Jamie Antonisse

width="500" height="500" mayscript="true">

To view this content, you need to install Java from java.com

Here's my program... it's a little more archaic than Rossmassler's, with less (read: no) object-oriented fun, but it still seems to work. The window should be about 5 times its current size as a blog applet... I haven't been able to fix that yet. Anyone?

If you're interested in the code, it's right here

Here are RJ's answers to the 534 questions. Aren't they great?!?!

My answers to follow soon.

1. Create an online display space for yourself (this will be part of how you become famous as a result of your work in this class)
Here it is...

2. Articulate a collective participation strategy (i.e., how will you take advantage of being part of a participatory culture?)
I think that in order to harness a participatory culture the methods of content generation and submission must be simple to use and as accessible as possible, but that rewarding feedback is essential to maintaining participation. In an arena where continuous participation occurs or can occur, some methods of personal identity are valuable for ensuring frequent high-quality output from participants. Being able to establish a persona or reputation allows the participants to separate themselves from the collective and promotes competition, which improves the overall quality of the content being produced and increases personal satisfaction and investment. Keeping a project open to manipulation and keeping little to no restriction on submitted content gives the project the ability to adapt to the desires of the community and allows it greater ability to remain relevant.

2a. Decide on and articulate your own strategy for creating a productive tension between theory and practice in your work.
The method I like to use when balancing theory and practice is to start with a series of questions that I would like to answer, and begin reading, starting with Google searches and Wikipedia. While researching, I continue to write down any new questions that surface as well as any potential answers I read or come up with myself. After doing research, I select certain questions that I want to explore and then decide on ways to answer the questions or at least approach them. The next step is to spend time attempting to answer the questions through a series of potential designs, working through them to completion so that I have a series of potential prototypes that I could build. I then take the designs and write down any questions I have about them or questions that I believe they ask for themselves. I also think it is important here to consider any assumptions I may be making about the design and how it would be built in practice. Here I may decide to pursue further research if I feel the questions warrant this, or I may decide to work on actual production of the project. At any pause or direction-changing decision, re-evaluation of the questions on the list as well as my assumptions for the project is in order.

3. Define proficiency and an economy of value for the realm in which you intend to work (i.e., how do you want your work to be judged?)
I prefer that my work is judged in a personal light as well as in a broader academic or social context. Working in game design, I want to know what kind of personal effect the game has on the player and how they react to what the game presents to them, including their expectations, desires, etc. Overall, I want to know if what I produce is fun and memorable and whether it is something the player wants to play with again. Personally, I will feel I have succeeded if my games get people to want to play them when they're not playing them, if they encourage people to share my games with others, and if the player feels truly engaged with the experience.

4. Post a Personal Inventory in your display space that addresses the following:
3 things you already do well
- Generating rapid simple prototypes of designs
- Designing complete game systems (game loops, risk/reward structure, economies)
- Drawing off of game history and established game traditions and practices. Good background knowledge of the industry and the field

3 things you want to learn
- 3D modelling
- Advanced programming, both graphics and systems/networking
- music composition/generation

3 things you want to be great at
- creating games that appeal to wide varieties of audiences
- presenting game experiences that are memorable, powerful, and different/innovative
- understanding the player

5. Post a few links, names or readings that you are interested in exploring as part of the research for these projects.

- Carl Jung (wikipedia entry)
- Silent Hill (wikipedia entry)
- Psychonauts (wikipedia entry)
- Edgar Allen Poe (wikipedia entry)

These are not RJ's answers. I wrote these myself.

1. Create an online display space for yourself (this will be part of how you become famous as a result of your work in this class)
My display space shall be... this display space. http://interactive.usc.edu/members/jantonisse.

2. Articulate a collective participation strategy (i.e., how will you take advantage of being part of a participatory culture?)
In the exchange of ideas, I'd like to create an atmosphere of honesty while maintaining positive feedback and encouragement between our cohort. As a former teacher, I believe its important to create an environment in which opinions can be expressed and mutually respected without stifling discussion and collaboration.

2a. Decide on and articulate your own strategy for creating a productive tension between theory and practice in your work.
Theory should influence an idea at the concept level... it's extremely useful for the creation of original ideas. However, I don't believe theory should restrict the sorts of works we create as interactive designers (unless it's an ethical/moral concern).

3. Define proficiency and an economy of value for the realm in which you intend to work (i.e., how do you want your work to be judged?)
I am almost guaranteed to answer this question incorrectly... but for now, I would like my work to be judged in two ways:
First: experientially. As a gut reaction, what "works" for a user? Is the experience interesting? Engaging? Fun? I'd like brutal honesty in these reactions.
Second: Analytically. Looking past immediate visceral experience, I would like to engage in a dialogue about our/my intention, whether that intention was addressed from a user perspective, and how we can find a middle ground between what we/I wanted to express and what the user wanted to experience.

4. Post a Personal Inventory in your display space that addresses the following:
3 things you already do well
- High-level concept design
- Writing (narrative fiction / narrative scripts)
- music composition/sequencing (specifically in Garage Band)

3 things you want to learn
- I want to become a self-improving time management machine
- I'd like to become passably proficient in 3D modeling software
- I'd like to improve my execution of lower level/detail-oriented design
An just for good measure, I'd like to get better with...
- C++, on a deeper level.
- Photoshop
- Sound mixing

3 things you want to be great at
- Writing compelling interactive content
- understanding the translation of interactive digital concepts into algorithms
- Detail-oriented design (see above) that serves a larger concept

5. Post a few links, names or readings that you are interested in exploring as part of the research for these projects.

- Godel, Escher, Bach (logical structures, recursion)
- Mythology and theory of myth (Carl Jung (just like RJ!))
- I need to think about this more.

Like so many of my blog posts recently, this is only a test.

I always suspected, but I was never sure until now. Thank you, Boris! You've saved 532!

For celebration/good measure, here is one of Kirby's finer collaborations. A nickel to anyone who can actually watch the whole thing!

Here's a list of everything I had on my person on August 30th at 2 p.m., just in case you were wondering. Financial/identifying info has been left out to prevent strangers from anonymously depositing money into my accounts. I don't need your charity. [ed. note: yes I do]

The lost station Eliza floats through space, drifting ever closer to Earth, its erstwhile home. In the abandoned corridors nothing makes a sound any longer; the only survivors are the static, flickering dispassionately on cracked monitors, and, shut away within a solitary room, the cursor.

Presiding over the void, the cursor blinks, regular as a pendulum, green and black, at the end of a sentence. The cursor blinks, green and black; it waits, in infinite patience, as it has waited these last three months.

Welcome to the Cache: Press Enter.

I'll admit it... all I really want to do is keep the candle burning on the last two posts. A heated discussion between two Chrisses? Harumph? Dancing zombies? Brauer calling me a stoner? A PG-13 stream of consciousness rant about diet pepsi from my old pal Babonis, a rant so bewildering I'm actually NOT publishing it (though of course I'll send it to anyone who asks nicely)?

There's just too much good stuff in my corner of the world right now.

Yet school marches on. More comments on the blog-turned-discussion-board tomorrow... tonight, I need to sketch the rough outlines of a class and an atlas. Organization is not my strong suit, but here's my best shot:

I'm starting to get into the look and feel of The Cache. Aesthetics and design are not, traditionally, what I do... and on past projects, there have been better minds applied to the images, and I've just done what I can on the story. But seeing as my boys are a coast away, working on something damn important, I have to do the best I can.

I started with really broad Flickr searches and slowly whittled away at everything which was NOT what I wanted. Pinning down atmosphere in these terms was interesting, and I soon found myself in need of generalizations... so I started thinking of the work as a film and forcing my opinions into cinematographer speak (too saturated, darker tones, etc). I found that the Visual Expression class I took was actually useful in this process, despite the irreparable damage it did to my Saturdays.

Here's what I came up with for class: a ZIP file with 13 jpegs and a document explaining the pictures by category.

Download file

But not the last.

This is just a test to see if the aggregator slug for CTIN 548 is working.

If you don't know what this means, friends, I envy you!

This, my friends, is homework. The semester thus far has been a sharp left turn... first I had to write my own obituary (it took me a week), then I had to list all the things I regretted missing out on as a kid (D.C. hardcore, teenage sex, etc), and now this, an analysis of the things we carry. I am getting (more importantly, EARNING) an MFA in Wistfulness.

This is the follow-up to my "three things" assignment for Thesis Prep. It's been a little difficult because the notion of the follow up is synthesis, and I chose my three items precisely because they are so individually different from each other. I think they do have a collective meaning, but it's difficult to define as a feature of EACH object... it's more a meaning that grows out of the choice of the three together... I... well...

...huh...

...aha! Yahtzee!

This, too, is homework. It's the raw beginnings of a thesis statement, in three parts. It's just a start, but I'd love feedback.

I am exploring the construction of deterministic narrative environments

because I believe in the possibility of a medium for personal interactive experiences with unified content,

in order to provide storytellers and audiences with a new means of creative expression.

That's what I'm doing.

In a recent entry, I described the events that led me to re-evaluate the underlying gameplay mechanics of The Cache.

After this soul-searching, I went back to the drawing board, looking for new fundamental game paradigms that could bring out the strengths of the Cache. Strategy? No. Rhythm? No. Action? Clearly, no. Puzzle? That had always held the most immediate possibilities for this form. I dug a little deeper this time, however, and found another paradigm, a cousin (nephew? son?) of the puzzle that I thought held some rich possibilities.

I started looking at The Maze.

My friend, associate, and future IMD masters student (!) Sean Bouchard recently pointed out to me that "there is nothing bloggier than a post about why you haven't been blogging." So in lieu of an apology, here's a list of some stuff that has happened since last I wrote.