Stephen E. Dinehart's IMD Blog

After all this talk of Hypertext, I thought it would be good to publish some of my thoughts on the subject. I think that the idea that a user must “click around” to navigate a hypertext is foolish. The option is always there but is by no means a requirement. I believe hyperlinks are intended not a as a must for the viewer/user but as a way of escaping the linearity of traditional literary structures. So for instance in this passage from the Tao Te Ching:

”道可道、非常道。名可名、非常名無名天地之始有名萬物之母。故常無欲以觀其妙、常有欲以觀其徴。此兩者同出而異名。同謂之玄。玄之又玄、衆妙之門。
The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth”

One could further dive into the definitions of “Tao”, “heaven and earth”, etc. if curiosity brought them to it, by selecting the hyperlink that represents that word.
I think that requiring a user to navigate is just as much of a trap as confining them to the world of linearity. The idea is to provide both.

Although I’ve never spoken to Ted Nelson on the subject I believe his vision was one in which all text would be “Hyper” not just a few given words. So that once something like Xanadu was built it would be a deep hypertext that allowed the viewer/user to find out about anything about the text, video, etc. It would allow for the kind of reading/writing that represents our flow of consciousness much better then traditional linear forms of reading and writing. Satisfying the creative impulse seemed to be the aim of hypertext, so that a reading might be better represented by a stream of meandering thought.

I believe that Nelson intended hypertext as a method to navigate through hypermedia, so that all of our media becomes intertwined, and navigable.

Electronic Ink
LCD's and CRT's suck for reading but not electronic ink! Check out what this company is trying to do. If I could create for a medium like this, I would be one happy camper!
This just get's my mind fired up for the potential of it all!

In Ted Nelson’s “Computer Lib/Dream Machines” (1974) he describes types of hypertext:

1. Collateral Hypertext: compound annotations or parallel text

2. Stretchtext: changes continuously

3. “fresh” or “Specific” Hypertext: consists of materials written solely for an expressed purpose.

4. Grand Hypertext: consists of “everything” written about a subject, or vaguely relevant to it, tied together, in which you may read in all directions you wish to pursue.

5. The dream: Everything as hypermedia/hypertext (crosslinking and tracking to whatever you want to read or experience)

Nelson saw it as an on going project that would someday unify all of humanity’s knowledge into one place, getting back to our roots, allowing egalitarian access to, knowledge, our shared heritage. Just as Vannevar Bush’s Memex was intended.

While this was written prior to the dawn of hypermedia authoring tools, I think Nelson’s thoughts on the subject are extremely relevant.

Again let me state that I don’t believe he, Nelson, intended hypertext as a requirement for navigation, but as an option. This I think is most important, the integral approach, combining the strengths of linear narrative and interactive narrative. Abandoning one or the other would be of no benefit. Allowing the user to take the ride and make decisions when they are compelled to would make for a more engaging experience. In this way stories will have a life of their own, that can be altered or acted on by the viewer/user. The experience then becomes co-created by the author and the viewer/user. In this way the author is saying “Welcome to my world, sit back, enjoy, but when compelled feel free to investigate."

A few weeks back I produced a music video for my song Shit Mazes, which I recorded while living in Detroit, Mi. I have been producing/writing my own music for a number of years since I was trained in Studio Recording Techniques and Audio/MIDI sequencing at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Below you will find two links, the first is to the video and the second to my site where you can listen to/download some of my tracks.

the music video

Shit Mazes Flash file(2.5 Mb)

Shit Mazes Quicktime(30.6Mb)

my website w/info and free music
iami.tv

I just published the alpha version of my dream project on www.erinvision.tv

I've updated www.erinvision.tv with a new version of my dream project.

The GDC left me whirling with game development fever, as is evident in this peice. Thanks to everyone who made the feeling I'm having now possible. I have seen play and gaming in a whole new light, and I'm ready to make my contribution!

I know now my purpose here is to seek a blending between film and interactive entertainment, trying to push the boundraies of embedded and emergent narrative within hypermedia. My next project will be a build out of my film "Angry", it will now be a game. I will seek to use this project as a method to further my exploration into blurring the boundraies of digital media and cinema.

I sure had quite a week. I don’t even know where to begin. Beyond meeting EA Execs and hanging out with Warren Spectre, I got to know Henry Jenkins! I’m pumped. Once again, just like the GDC, MITs Education Arcade and E3 have changed me, and put me on my path! I have a feeling this is going to be quite a summer. Between Marsha Kinders class, working at the Labyrinth Project, and developing a game with Jenova I should have my hands full. Thanks to all who made this possible.

Well the summer has not been much of a vacation, between school and work I find myself with little time, but I have still been managing to get some stuff done on the side.

SC Games:
I've been working on a student organization called SCgames. We will be publishing a quarterly Zine and producing student developed games, all will be invited! Check out www.scgames.org for more info.

Og the Giant:
Jenova and I have been slowly working on a game called "Og" about a time when giants ruled the earth. I'm going to keep my lips sealed on it for now but I can say that planning a game (i.e. creating a good design doc) is way more difficult than just developing one!

Below are some recent dev pics-

Labyrinth Project: Russian Distance Learning

I've been taking the summer course taught by Marsha Kinder and I have to say it's been blowing my mind. The readings on Manovich, Narratology, Janet Murray, Todorov, and more, all have spun into this great web of understanding for what this strange new media is. I was so terribly excited to see Manovich totally discredit the term "Interactive" it was such a relief! But before he did that he stated simply "All classical, and even moden, art is "interactive"..." ahhhhhhh... like music sweet music!

Here are some sketches I did yesterday. It feels so good to put ink to paper. I hope you like 'em!

This one is about a month old but I thought I'd upload it all the same.

I've been brewing up this idea for a little while. It consists of a wearable media device covered in mics and cameras called "The Experience Recorder", a personal area network of sorts, it uses a bluetooth device to control the cameras. The captured media is then stored for later editing and mixed live on a web page, which can be viewed 24/7. I would wear this everywhere for a unspecified period of time and allow total intrusion into my life by anyone that wanted to watch. Anyone that encounters me as I drift though reality can avoid having their image captured by reading the warning printed across the breast of the Experience Recorder jacket "This is being recorded." and simply choosing to stay out of my way. It's my reality after all why can't I record it? It's a sort of multimedia memory of past experience.

I think this could create some very interesting discourse and work.

I've been multitracking myself for years using programs like ProTools (my website w/info and free music iami.tv). The artifacts of my audio creation are the final mix-downs. I realized a year or two that I need a live stage element. Having a bunch of tracks is great but I couldn't figure out how to perform them. I didn't want to be another hip-hoper with a DAT just rhyming on top of some 48k sound I created in my bedroom studio. The dilemma is having multiple tracks of myself; only one can actually be performed live. Ahhh the constraints of the physical being!

Last semester I purchased a G4 PowerBook and a M-Audio Ozone (a small midi/audio controller) finally I could perform my material live, mixing on the fly and spiting lyrics over it. I have preformed live with the system a few times, but it's still allows for just one vocal track. I was hit with this idea the other day, I could create a series of Agents that are aspects of myself and allow the emergence of that system to be my live mix.

At the center is my actual self, mixing and controlling the system, to either side of me there is A/V representations of myself as a screen/speaker combo. Together with my virtual selves I could conduct and compose a symphony of audio and visual sensory.

These are from my sketch book, I drew or should I say painted them over the course of the weekend with a Japanese calligraphy pen. I've aimed many years at coming to the style, which is best embodied by the larger sketch. I'm very excited, I only hope I can continue in the spirit of these sketches. Hope you all enjoy them.

I believe that stories can be created from the chaos of experience. All my life I have sought to record my experience of reality as it drifts by. As a child I frantically learned to use a sketchbook and camera whenever possible, to take things down before they disappeared. With the use of mobile data gleaning devices you can make a multimedia record of your experience. This experiential diary could be used for many things; one of primary interest to me is remixing.

I believe that through remixing these fragmented files, from a life-log database, you can create narrative where it was not read previously. That is, you can use life to create emergent narratives, stories that will come forth from the natural polyrhythm of life’s chaos. I want to experiment with life-log remixing systems in three ways to create montage: linear, live (performance based), and interactive non-linear.

Below is a link to a new installment in my semi-factual urban narrative series entitled “Afternoon Train”. I pushed some social boundaries for this one. After engaging in data gleaning performances more regularly I have become used to pushing the strange social boundaries of interaction that are required to gather such data. I find that I tend to encounter one of three responses, 1) my big white phone and I are ignored, 2) laughter, 3) dirty looks. People are so passive and rigid they hardly seem to notice my mobile and me spinning around them grabbing an array of files. The only ones who I’ve really seemed to push over the edge so far are my roommates, they can’t stand that I’m always recording things. I’m really interested in seeing what kind of new sociological issues will be created out of the use of mobile devices, like the 3650.

Download file

I’ve been flying around town ripping data files, the increased sense of agency over life the activity of experiential data gathering has provided leaves me feeling, well, alive. I’m flying to Chicago in a few hours and will be sure to continue the gleaning on my journey. Now that I am actively building as LifeLog Datatbase, I wish I had begun doing so from moment one, being able to navigate through fragmented data gleaned from life experience is amazing, it puts so much into perspective. I have created a new Semi-factual LifeLog Database remix called “Flour” the link is available below. Please let me know what you think good or bad (critique is good!)

Download file

After some hard working networking over the past year, I began my internship at WB Interactive Entertainment this week. It has been a blast. I’ve already learned so much, and am working on 5 titles due out first and second quarter of next year. I had a conversation with Jason Hall today, creator of Monolith, and head of the WBIE division, and I have to say I was deeply inspired. I love this job. If I were getting paid it would be a dream job. I can’t talk about most of what I do thanks to those handy Nondisclosure Agreements I signed, but I’m very excited. I feel like for the first time I get to see production of new media from a top down perspective. Frankly it gives me goose bumps!

I also am lucky enough to offer up an additional internship to the department. I was asked if I could find someone with and interest in MMORPGs to work on the Matrix Online series. If anyone is interested in the opportunity let me know!

I’ve been in the habit recently of taking my time to do some post-post-post (is that enough?) automatist surrealism on the asphalt outside my apartment. I find it so very relaxing and expressive. I love the temporary nature of it as well. Featured above is my nephew Danny Beeman drawing blue flames on a fire truck we created together last time I was home.

Here is the track I created for the 12 screen DIM presentation. It is in a Quicktime format. Please let me know what you think, 2nd years I’m looking at you!

Mind you if your audio monitors do not have much dynamic range, due to the nature of this composition you will not hear the complete dynamic range of the audio file, i.e. high and low freqs.
Therein I wouild ask you pass judgement after a listen on a good audio system!

Download DIM_presentation_audio file

***UPDATE***
I was up late remixing the composition here is a link to the file
Download DIM_presentation_audio2 file

I miss my dog.

I created the simplest example of interactivity I could think of. As we discussed in class three assumed states of interaction are 1) input 2) computation 3) output, this will usually continue in some sort of chaotic loop we call conversation. The core then to me is the interaction of intelligent agents, be they people or program. Programs can’t really match to what A.I. fanatics might imagine, while jumping forward in leaps and bounds, it still remains a long day off from nearing the complexity of the human mind. Computation on a human level is the so interesting and unpredictable. So I would create a system to amplify the cold nature of computer computation when compared to our own perceptual computation abilities (or disabilities).

Three players are given a set of six numbers. The players create an arbitrary turn order, and, beginning with player 1, list their first number, next round second, etc. When at any time they hear another player state a digit contained in their set, the must call aloud the number it is contained in, this action continues outside the list in order by the players of their numbers.

We tried this piece in class as well, while the level of aptitude of the players was low, I think the kind of organic chorus of numbers I wanted did come through if only for a moment. I imagine with time the players would, as with any system, get more skilled and be able to play within the system with greater aptitude.

Saturday, August 14, 2004, Madision, WI
Best of the Midwest Beer Festival

Pulletry is an interactive video poetry performance. The primary control being a series of strings with cut-up poetry attached to the end. The user is prompted to pull the strings and invoke the words written on the tag as they pull. An audio/video expression of the words will then play on the screen.

The user has the ability to remix and readapt the words, aural and visual to create their own stories, impressions. The end is open.

I did a basic version of this project using an M-Audio Ozone MIDI controller, my PowerBook G4, and Arkaos Carbon 2.2, and the projectors in the ZML. I have to say I was pleased with the results. Kellee read aloud my poetry as she remixed it, her remix and intonation lent to a new expression I could not create on my own. My favorite part was encouraging performance, and creating a system for it that you could get people to use. It breaks them out of their voyeuristic shells to become engaged with a sense of agency in the moment.

It takes me 1:30 to 2:00 hours each way to WB from my place. I take the Metro 204 Bus up Vermont to Wilshire, jump the redline to Hollywood/Vine, then catch the 163 Bus. Public transport is so diverse in color and creed I adore it and the people I encounter. Cool thing is it takes me just about right to the door of the WB Interactive Entertainment Offices. Sometimes while sitting at my desk I wonder how I got there, what fortune shined upon me?

WBIE is a great place, I’m lucky to be interning there. Everyday I’m there I absorb more information and everyone seems ready to share their knowledge. I learned a great deal today reviewing a first playable of an x-box title I’m working on. I had to review the A.I. systems, and provide feedback to the developer for changes to be implemented prior to an Alpha build. It is so compelling to apply the game theory, I learned in Tracy’s class last spring, to games in production.

I had a very exciting discussion this afternoon with the producer of Matrix games. I was interested to hear about his thoughts about the future of the game/cinema convergence. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, WBIE feeds my curiosity. I’m going to make the focus of my thesis, and my intern class paper, this game/cinema convergence. I want to create a single pipeline and production team for the development of a world and story that exist in both game and cinema. I will execute a playable/viewable POC this year with a smaller team aiming for a may deadline. In my final year I will create a more grand effort in the production of a short film/game as my thesis project.

Pulletry is a interactive visualwordsound (VWS) expression, that incorporates user performance and fragmented poetic remxing. An installation intended for gallery spaces, Pulletry is an immersive emergent poetic experience system. It provides the invested interacter with limited agency through selection and improvised performance.

It consists of cut of poetry hanging from stings in front of a concave screen with stereo speakers mounted on either side. The interacter is prompted to step up and begin to pull the stings, reading the poetry aloud as they go. As they pull both the concave screen, and a ceiling mounted projector aimed at the user, will light up with a audio/visual time-based expression. As the user selects and pulls the strings, releasing the VWS elements, the user remixes, remediates a VWS language of my own creation. They will lend new meaning to my expression system, creating their own VWS expressive performance.

For me it is a method of allowing my VWS expression to become a tool or toy, be it as it may, for the interacter to express themselves with fragments of my own VWS poem. Use of the system inherently demands performance, which to me is a great method of trying to get people to break out their shells, their self-imposed limited real world agency, and realize the infinite possibilities real-world applied agency.

LOL

Sitting here pirating wi-fi from a neighbor’s unsecured network, listening to the unsettled sounds of a nighttime complex, I wonder what this day has brought me.

This blog, this fucking blog, damn things' become my journal. Its few visitors filled with anonymous eyes, what do tell do they think? Where is the community I ask? Where are the artists? This thing is just as lost in the woods as all my previous sketchbooks.

Oh, a side note, I received a credit today, a special thanks really, for my work @ WBIE on an Xbox title to be released early in the first quarter of two thousand five. Blessed be the Game makers.

This Monday night I will be doing my best to play percussion for my singer, songwriter, guitar player friend, Geoff Geis. http://www.geoffgeis.com/
The show is free and is taking place in the Ground Zero Coffee house, located on USC campus behind Doheny library, nestled between the dorms. All are welcome.

Come one come all, see the interactive oddities and freaks, experience the extremes of interaction, at my interactive circus.
I just thought this up the last night. Wouldn’t it be great! Have a circus styled venue filled with interactive systems, showing simple and crude methods of mechanical interaction.

My ideal interactive experience?

1. Direct, clear, heart-filled communication with my fellow beings.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful! I’ve been conducting these experiments, if you will, every morning I make my best effort to say hello, good morning and the occasional whaz up, to everyone I encounter. Sad to say the responses I get are poor at best, a grumble, brief eye contact followed by a low hanging head, a crooked what-the-fuck (i.e. who the fuck are you) expression, and believe it or not about 15% of my unknowing testers actually respond with some kind surprised but nonetheless corrigible greeting.

Hmmmm… could I figure out some kind of system to provoke honest responses from these people? Could I change the world, or at least my own bubble, to be more genuine, polite and kind? What kind of interactive system would necessitate honesty?

People are so cold, and lost in thought, they could use some Zen training.

2. An immersive fantasy battle

When I was in the fourth grade I used to play an imaginary game that my friends and I dreamed up which blended D&D with Elf Quest, a series of comics by Richard and Wendi Penny. We would assume roles and them act them out.

On one occasion I remember so vividly running into battle against an army of troll, orc, and half-breeds. As I came up over the hill at the Highcrest Community center, I remember seeing the hordes of enemies rushing at my, now elven, friends and I. It was the ultimate experience of immersive imagination. If I could create an immersive game system that gave me those feelings again, I would be very happy.

3. Real world agency catalyst

If I could provide others and myself with a clear system for agency in the real world, it would be ideal. People for the most part are so bored, dead, walking cellular robots, mechanisms of their own routine, living life without joy. I do find myself breaking out of that existence from time to time, ever increasingly more so, to be in this amazing place, in my world and in my heart, a place of true living I can only describe as Zen.

It’s not the peace that my mediation studies brought me too, almost quite the opposite. It’s this explosion of self, allowing your being, your spirit, to be free; to garb hold of the god given agency provided to us in this world through these miraculous human bodies. I get to a point where I just say the hell with it, this place is so boring, why restrain myself? People can’t handle it, they get scared, they are so used to the socially placid self, projected by a good majority of society, that they don’t know what to do with honest expression. I want to change that.

How can I create a system that wakes people up to the rich variety of life that an attitude of exercised agency can provide?

Herb lit me up with his post on his lack of knowledge of GBA love. So I thought this a great opp to geek out. I picked up one of these little wonders last winter for Tracey Fullerton’s' class, Digital Game Studies Seminar. I reviewed everything from Onimusha Tactics to Max Payne, and I have to say this hand-held console rocks the pants off of some of the bleeding-edge platforms. First off it's portable, and not I-can-put-on-an-external-frame-BP-and-lug-it-to-a-friends-place portable, you can play it anytime anywhere and for up to 18 hours on one charge.

Nintendo really did it, I was never down with previous versions of the GB, but this one is a beaut. Is it the awesome 8-16 bit game quality, those hot MIDI tracks, or the 2.9-inch reflective TFT color LCD (which works even in SoCal daylight!)? I couldn’t tell you, but one thing’s for sure, I love this mobile media device!

P.S. Nintendo, how can you deny them? Remain loyal to your roots.

http://www.startmayhem.com/
http://www.gameboy-advance-sp.com/gameboy_advance_sp_tech_specs.htm

I had the craziest day yesterday. In my usual fashion I took the 203 to the Metro Red line at Wilshire and Vermont, then transferred to the 163 bus at Hollywood and Vine. Before I knew it I was @ WBIE doing a final Alpha stage analysis of the Xbox version of the game I’m working on. I then ran over to the set of the film, on which the game is based, and hung out there for an hour on my lunch, talking to everyone from the hand doubles to the editors. The property has a dark graphic novel style, so both the game and the film are FX rich. On that note it felt so good to be on that kind of a professional set, the kind that has been of magic to me since I was a child. Seeing the characters I only knew from the GDD and the game itself, walking in flesh and blood was so, bizarre. Later in the afternoon I was able to sit in on an awesome meeting. The creator of a story universe came in and pitched his IP (Intellectual Property). He was good, real good, both in word and practice. I was so happy to be able to see how one would build up a private IP and pitch it to a potential publisher. Then I got this call from a Rabbi. He is so nice, but I was raised Roman Catholic and I’ve never even hung out with a priest…

“I’m sorry I called you so late last night, I felt so bad you were sleeping.” He uttered in his English accent.
“No really that’s cool.”
“I felt so bad you know.”
“It’s alright.”
“I feel so bad; since we meet we haven’t had any time to talk…” insert awkward silence…”So you’re coming to supper tonight.”
“I can’t really.”
“Friday then, I’ll arrange for someone to pick you up.”
I hesitated at first ”O.k.”
“Wonderful dinner on Friday, that’s great.” He excitedly spouted.

I later received a call for a young woman, telling me that the Rabbi told her to pick me up. I asked her where exactly we where going for dinner.
“Another Rabbi’s house, I think.”
Really...so Friday night I’m heading to dinner with two Rabbis’.
Should be quite the experience, I'll try to Lifelog it.

It goes on…I then reversed the path I earlier traversed and landed myself @ the ZML for the seminar. I was glad to see some solid presentations for what will make to be the first thesis works to define our division. I then up and ran off too Ground Zero on campus for the songwriters club showcase. On 5 songs, I played percussion it was a blissful time.

The day left me spinning.

My best class doodle in years, it’s unfinished but I really wanted to post it.

Crazy time with some fellow DIMS @ Red Alert last night. It was a pleasantly outside of the box experience, with a large pink Videoape VJ.

LEVER-ACTUATED REED SWITCH

I am so very ready to execute a finished piece, concepts are awesome but I need product beyond the intellectual. I have my head wrapped up on this project… I’m kind of torn on content. There are two routes I would like to explore, interactive life log montage remixing and a visual-word-sound remix of fragmented poetry, expressed in projected A/V and written text. The format will be the same for both of them. I will create a series of twelve switches that can be triggered with a hanging elastic string, they will be housed in metal stand, and act as a controller for a Max program that is capable of triggering and remixing the A/V clips dynamically.

On Friday afternoon Jenova and I got a chance to meet with Mark Skaggs, VP and Exec Producer on The Battle for Middle Earth, and head of RTS games, over at EALA. He showed us around and answered all sorts of questions. It was an awesome experience. Just being there to witness the process, for only a glimpse, was an educational experience. We were lucky enough to give him a high-level game concept doc I had drafted. He seemed excited and assured us the middle-ware tools shipping with Middle Earth would serve well for our mod needs.

Smiles touched my heart
Sweet sister and kin
Drifted by for a while

Uncle I love you
A child’s words so pure
Unannounced thorn pricked
Walls of sleeping love
Painful at my side
Dormant bear awakened and crushed

Come to me child
I will love you as my kin
How I forgot the longing
Family time again

Long been distanced
Miles of thought and earth put away by time

Forgotten

Alone again I remember and I weep
Crystallized self made again to see
The tenderness of love untainted

Finished, completed, submitted, fewwww!

“There are certain things that men must do to be men, your computer will take that away.”

-Captain Kirk

On proposal that he lets a machine called the M-5 run the starship Enterprise in a war game against a fleet of starships. Later the M-5 determines Spock and Kirk are unnecessary personnel, and begins to attack the other federation ships. Ultimately Kirk convinces the M-5 to punish itself for the killings by taking its own life.

Scott asked me some questions that got me thinking. How much stuff do I have in my LifeLog Database?

Every month since July 2004 I’ve averaged 500 (200-1000) files, 10% Sound 20% Video and 70% stills, that’s about 6000 per year, or 16 per day. It is actually pretty low considering what it could be but exciting nonetheless.

I had an epiphany yesterday, my experiments have been working; Towards the end of last month I began to toy with the idea of using Bruce Blocks visual design concepts to create a continuous visual design operative during my Lifelog gleaning experiences. I have done so now for about a month and the footage works wonderfully to create affinity and contrast, lending itself to a perceptual narrative. I plan on continuing the practice for some time to come, after a few years it should get interesting!

I played Fable hard over Thanksgiving. On Thursday night I had a strange experience, after playing for about 14 hours I tried to sleep. In my dream state I was able to interface with my dream with a Fable like interface, I was checking my map, going on missions, communicating with non-dreamer characters, it was crazy. Upon awaking it made me think of what Mark Bolas said about his experiments in virtual space navigation, in that it allowed him the ability to navigate his dream space in the same way he navigated virtual space, or fake space, be it as it may.

I had a similar experience once long ago when I was up late for about a week doing some modeling and rendering in 3DS-Max, I found my dream state to be a space just like any traditional 3d program with a planar floor floating in an infinite space. I was able to sculpt any form I wanted in that space.

I find this highly compelling. I would love to conduct some research into interfacing with altered states of consciousness. Could I create a training system for agency during lucid dream or transcendental states? What could it do? Cool stuff.

Wow, what a blast. I believe fun was had by all. I now have a urge to cut and paste everything outside the digital domain. It's so fun just allow your subconcious to be free to create without the regulation of the ego. Thanks all.

When did I first learn to imagine? Was it my father reading me Alexander Lloyds The Black Cauldron series? Or was it sneaking under the desk in the study so I could listen to my brother and his best friend play Dungeons and Dragons?

Regardless, my mind has always painted a rich canvas of non-material places, peoples and things; a world of possibilities and magic. I remember running over a hill, not to far from my middle school and seeing a field ridden with trolls ready for battle. No worries, at the time I was an Elf, so it wasn’t really an issue! . I have to say TSR “The Game Wizards” started me off, soon enough I was creating my own RPGs, the first of which was “New Nations” a post-apocalyptic fantasy world of biological mutants and cyborgs.

The intricate detail, the creators of my favorite fantasy worlds, embedded in their works always fascinated me. What could I do if I could communicate the worlds I see in my own head? Could I design convincing interactive escapist Sci-Fi fantasy worlds? This was a mission I set out on long ago. These three pieces of my past hold a trail left behind me on that path to my dream; a dream that I can taste more with each passing week. I am closer now than ever to achieving my goals. Now the question seems to be: How do I use this last year @ CNTV to push me even closer to, as my father would put it, living the dream?

During my time @ EALA with the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) Team, formerly Westwood Studios, I have been learning a great deal about the genre. I was charged the other day with the task of creating a database of RTS history. I was stunned in my research to find that the first RTS was in fact Dune II, a game I was an avid player off, and was the first product produced by Westwodd Studios. It was released on the Sega Genisis, Sega MegaDrive, and PC. It launched Westwood Studios into infamy.

It’s so strange that the first RTS was actually a successful console release. These days so many people claim RTS can’t be done on the console, but just looking to the past one can realize that the console was one of the places the RTS genre started.

Last night, on our ride home from EA, we spoke of RTS in depth. Jenova claimed that Dune II, and earlier RTS games, fail to satisfy today’s players. The reason, he stated, was that the control schemas we are so familiar with today, lassoing etc., are not available in early RTS games. While I understand his point, I thought I’d test it out.

I downloaded the DUNE II ROM, and I have to say I still love this game! Sure I’m a sucker for 16-bit graphics and sound, but the simply interface still provides a sense of command-like agency over the evolving Arrakis system. I would highly recommend, for anyone who is interested in the genre, to play this game…again…and it can provide some very interesting insight into the founding of a genre.

GameStop's RTS 101

Game Research's Guide to Strategy Games

The best to you and yours.

This morning seemed like any other, I woke, but this time outside the faces were heavier than usual. Then I thought, I must arm myself with the blind love taught to me by my parents, and give it out. So I did, designed, printed, cut and passed out little valentines, with a self-portrait and a simple statement “Happy Valentines Day”.

Seemed simple enough, make people feel good by genuinely engaging them with affection. I gave it to young, old, men and women, and it was the most direct interaction I have had with my fellow human beings in a long time. It was so pleasant to approach some familiar, some strangers, and simply smile, say happy Valentines Day, and offer a token of my love to them.

The responses we so great, most smiled and laughed, one girl was scared, but 9/10 people seemed pleasantly surprised.

It was a simple technique in ego-bubble bursting and it worked beautifully. At first my participants would be curious, scared, surprised, but once they realized the nature of my gesture all the layers would come off, out of their bubbles they would burst; into the present their consciousness would come.

Blessed Be.

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If anyone is interested in keeping up with me @ the GDC, the IGDA has set me up with a GDC Scholar blog. Check it out to see what's happening on my San Fran adventure!
www.fuzzybinary.com/ScholarBlog/

"Today we are on the verge of a new era; the HD era; and games have a unique opportunity to be the center peice of that era."

The Keynote by J Allard yesterday was a slick and convincing sales pitch, for XNA and the Xbox 2. While his points were strong, they were very rehearsed; performative. Nonetheless he had some great things to say about gaming.

His vision, Microsofts vision for next gen game dev can be summarized as follows:

1. Clear Concepts
2. More Accessibility
3. Simple to understand
4. Deeper interaction
5. Play and experiementation
6. Players Agenda
7. Morphable Gameplay (Sounds like Jenova Chens' Thesis)

I have to admit I was also very excited to recieve a 23" HDTV, and a year subscription to x-box live for attending the event; thweeeeet.

"The triggering of an intentioanl emotional response from a player is the true test of our work."

The GDC keynote by Satoru Iwata was another high point of the conference. The nature of the Nintendo presentation, especially when compared with Microsofts' yesterday, was really from the heart, genuine, and full of future vision.

He began with a list similarities and differences between the game industry Mr. Satoru started in and the industry today.

similarities
1. Ideas have not changed
2. Players have not changed
3. Software sells hardware
4. The value of IP

differences
1. Everything's bigger (tea
2. The industry is willing to take less risk
3. Player Definition

He went on to talk about how Nintendo was looking to change the face of interactive entertainment. He described interactive entertainment as a universe, video's games are merely a planet within the universe; Nintendo is now actively seeking new planets. Illustrated wonderfully by the new products he demoed on the DS. The abstract ludic music maker "Elektroplankten" is a marvoulous visual audio creation program which really pushes what we think of as "gaming". As Mr. Iwata stated "this game was designed to provide the user with harmony."

Nintendo's Software Standards
The 4 I's:
1. Innovative
2. Intuitive
3. Inviting
4. Interface

View more of my adventure as a GDC scholar @ www.fuzzybinary.com/ScholarBlog

Great panel. Coolest idea...a vision of games as procedural narratives created by feature oriented game dev cells.

This session was by far the best of show; mind blowing infact. Will took us to a place unforseen, a new reality, a new gaming vision, our future.

One word; Procedural.