Bored cashier: $15.17
My dad: Is the year in which Martin Luther writes his 95 theses.
Confused cashier: …
Meg: Oh, Dad, please just pay the guy.
Recent posts
I feel like I’ve not written very much here recently, so here’s a roundup what I’ve been doing:
I went to ECGC and heard game writer Tracy Seamster tell me that reading PostSecret and eavesdropping on the train is totally part of the creative process. I also went to MakerFaire NC and insisted I was just visiting for fun, and then I wrote about it for Geek.
Wrote about Star Trek: Rivals for Geek, then I beat Matt twice in a row and was so proud of myself that I wrote a strategy guide. (Although, whenever I win, it’s due to my superior strategy and ability, and whenever I lose, I just happened to draw bad cards.)
Worked on my Chinese again, using the iPad. When I wasn’t studying, I admit to playing Candy Crush Saga, and two old-school RPGs 9th Dawn and Avernum: Escape From The Pit.I also reviewed three trending iOS games for iPlay Gamer, and re-remembered why I love indies. There was some internet excitement about XBONE/ PS4, but I wrote about what will happen to small-time games publications now that Amazon does indies instead.
This fall, I’ll be speaking about press kit hacking for indie dev at Geek Girl Con, and also on a GGC panel about the experiences of women in games, along with some really amazing women.
Posted in Chapel Hill
Tagged Avernum, Chapel Hill, games, Geek GIrl Con, iplay gamer, women in games
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Still Life With Fail Fire
Teaching children is hard. I’ve written before about the industry codeswitching between developers and journalists, and trying to keep dev jargon out of my pieces for enthusiast publications.
With the kids, I try to say things like Will your player know he has to try again? and Have you taught your player how to do that? but more often I catch myself telling the 8-years-olds that their games need a narrative arc. My teaching is more effective with the teenagers, who are excited to meet a real professional game developer. (Without fail, someone asks if I know Notch.) I hope that actually seeing a female game designer will show any interested girls that it’s a viable career option, but so far my boy students outnumber my girl students more than ten to one, so they’re also getting the usual message about what game development looks like.
Anyway, after I told my class that a good game has a clear conclusion, one of my students made this as the bad ending:
I don’t remember saying failure state in that class… but I might have.
Related: Other students amusing me with fail.
Brakes and Clutch
Whenever someone asks me for a ride, I feel like an alien pretender trying not to be unmasked. Oh! This is a thing adult humans do for one another when they are all going from one place to another place together! I try to remind myself. This person is treating me as a normal human! Act normal! Make a facial expression like a regular person would make! Then I try not to react like they’ve just suggested something terrible and insane, and that driving a car is not horrible for me, and driving another person wouldn’t be embarrassing torture.
I don’t like that driving is such an essential skill here when for me, it’s an awful mixture of tedium and terror, a blend of dull, monotonous highways and then a lightning move to avoid crashing into the idiot without a turn signal and then moving along again, totally ignoring how close we just were to death and dismemberment. It makes me hate people, too, and see them less as interesting stories and possible friends, and more as morons who are trying to kill me. (How can it just be that way “for me”? How are normal people able to cope so well with boredom punctuated by near-death?)
One of the many, many things I loved about Brooklyn is that driving is such a non-issue. And there are many, many reasons I hated living in Cary, but the necessity of driving every single day was one of them.
Whenever I drive, I arrive unhappy, flustered and upset. In North Carolina, I’m constantly battered by spending so much energy simply getting places. It makes a hard day, devoting so much energy to what is to others a mindless daily task, and it means always arriving tense, and always making those forgot-the-milk, lost-my-keys sort of strained mind mistakess that usually signal a stressful week, but are the everyday constant for me now.
In Brooklyn, my emotional resiliency (Are you familiar with Jane McGonagall’s SuperBetter?) was constantly strengthened. I read novels on the train to work, or watched crazy fashions, or eavesdropped, and stopped for coffee on my walk. Sure, some days the train was late or crowded or dirty, but the default settings were very good! I really miss that.
I can drive, and I do. But carefully backing the car out of a visitor’s space at my building (it takes me several tries to get into the assigned space), turning the radio off so I don’t get overwhelmed, and then taking the special back route around the second-rate coffeeshop, where parking is easier than the good coffeeshop, is exhausting.
Posted in Chapel Hill, New York City, North Carolina
Tagged Brooklyn, Chapel Hill, coffee, New York City, North Carolina
3 Comments
IslaBomba
My editor, Sonia, just wrote about indie devs IslaBomba, their creative vision, and the unique challenges they face as a start-up surrounded by Spain’s high unemployment.
Eduardo and Alberto Saldana are brothers and the co-founders of an Indie game studio called Sons of a Bit Entertainment. They are trying to raise funds to continue development on a new video game they’ve created called IslaBomba; unfortunately they live in the wrong country. We at Geek Insider have a soft spot for Indie developers, because let’s be honest, without them half of Geekdom would be wiped off the map. Besides that, one of our writers, Meg Stivison just happens to be a developer, who insists that we pay close attention to new game developers.
Via Indie Game Development… in the Worst Possible Place on Geek Insider.
Treats
At the toy store, I was looking at E-Z-Bake cupcakes, mini icecream makers and other culinary cuteness, but Harold pointed out that I probably don’t need any of them because we have an entire kitchen for preparing treats.
I was just instructed in mature decisions by a 40-year-old man buying action figures and comics.
Mandatory Subway Etiquette
Yahoo! Voices asked me to write about something I’d make mandatory in NYC besides food composting. I chose pushing onto the subway car before passengers have gotten off, because WOULDN’T THAT MAKE THE SUBWAYS BETTER FOR EVERYONE?!?! I’ve written about subway manners before, because like everyone else in the city, I have really strong opinions about NOT BEING A FREAKING JERK ON THE SUBWAY.
New York City truly is the greatest city in the world. We have everything you could possibly want, and then some. Unfortunately, some people — who MUST be tourists, not residents — commit a terrible mistake on the subway when they try to push onto a subway car before letting the other passengers exits.
Look, I get it. You’re in a hurry, and jumping on that subway is bringing you closer to your destination. We all understand the hurry, and that goes double for G train and certain other Brooklyn lines with sporadic delays. But here’s the thing, if the people getting off go through the doors before the people getting on, then everyone moves more efficiently. Everyone gets to their destinations faster.
Posted in Chapel Hill, New York City
Tagged Brooklyn, Chapel Hill, G Train, New York City, subway
5 Comments
Tokyo Hosto
Via Tokyo Hosto – Animation Starts | Baller Industries.
I recently finished a project writing and editing dialogue for Baller Industries’ upcoming Tokyo Hosto iOs game. As you can probably guess from the box art, Tokyo Hosto isn’t exactly the type of game I’d seek out and play.
But working for Angus on this project was a really great experience. My ideal working relationship is working for someone who’s invested in the project, who is creative, who knows game development, has completed a game before, and who knows that he/she needs a writer. Working for Angus was pretty great, and I recently completed some work for Burnin’ Ape as well, which was another great experience. Still, as a freelancer in a creative field, I’ve also encountered my share of difficult assignments. (“I could write this myself, but I’m too busy with the important things! Stop asking me questions and write it like it is in my head!” or “Writing? Whatever. I don’t see why I should have to pay you money for this when anyone can just type words.”) It’s made me truly appreciate working for CEOs/Creative Directors/Project Managers who really know what the writer brings to the project.
Baller Industries has shipped games before, so a lot of the problems that often plague creative indies were avoided. No feature creep! No random restructuring of plot arcs! No forgotten info that invalidates days (or weeks) of work! None of my characters got cut halfway through! At least, I think not… It hasn’t actually been released yet…
I started by feeling like this isn’t the type of game I’d seek out to play, but this was a really great project to work on. Really enjoyed it!
Posted in Chapel Hill
Tagged Baller Industries, Burnin' Ape, Chapel Hill, games, tokyo hosto
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The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley – IndieReader
A fairly common tech blogger topic is asking rhetorically if a specific mid-size city with more than three start-ups could be the next Silicon Valley. Using The Rainforest’s guide to the factors that create start-up innovation can help answer that question.
Via The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley – IndieReader Blogger snark aside, this was one of the most thoughtful and informative books I’ve read for IR.
9th Dawn on Hardcore Droid
New piece on Hardcore Droid!
ValorWare’s new game 9th Dawn offers so much to love for fans of old RPGs. The world is huge and open, allowing your little adventurer to explore a pixelly fantasy kingdom, protecting the weak and acquiring riches.
Players choose from classic role-playing characters, such as a knight, an archer or a mage. The knight attacks enemies in melee, the archer has a quick ranged attack, and the mage casts spells. Their strengths are so well-balanced that it’s hard to pick a favorite or even recommend one over the other. I might lean towards the archer, but the up close hack-and-slash of the knight or the cool ranged fireball spells of the wizard are also good fun.
The game progresses along the classic RPG lines. Your little adventurer will kill baddies, take their awesome stuff, gain experience, and improve your character to kill bigger baddies. I love this classic RPG gameplay… I love upgrading my armor bit by bit, I love leveling and easily defeating an enemy who’d bested me before. Players can choose to follow quests or wander off and find dangerous things to fight.
via 9th Dawn: Old School is In | Android RPGs | Hardcore Droid.
Posted in Game Reviews, New York City
Tagged Android, Game Reviews, Hardcore Droid, New York City
5 Comments
