Michael Steffen

New Interest in Macintosh

First off, I've decided that I want to focus on interactive narratives for my eventual thesis. These narratives may very well take the form of a computer game, but I've decided to stop worrying about whether my interests fit in with those of the game industry. Anyway, I was trying to think what kinds of people would most likely want to play a Myst-like interactive narrative, and it hit me: Mac users! When analysts have tried to determine the reasons behind the success of the Myst series, an oft-overlooked reason may very well be that it was available for Mac. The number of games available for Mac has always been small, but it goes further than that. Creative, artistic people, as well as average Joes have Macs. Hardcore gamers, the type that would most likely scoff at an interactive narrative, are almost solely Windows PC users.

Of course that's not to say I'm going to abandon Windows. No way!!! Windows rocks! But perhaps it's time I stop knocking Macs and explore a potentially untapped market...*

* It's funny, because the first computer we ever had in our house was a Mac 128K, one of those little self-contained beige boxes. We had a Mac in our house up until 1995, when we switched to Windows--a good decision, considering that Macintosh was floundering at the time. But anyway, my attitude toward Macs is kind of like a man who was born in the country, moved to the big city, then hates the country pastures where he grew up.

Caught Up in the Mechanics

I kind of feeling like I'm "caught up in the mechanics" of creating art, whereas I'd like to be focusing on the emotions, themes, and story ideas that I wish to convey. There's a potential danger of getting "caught up" when working in any medium, but I think Interactive Media presents a particular problem. How does one focus on developing new forms of content, when there seems to be a constant drive to come up with new technology. I really enjoyed the survey & history of interactive media that Scott presented in Seminar last semester, but even there I can't help but think that the focus was on technology, with the media serving more as a demo program.

I think our classes this semester hold a lot of promise for delving deeper into content creation, particularly Interactive Writing and Digital Game Seminar. More immediately, I am referring to the side projects that I continually feel compelled to work on. One is coding a game engine, the other is doing a 3D model of the great hall of a castle. While I do derive some enjoyment out of these, I think my predicament is that there's no real content-related goal to these projects. I think maybe I'm still thinking too much like a programmer, who needs to write their own code to demonstrate his abilities, but there you go--I too am stuck in the tech side. If I actually want to make a story-rich game, I'm not sure where to even begin.

Comments? Suggestions?

Myst, or Merely my Impression of it?

I was just listening to some old Moby tracks (before he went more toward Pop) and it got me thinking about Myst. Despite all the games I've played, this series is still my favorite. But I started wondering: is it really Myst itself that I loved so much, or was it the impression I took away from it and the imagination that accompanies that? Sort of like how we were probably all imagining what the Colossal Cave (in CTCS 564) looked like, even though it was a text-based adventure.
An interesting thing is that people's impressions of the Myst series vary so greatly. Some love it, some respect it but never really got into it, and some hate it. I think if the Myst series worked for everyone on the same level it worked for me, then everyone would love it. But this great variance of response to Myst makes me think that it is essential to define what exactly I loved about the series, and then expand that to the question of "what is the best way to capture the spirit of Myst (as I saw it) and bring that to a wider audience?"
I suppose what I liked best about the series was exploring fully-realized (more or less) worlds. I like doing this in real life as well--I used to take walks when at UCSD and pick a new building to explore--visit all the floors, see what I can get access to, what's restricted. The puzzles in Myst were, as Leonard mentioned in CTCS 564, mostly pointless--they were visually interesting and stimulated imagination, but otherwise there was no good reason why they were there. In the sequel Riven on the other hand, each puzzle was basically just a combination of elements in that world that each had a story reason for being there. I am very interested in the idea of experiencing a story by observing the current state of elements in a world. Also of intrigue to me in the Myst series were the superb graphics and human characters. Definitely want to keep that bar high in anything I make.
So what about the rest of you? Ever played Myst or Riven? What worked for you? What didn't?

New Semester, New Ideas

Well I enjoyed the break, but it's great to be back! Several of us have already posted a sort of outlook on this new semester, so I thought I'd do the same. So here are some areas of focus for me this semester:

1) Continue working on my Great Hall project (codenamed Tantallon) on the side. This includes both coding and 3D art in Maya. Above is my latest render, done in Maya. Basically, I did a similar project as my creative sample for getting in here, but I'm looking to give it a complete overhaul, both artistically and code-wise (though on that note, I keep going back on whether I really want to code my own game engine or use an existing one. But it's sort of a moot point at the moment because I do not currently have an idea for an actual game in mind).

2) Learn all I can about the game industry. This is one possible career path, though I always find myself getting scared when I encounter people who actually work in this industry--they seem too focused on technology and gameplay, and not enough on narrative and cinematic imagery. I guess the thing is, I like the idea of making a game, but I'm scared of the whole game industry apparatus. To gain a better understanding of this industry, I'm currently reading Get in the Game by Mark Mencher.

3) Keep my feet wet in filmmaking. Even though our classes this semester are less cinema-based, I'm still very eager to learn all I can about traditional filmmaking. For starters, I finally opened the USC Production Handbook, because I want to learn all the rules and restrictions that pertain to making a film here at USC. I foresee my thesis as being very production-driven (i.e. even though it'll be interactive, it'll have a lot of live action integrated into it), so I want to learn where the red tape is for IM students and how to cut past it!
There's also a part of me that really wants to try my hand at making a feature-length traditional film. I may end up volunteering as a production assistant or something, in order to get some experience with this.
Another filmic idea I'd like to pursue is getting together a group of people to make short films "on the fly." While I ultimately believe that a well planned film works best in the end, it can also be creatively stifling to have to get something perfectly written, gather a crew, hire actors, etc. I'd like to take a cue from my past and do some films that a small group of us write, act in, and edit all within a few days time. I think this sort of organic mode of filmmaking would be a nice balance to the structured approach taught in our classes.

So, that's my story. Hopefully this semester will go well for us all!

P.S. Just like Kellee, I'm also looking for feedback, so any comments are greatly appreciated!