JPK Games

Break All The Things

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 08:53:21 -0400

Some updates about my games!*

iOS 5.1 came out last month, and to my dismay, all of my games were crashing on launch. Obviously, this was a problem. As you may recall, I started a full-time job in November; as it turns out, finances at this company were a problem, and after a round of funding fell through, so did my job. Though unfortunate, it was kind of perfect timing, since I now had the freedom to get on top of a few things, like these app fixes.

So I got to work fixing my apps. I came to find out that something about the old version of MonoTouch was not getting along with the new iOS, so I went about updating that (as, fortunately, my license is still active). Except this required updating MonoDevelop and Xcode, which required updating OS X to Lion, and then I updated MonoGame…

A day and $30 later, my system was ready to work on games again. I invited Mr. Damian Sommer over for a work date, and we got cracking. I updated all three projects to the new software (which is similar to updating VS 2008 projects to VS 2010 projects) and changed the references to the new MonoGame and rebuilt the apps and started testing them…

…and they still crashed on launch.

This should have fixed the crash. So something was amiss. Now, let this be a lesson, everyone. When updating a bunch of software (in this case, OS X Lion -> Xcode -> MonoDevelop -> MonoTouch -> MonoGame), DO NOT DO IT ALL AT ONCE. Update one piece at a time, and then test the software. This way, when something stops working, you know exactly what it is, and aren’t left freaking out like a child (at Damian).

Fortunately, I was lucky and the problem was in the topmost layer of software, MonoGame. By going back to the version I launched with, the problem (which was using all the available memory on old devices) disappeared. I like MonoGame, but I haven’t been paying attention, and whatever they did in the last half-year or so eats up too much memory for old devices (and some new devices), at least in the way I was managing memory for my games.

After reverting MonoGame, I rebuilt my apps, and resubmitted them. Now, a couple weeks later, they are all available on the App Store with new versions that work in iOS 5.1 (and, hopefully, previous versions of iOS; what minimal testing I did says yes, but I’m sure someone will come back to me freaking out about problems… if anyone is still even playing these games). For the uninformed:

Flew The Coop
starcatcher
Go!Speed!Go!

Also, I made Go!Speed!Go! permanently free.

So here we are now. What’s next for me? Well.. that’s a story for another month and a half from now (kidding; I’ll try and post sooner than that). Some things are still kind of up in the air, but I’m working on some opportunities. I’d like to make another game, even if my previous three didn’t find the critical success I wanted them to. I’ve got a few other non-game projects in the works, some still related to game development, others (such as getting canfitpro certified as a personal trainer) not so much, but I prefer to not talk about these until they actually seem to be going somewhere. When they are, I’ll let you know.

*I already covered this on Twitter, but since it’s now been a month and a half since I’ve made a blog post I decided to write one with whatever content I had, which was pretty minimal.

Sadly the belief that it’s about willpower and calisthenics is what fuels childhood obesity....

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:37:00 -0500

Sadly the belief that it’s about willpower and calisthenics is what fuels childhood obesity. Kids are the same as they always were. The world is different. Trying to treat this problem by suggesting kids, little kids, should be able to will themselves into healthier habits, and to dance dance revolution their way down is addressing a symptom, where the cause is the world. You can’t cure a disease by treating its symptoms.

— Yoni Freedhoff on Weighty Matters (via talenstraining)

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you...

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:35:00 -0500

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

— Banksy, from Cut It Out (via zaschell)

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad […] and...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:44:05 -0500

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad […] and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. […] And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us […] that’s the way it’s supposed to be! We all know things are bad—worse than bad—-they’re crazy.

It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms […] and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”

Well, I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. […] All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad. You’ve gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!” So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

— Network (1976), slightly edited to be more presently relevant.

Imagine A World With Free Content

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:20:54 -0500

There is only one real concern, specifically, which needs to be addressed in order to make “piracy” 100% viable (at which point the label of piracy no longer really applied; we’re just talking about content, provided free to all consumers): how do the content creators make money? Follow me down the rabbit hole, if you will, to see a couple ideas I’ve come up with to solve the piracy problem.

Solution: Kickstart Everything

As the popularity of Kickstarter and similar funding services skyrocket, we’re beginning to see a shift in how projects can be funded. But the scale is still pretty small, the service pretty niche. There’s no way a Hollywood blockbuster could be funded like this… could it?

IMDB tells me that the estimated budget of The Dark Knight Rises is $250,000,000 (and yes, I’m choosing TDKR on purpose to draw attention to this). I took at look at some Kickstarter campaigns I’ve backed, and here are some numbers:

297 backers at $23,341 = ~$79 per person
3464 backers at $72,627 = ~$21 per person
1785 backers at $105,398 = ~$59 per person
608 backers at $24,320 = ~$40 per person
2052 backers at $26,068 = ~$13 per person

As you can see, a small group who are surprisingly invested in the success of these products/ides were willing to spend a lot of money to help these come into existence. The incentive program largely drives bigger pledges, which admittedly alters the actual amount of dollars which contributes directly to funding the project. But how many people even know about Kickstarter, compared to the number of people who know about and want to see TDKR? At $1 per person, 250 million people would need to be willing to spend $1 to see TDKR to “kickstart” the movie into existence. At $5 a pop, possibly with some incentive like a free theater ticket (which would cost $10+ anyway), that’s only 50 million people. That doesn’t even come close to the dollars spent per person from above. The world has billions of people, but they don’t all have money; the US, Canada, UK, and Australia (which I pick as primarily English speaking countries) have about 432 million together.

If this were simply the way it works, such that literally every person who knew what a movie was knew how to fund them (in the same way that we all know what “Hollywood” is), I think that would be very much viable. For $1, you get a copy of the film; for $5, you get that and a voucher for a theater presentation, which has a separate, non-pirate-able value. If it’s not funded, it won’t come into existence.

This does mean that a lot of bad movies won’t be made, but I see that as a net gain. Maybe it’s time, in an era of abundant content, to separate the wheat from the chaff and start to whittle down the amount of stuff made to just what people actually want. The consumer-funded model gives us precisely that.

Some notes: so, in my mind, once the movie is funded and made and out, there’s still the possibility for additional income from theater sales (people who decide they do want to see it after all, or see it in theaters as opposed to just on their computers/TVs), but once it has had its run it would end up free online. No system even needs to be implemented for this, really; the torrent and fileshare systems already exist (for now). Just, let nature run its course. You’re probably thinking that “but then there’s no more profits!”, to which I say that all the actors, technicians, writers, editors, and staff are paid out of the budget—that’s what it’s for—which means everyone involved has already been paid by funding. Any profits a movie makes after… goes to the content middlemen, the massive corporations, the publishing houses, who gobble up that money and crave nothing but more. They are the 1%. It doesn’t provide any good for the movies to make more money, in a consumer-funded model (as the consumers become the publishers, who normally fund) and so they don’t need to. And since there still can be additional profits in this model, they can go to the core creative staff who come up with the idea, to inflate their social status (as mass media creation does) and allow them to spend the time coming up with new content ideas for future campaigns.

It’s a fundamental shift in thinking about how this stuff works, and it has some kinks to be worked out, but it’s a model we already see working these days on a smaller scale, and exposure being the only limiting factor I don’t see why it can’t work on a much larger scale. Do you know how many times I’ve pledged an excess of dollars just for that “free” T-shirt?

Solution: Big Brother Is Watching

If the government is going to involve themselves in art and media by adding legislation on piracy, they might as well do it right. If they want the onus of ensuring artists get proper compensation, they can have it. Consider the legalization of piracy sites—or rather, now, content sharing sites—such that all download data can be tracked (by which I mean, not who downloads what, just how many times everything is being downloaded by unique IP addresses or something). This becomes the norm, of course… no more charging for media, you just direct people at these government run sites to get their content. It doesn’t matter if you’re famous of independent, established or just starting; you put your content in the same place, and direct as many people to it as possible. Everyone gets it for free, so that barrier of entry disappears; again, quality rises to the top, and bad stuff gets next to no downloads, which I again see as a net gain.

Then, the government—now responsible for revenue and payment data—pays out each content creator something like $1 or $0.70 per unique download. You album get downloaded a few thousand times, that’s a few thousand bucks. A million times? Lucky you. Where does this government money come from, you might ask; well, the same place all government money comes from, taxation. Either re-appropriating the money wasted in other areas, or by adding another “content tax” on the people such that they literally are paying for all their content, even though it’s free (presuming they don’t dodge the IRS).

I’m not going into this example as thoroughly as the Kickstarter one (mostly because it’s way more theoretical and I have no data to draw from for this, but also because I’m getting tired), but barring some flaws and work that would need to get done this too is a viable way to allow for piracy to not be an issue and content creators still functioning under the current society/economy. But I am of the personal opinion that maybe it’s time for society and economy to grow up a little more, as well, as there are proposed better models that I know I’d like to see come to fruition.

What do you think? Can you address the issues with these models that would allow them to work? Is that something you’d be interested in seeing? Talk to me on Twitter and let me know.

I think to be an activist you have to believe on the one hand that things will get worse if we...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:46:40 -0500

I think to be an activist you have to believe on the one hand that things will get worse if we don’t do something, and on the other hand, that if we do something things can get better.

— Cory Doctorow on Technology and Anarchy

And this is why I won’t shut up about internet regulation, censorship, IP and copyright legislation, the possible death of file sharing, the risk to future techs like 3D printing, and a better future as I see it.

Thought Clarifications: SOPA

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:46:00 -0500

Response to my last post was overwhelmingly negative, and mostly it went unshared. That’s fine; I tend to be an extremist and have largely differing opinions on the way the world works and how things are going to happen in the future. But the issue is complicated, so let me offer some clarifications…

Piracy: Really, the short of it is that I don’t think piracy should be illegal. Piracy is simply large-scale sharing. Piracy, at the core, doesn’t profit off of other people’s creative works (if certain vectors for piracy do, that’s different), as my sharing a DVD with a friend doesn’t profit off of other people’s creative works. As I understand IP/copyright law, that’s the real purpose of it; to prevent other people from making money from work that doesn’t belong to them. But then, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know the intricacies. It’s not that I’m arguing that what was done is wrong; it’s that this is all a little insane, anyway.

SOPA: Please understand that, though “SOPA” is “dead”, I’m using this as a coverall term for the various acts that are attempting to be pushed through. My issue here, conflicting with the above, isn’t that I think piracy shouldn’t be stopped, it’s that not a single proposed method has been free of massive amounts of ability for control, censorship, spying, or would literally break the Internet. The things they are trying to stop are already illegal and arrests can and have been made; the government is simply looking for more power with which to stop the piracy, but the methods are terrifying and must not be enacted.

MegaUpload: It was a dick move to shut down the site with no notice to the customer base who used it. Period. Arrest the people who were profiting, shut down the site after a warning period, whatever, but the expense of the losses and pain that this caused are sickening, and terrifies me that it’ll happen again to services I actively use, which I will not stand for.

The government: No government is perfect, and I can’t blame any for not being perfect. My issue with the government here is, rather, that it is entirely folding to the desires of big business, since they have the money, rather than standing up for the people. You can argue it either way, I suppose—that they’re defending the artists, who are losing out—except that in the world that I live in, the models they are defending are obsolete and the artists should be shifting to working models, as they did with recording sales when analog and digital physical mediums came around. So, the government has, in my opinion, become an arm of big business like the MPAA in this issue, rather than the voice of the people.

Civil war: It’s a large jump, to be sure, and like I said, not one I recommend. But most people don’t seem to even understand what’s happening or why, and of that few of them who do understand it read into it and how it will affect the future. Does anyone see a beautiful rosy future in store, if everything goes down as the politicians, controlled by media industries, want it to? Because I think a free and open internet, despite the shortcomings, allows for a much more beautiful one.

Hope that clears things up, or at least why I think and said the things I wrote. Let it be said that I’m just some guy, and I don’t ever know all the details, and I don’t believe myself or my “facts” to be 100% accurate; but I do think the Internet is pretty great, and that the proposed actions—now temporarily stunted, but not gone—would be a step backward. PCIPA and ACTA are equally problematic. The MPAA is publicly threatening to stop supporting politicians who aren’t on their side, and since their money is so important to the government, that’s terrifying. Eventually something will give, and if it isn’t in the favor of “The People”, then the people need to be ready to make sure they don’t become second-class citizens to those with the money to get their way.

On SOPA, censorship, and war.

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:08:00 -0500

Note: I am going to say a lot of things that may sound unlikely, implausible, or even outright silly. I encourage you, in reading this, to keep an open mind and identify the roots of my speculation as real and truly destructive. Though it is likely things will not play out as my post below specifically implies, the danger of similarly damaging events is very real. Please, make your own conclusions and if you too identify troubles, share this post with any addendum on further insights I may have missed.

I believe that serious turbulence is coming to America.

On January 18th, 2012, in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, many websites and citizens of America and other countries “blacked out” their site or social network. A stance was taken, and a large voice was heard; they did not want these acts, for these blackouts would bring very real ramifications should they be implemented.

On January 19th, 2012, the government of the United States plainly displayed that they do not care, in that the FBI shut down one of the largest file-sharing services on the Internet, destroying access to countless legitimately shared videos and documents.

This file-sharing service was accused of promoting piracy, as it was possible for users to upload pirated material. It should be noted that the policy of this service was to not allow protected content to be uploaded, and content that was flagged as such was removed swiftly. Action was taken against them anyway. Though the legal accusations against the specific people involved may hold true, I do not believe this merits the action of taking down of the site. The site housed legitimate files which in some cases were the only copies. This sets a dangerous precedent for the future, one in which any service that allows for the transfer of files between people is susceptible to similar treatment. How soon before Dropbox, which so many people use to secure their information, is at risk of sanction, government interference, or is taken down entirely? How soon before not just sharing files but sharing unapproved thoughts—via Twitter, or other social networks—is similarly subject to government regulation?

It sounds like a stretch, like any other slippery slope argument, but threats to freedom only ever come one link in the chain at a time.

The real reason action was taken against MegaUpload, the aforementioned file-sharing service, was profit. Media is big business: piracy was claimed to cause the loss of $100 billion annually by Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith. This isn’t about the safety or security of the populace: it is about corporate bottom-line. To ruin the legitimate file-sharing of so many citizens to stop activity that is already illegal is absurd; why is it any more absurd to think that it will stop there? We do not take away alcohol, or cars, to stop drunk driving. We do not ban marriage to prevent spousal abuse. We should not attack file sharing to stop piracy.

It is here that danger really begins to rear its head. Someone, somewhere, has made the decision that the profits of big business are of so much importance that a legitimate—if occasionally misused—service was shut down to prevent the already banned and onsite policed activity, no matter the cost to the people. The continued resources that will get poured into this could help remedy far more pressing social issues; instead, it’s going into stopping you from sharing files, under the assumption that you are a pirate, even though “The People” have expressed a desire that government not regulate the Internet.

It was said on Reddit: “There’s no point protesting SOPA. The USA is a rogue government and will do what they want regardless of a bill passing. The time to protest SOPA and PIPA is over, [and] the time to protest the USA Government itself has begun.”

Lack of freedom and a sense of exclusion from the governing process are what led to the American Revolution; a memory so ingrained in American psyche that surely its people would be unable to stand idly by as a tyranny of a self-interested and wealthy minority chokes off their freedoms to benefit their coffers. The beginnings of the tear at the social fabric of America can be seen, largely in the form of the Occupy protest which tires of inequality, and this turbulence is growing worse.

On piracy, sharing, and paradigm shifts.

Let me be clear; piracy isn’t a good thing. People should be rewarded for their work. I see people affected by piracy a lot in the entertainment and games industry. But piracy also isn’t the danger people seem to think it is; rather, it appears to be so because big business is clinging to a dying model. More importantly, the same sharing technology that enabled piracy is crucial to the development of future generations of innovation, and to stifle that now would have a devastating effect on progress to a better world.

Figures abound regarding how much money is lost from piracy, usually in the form of a precise at-value dollar amount per instance of pirated data, and these numbers are impressive. However, this number is fundamentally flawed. Many people who pirate do so because they are either not able to afford the content, and thus would never have contributed to those profits, or can, but would never have spent the money anyway, and only pirate because it costs them nothing. I believe the number of people who pirate but would have spent the money in lieu of the presence of piracy to be very small. Whether or not piracy is legal or ethical does not change that those with no money could not be paying customers and so these dollar figures count for little. And in this age of information, it is flawed to say that those without the funds do not deserve to have access to information and entertainment.

A paradigm shift has occurred in the way content can be delivered. It’s because certain organizations, such as the MPAA, hope it can be revered in order to maintain a stranglehold over how and when we consume their product that such drastic measures have taken place. The fact is, the consumer has realized the exorbitant cost of the middle man and copy-production can largely be eliminated by use of online digital distribution, and they are no longer willing to pay the same amount for content as they used to. Some people have embraced this, and profited; independent content developers are in a great position to take advantage of this new market as never before due to the removal of costly creation and distribution of physical medium, combined with an access to an audience like never before. This is the change that big business is confusing for the loss of profits from piracy; rather, that consumers are becoming creators. But big business can do very well under this model as well, if it didn’t cling to the obsolete model. Cutting costs from production of physical media and embracing digital distribution would allow them to retain some costs. Globalizing releases would mitigate losses from consumers who would be forced to wait for the content, who are being driven to piracy. Furthermore, there are models that allow for the content to be provided truly free to the consumer, and yet still driving high amounts of profit, completely eliminating the need for piracy to exist. The methods Geoff Taylor accuses tech corporations of profiting from piracy in this article can become the means by which big business continues to see profits from their content and services if they were willing to change.

The change isn’t coming, it’s here. And, in a lot of ways, it’s an improvement (a simple but obvious environmental example is how digital distribution has next to no carbon footprint, compared to physical media production). But when profits have been so large for so long under the old paradigm, it becomes very difficult for business to be willing to change. But change is a fact of life and of business. We saw it with print media, with music, and to a degree with games; it shall continue to happen in many more ways.

On the Internet, control, and ruination.

I’m not going to speak in great detail on this, as others have already done this. Let it be understood, however, that the very structure of the Internet could be corrupted by this and similar legislation to the detriment of all Americans, and the world. The Internet has caused some messed up things, to be sure, but it has also allowed for some incredible things to come about. Ideas, technologies, and development have all been sparked because of the Internet. To exit the information age in reverse would set us back decades.

When mp3 players were introduced, similar media giants took issue with it, for it allowed for… well, you know. But could you imagine life without it now? Similarly, the VCR before that. And, once upon a time, the written word was feared, for it allowed information to be spread beyond the control of a select few. Information is power, and the Internet more so than anything else has allowed for that power to be in anyone’s hand. Money is also power, and the control of both that money and power is also starting to shift. This is partially what the Occupy movement is about; getting political power back into the hands of the people on the streets and in the voting booths, and cutting back the near exclusive access to law makers now held by lobbyists and corporations that can afford to fund ever ballooning election costs.

Consider the cesspool that our media has become lately. That might be harsh, but I think many people who have read this far probably agree that reality TV, derivative movies or games that offer little content, and the same cookie-cutter pop and rap stars don’t really provide us with the gorgeous tapestry of media that could exist, and that we’re starting to see more glimpses of as a result of the Internet. It’s due to complete control. While big business controls airtime, which is the primary feed for entertainment and advertising, it becomes desperately difficult to avoid being spoon-fed what they want you to be fed; usually, the cheapest to design, create, and produce for the highest profit. And people got used to it. If there’s no other sources, what choice does one have? But a free and open Internet allows us to create more.

We’re on the cusp of some big technological change, too. 3D printing as a technology is becoming more and more viable, and with recursively constructible printers (that is, 3D printers that can make other 3D printers) this can end up spreading like wildfire, allowing for what could become the greatest period of innovation our species has ever seen. But consider this; why go out and buy toys for your children when you can download designs and print them yourself? Or make better toys? How do you think big business—toy business instead of media business—will react to that as the technology begins to percolate, but to try and reign it in, control it, and stop it? As the machines get more intricate, and perhaps become capable of printing electronics, much of our economy of physical goods will be drastically changed forever. This would be a good thing, in my opinion, but that and all the technological and intellectual innovation that could come with it could very well be stalled for generations, if the repercussions of what happened to MegaUpload are allowed to ring out and shape the future of how technology can be controlled.

On evolution, and a better world.

We are on the precipice of the greatest technology-assisted evolutionary change that, as far as we know, any form of life in the entire universe has ever seen. Our technologies make us incredible as individuals and a species; everyone who uses Wikipedia knows it makes them more knowledgeable and how valuable that is. Handing away control of this technology to people who are most interested in making money would result in devastating steps backward and the potential elimination of what I think will be a glorious future.

Civil war would result in backward steps as well, to a lesser degree, so let me be clear when I say I don’t want a civil war. But the real threat of one must exist to prevent the future from being forever torn from our grasps, or for things to get so bad that civil war becomes necessary. Your government must work for you, and if it doesn’t—as has happened many times in history—then it becomes time to change it. Are you willing to fight for your future? The time may approach, and you must make it clear that you are. Do not let future acts like SOPA or PIPA pass, and do not let your censorship happen quietly. Do not let profiteers steal your ability to share with your friends and family. Do not let the Internet be taken from you. Getting it back will be far more difficult than keeping it now, and keep it you must.

This is no joke. I am encouraging you to arm yourself, train your strength, sharpen your minds to the tasks at hand. I am 26 years old and a Canadian, I have never protested or rabble-roused for any cause in my life. But if the government stops caring about the interest of a better world for its people in the name of profits, I will not stand by idle. I would fight and die to protect my freedoms in these troubled times, and for a better future.

Be ready.

Better the government shut down than Wikipedia go on strike. That would be like part of my mind...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:41:46 -0500

Better the government shut down than Wikipedia go on strike. That would be like part of my mind going on strike. Just give them [Wikipedia] whatever they want — we don’t even need to hear what it is.

— Ray Kurzweil on Wikipedia’s SOPA Blackout

These Are Not Resolutions

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:21:00 -0500

I’ve never been good at making resolutions, for a variety of reasons. More often than not, when you decide you need to make a change, you fail to realize that the reason you aren’t doing that already is because it’s hard, uncomfortable, or not in line with your lifestyle. This isn’t to say that changes can’t be made; rather, the practice of choosing an arbitrary date (such as a new year celebration) to make sweeping changes to your life probably won’t work out. A common resolution is to “get fit” or “be healthy”, but the middle of winter probably isn’t the best time to do that, so why try then? Rather, springtime might be appropriate, since you can start running outside—it matches up to the planned change, and so it’s more likely to work out.

As such, I’ve stopped making new year’s resolutions. At least, serious ones. I’ll probably keep making some silly thing up, since people ask or talk about it (for example, this year’s resolution is to “eat more protein”, since I’ve been way below the appropriate consumption level given my current goals; but, I’d be doing this anyway). This isn’t to say I don’t have plans, as I do, but there are a couple of important factors to consider when making plans…

1. It’s important to not make too many planned changes at once. In fact, I’d say never try to do more than one change at a time. This article talks a bit about that: rather than trying to accomplish something, you should be trying to create a new habit. Creating a new habit—that is, a change in your life that will stick with you into the future, that takes no effort to maintain—takes time. People say differing things on how long this can take, from 5 days to 3 weeks to 1 month or more, but it probably varies from individual to individual. But doing that is hard enough, let along trying to do multiple at once. If it takes a month to create a habit, then that’s still 12 new habits you can have at the end of the year. Be patient, tackle one thing at a time. Be careful, though, as habit forming goes both ways… if you take too much time off of something, NOT doing it can become a habit as well. Let’s err on the side of caution this way, and presume that the low-end of 5 days/missed attempts can result in you losing that habit.

2. In line with point 1, make lists. It’s easy to forget what you wanted to do, and when you can only accomplish one thing at a time, lists become great tools for staggering your goals but still being able to tackle them all. Make an overarching list, and then for each item on that list (as you attempt to accomplish them) make a very granular list of each sub-element that needs completing. I can safely say Flew The Coop wouldn’t have been finished if not for a multitude of granular task lists. If it’s a complex habit you’re trying to form rather than a task, make a step-by-step schedule that eases you into the process, so that you can make the change gradually and permanently.

3. Don’t announce your goals until you’ve accomplished them. It has been well-researched and talked about, but it’s an easy trap to fall into. In short: we have this thing called the intention-behavior gap, which is related to how hard it is for us to do the things we want to do. When you talk about a goal, your social reality changes, often from people complimenting your intention, which widens the intention-behavior gap since you no longer need to accomplish the action to get the reward. So, by announcing your goals, you might actually suffer in accomplishing them. There are ways you can, though: public humiliation in failure as motivation (which worked for my for releasing starcatcher on iOS), or related, taking bets on your success; recruiting active supporters, who you will listen to, to get you back on track if you can’t self-motivate; or perhaps you have no issues with the intention-behavior gap, as some incredibly strong-willed people do, and you can announce them as you wish. But better safe than sorry.

I hope that information can help you. If you’ve been paying attention to me, you’ll know that my last list of “upcoming things” has been cleared. I relaxed for a bit after, played Skyrim, vegged, but now it’s time to shape back up and get some things done. I’m being careful to not announce things I’d like to do, however, in line with point 3 above, but there are some things that I have to do, where public humiliation can be a useful motivator. For example: with #GPCv10, we implemented a new submission system. This was not without issues, which need to be tackled, and I’d like to update the entire website. That’s on the docket for January, and once that’s done, we’ll launch #GPCv11 (hopefully before the end of January, or at the very latest, for mid-February).

I also haven’t made a game in too long. Oh, I made something junky in 45 minutes for Blitzkast and I made a pen-and-paper strategy game for #GPCv8, but nothing… good. I’d like to do that, though I won’t be announcing any specifics in order to avoid a false sense of reward. Feel free to yell at me about this semi-regularly, demand updates, etc. And so, to the beginning of this new year of 2012, I say: come at me.

On Break From Games: Getting Strong

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:41:00 -0500

So as I’ve mentioned a few times here on this blog, and many times on Twitter, I recently dived pretty wholeheartedly into strength training, weight lifting, and fitness (which I intend to continue to be passionate about well into the future). This has a tendency to bleed into other aspects of life, like trying to get friends and family into it, changing what I read about and pay attention to, and even my social networking. As such, I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while, to share what I’ve learned (which is hopefully accurate) and maybe, if I’m lucky, share some of the goodness.

The primary thing that I’ve learned is that pretty much no-one agrees on anything and that there’s very little concrete, objective fact out there that can be relied on. A common concern I’ve seen in my research is that (like, unfortunately, many things in life) capitalism and profits drive so much of “progress” that some half-truths get perpetrated and actual truths get covered up, in the name of making a buck. But some light shines through, and as the internet has grown it’s becoming easier to cut through the crap, so now more than ever you can actually find a lot of useful information.

There are a multitude of elements to fitness, so as per the name of this blog post I’ll be focusing on the attribute of strength, since that’s my current goal. Other goals, as one might guess, include weight-loss (or preferably, fat loss), aesthetics, and general health. Fortunately for the lay-person, who doesn’t like complicated things, in actuality it appears that all four of these can intersect very nicely, and it comes down to a simple truth: lift heavy weights.

It seems pretty obvious, but then, it’s more complicated than you think. If you were to take that at face value, and run to the gym right now to try to bench press 200lbs, you’d almost certainly injure yourself. If you succeeded at doing it, you would probably be fried, unable to lift again for a week or longer. You might even gain weight, as opposed to lose it, without any visible change to your body. So, like with anything, we have to delve deeper.

According to what I’ve read (and I won’t cite sources, because I am lazy, and because I don’t always remember the source, and I’d encourage you to do your own research and never trust anything at face value) lifting heavy weights can be the solution to all of these concerns, unless you have ridiculous expectations. Certainly, lifting heavy weights won’t cure cancer, but it does have a slew of health benefits, some of which could be preventative. Lifting heavy weights, with no other change to your lifestyle, will result in a net-positive body re-composition (unless you have the belief that you can be healthy at any size, and that carrying too much extra fat stores through life doesn’t fly in the face of evolutionary genetics, which I do not). Lifting heavy weights obviously makes you stronger, and strength comes with muscle, so aesthetically you will be improved, unless you don’t think muscles are sexy (which I do).

Women, do not fear: the way bodies produce hormones and chemicals, simply lifting heavy weights is not going to turn you into a female bodybuilder. A quick look at women who lift heavy for fat-loss or health but without the goal of bodybuilding will reveal to you some very pleasing forms, even though the same weight lifted by a man might result in bulk. It’s just the way we humans are made; though in terms of human rights, wages, career opportunities, and most cultural elements of life men and women should be treated equal, we are not the same biologically (which is a good thing, or babies would be a lot trickier to make) and this is especially notable by way of results at the gym. I especially like this article as a great example of this.

So how do we safely get to the point of lifting heavy weights? Again, there are differing opinions, but it is generally true that by starting with low weight and doing small, incremental, linear additions to the weight on the bar, you can safely achieve heavy weights and likely surpass any expectation you had. The method I used was Starting Strength, though I’ve heard good things about Stronglifts as well, and there are other more advanced programs once you’ve gotten past the novice stage, which I have not. Again, this is the sort of thing that you want to do lots of research on and pick for yourself… but SS is a good place to start, in my opinion. Or, if you want to start smaller, I first did the Hundred Pushup program (alongside the Two Hundred Squats program) which might help to get your confidence up before joining a gym.

Now. If your goal is to add muscle, lose fat, or something about changing the composition of your body, know this: only about 20% of change happens in the gym. 80% of change happens in the kitchen. What, when, and how you eat is going to be critical to your successes, and is extremely important to your health as well. This is glossed over in a lot of places, but learning some nutritional information will take you a long way. Learn about the role of carbohydrates in your metabolism. Learn about insulin response. Learn about the various theories regarding evolutionary genetics and diet. Learn about healthy supplementation. Learn about subverting genetics, in order to do better than what evolution provided. But no matter what you do, learn. The accumulation of information cannot do you harm, and will almost certainly do you good, no matter what you desire out of life or decide to do with the information you receive.

There are lots of smaller elements to this conversation, all very deserving of in-depth analysis, but I’m probably not qualified to do so. Still, I’ll give it a shot if you found this interesting, so tweet at me and let me know what you thought. In the meanwhile, here are some sites and sources I have found helpful in gaining knowledge.

http://fitocracy.com/
http://startingstrength.wikia.com/
http://leangains.com/
http://nerdfitness.com/blog/
http://marksdailyapple.com/
http://hundredpushups.com/
http://eatmoveimprove.com/

I’m sure I’m missing a ton, but some quick Google-fu will probably net you more specific quality stuff that trying to navigate through sites in order to find content. I sincerely hope you take the time to consider how making the relatively small commitment to change can drastically improve your quality of life; I usually only spend about 3 hours a week in the gym, which is less than half of my week’s commute time (I spend far more time talking about fitness on Fitocracy with people than I actually do lifting!) Time is not the issue, if that’s what you’ve been telling yourself. Take the plunge. You won’t regret it.

This Is Not A Review Of: Skyward Sword

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:12:00 -0500

(As with my barely-explored idea for a blog series “On Break From Games”, since I’m now actually playing some games again I’d like to do some talking about them. And thus a new blog series is born. “This Is Not A Review” will be my horribly biased and subjective opinions on the games that I’m playing. I used to try to be objective and fair when writing on games, but this will be the opposite, so strap in. I will start with the new Legend of Zelda game. There may be minor spoilers.)

Let me preface this with a little factoid about myself: I hate the Wii, and the movement towards motion gaming. I don’t know if this is true for everyone, but having grown up with a controller in my hand, I am both comfortable and content with traditional gaming, so much so that I am stubbornly avoiding stuff like the Wii, Kinect, PSMove, etc. But I’ve also been playing the Legend of Zelda series since its inception, my entire life. Hell, I used to be part of a play-by-post D&D-styled RPG on a forum in the Zelda universe. It’s a part of me, and I knew that eventually I’d be playing something on the Wii because of this. Twilight Princess came out for both GameCube and Wii, so I played it on GameCube (which is a system and controller that I really love, actually, making the Wii all the more unappealing), but Skyward Sword forced me to take the plunge.

Now, my entire experience with Skyward Sword is influenced by the fact that I hate, and am awful at, the controls for the game. On several occasions in the game I almost unstrapped the WiiMote from my hand so I could purposely fling it into the TV screen. This isn’t technically a commentary on the game, but rather on the system… however, as I’m not trying to be objective, it all wraps up into the same thing in the end:

I really did not like Skyward Sword.

Now, in fairness (I guess I can’t be completely subjective, even when I want to) that should be written “I really did not like playing Skyward Sword”. As with much of my gaming growing up, where myself and friends would gather around the screen playing a one-player game, had I just been watching the game be played I may have liked it. I did think the story elements were interesting, as I am continuously interested in the LoZ mythology and timeline. But playing the game was an exercise in frustrations with almost no joy to it aside from my fan dedication to the series.

Some of you may be agreeing with me, nodding, thinking to yourselves “yeah, all the recent Zelda games have been pretty lame, I miss the good old days,” but if so, stop. That’s not what I’m saying. In fact, Twilight Princess (NGC) is one of my favorite of the series. I don’t mind the changes they make in general, but Skyward Sword specifically did very little for me. There are a couple of reasons why (motion controls aside).

1. The game plays largely off of the OoT fanbase, I think. At least, I identified more tie-ins with that part of the series than most others. And why not? It is often touted as the fan-favorite, best Zelda game. Except… OoT is also one of my least favorite LoZ games. The N64 had, in my opinion, the worst controller in video game history (arguably replaced by the WiiMote, now, thought that’s hard to compare; but that’s pretty funny, thinking that one of my favorite controllers was sandwiched between my two least favorite, by the same company), so I didn’t really give the game a good go until it was remastered for GC, but even still it didn’t capture me like the others.

2. The game was too long. I spent more time on Skyward Sword, without doing any side quests or deliberate hunting for Goddess Cubes, than I did on Twilight Princess doing all the side quests and hunting down everything that could be had. And: adding the farming of insects and treasures? Way to pad game-time. This is a curious thing, as if you asked me ten years ago, this would have been a feature I loved in the game, but as an adult, this was the worst thing they could have done to me. If it weren’t for the holidays and a long weekend, I might never have gotten around to the game.

3. The game was unfair. This might be on me, with my inability to use a WiiMote and that damn sword, but even without that consideration: did anyone else notice that enemies were almost always in pairs? Especially those Lizalfos. With a punishing (and unresponsive, in my opinion) control schema, giving me not one but two enemies which require precise sword controls seemed cruel.

4. This one is entirely external to the game, but it contributes to my experience: I played most of Skyward Sword with my little brother, who had already beaten it, laughing at my inability to use motion controls. By comparison, I played Twilight Princess with my friends, at university, trading off the controller when we got tired or stuck, which was a great time (and one of the last true youthful gaming experiences I had). Naturally, my TP memories are all good, whereas my SS memories are coloured by insults and annoyance. But, it is what it is.

5. The characters… were… hmm. At first I hated Groose, but he rapidly became my favorite character. Link was Link, just as stupid but likable as always, except for his tendency in this game to jump off cliffs. Zelda had bangs. But Fi was the worst companion I’ve ever experienced, Zelda game or otherwise. First of all: Fi, you are not a statistician. Stop making up ridiculous probabilities. Nothing that you are saying is helpful. I’ve already determined, through the process of video game logic, what I need to do. If I want your help, I’ll ask for it. But I don’t, so shut up and get back in the sword. Navi gets a lot of fun poked at her for being annoying, and in memory she is, but she doesn’t compare to Fi, who completely stops the gameplay flow on so many occasions to tell me trite nonsense that I grew to despise her (making the “touching” parting at the end of the game laughable). I liked Ezlo and Midna, so it’s not that role in a Zelda game that I hate, but rather the way Fi fills it.

I’m sure there is more, but this is getting long already. I’ll just add a few last minute things: I don’t like revisiting areas, I didn’t like the flying, and Link shouldn’t have had a hat (Minish Cap is the hat’s origin). In short, though I did enjoy the ending of the game, the experience left a bad taste in my mouth, and concerns for the next one, presuming there is. It saddens me that a game series which still has legs because it has fans keeps trying to innovate controls (stylus on DS, motion on Wii) when I’d be more happy with classic controls, but such is progress, I suppose. Just… do it better, please.

That ends my not-review of LoZ:SS, but I’m sure you’re probably wondering my order of preferred LoZ games now. As you can probably tell, it’s not the common order you hear from most people. It shames me to say that I haven’t even tried Spirit Tracks, because I didn’t really like Phantom Hourglass, and I didn’t get very far into either Oracle game, so those three are excluded from the list. From most liked to least, without breaking ties:

Twilight Princess/Legend of Zelda
Minish Cap
Link’s Awakening
Wind Waker/Adventures of Link
Four Swords Adventure
Link to the Past & Four Swords
Skyward Sword
Phantom Hourglass
Majora’s Mask
Ocarina of Time

Nostalgia keeps certain games (LoZ, AoL, LA) high on the list. I did not own a SNES growing up, so I played LttP on GBA with FS, which is why they are together. It’s also worth noting that this is not a linear scale. If this was plotted on some quantifiable line of “like”, there would be a large-ish game between LttP and SS, whereas the top four spots would be very close together. If Oracles were on here, they’d be last, probably. I am now debating giving Spirit Tracks a go: I do love the DS generally, I just hated the Temple of the Ocean King. This list is a snapshot of my state of mind right now, and is usually in flux, especially right after I’ve played a new Zelda game or replayed an old one.

Thanks for reading. Want to talk about it? Hit me up on Twitter.

Edit: Jeff Cho, a friend, has posted his own thoughts, which mirror mine largely, though not entirely (he loves OoT, as a primary difference). You can view his post (and my comment on his post) here.

What do you mean, indie?

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:00:00 -0500

Another iteration of the Humble Indie Bundle hit the shelves of the internet today, which sparked a bit of conversation amongst my Twitter feed this afternoon. Those of you unfamiliar with the bundle: it is a collection of indie games from various indie developers, packaged (or bundled, if you will) together, at a pay-what-you-want price point, and in general has been hugely successful and more importantly, profitable.

So the Twitter conversation went a few ways. One of which was a mention of Shank being “an EA game”. Does that really fit here? This is a bundle for indie games, and if Shank was published by EA, does that count?

Let’s back up a bit. Does it actually say that anywhere? “Indie games by indie developers” is what I just said, but aside from the title, the HIB#4 site only actually calls out two games as “indie favorites”: Cave Story and Gratuitous Space Battles. The others are only referred to as “awesome” and “epic”, as far as I can see. So maybe, just maybe, through the magic of arguably false advertising, there’s no problem here.

This led into a discussion about what it means to be indie. Wikipedia says “independent video game development is the process of creating video games without the financial support of a video game publisher.” So a lot of the discussion turned into semantics, arguing about indie games versus indie developers. There was an agreement made that maybe an indie developer can make both indie and not-indie games, but still retain the title as an indie developer. I think that maybe there’s a ratio that might act as a tipping point, but irregardless, it’s pretty obvious that the term doesn’t really mean anything anymore. There is far too much grey space between the black and the white, especially as the markets grow, new markets emerge, and so on. Everyone in the industry knows it, but of course, nobody wants to come up with 50 different labels, so we just say “indie” and “AAA” and force squares into circle holes.

To come back around to the start, what I actually was complaining about with the new Humble Indie Bundle was that I’ve been more and more numbed to this “great innovation” as lately, the team responsible has been dropping Bundles like unwanted tables in a database that desperately needs pruning. With custom-tailored, developer-specific bundles, or bundles with single games in them at launch (excuse me: one game is not a bundle), I was more and more distressed that what once was an honest and solid idea was turning into a cash cow. Of course, HIB#4 is a return to it’s valid roots (unless we don’t believe these games are indie, but ignoring that for the moment) and so I have, naturally, picked it up (I don’t actually own any of these games) but my monetary support of the bundle is not as large as it might have been had the last couple not have been so free, loose, and easy with what they called a “bundle”.

English is a pretty complicated language, and I’ve found in my life that in the end almost everything is an argument over semantics. Bundle or not, indie or not, if it’s pay-what-you-want it’s a good deal. If you feel miffed, pay less, and if you don’t, pay more, but supporting developers is good either way; certainly better than pirating, but that’s a whole other issue.

So what do you think about the “indie” argument? Leave your comments below, and… oh, wait, I don’t actually have comments on my blog, because I don’t care what you think. Thanks for reading!

And no one ever read Jason’s blog again. In actuality, he does care what you think, so tweet at him and tell him stuff. Or just send him hilarious photos of dogs, he likes that too.

The Best App Ever Awards

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:33:00 -0500

I was just introduced to the nominations for this award by Owen Goss, whose apps you should vote for, and figured I should give this a marketing go myself, too. I don’t truthfully expect anything to come from this, but if you’d be so kind, my games could use your nominations for the Best App Ever awards.

Flew The Coop for Best Kids Game
Go!Speed!Go! for Best Racing Game
starcatcher for Best Action Game

Thanks very much if you took the time to do this, your continued support means a lot to me! Let’s hope this brings some positive attention to my games. :) I’ll let you know if anything comes of it!

A Brief Update On Upcoming Things

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:38:00 -0500

There are some things. These things are in the near future. They are also happening. They relate to me. This post talks about them. Now you will know what these things are.

1. Gamercamp MakerU “Iron Chef” Game Jam: I’m running it. November 25th. And then I’ll be attending the rest of Gamercamp. If you want to join, check here. Else, if you’re attending Gamercamp, come by and vote on the games at the end of the jam.

2. Hand Eye Society Social: I’m running it too. December 5th. And then I’ll be drinking the rest of the night, since I do that. If you are a former Challenger and want to participate, check here. If not, come check out our Challengers, their games, and learn about why the GPC is such a great experience to be a part of.

3. #GPCv10 Anniversary Edition: I’m also running it. That’s not a surprise, though. Starts December 5th, too. All the present details are here. It’s going to be special. More info to come.

4. #GPC One-Year Round-Up/#GPCv10 Arcade: I’m helping run this, with the SkillSwap/GBC man himself, Randy. Tentatively December 16th. We’ll be showcasing the just-made #GPCv10 games and playing old GPC games for fun, then probably drinking after. More info to come.

So! Busy busy. Of course, in this busiest of months, I start a full-time job on Monday, so I’m actually busy to the power of more busy, and I will probably not do anything for an entire month after all this is over. But the above stuff will be super fun and I hope to see you all there.

On Break From Games: Zombie Movies

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:47:34 -0400

In the spirit of Halloween, I’ve decided to watch every zombie movie I haven’t seen. Well, maybe not every, that’s nigh impossible… but lots. And then I figured, why not write up my thoughts on them, and the others I’ve seen before, and share? So here it is, my zombie movie list. Warning: there may be minor spoilers here. I try not to give too much away, and just give impressions, but some things needed talking about. Not that there’s a whole lot of surprise in zombie movies… the dead walk, eat the living, almost everyone dies, there’s usually one or more survivors of which one is usually the main character.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)
The mall. That seems like a good place to hold up when the undead start to walk again. And of course, it was, except people are stupid. “People are stupid” is a pretty common theme in zombie movies, with some rare occurances. Watching zombie movies in general is an exercise is suspending disbelief, but prepare to extend that to how people act in the face of obvious danger (or are we to believe that the universes in which zombie movies take place don’t themselves have zombie movies?) That said, this remake of the 1978 original is well-acted, well-shot, and well worth watching. Most important is the opening of this movie, which is a really solid representation of how quickly the world can turn to mayham.

Day of the Dead (2008)
The remake of the 1985 original, though of modern-day calibur, lacks in a number of ways. Primarily, some of the editing choices were terrible. I wasn’t wild about this particular zombie representation, either; some of them had serious superhuman ability, which was hard to buy. One last complaint was the very end; not the end of the story, but the film’s ending. That said, I liked most of the characters in this one, and it’s better than a lot of others.

Dairy of the Dead (2007)
I’ve heard it said that all zombie movies are really a commentary on the world and humanity and all that. That’s very true of this movie; the direction taken being that of how the age of information corrupts us, changes our perspective on importance, etc., and that would be fine, except… this wasn’t very good. Specifically, the acting and script could have used work. A lot of work. The social commentary wasn’t wrong, but the delivery… well. Specifically, I wanted to punch the main character in the face, often, which made it frustrating to watch (well, that and the acting and script). But it wasn’t bad, it just… wasn’t very good.

Survivor of the Dead (2009)
Hah! I love tie-ins. Still, that was some cheesy graphics. Again I’m left feeling like these characters are too damn stupid to exist, but it’s the supporting cast this time, not the main guys, so it’s a little easier to watch. Still… I think Romero’s lost his touch at writing characters, or at least, believable characters. Interesting twist at the end, mind you, and I’d be interested in seeing where that’s taken… not that it’s too dissimilar from the twist in Land of the Dead, I guess. Anyway, it was better than Diary. Barely. I guess.

Night of the Living Dead (1990)
There’s a reason I was watching the remakes of Dawn and Day before, and not the originals. I’m… not much a fan of old movies. Acting, film quality, graphics (or lack thereof) … it just doesn’t ring true to me, I can’t suspend my disbelief, and I rarely enjoy it. Now, this is a remake, but it’s a remake from 1990, so despite being a remake it’s also an older film. Still, it had to be watched, it and the original are classics. And, though I couldn’t really get into the movie for various reasons (“bunch of yo-yos”? Seriously?), it did do a lot of things right. I’m sure, had I not have seen other better zombie movies first, I would have enjoyed this a lot more. That said, this probably has the best ending I’ve seen yet.

Land of the Dead (2005)
Okay, I’m writing this from memory, since I saw it years ago and, since I’m trying to get through so many zombie flicks, I don’t have time to re-watch it now. I recall really enjoying this one; interesting idea, great casting (well, at least, I’m a fan of Dennis Hopper and John Leguizamo), and a high-quality film. Don’t know what happened after this that led to Diary and Survival, but I’d rank this up there with the Dawn remake.

Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006)
First of all, this movie requires anaglyph glasses. Those ancient red-blue ones, too. This is incredibly unpleasant knowing the technology that’s available today. But also… when every review you read warns you not to watch something, maybe you should listen. This is a lesson I have a hard time learning. Fortunately this is only 75 minutes long, so if you really gotta watch ‘em all (like me) it won’t waste too much of your time. Why they let this use the “Night of the Living Dead” title, I’ll never know.

Dead & Breakfast (2004)
This surprised me. Though a low-budget and sometimes cheesy b-movie, I actually found this rather hilarious. I recognized a fair number of the actors, considering I had never heard of the film, and laughed more than I thought I would going in. It has flaws—lots of ‘em—but in the end I was satisfied. Were my expectations simply lowered severely after watching Night of the Living Dead 3D? Maybe. Still, I give this a tentative recommendation.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)
I watched this again this weekend and it’s still as fantastic as ever. This is probably a favorite movie of mine, period, and it’s a hilarious flick even if you don’t like traditional zombie movies. Pay attention to the details, as almost every little thing in the movie is an inside joke relating to other zombie films, or as self-referential jokes to an earlier point in the film.

Fido (2006)
This is also from memory. I saw this movie a few years back and though it’s definitely a different take on the “zombie movie”, I wasn’t a big fan. That said, I know people who quite liked it, so I suppose it depends on your taste. Feel free to give it a shot, but if you’re not looking for slightly awkward humor, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Crazies (2010)
A remake, but phenomenal. Not quite zombies, at least in the traditional sense, but sometimes changes are for the better. At least, in this case, that’s true. The Crazies is probably one of the best movies of this genre, and I especially like the end. I’ve heard that the original, which is from ‘73, isn’t as good.

28 Days Later (2002)
I’m again going from memory on this and the sequel, and memory is saying that though this film did a few things well and was pretty interesting, I didn’t love it quite as much as I wanted to. I’m going to keep this review short and say watch it, but you’re watching it because you want the set-up for the sequel.

28 Weeks Later (2007)
I say THAT because this film was amazing. Starts strong and continues on, 28 Weeks Later makes 28 Days Later worth watching. I don’t know if everyone would agree with this, though, and since both are going from memory I don’t know if the me of today would agree with the me of four years ago, but I’m certainly anticipating the rumored third part, 28 Months Later.

Zombieland (2009)
In short (and I do apologize that these reviews are becoming shorter and more to-the-point, but time is running out) watch this film; it’s a good watch, funny, and also teaches you many of the rules necessary for surviving the zombie apocalypse.

Dead Snow (2009)
Nazi zombies. Not much else needs to be said, except this movie isn’t originally in English, so if you dislike dubbed or subbed movies, that’ll be a problem.

There are others I have seen, like Dance of the Dead (2008) and Zombie Strippers (2008)—neither of which are good, in my opinion—but it’s getting late. Unfortunately, time to Halloween is running out, and as I’ve been tremendously busy I can’t get to every other zombie movie I wanted to. But below is an enumeration of the other movies I was going to check out (and probably will), so if you’re looking for more, sample those!

Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Dead Alive (a.k.a. Braindead, 1992), Dead and Buried (1981), Deadgirl (2008), Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Re-Animator (1985), Bride of Re-Animator (1990), Beyond Re-Animator (2003), Return of the Living Dead (1985), Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988), Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993), Return of the Living Dead 4 - Necropolis (2005), Return of the Living Dead 5 - Rave to the Grave (2005),The Crazies (1973), The Dead (1987), Undead (2003)

And there are more and more each day.

The Rest Of The Time

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:23:19 -0400

This blog has, up until now, been almost entirely about game development (after a fashion). Mostly I post when I launch something, or if I find a good relevant quote, or when I’ve been thinking a lot about an aspect of development. Since I haven’t been doing a lot of development lately, and even when I am developing I don’t have a whole lot to say on the matter, this leads to me not having a whole lot of posts. So—since this is my blog—I’d like to also talk about other things.

So I’m going to. But I’ll keep them separate. Posts that are about other things will have their titles prefixed with “On Break From Games”. Feel free to ignore them if you like, but as always, I’ll try to be interesting.

And after that, for eight years, Jason exclusively wrote blog posts about kittens.

Kongregate and Newground

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:17:03 -0400

So I was inspired by Mr. Damian Sommer, who recently had a fair bit of success posting his #GPCv9 game to both these portals.

I had intended to post several Flash games to Kongregate a while ago (this is why I’ve had a Kong account for a while now, if you’re one of the people who have seen me on this service). I didn’t for three specific reasons:

1. I got obsessed with Kong’s revshare agreements, deciding it wasn’t fair to post something without preloaders, API, and all the other fixings.

2. My way of using an external preloader didn’t really click; I needed a one-swf solution.

3. I am a giant lazy baby.

Well. Since I was so inspired, let’s revisit this. First; fuck the revshare shit. Ad revenue is piss, barring millions of views. And millions of views will likely lead to sponsorship, where the real Flash money is. So it’s entirely unnecessary for me to concern myself about this. This is solidified by submitting the game to two portals; non-exclusivity means I don’t even need to worry about it, really. Second; there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to figure out a one-swf solution. Sure, Flash is wizardry to me sometimes, but I’m a fucking wizard. So I figured it out. The three frame solution is pretty elegant and it all works great. So, problem solved. Though it took me a little while to get it working for Chased By Monsters!, I did it for Los Dos Escaladores in about 5 minutes. Beautiful.

The third problem needn’t be rectified for this all to work, so let’s ignore that.

And now it’s done! You can play these two games on both portals (well, Los Dos is still under review) and I encourage you to, since CbM! has a slight fix which makes it easier (and thus more fun) and I need y’all to rate them 5 stars please.

Chased By Monsters!: Kongregate | Newgrounds

Los Dos Escaladores: Kongregate | Newgrouds

Thanks a million, friends!

All Of The Stuff

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:46:31 -0400

I will now enumerate all of the stuff that is happening, has happened, and will happen, by my position right now and current foresight, to and about me. Not all of this is relevant to you depending on your viewpoint. Okay, here we go.

At TransGaming Studios, I helped develop Garage Inc.
Inspired by Gamercamp Lv 2, I started the Game Prototype Challenge.
I started using MonoGame and MonoTouch to make iOS games.
At TOJam, made Pirattitude with droqen. We still plan to finish this.
In June, Flew The Coop came out. Please buy it if you haven’t yet.
After a slump, I made starcatcher, which is free and due an update.
I then finished up and released Go!Speed!Go! which sold like no copies.
Waiting for an ITIN from the IRS so I can sell these games on XBLIG.
Got really into strength training and weightlifting via Fitocracy.
Began the previously mentioned, not-game, secret project (progress is slow).
I have between 2 and 5 “next-game” ideas either stewing or designed on paper.
It is now #GPCv9 but I’m not sure what to make.
I am studying AI, machine learning, and databases from Stanford and you can too!
There may be upcoming GPC events with recess.to, Hand Eye Society, and others.
GPC will turn 1 year old in November which will have a special event for #GPCv10.

There’s probably more than that, but nothing else really comes to mind. Anyway, if you pay really close attention, you probably know that I’m kinda on hiatus from indie game development and looking for work. So, though a lot of GPC related stuff will be coming up in the near future, not so much in terms of development from me (aside from, if I can think of something, GPC games I make and other jam stuff). Since I’m going to be busy with classes (hah! Never though I’d say that again) and other super important obligations that will be coming up, and since I’m not really working on anything, there’s not going to be a lot of stuff to write about. I’ve been toying with the idea of an “On Break From Games” series of blog posts, talking about other things I deem important and have wanted to talk about (fitness, dogs, …presumably there are other things in this list that I’m just blanking on) so I guess potentially keep your eyes open for that? And thanks for following along with me on my game development journey thus far!

"Gardeners" for #GPCv8

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:47:00 -0400

Hooray for me, running super late and holding everything else up. Without further ado, I give you my #GPCv8 game, Gardeners.

To play the game:

Draw a 10x10 grid.
Select two colors. When without two colors, use initials or some symbol in place of dots.
Choose who goes first.
On each turn, you may choose to plant a seed by drawing a dot in any empty square, or have an existing seed take root by drawing an X over it and spread seeds to 3 of the 4 bordering squares (no diagonals). If there aren’t 3 neighboring squares to expand into, only expand into as many as you can (2 or 1, depending).
If two seeds attempt to grow in the same square, neither flourishes, and they drain the soil of growth potential. You black out that square to represent that.
Enemy seeds cannot flourish where you have already laid down roots. X squares are safe. The above board shows a game three moves in. Can you follow the progress?
The game ends as soon as every board grid square is filled.

Scoring:

Initially I had the scoring be 1 point for every square you possess, simply. But when playing with pro game designer Jon Remedios last night, he suggested that un-rooted seed squares be worth 2 points, and the X’d, rooted squares be worth 1. As a result, it’s better to not lay roots, but you run the risk of losing the square because it isn’t safe. I find this idea very compelling, but I haven’t had a chance to really play around with it.

Modifications:

I see no reason why, with a third color (or in lieu of colors, a third initial/symbol, although warning, it’s much harder to distinguish when it’s all the same color) this game couldn’t be played with three players at a time, or even more. So I’m going to call this game a 2-5 player game, though I’ve never played with more than one other person at a time yet. Please, try it yourselves and let me know!

Future Plans:

This game would lend itself nicely to a touch interface, so I may yet develop an electronic version for iPad for playing with at recess.to as drawing the grid repeatedly kind of sucks. Alternatively, creating a tileset and a 10x10 grid board would allow for faster replay-ability. So I may create a couple sets of two-sided tiles (seeds and rooted plants, different colors) as well as a tileset for dead soil for the event.

In any case, I hope you enjoy Gardeners and please give me any feedback you come up with! And now, I go to make the archives for #GPCv8.