on the left. It would be nice to pick which way the game would play and swap between the home button on left or the right. I can understand issues with accidentally flipping over the orientation on accident. Still, would a preference setting be that hard to implement?

Saving

The Auto save system is spot-on with the iPhone. While doing anything on the iPhone, the application must be ready to close at a moment’s notice for an incoming call. For a title that has a save progress, it’s extreamly important that the application pick up right where it left off. I’m happy to report that iPhone Myst does this very successfully without missing a beat. What I haven’t figured out is what happens when you’re in the middle of a Live-Action video sequence. In all, I don’t worry about loosing my progress all of the sudden.

You are also allowed up to four additional saves or ‘Bookmarks’ as the application calls them. I’ll go more into the specific UI aspects later in this post, but the limits of 4 save slots (in addition to the auto save) is a little frustrating for me, if only so I can make a save for each age. For the average user though, you get what you need from saving. Can’t go wrong with that!

Video

Myst made use of a lot of pre-rendered video due to technical limitations of 3D rendered graphics, rather than a purely artistic goal. While the use of actors for video is obvious, video was used more for animation of objects from switches to stairs appearing to lighting changes. While you will only see human actors in the Red/Blue/D’ni books and when meeting Atrus in person, the rest of the game used video for any animated sequence. Elevator movement, doors, paths/steps rising from water. Computers back then could only play video mixed with still images. Now it’s harder to make a game of all video than to pre-render. Yet with iPhone Myst, there doesn’t seem to be a concern to make these difficulties transparent for the player.

In the 1993 offering, the video appeared seamlessly with no loss of picture.

In the iPhone app, this is the common steps of display:

1. Activate event for movie clip.
2. The ‘loading’ circle appears in the middle of the screen.
3. Black screen for 1.5 to 2 seconds.
4. Play video at full screen, regardless of the effected area.
5. [Optional] Black screen for 1.5 to 2 seconds.
6. [Optional] ‘loading’ circle.
7. Resume rest state and resume interactivity.

This is hugely distracting! The viewer is pulled out of the narrative and reminded of the technology, not the narrative. I’d be concerned about the loading circle, but the black screens are completely uncalled for. I can’t imagine there isn’t a way to send a still image buffer to prevent a solid black screen. This isn’t limited to video that requires the full screen display. All the video in iPhone Myst is fullscreen video. The 1993 title compartmentalized video to only the parts that move. Apparently the iPhone can only do fullscreen video. This may be why the game is larger than the 1993 title; All the video is fullscreen.

I don’t know the background on making these technical decisions, but is there really no other way? This aspect alone makes the iPhone port go beyond being different due to the platform. This aspect ruins the essence of the title.

Settings Panel

The settings panel for the game which is always accessible in the lower-right of the screen during gameplay. While you’ll see the ‘i’ icon in the lower-right, you can turn it off with the ‘Options Icon’ setting, which I recommend you do. It’s not distracting, but once you know it’s there it’s good to turn off.

This is ugly. A mix of custom UI elements with the de-facto iPhone UI elements. I’m not saying the one or the other is a wrong choice, but the mix is a mess. The settings screen is apart of the title as it’s within the title. While you don’t get any part of the story from the settings, it must fit the mood of the piece so that transitioning to and from the actual content is a smooth delivery. Instead, this settings panel says: OH HAI! YOUR ON AN IPHONE PORT! I’d rather it say “You’re in Myst.”

Heaven help you if you hold down the info button too long. Otherwise that ‘Hints…’ button will trigger… into Safari. While the auto save system is top notch, you have to reload the game from the top once you get out of Safari. Same for ‘Help/Info…’ What gets me is with a game already a huge size, why not use an embedded hint/help/info messaging system? Or the in-app web browser API? This information doesn’t need to be dynamically changed, so there’s no fear of imbedded information. Instead the least path of resistance for developers was place; Call Safari.

And what content do you read? “Help/Info…” | “Hints”
I should note that the Hints page only works in Safari (both iPhone and desktop versions).

What really gets to me about this panel is my overall impressions with the iPhone port of Myst. Enough effort was put in to make the game function, but not for a quality experience. I don’t want to say they didn’t care, but I get the feeling that development resigned on so many aspects that efforts to improve the experience fell by the wayside.

Conclusion

I focused on the UI design and technical implementations of this title, but I want to make it clear that I love Myst for what it is. This title was significant for the period and did a lot of amazing things both technically for the time and for the art form. It’s why you have a optical disc drive in your computers. It showed that removing dependence on explicit UI elements can make for a more engrossing experience. I would even go far to say that the iPhone itself has to give acknowledgment to the 1993 Myst. The idea that interacting with the object in a natural manor is the key to UI design.

What I find with the iPhone experience is a lack of that acknolagement. I’m left with the feeling that the experience is attached with too many applogies for the work. I don’t regret the purchase on my iPhone, but I would hisitate giving the iPhone version to someone who hasn’t experienced Myst before in fear they will leave with the wrong impression.

What sparked my desire to do this lecture came from a conversation I had while standing outside a GDC party for Steam/Valve. While talking to a man whom had at least 15 years in the industry, he really brought to light the disconnect between academia and the industry. We got on the education subject and snapped back by saying he preferred students from DigiPen and Fullsail because they do what they are told. I have a much different take on the situation as I consider students from these and other schools with much more respect than he did. I want to make sure there are enough students out there to prove me right and him completely wrong.

Here’s the text I used in applying for the PAX lecture. Obviously not set in stone, but I’d love your feedback as I start shaping this lecture in the next few months.

Title:
Making a Career in Video Games

One-Paragraph Description:
Are you looking for a job with a game studio, or a career in interactive media? Learn how to identify the styles in game development curricula and the tools to help you find the best education for more than a job, but a lifetime’s work in the gaming industry.

Is there anything else you think we [PAX staff] should know?
This lecture will provide tools and perspective for finding the right curriculum for the student. This entails a two part approach. First, a student needs to start figuring out what direction he or she wants to take. The second part is knowing what information to extract from potential institutions. From this foundation, attendants can make solid decisions on which schools are applicable to their educational goals. Potential undergraduate, graduate, and transfer students will all find this lecture helpful.

I include my credentials to represent my own personal expertise, but it does not illustrate endorsement by any current or former employers.

Credentials of Highlight:
* First recipient of a Bachelor of Fine Arts in New Media at Emerson College.
Created the first BFA New Media curriculum at Emerson College, Boston.
* Emerson College, Enrollment & Student Affairs
Created tools and content related to admissions and enrollment for duties related to being an admission counselor.

For more information about me, visit http://segonmedia.com/

Official Website @ Cyan Worlds | This link opens iTunes right to the application.

Myst is one of the trifecta of games that got me into this art form of interactive storytelling. It’s a body of work that helped shape me as an artist in new media and made me what I am today. Which is why I’m buying the crap out of this title. I have the Myst board game for goodness sake!

I hope that Cyan Worlds does a postmortem on bringing the game to the iPhone. A few immediate questions I have are what kinds of decisions were made to update the port. Was there a point where they pulled punches to make the game have the spirit of the 1993 release? I also want to know what they did with the LAV scenes. Can’t wait to play to look how they turned out on the iPhone.

On a forward-thinking note, I hope this will help Cyan Worlds fund a new project from their studio. Honestly, I hope it’s something not Myst related. Heresy, I know. I love the Myst franchise. I love the work Cyan Worlds has done. But I think it’s time to move away from the past and start with something new.

Note: I did copy the above image from the Boing Boing Gadgets article. I can also screencap it myself, but I’m lazy.

Do you want a job or a career?

A lot of the talk and guidance about video game education is rooted in getting a job with a studio. Yes, being employed is apart of a career and one seeks an education to become employable. I’m not questioning this aspect. What concerns me is the debate is geared towards getting that one job. There isn’t talk about the sustainability for one to adapt though their life time in interactive media. Simply training for getting hired out of college, not as a practitioner of the field.

by Sklathill

Part of this comes from the current venues of advice one can seek. Naturally one would look towards the veterans in the industry as cues for being successful. While this advice is very valuable, the material from them seems more about getting the job rather than forming a career. The veterans of this industry created careers in a way that can’t be duplicated; The industry is created now. The experiences of our veterans can’t be duplicated. I wish there were more long-term advice applicable to today, but right now one has to extrapolate how the experience of the vets can be made in current times, and how it can’t. This kind of nuance isn’t realized by a potential applicant from high school, nor is anyone pointing this out. The debate is stuck at ‘get a job,’ not ‘make a living.’

On the academic side, there’s two extremes going on which don’t help anyone. On the traditional academics side: There are individual professors doing great work across many different schools. I’ll name drop my alama mater, Emerson College, but other schools like USC’s Interactive Media program and Michigan State’s Media Arts & Tech program. The problems are trying to advertise these programs. I see a lot of failures from admission offices to assist applicants in informing the program properly. Professors should be working on teaching and leave the admission office to sell the school. This requires the admission office to be knowledgeable about the climate of the academic landscape and how the program they represent etches their unique space. There isn’t much of that going on from my experience. The reasons are varied for each school. Some schools simply have uninformed admission consolers. Some schools don’t want to pitch full-blown game development degrees in fear their program isn’t adequate enough. Great work is being done, but they aren’t informing potential applicants properly.

The other end of the spectrum are establishments that go all-in with video games as their only avenue of training. DigiPen, Full Sail, and schools advertising game production on late-night cable. For the most part, the marketing with these schools fills the void the traditional schools create. A lot of the marketing messages are along the lines of “we only focus on games/media” as to imply liberal art schools set back the student. My largest fear with these institutions is too much focus on current production tools and methods; Less on forming a background on larger principles that aid in a career. Producing a project soon and often is a sexy selling point, but at what point does it become a cheep thrill at the expense of a lasting education?

At this point I feel I’ve sealed my fate in trying to bring a more substantive debate on what an education in interactive media means. I’m starting with formulating and applying to conduct a lecture at PAX in Seattle. It’s safe to say there will be enough interested people looking to go into higher education in interactive media. My goal is to get these people to ask the right questions to themselves and potential educational institutions. I think it’s an attractive lecture to have, I hope the organizers agree. If it turns out well, I can reprise at PAX East in Boston.

¹ Still waiting for the recording to be released. Will post when this happens.

When ever Boing Boing Video posts the clip, I’ll post it on here. I’m curious to see how I cam across on the video, King of Cosmos head and all.

Boing Boing Video + Offworld @ GDC
Direct UStream Link

I should also note that I will be at GDC as well, sans the time when I appear on Boing Boing.

In all seriousness, I am very glad that an effort is being made. I only have their website to go on, so I have to go on a bit of speculation from the presented materials. They’re also starting off small but hoping to expand their collection and open a full presentation and space in 2012.

There are a few things I will be watching for. I don’t want to give the impression that I am looking down on this effort from the start, but I have deep concerns which I hope are addressed. I hope this center can make the history of our art form accessible.

Games as Toys vs. Games as Storytelling Objects

The largest concern I have is on intent and focus. The center is under the Strong National Museum of Play. What concerns me is that the center will portray all articles as an article of a toy and by extension only for children.

It is very true that in the early days of video games were marketed as toys rather than media texts. What I fear is that the context of games as toys would perpetuate in modern context. Would we consider the story line of Myst as a toy? Would we consider all movies only for children because there are Disney movies? I fear that this center would only perpetuate a misconception that video games are only for children.

Reading though the center’s Concentric Circles document [PDF], I don’t have the fullest of confidence. Most of the dialogue is about video games for children only, and mostly being male centric. I feel that the initial goals of the center are only about focus on children with video games, rather than a society which has incorporated electronic games though the years. While it does raise some broader questions, I feel that the center is tied down by being apart of a museum which goals are for children’s toys, rather than a broader discussion of a form of media and how different audiences have participated.

The toys vs. media text argument is certainly a mater of academic discussion. What I fear with the center is a lack of discussion in this area. The art form has evolved where video games are presented differently now than they were. Quickly looking over the documentation, I am left with little confidence.

Access to Collections

It’s obviously way too early to make a conviction of how these materials and research will be presented, but it’s the right time to discuss how the material will be accessible. The center is located in Rochester, NY. No matter where you decide to put a physical place, there will always be limits to people to come visit. This is the current statement from the center on their access to the collections:

All the collections are accessible to scholars for research. A small but representative sample of artifacts is on view in museum displays, and a few games are available to guests to play as components of exhibits on other topics. Plans are underway for a major, permanent exhibit projected to open in 2012. See below for additional information.

Which raises many questions for me. This statement is along the lines of access to the physical objects which have obvious access limitations. You wouldn’t want to put out physical artifacts in the effort to preserve the quality of the artifacts. What worries me is the accessibility of the information of these artifacts and other findings. It’s not fair to go into speculation, so let me present how I hope the center will proceed with the collection.

First and for most, I hope all text and images are released under some form of Creative Commons license, ideally Attribution 3.0. What’s the use of history research when no one can use the information?

Which leads into my next thought: How will the collections and presentation be transmitted? Nothing can replace the experience of viewing and interacting with the actual artifact, but I hope that each artifact is presented online with it’s relevance. Allow anyone to look though the catalogue and know the relevance of each piece. Allow anyone to start their own research with out the need to be pre-approved as ‘scholars for research’. While I fully understand and appreciate limiting pubic accessibility for the physical objects in person, there is no reason to provide digital copy and images of these context.

Here’s an idea out of the blue: Join up with MobyGames. Course, MobyGames doesn’t technically share their content freely being copyrighted content, making their mission not entirely philanthropic. This is a larger topic for another day, but my point is to have a catalogue of titles that is shared to the public for any use, matching with tangible objects.

How are they interfacing with the producers of electronic games?

What is the outreach effort for collecting the history? How are they going to deal with the significant presence of Japanese and other non-US roles in electronic games? How are they going to accept participation from current developers for preserving the current history? In other words, how people involved in the history help in preserving?

What’s the long-term plan?

The center is ramping up for a dedicated presentation space for 2012, but what are the future goals of the project? I see a center like this making a decision between two paths. Will this be a center which collects artifacts only to encourage visits to the center? Or will this be a center which presents their collection to the world, with the physical building only a starting point to a larger mission?

After looking though the Strong National Museum of Play’s website and other artifacts, I really don’t see how they are in a position to treat our history with the respect and context. Nor are they willing to put the resources in sharing history to the general public. I only get a very limited view of what might be presented at the main museum; I can’t even find what is in the collection with much detail. I can’t find much confidence for the electronic games division to be different. I do hope to be proven wrong.

Watchmen has finally made it to the sliver screen with much fanfare and service. The preamble has been enjoyable with posts from The New Frontiersman. An ingenious way of putting more use out of B-roll and props the film created.

This photo for example was the first put on the Flickr account, and the most important one. But there were a slue of other significant artifacts including this video “6 Minutes to Midnight”. Don’t want to dwell on this for the post, but I really wanted to illustrate that this was pre-release marking at it’s best. These things weren’t blatant and weak attempts, but strong pieces to help establish the narrative.

The format of the Media

The main point I want to make is how the format of the media can hinder or strengthen an adaptation. Watchmen is a 12 part story which also included ‘book excerpts’ for all but the 12th chapter. Even when you read the novel in the complete book form, there are 11 intermissions between each chapter; You can pause and take in the stories. Movies don’t allow for the audience to ‘digest’ the story before continuing. You have to go along for the ride until it is done. While you can pause a DVD, the fact that the movie doesn’t allow for these pauses by design.

This was the inherent problem for me with adapting Watchmen for the silver screen specifically. Even if there was a ‘part 1/2′ of the film, it still wouldn’t be enough to digest the narrative parts. I don’t claim that this film shouldn’t have been done because of this; I have to embrace the fact that we can never be satisfied with a film that can’t be broken into it’s parts.

But what form of media do we have that can be separated into parts but still yield the high production value required for the film? TV has the ability to separate into parts, but not the kind of production value to supply the demand. The movie industry can provide the funding, but the format limits. The Internet in general can do this, but not enough capital can be made to fund the production.

The Changed Ending

My LA collogues already warned me that the ending was different than the novels, but made sense and worked. When I saw the movie, I agreed that this change made a nice take. Though I would have loved to see a large squid…

What I find interesting is what kind of ‘other’ that left the society with each ending. For the novel, the ‘other’ is an alien race. This leaves the society to think to the stars and to not feel alone in the universe. Though hostile, there were other sentient beings in the universe. With the movie, the ‘other’ is Dr. Manhattan. Since he’s simply indestructible, the best path is to avoid him at all costs. Thus society is closed off from the rest of the world.

Personally, I’d rather have a world of a giant squid than Dr. Manhattan as the enemy. At least we’d be looking towards the stars more.

The Soundtrack

Being a period piece, using licensed songs can do a good job taken in the mood of an era. 99 Luftballons was welcomed both for the choice of the german version and that it’s a cold war protest song. Then it got weird.

While I can’t recall the specific songs and scenes, what stuck out was how simply inappropriate these songs were. I felt like I was back at Emerson where a professor would play a scene of Triumph of the Will (1935) and play the Yakety Sax song as the soundtrack. It ruined the mood and was simply awkward in a couple of scenes. ESPECIALLY with the sex scenes.

This is the only aspect of the film that was a completely wrong choice.

Random other thoughts

Jupiter / Silk Speckter II: Didn’t smoke. Was only apparently missing with the Mars scene.

Night Owl I: Completely skipped his death which was an extremely key aspect to Night Owl. Obviosuly we’ll be getting it with the 20-hour DVD version, but the situation around Rorschach’s death (the 2nd friend he looses in a day) really explains the crushing weight of the situation.

Rorschach: Jackie Earle Haley needs to be nominated (again) for best actor due to his performance in this movie. I can’t put it plainer than that.

I can’t begin without mentioning the various references to Michigan though out the movie. The family is from Pontiac, MI and moved to Oregon. The real father wears a Michigan State sweater. A key prop is a snow globe of the Horace Rackham Memorial Fountain. Both of which is funny because Rackham donated heavily to U of M. Not that it needed help, but I found myself warming up to the movie for these references.

As for the film’s content, I found myself needing to supplement some of the short comings of the film in order to make some of the choices Coraline makes more meaningful. Particularly, I found the real mother portrayed in the film as extremely vicious with no redeeming quality. While the real mother needs to give push back in order to stimulate Coraline’s desire fulfillment in the Other world, the real mother doesn’t show any real love for Coraline. There’s no subtext communicated for the Real mother, which leaves Coraline making the choice to not to live in the other mother’s world, rather than to live with her real parents. While I haven’t read the book, I feel that this may be more of a problem with Selick cutting that depth for the film. While I am fully aware that you can never communicate in a film like a book, there doesn’t seem to be an effort to make the real mother have any love for Coraline. The connection is too assumed with no context.

The voice casting was great as I didn’t find myself having any issue. What did stand out for me is the ‘stunt voice’ casting with the Father. John Hodgman was the voice of the father which certainly brought a smile to my face. A former literary agent voicing a writer is not lost on me. What stood out for me in casting is the “Other Father Song” about Coraline, sung by non other than one of the Johns of They Might Be Giants. What struck me is how well the singing voice matched Hodgman’s voice. Hopefully there’s another film which Hodgman’s character needs to sing and TMBG are brought in.

At once point in the film, there is a musical number with the characters Miss Forcible and Miss Spink. While sitting in an audience with a fair mix of 20-somethings and families with kids, the point where a psydo-bursleque act created a bit of an unease in the audience of “Oh wow, they went there.” Not really that risque, but enough to give an eyebrow raising moment. Which brings me to the next point…

I’m just going to come out and say this. All old ladies in this film have very enormous breasts. There. It has to be said. And come to think of it, that pattern of stop-motion animation characters where old ladies have enormous breasts leads me to wonder why such a pattern. Even Corpse Bride had this. In Coraline, even the saleswoman in the uniform shop had very large breasts. What’s going on here? Is this the Wilhelm scream for art direction in stop-motion animation?

After my friends Jim and Liz saw the film, they told me the film is Psychonauts: The Movie. When the movie reached the point where Coraline discovers the ghost children and given the task to find the three eyes/souls, I couldn’t disagree. The story turned into a potential interactive storytelling (re: game) with clearly given and multiable tasks to the protagonist. While there is a game adaptation of the game, it’s a merchandise product of the film. Not an independent piece of art.

I’m not advocating that Coraline should have been a (well produced) game either. If anything, this observation is my feeble attempt to get Neil Gaiman to write a new story for interactive media. Course, not just with anyone as there aren’t very many studios that would be a good match. Such a studio would need the consultation and collaboration skills with Gaiman in order to deliver an interactive story which exploits the talents they would all posses. Also, I believe that something new would work out better artistically, rather than adapting a set linear storyline; Thus removing expectations.

As for Coraline, its a very strong initial feature film offering from Laika and I expect good things for them in the future. Well worth seeing and will tide you over till The Watchman opens.

Edit (2-22-2009): I made a mistake and said Plymouth instead of Pontiac. As a bonus, I added a YouTube link to the Other Father Song by TMBG.

The point of this post:

Windows 7 must include a fully patched DirectX installation.

Users of Windows 7 will still need to run programs in DX10 and DX9. There’s no reason why the OS should be updated to the latest of DirectX; Especially when the updates are over four years old.

Windows Update needs to include DirectX as apart of updatable software.

Of all the ‘optional’ and ‘critical’ software that Windows Update includes, updating a core API as DirectX is to Windows should be one of them. Updating DirectX is crucial for any graphics intensive program, especially Games for Windows. Why not include it, even as an ‘optional’ update?

DirectX needs real version identification

Did you know there are at least 17 versions of DirectX 9.0c and 8 versions of DirectX 10? All of which report with only on version number?

Did you also know that Vista still needs updates to DirectX9, but wasn’t included when Vista was released?

This makes it very hard to do technical support when no one can decree a realistic version number.

The Context:

For anyone who’s played games on Windows, you may be familiar with Microsoft® DirectX. DirectX is an API and acts as a bridge between software with advanced sound and visual needs and the array of devices and drivers on your computer. There are others¹ for other and operating systems and platforms, but these problems are for DirectX specifically.

Without these APIs, each software would need to program for every possible graphics and audio card in existence individually. With an API, software needs only to work with the API and drivers of devices needs only to work on the API. From there, new software or new hardware can be released and still work without massive overhaul.

For Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, the engineering team developed what I nicknamed a “Flash” shader in order to achieve the similar look of the Flash animation into 3D graphics. The graphics would work on Windows so long as the user’s Windows computer had at least DirectX 9.0c – Aug 2007 installed.

I have to include the date with this version number as Microsoft stopped incrementing version numbers, even though releases were made after 9.0c on a bi-monthly and now quarterly bases. Yet any callable version number are all listed under “9.0c” or “4.09.00.0904″, which is the primary version for Windows XP SP2, released in August 2004. Even when you update DirectX, the same version number is reported.

The problem: We needed users to have August 2007′s release or later. Upon research, I found a form of version numbering with DirectX. If you look in “C:\Windows\System32\”, you’ll see a series of files named “d2dx9_**.dll”, the ** being a range of numbers starting at 24. The ’27′ being the August 2007 DX9.

Windows XP (RTM / SP0) included DirectX 8.1. Windows XP SP2 included DirectX 9.0c. Only after SP2 did the “_**” updates start. To add more insult to injury, Windows Update doesn’t check or update DirectX. Ever. While they’ll include optional software and Office updates, DirectX gets the shaft.

My saving grace is the DirectX updaters will update all versions on all platforms of Windows in one installer. There are two flavors, one large installer for off-line updating, and one small and web-based. The web installer downloading the components needed at the time of install. I included this with the Strong Bad episodes. It’s worked out, but it adds a step in the install process by asking to do an install one doesn’t expect.

By now you may be thinking: “But Vista is on DirectX 10 and Windows 7 on DirectX 11. Certainly there isn’t an issue because it’s later version!” Oh how I wish this was true. Normally when one thinks of software version numbers, the higher number replaces the lower numbers. In the land of DirectX, the version numbers are modes that run independently of each other. While you have Vista, you still run DirectX 9 unless the software specifically requests DirectX 10. Since DirectX 10 doesn’t run in Windows XP, very few games run in 10. If they do, there’s a DX9 version along side it. Even with DX10, there’s quarterly updates. Still, this isn’t updated via Windows Update. Meanwhile, users still need to update DX9 and DX10.

Try explaining all of the above to users with Vista. “But I have DirectX10 which is more up to date than 9!” Yes you have DX10, but you don’t have the latest DX9 which you still use. The DirectX installers I mentioned above work on all platforms, which is something. However, it’s still left trying to instruct users to run the installer, which goes upstream from conventional thinking.

So in light of all of this, I tried the Windows 7 beta (using VirtualBox on my MBP). You would expect the latest released updates of DX9 and DX10 right? Wrong. What ships is the DX9.0c before the updates, and DX10 from the original Vista RTM release. Since DX11 is still in beta so there are no quarterly updates to speak of. I honestly can’t fathom why they wouldn’t roll the updates in at this point. It’s inexcusable.

¹ Other APIs like OpenGL, OpenAL, etc exist and do a great job, but require a full client-side install on Windows.

The experts watched as Kaminsky opened his laptop and connected the overhead projector. He had created a “weaponized” version of his attack on this vulnerability to demonstrate its power. A mass of data flashed onscreen and told the story. In less than 10 seconds, Kaminsky had compromised a server running BIND 9, Vixie’s DNS routing software, which controls 80 percent of Internet traffic. It was undeniable proof that Kaminsky had the power to take down large swaths of the Internet. 

To be honest, the Internet dodged a bullet with this one. Had this been discovered with someone with less moral character, there would have been a very very bad day for the world. Then again, we currently only patched the hole; Bought some time.

Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends Worldwide Web

Can You Name the Video Game Systems (Released in the U.S.)?

As someone who studies video game history, the test really kicked my ass. Under the cut (or huge spoiler line) are my analysis of my results, but a few tips. The auto-correction is very good and will take most acronyms as well as the official titles. So if it’s not firing off as correct, you are either wrong or need to be more specific. “Sega” alone doesn’t cut it. For reference, I got 25/68 and kicking my self for forgetting three of them.

OMGLOLBBQ SPOILERS BELOW!

I thought about putting this above the spoiler, but it would give away answers. The Game & Watch is a bit contradictory with the ‘single game system’ rule. G&W were a series of single game systems; No cartridges replacing games. There’s also things missing like Leapfrog systems which fit the definition. Just because the target audience is different doesn’t make it not a console system.

The three I bonked myself in the head for forgetting: Dreamcast, PSP, and 3DO.

The rest of what I missed were either me forgetting the exact number for the Atari systems, forgetting the word ‘Odyssey’ for the Magnovox systems, me not realizing that the Sega Master Systems were indeed released in the US, N-Gage was marketed as a game system, and forgetting to list out things that are currently on the Virtual Console for the Wii. Some of the rest of the entries are systems I never read about or were obscure enough that I never even heard of!

Needless to say, it’s time for me to do some reading on a few of these systems. Like the Nomad for example or the Mega Duck, if only for the name!