Monthly Update: April

Chief Medical Officer's log, earth date 4/5/2015.9:04.  Nice trip to San Francisco.  Visited the Academy of Sciences.The planetarium presentation on the interconnectedness of all life on earth was cool.  Also an Albino Alligator named Claude.

Played Mario Kart 8, was a lot of fun.  Tough game but seems like lots of room for growth.  Very impressed at resolution on the Wii U controller.  Seriously considering Wii U purchase.  Also played card game called 'Bang' that was pretty fun and available online.  In the meantime, on the gaming front, I've also played Mario Kart 64, Star Fox and Turok.  Looking into Magic Online.

I also saw a really cool play called 33 Variations at a local theater.  The story follows both a Beethoven scholar whose body is progressively shutting down from symptoms of ALS, while trying to complete a final study on Beethoven's composition 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli.  Concurrently, another set of actors perform the story of Beethoven, Diabelli and Schindler as Beethoven struggles to compose his variations and Schindler struggles to keep him in his sponsors good graces.  It was a lot of fun, I have a soft spot for Beethoven's cranky, crazed genius, and the principle and supporting actors were fantastic.  Not to mention the play was performed with a live piano player.  There were also bits of music theory that I found really exciting, having enough understanding to be interested.

On the subject of artists and performers now past, I wanted to say something about Leonard Nimoy and something about Terry Pratchett.  I almost feel I've missed my window.  But... well, I suppose that's not really possible.  Anyway, it turned out Leonard Nimoy was even more of a badass then I ever realized.  And I also realized that Spock is very much the mascot of Star Trek.  Or maybe Kirk is the mascot, dancing around to keep us entertained, but Spock was the heart and soul.  He was the best character in the original series, bar none.  He was an example of how Star Trek would try new things.  He was an alien, he was biracial, he adhered to a bizarre and mystic code of logic.  He had psychic powers.  He was insufferable and yet he was deeply compassionate.  He's everything Star Trek was about.

It's hard not to make it all about Spock.  Nimoy clearly dealt with that his whole career.  Since his passing, I've learned that Nimoy was a Yiddish scholar, director, writer and photographer.  I'm thrilled that Jaconian and I were both able to see him speak at a Star Trek convention.  Twice.  During those talks, I learned that Nimoy did a one man stage show as Theo Van Gogh, exchanging letters with his Mad Genius brother Vincent.  You might have heard of him.

Terry Pratchett I knew less well.  I've read only The Color of Magic, the first book in the Discworld series.  I would like to say, however,  that when I read The Color of Magic, I felt a certain sense of coming home, as though I had been there before, and I had been reading Sir Pratchett's work since childhood.  And if I had to use just one word to describe his writing, it would be delightful.  Perhaps now is as good a time as any to return to his work.

Looking forward, I'm not sure what to expect.  I'm settling into my new apartment, as is my cat, Enkidu.  He has been very playful of late, and that's been fun to watch.  I'm struggling with my laptop connection to my TV, something went wrong and now my laptop screen turns off when I hook in the HDMI cable.  This is really frustrating because I was excited at the prospect of playing Steam games on a big screen.  The Nintendo 64 still works, and my girlfriend really likes Mario Kart, so I may seeing more of that in my future.  Until next time,

-D

Game Design Idea: Narrative Walk Through : Statement of Purpose

So, as I mentioned before, I can't seem to crack into any of the supposed game design software I've seen on the internet and read in reviews and even have seen attributed to games that I like (Anodyne).  Yet, my mind persists in imagining what it would be like to design a game.  And I think this stuff makes for a great game design idea!

For example, I think it would be great to design a game, where the levels progress with programming milestones.   Like, the first screen is just a crappy looking block guy, moving around -- success!  Then the next screen maybe you can slash a sword!  And then by the third screen, maybe you can cut down a bush! Hooray!  Then there's an enemy.   And then, by then you might have the hang of it enough to have like, a whole series of screens, with a treasure box at the end, hooray!  

I imagine a narrator the whole time, describing the process of creation to the little character on screen.  The challenges, and progressions.  Creating a weird meta-fiction author dynamic.  Did I mention I love meta-fiction?  I've noticed this stuff is pretty big these days as well, with games like Thomas was Alone and the Stanley Parable Demo.  Also, with the regular use of the term 'meta' to describe things.  But being a fancy English major, I've been familiar with the term for some time.  

Specifically, I was introduced to meta-fiction with the book 'At Swim Two Birds' by Flann O'Brien (pen name Brian O'Nolan - meta!) .  It's a book about a guy who's writing a book.  Meta level 1.  Then the characters in that book decide they don't like what's going on in their story,  Meta Level 2, and they go to to the authors house to talk some sense into him.  Or some such thing.  It's a lot of fun, and very old, published in 1939.    

Further Meta ideas come from the 'fourth wall' concept in theater, whereas the actors aren't supposed to acknowledge the audience, and when they do so, they're breaking the 'fourth wall.'   I've always loved to play with that, though.

Of course, my idea of a video game about its own creation is silly for a couple reasons.  One is that I still don't actually know what the process is like.  I'm just guessing.  And whenever I read interviews with game creators, they always describe all sorts of things they weren't expecting.  So I expect that would happen to me too.  Expecting the unexpected, I'm so ready!

Anyway, I think the process would be to work on different concepts, enemies, items, procedures, etc.  And make careful note when something interesting happens.  Then, when I've got the hang of the whole programming thing, go back and fake it.  There's no need for my authentic practice screens to be in a game, just something resembling them.  Throw a kookie narrator with a british accent on the thing, and I'm set!  

Man, I love my own ideas!  And it's so much easier to write about them than to actually push them through my metaphorical loins, spank breath into them, cut their metaphorical umbilical chord, hold them close and feed them from my metaphorical teat!  I'm unemployed, and *still* that sounds like too much trouble!  Maybe it's the way I described it...  Actually, wait, this reminds me of the conclusion of the play "Slag" that I saw in college.  My girlfriend was one of the three principle actresses, and her character gets miraculously pregnant, but her character was insane, and it was actually just a food baby.  (Oh man, I am *such* an English Major.)

Anyway, I realize I spoiled the ending for you, which is a high crime, but don't worry - the enjoyment of that play came from the performances.  Three fantastic Actresses with really great chemistry.  The plot wasn't really very important, and I saw it more than once, I think.  It was performances like that that gave me a love of the theater.  And has subsequently fueled my curiosity about the connection between theater, film and video games.  Specifically around minimalism - I love how fantastic some performances are with minimal set design.  I can't help but wonder if a similar elegance can be applied to game design, programming and execution.

http://www.andysowards.com/blog/2012/70-epic-map-design/

When I was young, I wanted to create epic fantasy.  Nothing but.  Alright, maybe an occasional side-scroller.  But, the biggest piece of my creative pie was taken up with 50+ hour Role Playing Games.  And the reflexive version:  novelizations of already existing RPGs.  High Fantasy, Tolkein and Dungeons and Dragons ruled all.  And the bigger, longer and more epic, the better. It is still like a security blanket or a favorite stuffed toy.  I can go back there just by closing my eyes and relaxing.

However, in these days following the Box Office and Academy Award domination of the Lord of the Rings movie Trilogy,  it seems pretty damned clear to me that the High Fantasy World is covered.  You can't throw a stone without hitting a two to three hour epic something.  I missed riding that wave, and now I'm wonder when it will subside.  

These days, I am most interested in minimalism, in peeling back all of the glitz and the glamour and the huge set pieces, to find out what's in the core of genre, theater, creativity.  I want to take a chisel to the edifice of the modern High Fantasy Blockbuster and see if there isn't something beautiful underneath it all.  I believe that minimalism is more raw, and prompts the viewer to fill in the gaps with their own imagination.  More than that, it is much, much more inexpensive to produce.  And therefore can be done with a smaller team, which allows for much more creative control and input by the principle few.  And that serves my starving little creative ego, I think.  

Hmm, caffienne high is faltering.  love of my own ideas is waning.  autumn is passing into winter.  power down. boooooooop.  

-D


P.S. follow-up question:  does this need to be published?  Our blog quality standards aren't like, super-high or anything, yet I have a bunch of ideas that are important to me here, and I could maybe turn them into something real.  But if that's the case, what does it matter if I publish now or later?

P.P.S.  Mine the brainy gamer for theater-game connection.  I think he's really into that.

P.P.P.S  Interdisciplinary study called 'Performance Studies' at UCD, Berkeley.  Looks pretty darn close to what I'm looking at

P.P.P.P.S Adaptation and American Movie are both examples of movies about the making of movies.  Adaptation with much more creative license - and a big favorite of mine!

P.P.P.P.P.S. I think I'll just keep all these post-scripts.  Why not?  I'm feeling silly.  Also, I heard that there was a game that progresses through the history of RPGs.  That's sort of what I'm talking about, but not the same thing.