Winston, The Facebook Butler

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Meg

Yesterday at Dreamit day, when Winston was described as an audio assistant to present stories from social networks like Facebook, I picked up my phone to play games until the presentation was over. I could not have been less interested. Really? An app so that I can find out that one friend hates his commute and that another friend had a great weekend, without all that tedious mouse scrolling of my Facebook feed?

(Also, whenever developers say their new product is “Siri-like” I immediately picture Harold, talking into his phone and scowling in frustration.)

But.

Then the Winston app narrated Facebook news in an Alfred butler voice, beginning with good morning, and listing off the major events that were due to happen that day. The weather is lovely today! You’ve got an event at seven! It was kind of amazing, because  Winston was exactly like the MeChip butler I installed in Heroes Rise! We live in the future!

Winston is still in alpha, but the finished version promises to have algorithms to detect the most significant stories of a social network, so you’d hear updates from close connections, major news from connections, breaking industry news, local weather and relevant headlines. It’s easy to see this replacing the early-morning scroll of social sites and news blogs.

Still, it was not hard to imagine Winston glitching and reciting, over and over, Your close friend shared George Takei’s photo. Another friend shared George Takei’s photo. Some guy you used to work with shared George Takei’s photo. Or maybe Good morning, Meg! You have 307 farms to water, 148 horses to groom, 204 Unstable Iso-8 to send back, 37 cows to receive, 87 hammers due to Sim friends, 43 energies to send back, and Stick is ahead of you in Words With Friends.

I kind of love living in the future.

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Heroes Rise: The Prodigy

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Meg

I have a new review up on IGM:


Heroes Rise: The Prodigy
is an interactive fiction game for PC, Kindle, iOS, Android, and Linux.
You play as a young would-be hero, in the Powered world of Millennia
City, but when the game opens, you are an underpaid, part-time videogame
tester, so low-level the execs don’t even know your name. (I’ve
actually been in that position, and I loved the industry nod from author
Zachary Sergi.)  Since your famous Powered parents were jailed after a
botched operation, you’ve been living quietly with your gardening
Grandma, under an assumed name. But all that will change when you get
your hero’s license….

The game is a text-based adventure, using ChoiceScript, in the vein of Choice of Romance, and Choice of the Vampire.
I love interactive fiction games. I’ve played a lot of Adventure, Zork,
and similar text-only games, so I’ve spend a lot of time trying to open
doors with Use Key, Turn Key, Unlock Door, and Use Key With Lock where
Use Key In Door was required.  ChoiceScript, though, avoids the most
frustrating part of IF games by providing multiple choice options
instead of asking users to enter text.

Via Heroes Rise: The Prodigy | The Indie Game Magazine

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Green Space

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Meg

Green Space is a new Facebook game from RocketOwl Inc, in which players are presented with futuristic environmental challenges and an environmental message. I became interested in Green Space because I think the social connections through Facebook have the potential to spread messages and information very quickly, and so linking a social game to a social cause has the ability to bring issues onto thousands of  Facebook feeds. Sure, I usually associate “raising awareness” with those slactivist memes like posting your bra color for breast cancer,  but I also think a good social game could share information (and, yes, awareness) in a palatable way.

Instead of presenting users with a surprising stat or a video to share, RocketOwl envisions a sci-fi world where empty cartons and wrappers completely cover the ground. The player takes on the role of a Space Janitor, a low-level employee with the GreenSpace Corps, who’s been sent to clear away years of trash and find a viable, green planet underneath. The game drops a sci-fi world and a message of environmentalism over the usual Facebook game mechanics: Instead of plowing land, players need to clear trash to reclaim it. Reclaimed areas can be decorated, and gathered trash can be processed into usable materials like Oil or Metal.  Larger pieces of trash require more energy to clean up, but reward with more usable materials when it’s processed. Then, the reclaimed materials are used to build upgrades and spacey decor, improving your Space Janitor’s efficiency, and bringing the dirty planet to life.

Most of the space technology relies on power from the planet’s power grid. To gain more energy, spam all your friends with endless requests for gifts. JUST KIDDING! Build power nodes to harvest sustainable energy like Solar or Wind power.

The trash-gathering is hardly the subtlest metaphor ever, and with the slogan The Future is Tidy!, players won’t forget this is an edu game. Still, slowly watching your gamespace changes from trash heap to futuristic paradise is very effective. Like every other Facebook social game, players are rewarded for inviting friends, and need more friends for higher-level missions.  GreenSpace is RocketOwl’s first offering, coming out of beta this week, so we’ll soon see if GreenSpace can harness friend requests and feed posts for a cause.

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How Not To Network

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Meg

I’d planned to go to Casual Connect as a writer, but after I lost my job, I had a new second agenda. That’s why I was forcing myself to attend mixers, swap business cards, mention what I do, and ask about possible work.

Mixers aren’t exactly my strong suit, but most people at the show were so very supportive, telling me stories about their projects going pear-shaped, asking for writing samples to have on hand in case of a dialogue-writing emergency, or suggesting friends of friends who might be looking for my skills.

But not everyone was awesome.

“So, you just make up the dialogue for an MMO?” I was asked. “That must be so easy. Doesn’t it ever bother you that everyone just hits ok and no one cares about the words?”

I gave him my card (PR agency! I’m sure he’s got loads of contacts! Hopefully he doesn’t lead in like that with everyone… ) and then I walked away and got another free beer. Because I’m a writer, and that’s what we do.

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From Casual Connect

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Meg

New pieces up on Indie Game Mag, from last week’s Casual Connect conference.


Charley Price, from Hidden Variable Studios, spoke at last week’s Casual Connect on Marketing by Design: Building IP with Reach. He used Bag It! as an example, and offered specific advice for indie and small studio developers on using an ensemble cast to make a game stick.

This was fascinating for me, because I’ve often responded to this style in fiction without giving a lot of thought to how this can be applied to games. With an ensemble cast, players pick a favorite (or an un-favorite), almost without thinking about it, and connect to that character’s narrative, and therefore, to the game. Think comic fans arguing over the best X-Man, to see just how effective this is. (It’s Rogue, in case you were wondering.)

Via Hidden Variables on Building an Ensemble Cast >> Indie Game Mag

I also met with ex-Epic gameplay designer Lee Perry about his new project, a casual, indie adventure called Lili. I was really excited about this interview — I’m fascinated by the team’s complete departure from Gears of War, and I can never resist island adventure games.

I was interested in talking with Lee Perry, former lead gameplay designer at Epic Games, because his new work with indie studio BitMonster’s first project casual adventure Lili, is such a complete departure from the team’s previous work. The new indie devs behind Lili are six Epic alums, all with experience on the Gears of War franchise, turning their talents to casual iOs adventure game.

Young Lili is a student, researching the island’s magical plants for a school project, and discovering more about herself along the way. The focus seems to be story and environment, and most surprisingly for ex-core developers, promises a non-combat system of defeating enemies.
Perry says the game will be is midway between Halfbrick titles (developers of Fruit Ninja, Monster Dash, etc.) and more story-driven sword-and-sorcery games. Looking at Lili’s gorgeous and cartoony tropical environment was, to me, slightly reminiscent of Zelda or even a Monkey Island, complete with silly dialogue and NPCs. Although the game is family-friendly, it’s more a game for players to share with their kids, and not a “children’s
game” for parents (and aunts and uncles…) to sit through.

Via Leaving Core For Indie: BitMonster Games >> Indie Game Magazine

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Just A Compliment, Geez

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Meg

When women are harassed, whether it’s a creepy come-on, an “accidental” grope, a sexist joke, or whatever form it takes, we often ignore it to avoid being considered moody or hard to work with.  Especially in the working sphere, we weigh the consequences of letting an inappropriate behavior slide, and we weigh the consequences of being considered someone who can’t take a joke, who is moody, or bitchy, or so high maintenance, or who can’t just take a joke, who makes a big fuss over nothing, etc. etc.  I’ve done it myself, letting obnoxious, sexist comments slide because I liked my job.  In creative work, being considered high-maintenance and moody has very real career consequences, and women on the receiving end of harassment think long and hard about risking the negative reputation that comes from being the whistleblower.

Genevieve Valentine‘s now-famous ReaderCon experience is more than a garden-variety harassment story, because after she experienced the inappropriate behavior (full account on her blog), she didn’t shrug it off or ask a friend to walk her around for the rest of the con.
She went to the con organizers, with a name of her harasser and witnesses to his behavior, and expected ReaderCon to follow its stated zero-tolerance policy for harassment.

But ReaderCon didn’t ban the harasser from the show, as their policy stated. Instead, they gave him a pretty minor slap on the wrist, and when bloggers and attendees responded with shock, ReaderCon said that because this fellow, called Rene Walling, apologized for his actions, so he can come back. (A quick Google pulls up this fellow’s ties to Boston’s Arisia, to WorldCon, to the Hugo Awards, and to Tor, and plenty of bloggers have already suggested he used his influence and friendships to avoid consequences for his actions.) The heartfelt-apology defense seems pretty weak, and I expect that anyone caught, say, pocketing items from the dealer’s room wouldn’t be able to say sorry and escape consequences.

The problem with harassment is that it’s so very easy to defend the harasser. He’s a nice guy, he was just flirting, he meant you were pretty, it was a compliment, you know that gamers/comic geeks/scifi guys are awkward, don’t you?, fandom’s a weird place, you should be flattered, it was just a joke, you’re being too sensitive.

There are several petitions asking ReaderCon to rethink this decision, and one member of the board has stepped down after the show’s decision to give Walling a token penalty. A loud and growing chorus of science fiction writers and show attendees aren’t planning on returning to ReaderCon.  I hope the organizers of this show, and conventions that would like to invite women game designers, women comic artists, women scifi authors, heck, just women) will consider the type of space they are creating by the rules they make and enforce.

It’s most important for all of us to consider the double standard in which a woman feeling unsafe is probably just misinterpreting things, but a man feeling sorry now has total awareness of his actions and will never do it again.

Other blogs:
Genevieve Valentine: Readercon: The Bad and the Ugly (Disclosure: Genevieve was one of my roommates and cheap theater buddies in London, so I’m extra super angry that this happened to a good friend and an amazing writer.)
Shea Wong: When enough is not enough: Rene Walling, Genevieve Valentine, and Readercon
Ekaterina Sedia: That ReaderCon Thing
Team Valkyrie: Zero-Tolerance Except if Sowwies, aka That Noise Happening with ReaderCon
Nicholas Kaufman: Not Cool, ReaderCon

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Big Fish Unlimited

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Meg

Big Fish Games first got my attention by offering one-hour-free trials of their casual titles, before that was a terribly common distribution method. It was a pretty appealing alternative to driving to a GameSpot and buying a CD in a box. Even most games that could be downloaded asked would-be players to purchase a full game, sight unseen, so it was great to be able to check out the storyline and UI before paying.

I also remember BFG offering a subscription distribution method with a certain number of games per month, but I don’t really remember the number and price point, I think it varied. Anyway, Big Fish has done a lot to put casual games in front of people who didn’t consider themselves gamers, so in a way, the announcement of  Big Fish Unlimited isn’t really a surprise, just following BFG’s pattern of getting casual games in front of non-gamer audiences.

Big Fish Unlimited will allow players to access casual games from the cloud, play them across a variety of devices and save their progress between them. (There was also something about Roku? Which has something to do with television? Whatever, TV is boring.) It launched this week with a hundred titles from their pretty extensive list of casual games, and plans to offer more games on this service each week.

Since the new system allows players to switch between PC and mobile play of the same title. I’m not sure whether the target is keeping the casual gamer, someone who plays existing Big Fish titles on the PC, as these players move into mobile games, or whether Big Fish Unlimited is targeting new gamers, who’ve come into casual gaming from mobile. Either way, it’s a good followup to ways BFG has been making casual games easier for non-gamers to find and access, and it’ll be interesting to see how many existing PC casual players take up this system, and how many mobile gamers come into Big Fish Games.

I think the key to popularity will be how easy it is to use… Casual players tend to get frustrated easily when presented with a new UI, and there’s always a learning curve with new technology. Worse, if there’s any confusion about how games are streamed,  or frustration from not being able to play games in places without signal (the subway, for example, is prime mobile gaming time), there could be angry players.

But if casual players can seamlessly move between different hardward, and seamlessly try new games, this will be another move in mainstreaming of games, and expanding the definition of a game. Which means that now when I catch myself saying “HOG” to people outside of the industry, I can quickly correct myself with “you know, like games on Big Fish.”

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Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Meg

This week, on Inside the Music: Slurry was the brainchild of enigmatic virtuoso guitarist Fitzwilliam Darcy, but it wasn’t until he teamed up with outgoing front man Charles Bingley that the group began their meteoric rise to fame.

This is the first line of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star, proving that this is going to the best Pride and Prejudice spinoff ever!

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Misfit Heights, A Zombie Puppet Musical

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Meg

I don’t usually like to repost pieces I’ve written for other sites, but I can not resist sharing a zombie puppet musical here as well.

Misfit Heights, from filmmakers James Burzelic and Daniel Grzeskowiak at Unfettered Entertainment, is a low-budget zombie puppet musical, premiering at the GenCon Film Festival next month.

I saw an early-stage build (oh, hi, guys, I’m a game reviewer and not a film critic) of a horror musical telling the story of a puppet-occupied apartment building ravaged by the undead. When the human superintendent leaves town, the building’s mad scientist and would-be evil overlord tries to raise a zombie army! Unfortunately, his undead minions don’t stay under his control for long, and the rest of the cute, ugly and wacky puppet tenants must deal with all the horror-movie carnage that ensues. Muppets run for their lives,  battle zombies, even get bitten, and deal with infected survivors… while singing some catchy and disturbing tunes.

Filmmaker Jim Burzelic says “I’ve always been a huge zombie movie fan and am always looking for any excuse to include them in everything I’m doing.  In discussing different possibilities, Dan Grzeskowiak asked, “What if Night of the Living Dead happened on Sesame Street?”  and that was all I needed to hear.”

Unfettered Entertainment‘s next project is Space Ale, a webseries about the adventures of a microbrewer caught up in an intergalactic war. (I’ve heard the man with the six-pack saves the world.)

Misfit Heights premieres at GenCon in Indianapolis, at 10 PM on August 17th. If you won’t be in GenCon, Unfettered Entertainment is looking to present their film at other conventions and film festivals around the country. More information can be found at MisfitHeights.com.

Written for I Heart Chaos :: Misfit Heights: A Zombie  Muppet Musical. Disclosure: Not only am I not a film critic, I’m not even unbiased. Jim Burzelic, and Steve Gossett (voice of Fatty, Tex, Chubby, Dad, Front Gator and others…), and their friends are some of my favorite things about Los Angeles.

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Alternative Vegan

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Meg

So I’m trying to add more vegetables into my diet, and trying to eat less* processed food, and generally edit my unhealthy habits, for a healthier life. Without doing anything crazy like cutting out coffee or booze, of course.

Vegetarian cookbooks often involve long moralizing harangues on converting to vegetarianism, or attacks on meat-eating cavemen types, which is sort of frustrating when I’m just looking to eat a bit healthier. Sometimes — especially in the books that promise to be easy — recipes involve taking a soy-chicken cutlet, battering it in fake egg and gluten-free panko, and frying it in canola oil. Which doesn’t really seem much healthier or less processed, and also, if something is called FAKE CHICKEN, I probably don’t need a special book to tell me to prepare it like chicken.

But when I got Alternative Vegan: International Vegan Fare Straight From The Produce Aisle on my Kindle, it was quite a different experience. First, the recipes seemed like things I would want to eat. They had ingredients I like! With actual flavor! No eating a bowl of quinoa and unseasoned tofu! And no fake-meats!

The author was just so cheerfully chatty about substitutions, and excited about variations, and had such lovely stories about the recipes’ inspiration, that reading Alternative Vegan felt like talking with a foodie friend. I kept reading, and kept feeling like a friend was talking to me…

Then I realized that I’d met the author, Dino Sarma Weierman, at a party at Nate and Andrea’s place a couple months ago, where he’d had enthused about food and adding vegan meals to an omnivore’s diet with me! It took me a surprisingly long time to catch on to this. I mean, how many flamboyantly hospitable foodie vegans called Dino are there?

The cookbook has the same enthusiasm for cooking and sharing food that a chat with Dino has, and the book’s been such a great help in turning vegetables from a side dish into a main dish.

 

*I gave a lot of thought to whether this should be less or fewer, but actually, I mean both food that is less processed and fewer foods that processed.

Posted in New York City | Tagged , , | 3 Comments