Skip Week for Cynocephaly

Yesterday, my wife and I adopted a rescue dog. That's him and he's bloody adorable! Supposedly he's all/mostly Formosan Mountain Dog or perhaps Pharaoh Hound, but since he was a rescued stray, nobody is really sure. He was hit by a car and abandoned when he was pretty young, but someone found and brought him to a vet. They were able to repair the damage to his hips and, except for a streak of white fur above a wicked scar that the ladies will totally dig, he made a total recovery. He lived with a rescue organization for a little while, until he came to be with us.

Fear not, I don't plan becoming one of those folks that regales the denizens of the Internet with "fascinating" pet tales, so this may the last strictly dog-related post. But he's the canid justification for no writing this week (plus being extremely busy at work). Although in brief, if you haven't bought Bastion yet, you really should. Two clicks here and it's done (or you can at least download the demo). And if it's that easy, what are you waiting for?

Skip Week For Riots

Sorry folks, no time to talk about video games because I was busy looting Sears!

What took place last night was actually pretty heartbreaking. The douche featured above got exactly what he deserved. Tragically, there weren't sufficient flashbangs for every crotch involved. I wasn't affected personally, and seeing the clean-up and outpouring of support this morning was pretty heartening. Still, it's almost impossible to put into words how frustrating it is that the hundreds of thousands of awesome people that live in Vancouver couldn't do anything to stop a few hundred assholes.

Also, we moved last weekend and only today is our place finally unpacked. So yeah, no post this week. I've got something rattling in the braincage for next time though, about positive and negative design space. We'll see if that makes any kind of sense when proper rigor is applied to it.

In the mean time, watch that video again. It really is something quite amazing.

Skip Week for Indigo

It's a mulligan this week. I was hoping to write something this week, but inundation with work continues. Turns out creating something that nobody has really done before is complicated and difficult! A true ephihany, I know. It's still tremendously satisfying and I couldn't be doing it with a better batch of people. But yes, consuming.

And those few spare moments I have that aren't consumed by thinking about our current project have been consumed by trading indigo. I'd heard The Thumbs espousing the virutes of Dawn of Discovery (aka Anno 1404 in the olde worlde), and I purchased it on a holiday Steam sale, but hadn't actually had a chance to play it until last week. Now all my days are consumed with thoughts of spice routes, glassworks and breweries. It's a real-time city building game with a heavy emphasis on economics. One of my coworkers remarked that it was a "PC-ass PC game" after I explained it to him. A wonderfully accurate assessment, I think. It reminds me of Caesar III, which I played the hell out an era ago, except Dawn of Discovery is sodding gorgeous. Unfortunately, due to Ubisoft apparently not patching the Steam version of the game, it's not available to purchase on Steam currently, but it is on Impulse and Direct2Drive. Heartily recommend it.

I'll try to get the writing back on schedule this weekend. Assuming I can stop trading rope for indigo, at least briefly.

Skip Week for Busy

I was hoping to put together a post, but we've got a pretty big internal deadline at the end of the week and these sweet video games won't make themselves. But this weekend I'll be compiling an analysis of why I think the Battlestar Galactica board game works so god damn well, so be prepared to read me yammering on about it yet again (but it really is that good).

But not to leave without providing anything, if you're all at interested about design, you should read 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. It's one of the best books I've ever read about level design and game design in general. I've got some thoughts on it in the pipe, but in the interim, I heartily recommend acquiring a copy. Go forth, to learning!

Skip Week for GDC

That post I said I'd get done before GDC? A horrid falsehood and apologize for playing with your heart so. But in my defense, I was inundated with work and a pre-GDC day trip. I'm actually composing this from my iPad sitting on the floor of Moscone North as I wait for the talks to start. Only one day in and it has already been fantastic. But I will have something for next week, for really reals this time.

Also, if you're at the show and haven't found me yet, do so! Hit me up on Twitter or something and we'll try to get to the same place at the same time. And everyone else, wish you were here.

Skip Week for Hearts

Skip week again! This time for love ... and other things. Valentine's Day consumed by writing time last night, but it was wholly worth it. A excellent (if inadvertently absurdly expensive) dinner with the wife, and she got me a replica flintlock pistol as a present! There's no way I could ever have done better.

Also, I've been tremendously busy with work lately. Mainly consumed with writing about a really, really exciting project that (of course), I can't say anything more about yet. But it's awesome and I'm elated to be working on it. And unlike the last time I got really excited about something, this one is actually real and we'll be talking about it ... eventually. In the mean time, let my enthusiasm suffuse through your monitor's radiation and please, accept my apologies for being so withholding.

Onward and upward! There will be another post next week and I'll try to have one in queue for the week I disappear to GDC. And hopefully I'll see some of y'all there. I'd be delighted to tell you more about my new gun.

Holiday Hiatus 2: Dark Hiatus Rising

The holiday hiatus will continue this week. For being on vacation, there's still a tremendous amount I'm trying to get done. One thing worth mentioning is I'm going to be flapping my maw at the Vancouver Indie Devs meetup this Tuesday. It's a great group that Alex and Jake have been doing a fantastic job of growing. I've always been disappointed that Vancouver's local dev community, despite its size, hasn't been very cohesive. That's something I hope to help change in 2011 and stuff like Van Indies is exactly what I want there to be more of. So if you're local, it's going to be at Ceili's pub on Tuesday the 4th at 6:30. We'd love to see you there.

But if you can't make it (or you know, don't live here) an essay form of what I'm going to be talking about will appear here next week, with three related posts to follow.

Also, the two year anniversary of the blog passed without ceremony back on December 9th. Interesting that in two years I shipped two games, left Klei, returned and now I could not be more excited about what I'm doing. A damn fine run and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tremendously excited about the next year. Hopefully 2011 similarly finds you well!

Holiday Hiatus

The year-end is a time for permissible indulgence, reflection and finishing all the things you've been putting off. For me, that means finishing a game project I've been delaying for too long. Inspired by the game jam we had at Klei the last few days before the holiday, I'm hoping to apply newly acquired XNA familiarity to get this wrapped quickly. I'm also planning a month-long series of posts starting in January, so I want to start that ball rolling.

So hopefully your Xmas game bounty is providing copious mirth and New Year's is looking to be the start of a fantastic year. See you all in 2011!

Skip Week ... For Pie!

I was hoping to post something this week, but gluttony got in the way. The former was due to Canadian Thanksgiving being this past weekend and much time was spent with family/friends and even more food was consumed.

To make amends, here's a wicked sweet potato pie recipe. I've made it multiple times in the past, doing so again last weekend, and it's always quite a hit. I prefer it to making pumpkin pie as you can make the entire thing from scratch without either a) having to roast a whole bloody pumpkin or b) compromise and use canned pumpkin purée.

And that's enough culinary diversion, soon we'll be back to video games. In the mean time, bon appetit!

Skip Week Pour L'amour

One year ago today, I married the most wonderful woman I have ever met. I think video games are great, don't get me wrong, but my lady is the bee's knees. As such, I'm skipping the video game talk today and we're doing exciting anniversary things. This includes surprises I won't discuss lest my wife find them here before they're sprung later today.

In a week I'll return, possibly discussing something related to Limbo now that my Xbox is back and I've had a chance to finish it. Perhaps something along the lines of "God dammit, spiders are gross."

The Horizon Looms Large

No post this week, unfortunately. DeathSpank is in the final stages before certification, which is tremendously exciting, but also a mountain of frantic work. For those that haven't finaled a game, it involves fixing wholly unexpected bugs like:

Description:
If game is paused as controller is unplugged and submerged in a bucket of chum, game will hang and possibly shock player.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. The user starts a new game.
2. Submerge controller in bucket of shark chum. Water will not work.
3. Pause game and unplug controller simultaneously.
4. Notice that upon cleaning and reconnecting controller, game will not respond.
5. User may be severely shocked if hands are improperly submerged in chum.

Please see attached screenshot.

Suggested Fix or Results:
Game should not hang and/or player should not be horribly electrified.

(I say this having nothing but love and respect for our awesome QA guys. However, they find the most amazing things that I can hold no one but myself responsible for.)

I'm really looking forward to having other people finally play (and hopefully enjoy) DeathSpank. Being able to see the finish line is great, so I hope you'll forgive the mild downtime during the final sprint.

Skip Week (for Canada!)

Another skip week, I'm afraid. I've got a mountain of things to get done before I depart for GDC in a week. I did finish Bioshock 2 and the prevalent sentiment that the last two hours of the game are bloody brilliant is dead on. There will be at least one post about that before I go.

And ... Canada plays the US for gold in men's hockey in four hours. I'm not particularly one for sports but I've been absolutely taken in by the Canadian performance at these Olympics. I was pretty uninterested during the lead up to the Olympics, as were a lot of people I know. But as soon as the game started, a legitimately palpable energy manifested. The pride and support shown by Canadians, both here and across the country, is outstanding and I'm glad I was able to be here in Vancouver for it.

Canada has already taken more golds than anyone else at these games, and should the men win today, Canada will set the record for most gold medals won at any Winter Olympics. It's just a cherry on top though; as far as I'm concerned, Canada has already brilliantly exceeded anyone's expectations.

The intersection of competition, performance, scoring and shared success also gave me some interesting things to think about in terms of digital games. Maybe I'll be able to condense those into a post as well.

In the meantime, go Canada go!