Category → Interaction Faction
A New Idea…
I recently posted something on my shiny new TED profile, and it goes something like this:
I want to create a non-profit that provides after school programs for kids to create and design video games, while also participating in contests where they can win scholarship money for college.
It seems like a smart idea, to me, but I’m just not sure of how to do it.
This is truth. I have had this idea, in the back of my mind, that there must be a way to encourage a pro-creation, perhaps less consumerism-y attitudes in kids. I know of so many people – yes, young people! – who are so driven to be hand-fed their entertainment, every day. They don’t understand the value in creating, in crafting. They hyperdigest games and look blankly at the screen when there is nothing left.
I want to offer an alternative. I want to gear kids towards creating and solving, rather than having disks/cartridges that solve those problems for them.
Ideally, this would be a non-profit. I would want the money coming in to go towards scholarships that enable kids with passion to create – and do so smartly! – to go on to higher education with less stress on their parents.
Do I seem like an idealist? I think this can be done, and can be effective. Schools seem to be in dire need of more after-school programs around here, and in many other places.
Some bullet points on what I would probably need:
- Smart tools for creating simple games from scratch (think WarioWare DIY and Construct)
- Those who are passionate about teaching, and do it well, to help design curriculum and activities
- Math, art, computer science whizkids to help me make meaningful lessons in design
- I would love to incorporate teaching algorithms into the design curriculum… mmm.
- NON-PROFIT EDUCATION
- FUNDING EDUCATION (these are in CAPS because they are the most intimidating!)
If you have any tips, please pass them my way.
Friend Code!
Just to ride on the recent DS/WarioWare high, I finally got Tim to bring my wireless router back to me so I could download all of those Ninsoft games.
My friend-code is 2751 3945 0117 and my nickname is Jenothy. Please give me yours so we can start sharing games and whatnot!
P.S.: I accidentally tasted Bitter Yuck! spray this week. Yes, the spray that is intended for CATS. I’ve never tasted something so horrible and so difficult to get the taste out of my mouth. Yuck for serious! I can’t believe it doesn’t work on my cats. Perhaps I should make a microgame about it as a catharsis.
WarioWare D.I.Y. Love
I’ve become engrossed with this game/tool. I blazed through all of the tutorials, including the advanced “Assembly Dojo”, and have almost finished all of the freelance jobs. As much as I just enjoy doing it, I wanted to see more whiz-bang moments for completing the tutorials and jobs. Seeing a new record/song in the store didn’t really feel like enough. I felt like there was so much more content in the previous WarioWare games. Yes, it’s slighly unfair because this is chock full of tools for making and sharing, but I don’t have any buddies to share with yet. As a single-player experience, I was expecting more to happen (without making my own game) for these smart ancillary tasks.
Perhaps it will open up once I’ve submitted my own totally fresh “In Wonder” game. (Liquid wouldn’t fit.) I’ve also gotten into the habit of making extremely detailed sprites, which makes me wonder if I actually have some kind of artistic talent. I’ve always thought about getting a small tablet, but I never felt justified in doing so. I’m lucky to have many artists in my life, even for personal projects, but WarioWare asks you to make art – now! – so I’ve tried. And tweaked. And become obsessed with my limited palette. And patterns. And how to make the right shadow using the comic tools (screentones, if you know what I mean). I slowly went from the I-don’t-care-about-art-Player who would deliberately make a blob and two spots for a face to recreating Pikachu and Ghastly for two of the last jobs in the last batch. Accurately (as far as 32×32 or 64×64 pixels will allow me, I forget how big those were). With shading and perspective.
I’ll see if I can post pictures tomorrow. I’m really proud of them, to say the least.
Oh, about the actual game making: I have started my first all-me, no-tutorial game. It’s in a semi-realistic style. I was thinking about making sad/serious minigames. For this one, it’s a boy, alone in his barely-lit room, looking depressed. I was going to make the start command “Contemplate Futility” or something along those lines (the above has too many characters and wouldn’t fit). The music is already simple/ultra sad. I’m not sure what the action is, or if there should be nothing (no in-game response) to do. Just… the direct command, to the player, to empathize. I think that’s a shocking change from the usual lighthearted and quirky tone of microgames.
Can you make a stunning emotional experience in 4 seconds or less? …Why not?
Trippin’ Down Memories
If you’ve been reading, thanks for putting up with my trips down memory lane. I really didn’t want to see my old, interesting posts from a less thoughtful journey into BlogLand get sucked up into the black void of the Internets. I’m hoping to return to new thoughts on technology, silence, music, interactivity, and everything else I could possible hope for, but really, I should catch my breath first. I think the silence posts, in particular, will be wild to post on – now that I live in South Carolina, silence is kind of easy to take for granted. Now, I welcome the interruption of a car, etc. More to come on that when I have a less hectic day ahead of me!
I’ve got lots of exciting projects in the cooker, but nothing to show for it yet! It’s a pain, I know! I’m hoping to at least finish my Theremin project soon, but there’s no guarantee. Also, if you have any tips for wading through boxes of memorabilia, please pass them along. It looks like I may be moving in the direction of Greenville when my lease is up, but I don’t want to do that without owning much less, you know? Moving is such a pain, and I hope to be the smartest I’ve ever been about the process this time.
Oh, and a certain lovely boyfriend recently surprised me with WarioWare D.I.Y.! I hope to make a few little games that don’t stink. I’ll be sure to share them when they’re born. 
Before I forget: my time was monopolize by a crazy accident on 85 South, coming from Spartanburg to Greenville. It took me ages to get out of it! Just terrible!
Revisit: Why Canst Thou Save Thine Game?
Sometimes, my ire gets the best of me. I’m still frustrated by this problem despite the two years or so that have passed since then.
February 29th, 2008 on “Interaction Faction”:
I own a DS Lite. It’s a great little portable system, with tons of cool titles like Contact and New Super Mario Bros., yet there is a fundamental problem with many of these games.
Why, good people, am I unable to SAVE at any point in the game on a PORTABLE device?
What developer has the nerve to overlook this seemingly necessary feature of a gaming environment in which power off can occur at notably unexpected times? Where shorter play time is inherent to one’s commute?
Please don’t get me wrong – I can take a good Wario Ware fix like the next gamer, but is that my only option?
Let’s look at a fairly complex game with, absolutely, the ability to save at nearly any point: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Any turn in which you had character control, you could immediately save and power down, no questions asked, and arrive at the very same place in battle. Did I mention that saving is always possible outside of battle as well?
The leads me, naturally, to approach the DS as another system more likely to stay home than travel for fear that I play on my weekly commute, get through a small, yet worthwhile chunk of game, but find myself unable to save when I must depart and re-engage the world we live in. Futility at its finest.
Game developers, I beg you, PLEASE implement a save function at any time. Yes, I’ll leave out cutscenes if you throw it on every non-battle menu. We can even negotiate what time of battle engagement, if you like. For other genres, this is not yet standard!
Raise your portable system of choice high! Fight to save your game whenever you feel empowered to!
Rebirth, to Death, to Rebirth
For the next few days, I’d like to spend a moment each day rehashing a post from one of my original blogs before they all evolved into my shiny Multiblog. Today’s is from almost two years ago, back when I was still completing my graduate studies at NYU. I had started “Interaction Faction” as a means for venting my game development and design snafus, which were daily at the time. I was also angrier/more emotional about programming back then, probably because my thesis was my first serious coding project.
From May 8th, 2008, on “Interaction Faction”:
Taking a moment from my critique of game design, in an hour of desperation I offer to you my ray of hope through this epic retelling of adversity.
Death. All I could think about was how to throw my shiny UT3 collector’s box around my apartment, as the editor, just days before a presentation of a project, would not allow me to look at the properties of my builder brushes. Oh, the window would show, but you know those delicious dark gray sub-boxes? They remained unopenable, shut like a nun’s panties. Crawling around the UT3 forums proved futile until one post, one booming voice echoing:
“When judgment is at hand, delete the UTEditor.ini in the UTGAME\Config files in your Documents folder, for the righteous shall be saved.”
Well, I wasn’t saved yet – it didn’t work. HOWEVER, deleting UTEditor.ini along with its cohorts UTEditorUserSettings.ini and UTEditorKeyBindings.ini was successful. The editor was restored to harmony and joyous modding.
I hope this solution also helps those with unreasonably skewed brushes and other varieties of bizarre parameters that the editor saves for the following session… for your convenience!
Raleigh!
I blasted back from the conference on Thursday, but I’ve been in nonstop catch-up-and-connect-with-new-folks mode since I got back. Let me just say this: TGC was a GREAT experience for me, and I can’t wait for next year’s conference to roll around! I’m also thinking of going to the game conference in Atlanta in October (SIEGE), which promises to be equally, if not more, awesome.
I was originally turned off to Atlanta after visiting the Georgia Aquarium on a Sunday (around Valentine’s Day, if you must know). We drove around to check the area out, but it seemed, well, dead. If you lived/played in Greenwich Village for a few years, like I did, you kind of have an expectation of what a “real” city is supposed to be like. Walking through Washington Square Park, hearing who was jamming before I stepped into an over-crowded studio/classroom for some music tech lecture or whatnot… that was my life for two years. It was also the best part of my commute into the city from Jersey City. Anyway, we must’ve been cruising through Atlanta’s financial district or something, but we couldn’t find where the hip kids were at. Maybe it’s more of a commuter city? I was creeped out by the lack of people walking around on a fairly sunny day, but maybe it’s just not that kind of scene. I don’t know. I’m still bugging my Atlanta-prone friends about where I should’ve been exploring.
The real push to attend TGC, aside from networking in the game industry I call my “home”, was to check out Raleigh. For better or worse, I know that I need to think about where I should relocate at the end of the year. Not that Spartanburg has done me wrong, particularly, but I know that my options have been extremely limited, even as a technologist, and that telecommuting for most of my work has been an eye-opener into what I value about work. Some of it doesn’t need an office (getting to know people), but some… well, maybe some does. (You know that chit-chat when you just get in, or those conversations over lunch where you discover that your cubicle mate has the same breed of cat that you do? I don’t have those serendipitous face-to-face moments. Ever. It’s always a voice or an asynchronous exchange.) This isn’t just a matter of telecommuting, but probably a facet of being a contractor – your time is always billed, and who wants to get billed for chit-chat? You’re more of a cog in a machine than a member of the work family, which is something I miss about studio life. However, I have seen consultants in I.T. become part of the teams that are also their clients. Perhaps it’s a matter of culture, but I’m sure that seeing my bright, cheery, I-totally-love-working-in-games-even-doing-this-boring-task-How-are-you-today face would be a positive asset if face-to-face contact was more common.
Anyway, there’s no guarantee that I would gain any of this by relocating. More and more studios rely on telecommuters to keep overhead/office expenses down, so it may just be a sign of the times that so much of my work has come through that venue.
The other half of it, aside from “career positioning” or what have you, is the area. I lived in Sussex, NJ, where there were cows. Some people (non-NJ natives) still don’t believe there were cows, or that I didn’t immediately know what “exit I was off of the Turnpike.” That one is so old. Please, give it a rest. I lived in Pennsylvania for my undergrad (small school) and Jersey City with a commute into Manhattan for graduate studies (NYU… big school). Despite living in so many different places, I’m just not sure where I belong.
I really enjoyed my time in Raleigh, though. So clean, so friendly… I was just surprised. Oh, and those parks throughout the city! And trees! There’s a lot I haven’t touched on yet, so I’m planning a return trip in a few months to see if it’s where I should settle, perhaps for more than a year or two! I’ve been a nomad for the past bunch of years. I hope to change that. Maybe I’ll figure this out before my lease on this apartment ends!
I’ll be in… THE TRIANGLE.
It’s totally true! Next week, I’ll be at the Triangle Game Conference in Raleigh, NC! (April 7-8) I’m hoping to meet with studio folk to see what’s shakin’. It should be lots of fun!
Therefore, I’ve been looking up tips on networking and conferencing. I don’t know many folks in North Carolina yet, but I hope to change that soon. I’ve been listening to an interesting podcast on approaching groups at Manager Tools. I’m still pretty awkward at conferences, but I hope this will better my odds of being less shy/more sure of myself.
I’ll be late for the first day, but I’ll be there both days! If you plan on attending, feel free to send me an e-mail so we can meet up!
