Hardcore purchasing of bottled water

So I just saw a girl with tons of tattoos, and some punk band t-shirt with the word "hardcore" come in to this coffee-shop and purchase two bottles of water. Bottled water. The biggest swindle of the last fifty years. Bottled fucking water! I don't understand how someone visibly labeling themselves as so anti-establishment could support such a ridiculous thing as bottled water. Perhaps I didn't read the tattoos closely enough. Perhaps they were Coca-Cola logos and advertisements for Curves fitness centers.

Bottled water. Ugh.

But here I am with a Northeastern WRBB Radio t-shirt and a sticker for Tiger Style slapped proudly on my macbook (with its nice shiny Apple proudly beaming).

I guess in the end we're all just full of advertisements these days.

Enter the Fray: Welcome to Indie Life

I guess I was indie a year ago. I had just graduated, lived at home, was searching for real work, and holed up many many hours a week working on Spider's levels. Tiger Style brought me my first gig that actually saw light in the marketplace. Then I got a real job that paid my bills. It was nice. I liked coming home and being able to not think about making games. At least that's what I told myself.

So I originally wanted to write a post about all of the reasons I left the corporate world. And then I realized that none of that mattered. I am fine with the corporate world. It funds lots of incredible games. I would say that the corporate and indie worlds are closer than they probably want to recognize. We all want people to play our games. We are making entertainment. Whether you call them art or product, whether you are Cactus or John Carmack, you want to construct something for others. (Always exceptions, I know.)

Most people want to make money from their games. Whether just trying to survive, or to actually turn a serious profit, most of us make games and sell them. For those of you out there putting out your games for free: I respect you. Especially if you put out a truly great game for free. And not freemium. If you pour your heart and soul out there and just put it out for public consumption, I respect you. I think you are a little crazy, but still, respect. The rest of us like to eat.

I sometimes don't know if I am indie, honestly. I try to define indie as a mindset as much as a precise definition, but it is hard. At Digital Chocolate my mentor was as hardcore about game production and design as any indie developer I have ever met. But his role was not to make a series of perfect games. It was to try to deliver the best products within a certain timeline. And dammit, he cares about what he does. The reason I do not like the corporate world, however, is that people who do not care about the games are also involved.

I do not like the facebook gamespace because of those involved. I am not opposed to the games, but the purely entrepreneurial money-grubbing spirit of so much of what you see online. By that I mean the groups that enter social games with no goal but making money. (I should qualify that Digital Chocolate is not one of these purely entrepreneurial outfits.) I hate seeing every single clone of every other form of Mafia Wars and Farmtown.

I do not hate facebook or all of the games on it.

But I am making games to be creative. I have gone indie because I have original ideas. I believe that there are cool products that have not been made and I want to create them. Whether creating a 30 second app for the iPhone or an intricate social game for facebook or some splitscreen title for XBLA, it is the challenge of crafting a new experience that is fascinating. Right? If you are an artist, you want to learn from the greats so that you can paint your own unique landscapes and characters. If you are a composer, you don't want to make J.S. Bach's music, I hope. You want to make your own. A programmer who is doing the same thing as the programmer across the aisle is wasting text and time. And if you do not have those ideas yourself, you can undoubtedly find someone else to guide you in this tiny industry with a new take on what we do.

That is why I guess I had to do indie, because I had to do something new. The lead on Farmville spoke this year at the GDC Awards when his game won for Best New Social Game. He told indie developers everywhere that we should consider joining his team at Zynga, that's what an indie outfit can be. But my thought: You aren't original, and that is what I want from indie, I want creativity, and that is what I believe the real indie mindset is. Zynga makes products, but they dare not take a risk. I took a risk, I went indie. Maybe I will make money as an indie, but maybe not. I guess in the end, that risk is what it is all about for me. That willingness to go all-in on ideas I thought up. To create a product or art, I want to put my soul inside it. That is fun. That is why I am a game developer.

Lucky enough

Are you lucky enough to live inside? Sometimes living in Berkeley is humbling. The lifestyle of people in this strange town varies as wildly as any place can. I sometimes cannot tell those who chose their lifestyle here between those who fell into it unwillingly. I encounter a higher percentage living on the streets than I have seen in any other American city. This is not a large town. But to walk down a standard residential street and see a man curled up in a secluded spot between two bushes, it throws me for a loop.

Here I am, shopping for apartments right now, squeezing every ounce of satisfaction from the process, certain that I will find a place that is in a safe neighborhood, is a comfortable apartment. I will not settle for less. How privileged I am. How incredibly lucky enough must I have been to be born into this life with my parents, my opportunity. I may have some issues, but not many. And you know what, I am most struck by the lack of privacy these homeless endure.

I have quirks. I have strange behaviors, I have need and desire for privacy to hide myself from the world at times. I am not only that which you see, but that which you do not see. And hopefully those two inform each other in positive ways. We should all be lucky enough to have that privacy. Yet there are those who do not. That is sad. I cannot imagine what it is like to go home and for that home to be a flat space of dirt in between the sidewalk and a parking lot. To go home and find only the privacy of one's mind.

We have so many problems in this world. We always have had these problems, and it would not be crazy to assume we always will. So what problems need to be addressed? What should we focus our energy on? What should my role be? This guy who draws, how does he change the world?

Too much of a good thing

I bought five games last week. Six, if you count that I pre-ordered Starcraft 2. The other games were all for my gamecube and ps2. Why did I do this after vowing I would only play the gorgeous exploration-friendly Just Cause 2 (on PC) for the foreseeable future?

It seems I have injured my precious index finger, a precious resource in PC gaming. There are downsides to being a 3d game artist. The inability to distinguish leisure time from work time; explaining to people that you make video games, not Pixar films, and no, you don't want to make Pixar films, but yes you like watching them; and working in a stationary position for hours upon hours upon hours, moving naught but your fingers.

My fingers have become a big problem for me. I enjoy rock-climbing. I like gripping tiny holds with the tips of my fingers, balancing precariously, slowly shifting my body in any direction to ascend slowly up a sheer face. This requires a lot of finger strength. And working on a wacom tablet for hours at a time does not relieve one's fingers. And then typing ctrl+z repeatedly over and over to get just the right stroke on a 2d photoshop painting. That does not help my fingers or hands. And typing this tale (I enjoy typing) does not help my fingers.

The main issue I have with my choice of career, which I would not give up for the world, is that it taxes so little of me that I feel as if I am wasting eighty percent of my being. We are animals, built to exert ourselves, and now, through overuse of those few parts that I do use, I have made it even more difficult to exercise the other eighty percent of me. (At least, in the manner I'd prefer.)

So I have bought a bunch of games for my last-gen consoles because they rely on my thumbs, and this will give my wounded index finger a rest.

The Sonic Mega Collection was one of my purchases, and for the past week I have been playing through Sonic The Hedgehog for the first time (well, I have now played it about fifteen times over the last five days). This gauntlet of trial and death is fascinating. I like the excellent little curve that allows me to get about a level or two further each time. The sequel (I did play Sonic 2 in college) was much faster in one's movement around the levels, and so I find this slower trap-laden method of level progression to be more difficult. I will have to check out Sonic 2 after beating this and see how it compares after playing the first.

I guess I am a little glad for this break from current games. I am only now coming into my own as a gamer. Absorbing all of these various classics for the first time (Sonic, Metroid Prime, Kingdom Hearts, Sly Cooper) is a fun important exercise of its own. Heaven knows I can't give up gaming completely. These might still use my hands, but at least I will be beating my thumbs up instead of my other more tender digits.

(disgusted rant on social games)

So 'effing tired of hearing about designing for social games. All the special considerations! You have to bring back players! You have to make them like your game! By social we mean you have to make your friends play it to get bonuses! You really don't give a shit how they play the game as long as they send you some coins every once in a while. That's not social! Design consideration for social games, huh? Figure out how to make your game actually social! Ugh.

Acknowledging Trackmania's non-racing mode

Trackmania Nations Forever is an incredible game. And tonight I am arguing this because I came to realize yesterday that it has allowed users to actually "play" the editor. Have you ever seen a Press Forward track? This is a tm track in which a player only presses forward and they will reach the end of the track.

The editor of TMNF is very simple and powerful, letting you create any track that you have played in the game. Using a simple system of track pieces and props, you create a Hot Wheels-esque stunt track that might be very tough and narrow and slow to navigate, maybe you make a nice fast track with wide turns and many turbo-boost tiles, or perhaps you infuriate the player with a 30 minute track of death and crazy stunts that are almost impossible to complete to reach the next stage of the track floating 300 feet in the air. All of these and any combination therein is possible. But the real gems as I have discovered, are the press-forward tracks.

I find Press Forward tracks to be the result of "playing" the TMNF editor. The editor is so easy to use and it is so easy and simple to test, that people create a piece of track, press forward and see where their car goes. Then they create some more track and add a jump. Then they see where their car goes. Then they build track up in the air where their car ended up. Then they start adding more and more pieces and creating a maze of speed. This is really easy too, and it all hinges on two simple factors: testing is almost instantaneous and there is no randomness in TMNF's physics. It is beautiful.

Press forward tracks are like movie-making, but even more satisfying, in my opinion. To play a track is fun. It might be almost exactly like watching a youtube clip of a PF track, but there is a very interesting dynamic in the player always needing to press forward. Play one of the best tracks and then stop pressing forward at some point. You screw it all up and you feel as if you are backstage at Disneyland.

Press forward tracks are an interesting phenomenon created by Trackmania's wonderful and intuitive editor. I have spent more time with Trackmania than almost any other game (and it's free!). Check it out sometime, and consider the editor and what it has done. It has created an intricate alternative Rube Goldberg-machine-maker.

The Thrill of Navigation

I have been playing, almost every day, the Just Cause 2 demo. After playing it for two days, I decided that here was a game I would be willing to shell out to get on opening day. It has been a while since I have had that urge. Oblivion perhaps? And what is even more amazing is that I am shelling out money for a game that freezes on me every time I play. I have only once reached the 30 minutes that the game allows you to play before kicking you off with a sweet enticing trailer. Every other time it freezes or just disappears. Other than that, however, I am entirely indebted to this game for getting me to play games on the PC every night again.

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I have been spending an inordinate amount of my time playing iPhone games. There are two reasons: they are simple to pick up and play for a short time and the ones I enjoy the most understand the mechanics of touch-control. I have talked about Canabalt previously, I am playing Spider again, and lately I have also been enjoying Mini Squadron. Each one is enticing to me because of the wonderful speed with which you interact with the world. In MiniSquadron, a fun little dogfighting game, you loop your plane around to dodge and attack with varying quickness, and they smartly slowed the various bullets down to the point that you can dodge them. It lends the simplicity of the game a really fun strategic element, making you stronger than such a real dogfight would ever present.

And the game is comfortable. You really feel the bullets as you fire, their sound effects joyfully punchy, and once you press down on the directional pad, it keeps track of that finger wherever it goes on the screen, always maintaining the same centerpoint. This allows you to rely on the feedback much less. Not only can you watch the plane respond to your finger, but you know it will respond as long as you have your finger down anywhere on screen. It is smart and always works in favor of the player. Indeed, even the shooting button extends noticeably past the space marked on screen. Just get within 50 pixels and you should be fine. That is strong understanding of our interactions with the device.

Spider, as I was able to present at GDC last week, worked because 95% of the game was controlled with three super simple mechanics, all of which controlled the actions of the spider. Tap to prepare a web, flick to jump with or without a web, and hold to attract the spider to your finger. I was able to rapidly explain the game to a newcomer and then go back to chatting with someone else. Fantastic! Control has kept me playing around on the iPod Touch for the last three months that I have had one. I am seeking out the latest games that use the device for all its power. A new method of interaction and navigation, that has distracted me from my DS, my PS2, and even mostly from my PC as a gaming device.

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But let us steer back to the road that got me onto navigation in the first place: Just Cause 2. I think it is a superb game (demo at least) because it lets me run, fly, and drive around a world with the simplest of ease. Using Rico's grappling hook and parachute, I can quickly transition from any form of transportation to another. I can jump out of a helicopter and parachute to the ground. Or grapple back onto a helicopter. The game does, admittedly, have slight control hiccups in these transitions. As you enter or grab onto a vehicle, you notice your normal movement controls disappear, but the developers clearly recognized that you only needed a few controls to navigate around the vehicle, and then the main controls for handling the vehicle. In the end, it works well.

I am still getting comfortable transitioning from vehicle to running to another vehicle and then jumping to a third. But I am having fun doing it. And that is why I personally play games. To experience the thrill of navigation. The developers of JC2 have made a fun game. An open world with lots of things to destroy, and plenty of vehicles to get from destructible to destructible. (And of course I spend half the time destroying the vehicles I drive.) Hopefully when I install the full game I will keep finding new thrills, or at least that this main mechanic will not wear old. [And hopefully they will resolve this major crash bug.]