Lasertag

During my senior year in high school I had the opportunity to put together my own "Senior Page" for the yearbook. Four photos were used; one of them was of me wearing my Photon gear. I loved playing laser tag in high school; I still play today.

This evening I played XP Lasersport in Owings Mills with a bunch of friends. We lucked out and got to play a few "tournament rule" games for the 2nd half of our gaming. The tourament rules allow for a quicker game, require more team work, and are incredibly fun. Special modes (called CHIPS) allow a player to re-"ENERGIZE" teammates, "DE-ACTIVATE" an enemy with one shot, and go invisible with "STEALTH". I don't know if I can ever go back to playing "public rule" games.

If you're near northern Baltimore, MD, I highly recommend getting a group of friends together and checking it out.

Rant on user interfaces of consumer devices

Today I'm starting to clean out my many old drafts that never quite made it to posts. This one is based on a draft started in February 2007...

Until recently I felt as if every manufacturer of consumer devices had an agenda to gratuitously brand their product trumpting all considerations on Human Interface Design (HID). My irritation in their poor product designs were only matched in my sadness of consumers complacency to live with such shoddiness. If only enough consumers complained about about the lack-of usability, it might send a signal to the manufacturers on what they should be caring most about.

Thank goodness Apple, and a few others are stepping up to the plate, spending R&D cash to make a better product.

Below are just a few examples of products I purchased and have had to endure...


Verizon branded Razr

ISSUE: The Razr has both hardware and UI-based buttons positioned poorly. One example is an internet button that cannot be removed from interface; when its (accidently) hit a web-browser starts. A user has to wait 5-10 seconds for browser to start up before it can be exited, and is "charged" for transfering data.

PROPOSED SOLUTION: Allow users to remove (or disable) button from menu, speed up start-up time of browser, and do not connect nor charge users who do not purchase data plans.

MY SOLUTION: When my contract was up, bought an iPhone 3G. I paid more for the phone, and more for the monthly fee... but it integrates so well with my life I have no regrets. Also I'm finding that it works so well that I don't need another MP3 player, and no longer need to buy Franklin Covey refills. After 10 years, I'm going to stop using my 1/2 page planner. Thank you Apple for making my planner fit in my pocket.

Alpine CDA-9847 Car Stereo



ISSUE: The interface to set radio and head-unit options is clunky. The interface for interacting with and attached iPod is awful. While my first MP3 player, a "Diamond Rio 500", was convenient for playing MP3s, the iPod mini was the first MP3 player I owned that had an intuitive interface I could tweak without looking at while running. The interface on the Alpine CDA-9847 is so poorly constructed that it is dangerous to change songs on a connected iPod unless fully stopped, or a passenger is DJing.

PROPOSED SOLUTION: Perform usability tests with the unit and provide a firmware update that remaps the controls to one that allow a driver to effortlessly change song, artist, or album. If a firmware update cannot be performed, at least do this for future models.

MY SOLUTION: Since my average drive is 10 minutes, on weekdays, I can live with the shortcomings of this head unit. I'll add usability to my checklist when I am ready for an upgrade. I had originally selected this Alpine head unit because it was one of the few that could switch from one CD-written MP3 to another without a 0.5 second - 2 second pause. (I remember not finding a single Pioneer unit that didn't have this unbearable pause and being told by a phone-based customer-service rep that it was impossible to remove the delay.) Now any delays, on CD tracks written with MP3s, is not that big of a deal; a look-free user interface for a driver is paramount. The only thing more important is making sure the head unit works with properly with my car's stereo amplifier.


This ranting is long so I'll hold off talking about keyboards or operating systems. My parting observation: companies that offer a better user interface tend to have more attractive products. My attractive products can demand a higher price and tend to be in higher demand.

Games and games

While the project I'm working on at Firaxis hasn't been announced (I cannot talk about it), I can blab about the game a group of us are working on for the Independent Games Festival (IGF) deadline in November.

Right now 2 artists, and 2 other programmers (besides me) are working on an action / arcade, casual, game in Actionscript 3. This is being done under Geek House Games in our nights and weekends. Currently we're porting over some previous work in Actionscript 2 and have found the transition to be highly beneficial. There are many great libraries and code snippest in AS3 out there.

It looks like we'll be using APE for physics, and are evaluating FLiNT for particles. While I already had written a simple collide system for sprites and an allocator for particles; leveraging existing systems should provide us with more robust, mature, and feature rich code. That leaves more time to work on the game itself.

Now all we need is to find a Flash sound system, with a good license, and we'll be 75% of the way there.

Quick video game life updates

As of May 1st, I am now working at Firaxis Games; leaving Breakaway Games. I was sad to be leaving such an awesome team of people, but the transition has been smooth... and I'm now meeting many new people who are also of the awesome caliber.

We have a Baltimore IGDA meeting coming up in 2 weeks, and as the newly elected chair, I'm doing my best to grow the chapter in terms of membership and activities. I have an awesome team on the local board, with many great ideas, and time to follow through with them. While only regular meetings are in place, we are looking at what it would take to throw a "Childsplay"-like benefit this year, as well as a Game Jam next year. And finally there is the goal of building the network between local studios and schools.

Speaking of local studios, I still am running Geek House Games. We're a lean team of industry vets, working on a Flash-based game for this years IGF competition. Once we take time away from working on the game, to update the web-site, I hope to be blogging more about this endeavor.

Music music music

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to compose some techno. I realize that a few of my current pieces aren't indexed on the web; perhaps because I link to the through a Flash page. To fix all that, I make some direct links to the MP3s available here. Enjoy:

Ashes Remain Remixed

O Brother Remix

31st Birthday Mashup (C1 mix)



Between making video games, I hope I get a chance to do some more in the future... I miss the dance-outlet!

GDC'08 Was fantastic

Two weeks ago I was at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. This was the 4th year I both attended and worked as a Conference Associate (CA). My goal this year was to do more networking than the previous years. I succeeded, but only after learning that pre-scheduled meetings rarely work out. My advice, to myself, for future GDCs: exchange cell numbers and play phone tag. It works out just as well, if not better.

Biggest surprised going away from GDC'08 was my confidence shift in Adobe. As a part of Geek House Games, I've been spending a good deal of time working on our Flash Game Engine. As such, I was on fire to talk to an Adobe representative about the future of Flash. The only (semi-)technical representative on hand was from the "Adobe Director" division, showing off a 3d engine that had quality on par with the Sony PlayStation of the late 90s. All questions I asked received, "I'm sorry I don't know," or "I am not authorized to give an answer to that question...you'd need to talk to someone on the Flash team".

Interestingly enough, Microsoft was very open on all of my questions about XNA and Silverlight. I've had a theory of the potential of Silverlight running in XNA (as tons of AAA titles run Flash in C++ now via Gfx or home grown tools) so I had to ask the rep about the possibility. He told me nothing has been announced, but said so in such a way that leads me to believe "nothing has been announced" does not equate to "no".

Writing this up, seems I learned the same from both venders, but for some reason I enjoyed chatting it up with the Microsoft guy than the Adobe guy. What's that mean? While I still plan to work on GHG's Flash Game engine, I'm also looking more seriously at what XNA and Silverlight can offer.

Lack of leading

At Horizon Church, I stepped down from leadership.
I told a group of friends that I no longer can have the label "link group leader" applied to me.

Some may say I just wrote the same thing, 2 different ways. I say there is a significant difference between these two phrases. Words have power, and people choose words that best fit a meaning they want to convey.

The very fact it's fallen into fashion to say that link group leaders are "raised" to leadership or that they "step down" seems in conflict with the idea originally told to me that new link group leaders are people whom are already leading, they are just given the label.

How long do I have to be absent from leading a link group to not be a link group leader?

How long do I have to be absent from leading in my life to no longer be a leader?

End Of Line.

How many starts until it sticks...

I've made multiple attempts to make a blog post; stopping each time and either scrapping my ramblings or saving it as a draft that will never be published.

My thoughts on this are: it's better to err on the safe side of not posting anything if I think it may be controversial, ranting, or pointless. But I think I've been "too safe" and have allowed myself to be disconnected from anyone who wants to keep tabs on me through my blog exposure. So here I am blogging with reckless abandonment, loads of transparency, and (most likely) some inappropriateness.

Marriage has been hard. I've had 30 years to determine how I want to act, clean, decide what events to attend, etc... and it's all out the window. Same for Melissa (minus a few years). On the plus side, I think we're doing a good job addressing our rough spots and expect it to get easier in year 2. We'll see.

What hasn't helped our marriage is our church: Horizon Church of Towson. I love Horizon, and believe it's the best church in the Northern Baltimore area, but have experienced our greatest weakness: married couples. I can't go into specifics without inappropriately calling out people; but I can say I'm doing my best to see it through thanks to:

• Dave
• Jonathan

Outside of Horizon, my close circle of geek guy friends (my groomsmen) have been consistently interactive with Melissa and I. Perhaps this interactiveness is so prominent because I'm now in their group of married folks, or perhaps it's just my realization of how active they have always been has changed due to others now infrequently reaching out, but whatever the reason, I'm thankful for them.

It's funny too, because right now, in this transition, the one thing I'm not pushing for is new friends. I almost feel like I need to take stock of the communities I'm a part of, the ones Melissa is a part of, and figure out how we each now fit in them before I want to add more individuals to the mix.

So that's what I've been pondering the last few months. How long until I feel ready to welcome new people to my life? Will the people at church who don't understand how to empower, encourage, and help a newly married couple grow in the community instead of chase them away? Will I continue to make infrequent blog posts?

Let's see...

End Of Line.

Tron movie article

My brother sent me an awesome article that reminisces on the movie "Tron" over at Ain't It Cool News. I too own the Tron shoes, an original still from the movie (thanks to Bill, and a gaggle of friends), as well as have a remake of the post hanging in my living room. Oh there's the name change as well; which had some inspiration from the movie. ;)

I got the job at Breakaway. I start on May 7th.

Making it through the GameDev gauntlet

At a gathering in early February, a friend of mind heard my latest IT contract was coming to an end in March. She said, "You know we're hiring at BreakAway [Games]."

As that statement slowly sunk in, I realized that if I was going to risk an attempt at jumping into the game industry via an existing studio, now would be my short window of opportunity. And so since February 12, I've been in the BA hiring Gauntlet.

I wasn't at all prepared, as my ex-room mate (and former BA employee) told me that his interview process was coming in one day for a few hours, answering some technical and design questions then being hired. The processes I helped establish at Prometric and on some contract gigs where much more rigorous then when he had described. What I didn't know is that the process at BA has changed...

Two phone interviews and a weekend take-home exam later, I was invited in for some face-to-face interviews. That happened yesterday, from 10am to 4:30pm.

While the reality was I spent all day at an "interview", it had felt more like I was with friends, geeking out on gaming technology talk. Time flew by, as none of the questions were about ASP.NET business apps, but instead about my gaming passions and then grilled with technical questions related to these passions.

I should hear back today or Monday about their decision.