An Argument for Self-Esteem and Education

“Thus there are are five factors from which victory can be known:

“One who knows when he can fight, and when he cannot fight, will be victorious.

“One who recognizes how to employ large and small numbers will be victorious.

“One whose upper and lower ranks have the same desires will be victorious.

“One who, fully prepared, awaits the unprepared will be victorious.

“One whose general is capable and not interfered with by the ruler will be victorious.

“These five are the Way (Tao) to know victory.

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The Flamethrower, Pt. 3

Read Pt. 1 here and Pt. 2 here.

…

Brian was letting fourth one more volley when a large green Ford F250 King Cab came roaring into the driveway. The vehicle stopped short, a few feet from Brian, nearly hitting him. Brian’s father’s white knuckles could be seen through the windshield, his mouth making a large ‘O’ shape along with his eyes. Then the yelling began.

At first Brian ignored his father. He continued to shoot flames as though nothing was wrong! Brian’s father rolled the windows down. He screamed.

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The Flamethrower, Pt. 2

Read Flamethrower, Pt. 1 first.

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The flamethrower became the regular topic of lunch discussion. When would they build it? Where would they get the fuel? Siphon it from a car? Would they go to the gas station? Would that look suspicious? Where would they shoot it? Brian’s? Would it even work? How dangerous could it possibly be? What would happen if they got caught?

The other lunch regulars thought the idea ranged from awesome to insane. That meant it was only a matter of time until this incredible and truly unique idea could be born into the universe. Were they the first to think of it? Pioneers!

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The Flamethrower, Pt. 1

More stories. Totally made up. Pics or it didn’t happen, right? Also, please don’t try this at home. It won’t work out for you. I promise.

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There used to be no such thing as the Internet. Well, the Internet had only recently come online for the public at large, but a website for Pepsi doesn’t count.

He’d login to the local BBS with a dial-up modem, usually at night, with a pillow over the modem to muffle the primitive digital screeches. He played door games, posted on forums and downloaded files. Most of those downloads were pictures of bikini girls that were made up of no more than 256 colors. Hot.

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Kiln Day

Kiln Day is always good.

My friend and co-worker Josh has a home made brick kiln in his backyard. He also has really cool neighbors and no HOA to worry about, which means we get to engage in some high heat and great experimentation. 1200 degree temperatures from a wood fire, here we come.

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Crack Cocaine

This story is definitely mature rated. Proceed with caution.

…

“Going to be a great night. Going to be a great night. Going to be…”

He was prepping himself in the mirror. What a night it could be! Senior year. Going up into the woods. Allegheny. Probably drinking. Girls. Maybe even hot girls. Drinking though, yes. Social lubricant. Alcohol does interesting things to 17 year olds.

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Sometimes, Failure Is an Option

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

– Thomas Edison

Edison would have been a great game designer. He understood the importance of iteration, trying new things, observing the results and adjusting his techniques. One behavior I often see in our industry is little to no acceptance of failure. I’m not talking about a game sucking and being considered a failure, but instead of internal failures on game features, tech, levels, designs, and so on.

Here’s a few examples of failure I’ve seen first hand or have heard about across the industry and how they should have been handled:

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GDC2010: A Wonderful Blur, Fin.

Wake up. Fully clothed. No click-clack today. Roommate is gone.

Overall a more pleasant morning than the day before. We’re supposed to meet Tom’s dad in a bit, but first I gotta check out of the hotel. Tom, his wife and sister start shuffling out of their rooms, but man, are they destroyed. Especially Tom. The women-folk for some reason are handling it like champs. Tom’s sister in particular seems unaffected by her hangover within a half hour of waking up. Her liver is like 10 years younger than ours and hasn’t been battered by multiple launch parties, E3s, GDCs, milestone celebrations and more. Four Barrel coffee takes care of Tom’s wife.

Tom. Well, he doesn’t recover for the rest of the day.

In the car, on the way to the hotel. I’m sitting shotgun and cursing at San Fran drivers and apologizing for my crassness. LA did it to me, and its one bad habit I picked up from living there for five years.

“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MOTHER F**********!”

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Social Games though the Lens of Farmville

Don’t worry, I’ll finish my GDC stories soon enough.

But for now, I want to talk about “Social Gaming.” I find the phenomenon fascinating, especially since GDC was so heavily focused on the topic. Half the talks I went to involved social gaming talks and of course how much money they are making. And how large their audiences are. And how much bigger they will be in the future.

Hard to ignore. So, I started playing Farmville. I’ve been playing it for over a month now. I had stopped playing Mafia Wars a while back after getting my mother of all people hooked on it, so I figured it’d basically be the same deal.

Much to my surprise, it wasn’t. Farmville feels more SimCity than flash game. Cute graphics, sense of progression and economy, whats not to like?

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GDC2010: A Wonderful Blur, Part 4.

CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.

The near perfect cadence of a woman’s heels down a wood floor of a long hallway.

Of course, I start waking up. It’s hard not to notice the cacophony. I start to wonder, this it Tom’s sister? Or maybe her roommate? But her roommate doesn’t know a stranger is sleeping on her couch. I decide to keep very still and not startle her.

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