Stage IV Final Result (Fast)

Posted in Stage IV on May 11, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Ok, so I don’t actually feel like talking about my final thoughts on Stage IV now. But I just thought I should put down my current feelings on it for future reference.

Showcase? Well… it went pretty badly. Not many people played it; no surprises there. The bigger issue for me was that I’d pulled an all-nighter just before it. That wasn’t what I was planning for. You gotta be well-rested for showcase, ready to extol the greatness of your game. Additionally, I had my CS 322 final soon after showcase, so… yeah sleep would be important. Ooo boy… I can’t imagine that test will give me anything higher than a C for the semester. Peachy. I was too tired to pull an all-nighter on Monday… so I needed to to it last Tuesday. And what can I say? You always want the game to be that much better… there’s always a little more work you could do for it.

So yeah… I was kinda already exhausted coming in, so by showcase, I was pretty on edge. I just wasn’t able to interact, or talk about the game, or face people playing it. I was just totally useless. So… yeah god that was awful…

Right now, I just feel like the game is total crap. Writing? Awful. Design? Misguided at best. Programming? Hacky. But whether I feel that way because I have a bad impression from showcase, or whether I’m just being honest with myself, I couldn’t say. I’m kinda leaning towards the latter.

Either way, I wanted to make the game, I did it… end of story. Was it as meaningful as I’d hoped? Not in the least; I’m just hoping the end result isn’t too comically awful now. But it’s time to close that part of my life. It’s always annoying to learn that you’re not as great as you wish you could be, but people deal. I guess I don’t try to worry too much about failing; I figure it’s only worth dwelling on it long enough to be motivated to do better next year. And that’s what I’m going to do.

Oh, and I’ve been at home from last Thursday until today. I won’t get a chance to go home before I go to CA for Spore internship after I finish on Friday, so it was wondrous to see my family these past few days. Now, onto work…

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Stage IV is done

Posted in Stage IV on May 7, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

And I’d rather like to forget I ever tried to make it in the first place.

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Stage IV Tomorrow…

Posted in Random, Stage IV on May 6, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Games showcase is tomorrow. I’m mostly just fixing up bugs and editing the story. Wanna know how you can tell that you need editing? It’s when you see lines like this:

 ”Not now… I just time, ok?”

Wow… it’s like bona fide Engrish. I wish I could integrate some sort of grammar/spell check into the editor :).

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Writing Stage IV

Posted in Game Design, Stage IV on April 27, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Plugging away on writing Stage IV… I’ve got til Wednesday to finish it… god I hope I make it…

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Pokepolitics

Posted in Game Politics, Random on April 25, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Fun gif animation… pretty clever stuff, especially if you remember playing Pokemon:

Pokemon Presidential Politics Animation

Source: http://www.gamewithabrain.com/2008/04/24/news/if-politics-were-more-like-pokemon, though they’re not sure of its origin themselves. Now if only it weren’t just a GIF and had that wondrous battle music…

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Intelligent Design in Spore

Posted in Game Design, Spore on April 16, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Huh… this is from a 2006 NYT article I saw while I was looking for Spore info online:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08games.html?pagewanted=all

” “I’ve had a few people ask me if I think Spore will help teach evolution,” Wright said, “and the ironic thing is that, if anything, we’re teaching intelligent design. I’ve seen a few games that relied on evolution — I’ve even designed some of them — and it’s just not as fun.” But, of course, there’s one crucial way in which Spore breaks from intelligent design. The universe of the game is not dominated by a single, all-powerful creator. It’s a universe governed by a million intelligent designers, each unleashing his or her creations to be fruitful and multiply, to conquer and befriend, to fly spaceships and fashion planets.”

Funny, because I was wondering earlier whether the game would receive criticism from intelligent design groups. Of course, just because Will Wright says it’s not about evolution doesn’t mean that it’s not (wow… negatives), but, something to mull over I suppose.

Man, I’m so jazzed to work on this.

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Stage IV: 3 weeks (or so) and counting

Posted in Stage IV with tags on April 13, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Alrighty then… so games showcase is in only a few weeks, so it’s time to recap how Stage IV is coming along.

Well, I guess it’s not where I’d hope it would be, but I can still make it :( . As we were required to give our game projects a “red/yellow/green” classification in class, I of course went for the yellow-green. I mean, that’s where I’d always hope to be. I think that’s the color equivalent of “cautious optimisim”; it’ll make it, but don’t slack now!

As far as the design is concerned, that’s all set in stone. It took me longer than I would have liked for it to happen, but I definitely learned a lot while I was forming it. Interactive, branching story = hard. Very. Hard. So, when it comes to design, I certainly got my share of surprises. But I think it’s helped me to better understand what’s possible now, what’s possible in the future, and how I can fit into it. More details on the final design details at a later time.

Now, implementation-wise… it’s almost there. The main code is completed, but it’s not polished yet, so still working that stuff out. Still a few presentational things to put in. With the bulk of coding done, I finally was able to help get actors lined up for the shoots. Two are down (for the Adam and Harper chars) and two to go (schedule this week… Christie and Dianna). Course, Sarah saved us by lining up two of those characters, so yeah I kinda let her down there, but… *shrugs*. Anyways, that’s moving along, and hopefully it’ll come together.

Which brings me to… the story. The textual meat of the game that’ll define whether it’s any good or not. Well, that… needs to go. Writing is hard. Writing about something that you feel strongly about is REALLY hard. I mean… let’s face it… I’m a programmer, not a lit major. I know that my writing won’t be anything to write home about (no pun intended). But I really hope that it functions well enough to get across the ideas that I want to show through. I don’t care if it’s awkward lines, inconsistent, etc… I mean I’ll try to make them good, but my real goal is communicating the ideas. If that requires making things a bit on the nose, well… that’s something I’ll just have to live with. Problem is that I just can’t get myself to write it… I’m so afraid I’ll goof it up that I can’t just DO IT. I’ve gotten some done, but not as much as I’d like. Last week, I sorta had a lazy stretch where I just sat there, couldn’t do it. That’s gotta change these coming two weeks. Either I get a nearly complete story by end of classes, or… I’ve failed this project.

Ok, end motivational self-speech. Onto actual work! Hope to update again when the game is near done!

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Remembering what I’m after

Posted in Game Design, Stage IV on March 24, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Back at Cornell after Spring Break… had a great time at home.

We visited my grandfather on my Dad’s side. Weirdly enough, he has esophageal cancer as well and has been getting treated for it for awhile now (I just haven’t made note of it on here… or did I?). Anyways, so we apparently now have a history of cancer in my family. He was doing well, at least seemed so in the short time we were there; but, from what I’m told, it’s not looking great…

So, it again got me thinking. I’m finally thinking again for the first time in a little while… why am I making Stage IV? It’s something that you can really miss if you don’t watch it. When you get to work on a programming job… you can just totally lose sight of why you’re doing it in the first place. I’m making Stage IV because I want to share my family’s experience. I want to give other people the chance to be in our situation, and… well, I want to make people think about things that you might not think about otherwise. I mean… I dunno. I’ve said it before, but in 2006, when my dad was fighting, I certainly wasn’t that close to it. I was at Cornell. But I really feel that it brought me closer to… something… than I ever was before and have ever been since. What that something is, I really couldn’t pin down. But it was some… certainty, some truth. *shrugs*. Conversely, maybe that’s just the normal reaction to things like that… to think that there’s really something more than just a man dying. Still, I’m making Stage IV in the hopes of recapturing that feeling, that notion of something more. But now, I want to look at it from 4 perspectives… my dad, my mom, myself, and Macy’s. I think we’re 4 different people, but I think that all 4 of us had at least some sense of the thing I’m talking about.

And I’m rambling, so I’m just gonna stop now.

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Fancy that…

Posted in Uncategorized on March 12, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

So, it turns out that I wasn’t actually rejected outright by Insomniac… apparently, my rejection email had been sent to the wrong address (or…. that’s what they tell me anyways). I was just called to schedule a followup interview with them on the phone. Hah… how’s that for… well ok not irony… but, well…

Ok, point is, I’m feeling a lot better now that I know that at least ONE of my technical tests has resulted in interest. Though then again, maybe they just ran out of alternative candidates and so decided to tell me “oh right… your rejection was a… err… mistake… umm… wanna talk?” You know? Do people do that? *shrugs* Oh well. I’ve got my Spore internship, so I’m a happy camper.

And I swear that this is the last job related post for AWHILE. No joke. Back to Stage IV goodness soon enough…

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Shot down…

Posted in Random on March 7, 2008 by sentimentalgamer

Well, that makes the choice easy.

I really thought that Microsoft interviews went well. Apparently I was wrong. No offer… blah. Course, it’s entirely ok because I’ve now officially accepted for EA and Spore. So it’s like I got rejected by Penn State, but Princeton is glad to have me :). (just to be clear, I was accepted by PSU, but didn’t apply to Princeton. Metaphors, my good sir. Metaphors.)

But see, there’s some theory that economists have that is something along the lines of “In terms of magnitude, it hurts more to lose $10 than it feels good to gain $10″. So, yeah here I’m losing $10, but my gain is still greater… but you know it’s like… well, to continue both metaphors… it’s like “Well, I still got rejected by Penn State, didn’t I? And I still lost those $10.”

I dunno… maybe Microsoft was just some big ego trip for me that backfired. On the other hand, I tell myself that I really did want to see if they had a better offer. Answer was no… they didn’t have any :(. And I guess it hurts all the more because it’s like… I’ve gotten kinda far on 4 possible internships in my life…. Oracle, EA, Microsoft Games, and Insomniac. Half of them REALLY tested my CS knowledge and logic skills, and half were more or less “behavioral” interviews. I got an offer on half, and the other 2 rejected me. Guess how those two facts map? Yeah… technical interviews = no job for Ben. That’s really a bit of a downer… as though I must look really good on paper, but then prove a total disappointment in reality. I’ve always thought that my GPA masks that I’m really just not that great at my core, that I somehow just have lucked out on my schooling so far. Well, ok… lucked out isn’t the term. But you know, that I’m just one of those kids who does so well at school but then fails miserably in real life.

Ok maybe that’s all a bit extreme, but I’ve got no evidence to deny that that’s how things are, you know? I’m 0 for 2 when it comes to technical interviews. That’s all I have to go on at the moment, and it’s not very promising. Reactionary? Maybe, but I’m just calling them like I see them.

So, on that somewhat depressing note, I’m officially going to be working on SPORE! God help me…I will PROVE that I’m something more than a good student on that job. If not, then I might as well stop trying so friggin hard to do well and accept mediocrity.

Which opens up a whole new can of worms about how I really need to modify my general attitude to life such that I can accept not being “the best of the best”, but I won’t go into all that just now. Maybe some other time.

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