So, I traveled into the future

Posted July 2, 2010 by Togi in Writing No Comments

At least that’s my excuse for not posting for 3 weeks. I perceived that time as 2 days, so I’m not actually as late as you think I am!

I’ve finally become pretty comfortable with the whole move over here to Austin. Things are starting to normalize as I learn this new order of things. The job is going great! I’m personally loving it. It’s so nice to be doing something useful during the day, and getting paid for it!

In terms of gaming, I’ve been slacking a bunch. I’m slowly realizing that I am turning into more of a casual gamer, but I’m too stubborn to stop. Luckily, this is the best time to be a pick up and player like I am. With so many great indie and free games, it’s easy to find something to play for a few minutes. Here’s a couple I’ve found particularly enjoyable:

Desktop Dungeons
This one was suggested by Dan, one of my co-hosts over on Broken Embargo. It’s a rogue like dungeon crawler in concept and appearance, but a puzzle game in reality. You choose a race and a class, each with special bonuses and abilities, and then start the game. The monsters are static in the one-screen map as you click to move your hero around. The map is covered with a fog of war which, as it is revealed, will heal your hero. It becomes a tough decision between scoping out an area for good targets or saving an unexplored area for a boost later on. In every map, there is a Level 10 monster that you can defeat. If he is defeated, you unlock a new class and a new monster will appear in future games. It’s all very well designed with unlockables along the way.

Doodle God
Not so much a game as an exercise in patience and persistence, Doodle God’s main mechanic is combination. You start with the basic elements and have to combine them to make everything from Lava to Airplanes. It’s a game that gets exponentially more complex, with every creation giving way to 100’s of possible new creations. The way the game is presented is its best attribute. The music is subtle and effective, and the combination effects are gratifying. It’s definitely a hard one to put down. But please, don’t cheat. Takes all the fun away.

I said I’d list my favorite things of E3 in my next post. I’ll just boil it down to this in my parting statement.

GIVE ME INFAMOUS 2 NOW!!

Busy busy ^_^

Posted June 21, 2010 by Togi in Writing No Comments

Second week of work starts today! I’m fully back into the swing of it now, so I figured I’d write a quick note to say that posts may not be as regular on here as they were the past month or so. I’ll still try to get at least two out a week, but it’s most likely not going to be a daily thing anymore. There will be a post later today/tomorrow/this week about my overall favorite things from E3, now that it’s over. And gaming should be more of the focus as I move forward.

Time to get ready for work!

So much to do, so little time

Posted June 16, 2010 by Togi in Writing No Comments

Now that I have a job, I’m back to the epic balancing act of my life. There is so much I like to do: keeping up with the latest gaming news, playing games, working, blogging, podcasting, and working on my own personal projects. It becomes tough sometimes to keep everything up, but for some reason I’ve been more motivated lately. It could be the way I cope with being in a new place with brand new experiences. Or it could be the second wind coming from my extended “vacation” in Florida. Either way, I’m ready to charge full force into everything.

It is tough to keep up with all of the details of this epic week in news, though. I’m sure it will get easier as time goes on, but with E3 happening this week, I come home to upwards of 200 stories on my RSS feeds. I’ll browse through the headlines and open the ones that catch my eye, but there is no way I can totally research every story in my current situation. But that’s ok. If there is something I may have missed, I’m sure my co-hosts on the Broken Embargo podcast will straighten me out later. Maybe I won’t be “Super News Guy” for a while, but it comes at a more than acceptable cost.

I’m still actively coding whenever I get the time. It’s usually early in the mornings or late at night, but Crystal Hunters is still making progress. There may be a total rewrite of the collision code required, but the basics of the game are there. I only have 4 more objects to create, but 2 that have been written are not currently functioning as intended because of the collision issues. Going forward will be slower now that I have a job, but it is still moving forward. It will be even more fun when I’m done with coding and can start on the artwork for the game. For some strange reason, I’m looking forward to that part most of all.

My blogging may become slightly irregular. For example, this is my second post today because I had to post this morning to make up for yesterday’s deficit. There was simply too much E3 to watch to justify staying up to blog about it afterwards. I’ll still try and keep it to about a post a day in the end, even if it is a little late. Except one day on the weekends, of course. Never quite sure which one it will be. Expect some more E3 themed posts before the end of the month, too, as I expect to look back over my most anticipated games of E3, the biggest surprises of E3, etc. Fun, easy stuff for me to blog about that also gives me an excuse to keep up to date! Win-Win!

Long. Day.

Posted June 14, 2010 by Togi in Writing No Comments

But very satisfying. Getting spun up on my new job kept me very distracted from the E3 goings on in the back of my mind. But now that I’ve gotten a taste of E3 tonight, I wonder if that will make tomorrow unbearable. I will definitely be looking forward to a nice, long night of press conferences. And I hope, for all of our sakes, that they are better than Microsoft’s offering this year. I’ll summarize my impressions below.

Let me start by saying, Microsoft had a stellar year last year. There were great surprises, big announcements, and intriguing new tech. But this year, we see some of rough edges of this new direction for Microsoft. There were some small points of interest in the first half of the show, with the CoD: Black Ops gameplay and the Metal Gear Solid: Rising trailer. After that, it all went downhill. Motion and voice control with Kinect seems tacked on to the existing Xbox experience, ESPN on the 360 is being pitched to the wrong audience, and the showing of 6 of the Kinect launch titles had my head spinning in confusion. I honestly felt like I was watching Microsoft dig themselves into the same grave Nintendo threw themselves into with the Wii. Albeit, this grave is filled with lots of money, so you can’t blame them. Some of the games seem like interesting diversions, but they eschew any sort of evolution in design or gameplay. It’s as if Microsoft is asking me to pay $150 (rumored) to play what amount to glorified flash games on the same console that can give me epic experiences, like Red Dead Redemption and Bioshock. Sure, the tech is innovative and interesting, but Pong came out 30 years ago, guys. I guess if I have to say something good about Kinect, it is that if I ever feel the need to pick up a workout “game”, Ubisoft’s Your Shape for Kinect would be the one I’d choose. The Wii Balance Board scares me, and that seems like a good use of Kinect, honestly.

Tomorrow is another big day. I’m really hoping that Sony doesn’t fall into the same trap Microsoft has. The casual revolution is ineviteble, I know. Companies are making lots of money off them, so it’s going to happen one way or the other. But don’t water down over half of a press conference with throw away fluff that will not define the “Motion Revolution.” I refuse to believe that Kinectimals is the best use of this technology, and I’m hoping for something better from Sony. Because Microsoft did not deliver. Oh, and Nintendo? Bring us Zelda, and you’ll be JUUUUST fine.

P.S. That pandering to the audience at the end of Microsoft’s presser was horrible. You should be ashamed of yourselves, Microsoft. The announcement of same week release should have been enough, and it was a great surprise. But you had to stoop to that level? That was really, really sad.

And Now Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Program…

Posted June 13, 2010 by Togi in Writing No Comments

The last few days have been a blur. Thursday was spent frantically packing the car, Friday was the drive from Orlando to Slidell, LA, and Saturday from there to Austin. I was going to blog on Friday night to keep a little consistency, but after driving 8+ hours in no air conditioning and no cruise control down an endless corridor of trees, my mind wasn’t all there. On a slightly related note, I will soon be wiping every song off from my iPhone to get some new tunes. O_O

I have managed to make some progress with Crystal Hunters. The road block right now being the movable blocks. Who knew something so small could create so many collision problems? Hopefully I can have them worked out by the end of the day. That would make my list of completed objects go up to 6. Almost halfway there!

E3 starts tomorrow, and I’m hoping I have everything set to record. The next couple of nights are going to be chock full of E3 goodness, as I won’t be able to stagger my doses through the day live with the rest of the world. Such is the sacrifice I make for finally having a job! I think I’m finally at peace with the fact that I won’t be getting the news live and up to date. It’ll be a no phone no net day for me.

Real Life

Posted June 9, 2010 by Togi in Writing No Comments

Well, this weekend has taken a turn for the epic. Just got an offer for a job in Austin, and they need me to start ASAP. I’ll be driving out on Friday, so that means there is only a slight possibility I’ll be blogging on those days. Oh, and my start date? First day of E3 press conferences. But all’s good, we have a DVR! I will survive! But I will not have my phone on AT ALL on Monday or Tuesday. No spoilers!

I’m looking at stuff to bring with me with a strange duality. Part of me wants to bring everything, the other wants to bring next to nothing. Thankfully, the latter half is winning. The living arrangements for the first month or so will be with a friend and his wife in a one bedroom apartment right across the road from work. So that means I don’t have much room for my own stuff. I am bringing the post-move essentials, though. Kitchen stuff, computer, TV, gaming systems, and a blow-up mattress. It doesn’t look like much, but I think part of me is happy I’m not bringing ALL of my crap right away.

Because I’ve noticed over the past couple years that I have a problem with hoarding crap I don’t use. Some of it is because I’m a collector (magazines, game cases, etc.), but other stuff clearly needs to be pitched. So many clothes that don’t fit me or don’t meld with my cartoon-esque closet of Black T-Shirts and Blue Jean Shorts. Little trinkets that stopped working ages ago, stuff like that. I have this watch…the band came completely off, and all that is left is the face. It’s a digital watch, and I’ve had it for about 10 years now. It only recently stopped working. The battery in that thing lasted forever. And it seemed to follow me everywhere. I clearly remember leaving it in Russia, but it showed up years later, still running strong. I don’t need things like that anymore, and I’m sure I’ll have to go through a super cleansing when I get settled in.

Exciting times. For now, it seems the risk I took last month is going to pay off. I can’t wait to start working, and I truly hope it leads to great things. I will still be keeping the Crystal Hunters project active, as it is in a state that allows for quick, hour long coding sessions to get progress done. It may take longer than it would have with me unemployed, but I am determined it will still see the light of day.

The Next Generation? Not yet, please

Posted June 7, 2010 by Togi in Writing No Comments

E3 anticipation is reaching a fever pitch this week. If I hype myself any more, I’m afraid I’ll be sorely disappointed. The biggest roadblock to my enjoyment of E3 next week is that I have the potential to be moving around that time. Of course, my situation is so unknown right now, I could be moving tomorrow.

Something just came out today that scares me more than anything about E3. A viral video has surfaced that shows some Japanese people at a research facility, running around with a shaky cam following them. They come to a room with a catatonic, laughing man with a controller in his hand and what looks like 3D glasses on his face. Seems like a harmless, albeit very 2008ish, Sony ad. And it may just be teasing the new 3D capabilities of the PS3 coming soon. However, the last scene mysteriously says “PS4 v3.1″. If this is some allusion to the next generation of consoles, I will be very disappointed.

Move and Natal have a ton of potential to breath at least 2 or 3 more years of life into the current generation. Not only that, but developers are to the point where games are really shining on both platforms. We’re entering a new golden age of gaming, and entering a new generation now will obliterate that momentum. We’re only a couple years out of the growing pains of this one, let’s not go through it again already.