Indie Game: The Movie
As long as I’ve worked in games, I’ve always enjoy hearing stories from other developers on what drives them to make games, what makes them tick. Sadly most videos on this are marketing driven and are washed of any substance, but I was thrilled to see a small documentary called Indie Game: The Movie on Vimeo a couple years ago. It isn’t very often you get a real look at the ups and downs of game development and Indie Game: The Movie handles it perfectly following Phil Fish designer of Fez, Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes of Team Meat makers of Super Meat Boy, and Jonathan Blow designer of Braid.
In the movie you get a perfect look inside the development of each game and the struggles of being an independent game developer. These are the stories I’ve always wanted to see and to have it filmed in such a way was truly amazing to watch. Much of the movie follows Fish and his struggles on Fez, either it be funding, bugs, staff limitations, or a lawsuit with a former partner of Polytron. Fish comes off narcissistic, but you can’t help but feel bad for the guy who appears to have awful luck. On the other hand Team Meat are lovable losers. Both McMillen and Refenes remind me of myself as just waiting to stay home and play video games as a kid, being alienated, and growing up with one single goal, to make video games. Watching them go through things like Certification and press embargos, and marketing efforts was painful as I’ve gone through it all myself on various games. It was exciting watching a movie that I could really relate too.
In the end, Indie Game: The Movie is extremely well done and tells three amazing stories. If you work in video games I recommend you go see it, and even if you don’t you will experience a great film with characters you pull for in the end.
New Music Tuesday – Now, Now
I’m a fan of Tegan & Sara and female singers, and happened to stumble across Now, Now a couple days ago. I listed to their new album Threads and hear School Friends and thought it was a pretty cool song. Super emo cheese, but still a good song worth checking out.
New Music Tuesday – Gus Gus
Even after well over a decade, Gus Gus continues to make great music. Polydistortion back in 1997 was one of my favorites and still makes it way into my album rotation once in a while. While checking out the amazing KEXP YouTube Channel, I stumbled across this gem of Gus Gus doing Over at the KEXP Hostel during Iceland Airwaves ’11. Check it out, the vibe is great!
GDC 2012 Wrap Up
GDC is over and my feet are thankful. Game Developers Conference is when thousands of video game developer from around the world take over the Moscone Center in Downtown San Francisco for a week and share secrets, drink, pitch new games, and have a great time.
While I love going to GDC and catching up with friends and past co-workers, but this year was a little disappointing when it comes to the actual panels. Overall the panels fell into common sense, and there really wasn’t anything actionable to take away that will change the way you do business. While most panels content and presentations were excellent, you left thinking I already know that and are doing it or I’ve heard/seen this and I can’t afford to do it. There is always going to be a number of panels that are telling you things you already know, but this year seemed to be full of them. Additionally the amount of sponsored panels seemed to have increase. While watching a demo of some new tech is great, they seemed to be all over the place this year.
This year was the year that really made me think I should attempt to a panel next year. I’d be in a panel and think “Doesn’t every know this already?”. It wasn’t that the panel was bad, it just felt old or dated. It was also disappointing to see the limited number of social media or community panels this year. They don’t even have the Community Managers Roundtable anymore. I know that GDC Austin Online is where a lot of the online discussion is happening, but I’d like to see a little more next year.
Even with all of that, GDC 2012 was still a blast. Great time seeing old friends and making new ones. Looking forward to going next year and who knows you might be seeing me on stage.
New Music Tuesday – Nick Waterhouse
I’m need something to blog about more frequently, so I’m going to attempt to do New Music Tuesday (NMT). Each Tuesday I’ll post a song that strikes my fancy. To start out NMT I picked Nick Waterhouse. I can thank being a nightowl and watching Carson Daly for introducing me. Nick Waterhouse is straightup old school rhythm and blues and soul, even going as far as releasing most of his music on 45′s.
The sound is great, the hooks are excellent, and the whole soul revival going on right now. Check it out and tell me what you think and what you are listening to these days.
Hands-On with PlayStation Vita
One of the last things I got before leaving Sucker Punch was a PlayStation Vita 3G. They had a nice employee purchase price, so I decided to bite. I ended up getting a PlayStation Vita 3G, Vita Starter Kit which came with a 4 GB memory card, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss.
Upon opening the Vita, the first thing you notice is how light it is. Even with the size, which much bigger than a typical cell phone it is similar in weight. I’d almost say it is lighter than a iPhone 4S, but that could just be my mind playing tricks on me. The packaging is clear, fold out instructions, power cable, USB cable, some AR cards, and large manual. Clean and simple.
Job Hunt 2012 Starts Now
Last year I got the opportunity to join one of the top tier developers here in Seattle as their Community Manager, but sadly today was my last day at Sucker Punch Productions. Over the past nine months I have built up a social community just ready to explode and like that, it came crashing down. Even with the disappointment of not being able to continue building the community, I leave with what I consider some major accomplishments.
- Tripling their Twitter followers from 7,000 to over 25,000 in seven months, especially considering that it took 20 months for the account to hit 7,000.
- Moving from Fireboard to Simple Machines for the forums in about ten days.
- Being able to write content for the PlayStation Blog.
- Setting up a great panel at PAX Prime 2011 with the 2D Cut Scene Team.
- Getting to meet some amazing fans via events and the forums.
I’m sad to be leaving Sucker Punch, but sometimes good things come to and end.
Updating Videos to Sublime Video HTML5 Player
I’m always making tweaks to my website and adding more video is something I’ve always wanted to bring to the table. I have YouTube and Vimeo, but sometimes I just rather host it myself. I’ve used JW Player for a while, but decided to change things up and move to Jilion Sublime Video, which has a very nice WordPress Plugin. I’m in the process updating all my old links to new MP4 and WebM video files, which will also allow higher bitrates and HD versions if I have the source.
As a test of the new player, above is an old clip of Ben Kweller on Carson doing Sundress.
I’m also trying out JW Player, just to see the difference.
Double Fine Kickstarted!
Those crazy kids down at Double Fine have turned to Kickstarter to fund an Adventure Game! Yes an adventure game! Point & Click! Tim and his crew are asking for dollars from fans to build the most amazing adventure game ever, since publishers won’t touch the genre. And fans have jumped on board with Double Fine hitting 50% of their goal in just hours.
On top of making a totally amazing Adventure Game, they also plan to film the entire development process with the great people at 2 Player Productions, who previously worked on Season 1 of PATV, MineCraft: The Documentary, Uncharted 3: The Reveal, and inFAMOUS 2: ComicDNA. The team at 2 Player Productions does amazing work and I’m really more excited about this documentary of the development of this game! Getting to see inside the lions den of Double Fine and the insanity and creativity of Tim and the rest of the staff. It will be amazing!!
I really don’t need to tell you to support this project, as if you don’t you might get cancer or a puppy will die (just not my puppy!!!). So head over to Kickstarter and donate some of your hard earned cash to support such an awesome project!
February Concerts
February is just around the corner and a whole bunch of shows are coming up that are worth checking out. Here are my highlights worth checking out.
- 02.02.2012 – Nada Surf @ Tractor Tavern
- 02.07.2012 – Wilco @ The Paramount Theatre
- 02.14.2012 – Dr. Dog @ The Neptune
- 02.15.2012 – The Dear Hunter @ Neumo’s
- 02.17.2012 – Cursive @ Neumo’s
This is a pretty solid moth of shows, especially if you were lucky enough to get tickets to the Nada Surf show!