vanillaflavoureddavid

Watch me ollie!

Thursday, March 31, 2005

The Life Aquatic

I forgot to mention this, for some reason, but I saw The Life Aquatic over the Easter weekend, and I reckon it was bloody brilliant.

Bill Murray is a genius, this much should be obvious by now. And Wes Anderson continues to do things, visually, with his films that we've never seen before. Every shot seems to have been genuinely composed - sure, there's a lot to be said for his eye for excruciating detail, but sometimes there's just something amazing about how he has a group of actors and furniture simply arranged in a room.

It's the most eccentric, marvellous and stunningly individual film I've seen in years. It's genuinely successful and coherent, artistically, and a relentless and entirely satisfying piece of sheer entertainment as well. What's more, it feels as if it was made by a person, rather than by a company. The only films I'd feel comfortable comparing it to, outside of Wes Anderson's own earlier works, are maybe the better Coen brothers'.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Fingers crossed...

I dearly hope that this isn't true.

If it is, I'm going to go on the record now as saying that this is the stupidest decision Nintendo's ever made, Virtual Boy included. I mean, it'd be even stupider than anything Sega ever did as a hardware company. Yeah. That stupid.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Incidentally...

The Emily Dickinson Game Design Challenge was one of the best things ever. I won't give you a travel diary of my GDC adventures, as it would be completely tedious, but that was the best hour of the whole trip. I'll endeavour to track down some resources from it, and make with the linkage, because it really does deserve to be shared.

In other news, I had some holidays and stuff, and they were awesome. Also awesome is Resident Evil 4.

In other, other, news I'm still not sure what I'm doing with this thing. I'd like to write some short stories or some long rants for you, my imaginary reader, but I simply don't have time at the moment. So the intermittent self-indulgent randomness will continue for the time being.

That's all for now.

Who's with me?

I'm keen to found a task force, with the aim of creating and enforcing an international standard of potato crisp (or "chip") packet colours.

My recent trip to the US was made unnecessarily difficult and alienating due to inconsistencies in potato crisp packet colouring. Driving on the right; calling everything from chilies to capsicums simply "peppers"; the stubborn insistence on measuring things in inches, feet, ounces and pounds - these quirks I can live with. But I fear for the prospect of global peace and harmony in a world where a red foil packet can mean anything from "lightly salted" to "mesquite BBQ", passing though "salt and vinegar" and "sweet chili and sour cream" along the way. It's a cholesterol-rich Tower of Babel, I say.

Something needs to be done, my brothers and sisters. Heed my call.

Why is it...

...that the little bits of Easter Eggs that fall down into the middle of the egg while you're taking your first few bites taste so much better than the intact walls of the egg itself?

Eh?

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Decisions, decisions...

Alright. This has got to be the toughest decision ever.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Aw, man.

Okay, that was crap. Look at the title of that last post. I was going to talk about this conference, but then I just ended up with a great big heaping serve of "wah wah wah, look at me".

Apologies.

Here's something to think about: Could you design a game based around the poetry of Emily Dickinson? Some game design legends are going to take a crack at it, and I get to watch 'em. Peter Molyneux and Will Wright are going to be on deck, along with a couple of others. What a terrifying challenge. I'm not sure I'd be up to it, to be completely honest. If anyone is, though, I bet it's Will Wright. (You know. The guy that designed SimCity and The Sims and all that.)

In other semi-related news, this whole overseas trip thing means a long aeroplane journey, and a lot of waiting around in airports and hotel rooms. And that means that I need a good book and a good portable game or three. Games-wise, I think I'm going to stick to the trusty old GBA SP. There actually isn't a single worthwhile game out on the DS yet, which is a bit of a worry. So I'll be playing Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, which I've been sitting on for a while, and I'll probably go back to a couple of old standbys as well, namely Puyo Pop and Advance Wars 2. Maybe I'll pick up The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap as well, while I'm in the US. The missus loved it. As for books, I'm open to suggestions.

Game Developers Conference 2005

Well, I'm a bit weary, but I think my plans for this year are so far going quite well, with two months down.

Firstly, I did that little talk at Game Loading a while back, and despite a few hurdles, I think it went okay. I was a bit distracted because my mother woke me up early that morning by phoning to tell me that she was in hospital (don't worry, she's fine, and back at home now). Being interstate, I felt a bit useless.

Then I spilled coffee all over myself just before I was due to start speaking. Plus I didn't really have enough time to organise a fancy AV sort of thing, and had to make do with some hastily put-together text slides and a bit of improvisation. Somehow, the audience stayed interested, and I actually got to field quite a few questions as well, which is usually a good sign. Oh, and I almost forgot - there were also "technical difficulties" at the start, and the slides wouldn't start at all, so I had to go genuinely off the cuff and without a safety net for the first ten minutes or so.

Secondly, I've submitted an article for that magazine I may have mentioned here earlier. I'm not sure I'm that happy with it, to be honest, but it's a start. For one thing, the topic of the article was at the suggestion of one of the people responsible for getting the project started, so I felt like I had to do it, even though I might have been better suited to something else. The article is meant to be "funny", basically, and I'm not entirely sure I can bring the funny. I can usually get a laugh in person, but I tend to think that's largely due to my appearance. Funny on paper is tricky to do. Damned tricky. So I've kept it short and dry. Some people might miss it completely, but I'm hoping someone gets a giggle out of it. We'll see.

They mightn't even publish the thing - I haven't the faintest idea what they're looking for, to be honest. Actually, to be even more honest, I'm not sure the organisational side of things is quite there. The draft and final deadlines passed without me receiving even a single word of feedback, so I haven't had a chance to alter it to suit what they're doing with the rest of the magazine. So I've just got to trust that the editors will get their shit together nearer the publishing deadline and edit it a bit themselves. Or just throw it in the bin. Meh.

Thirdly, I'm off on a business trip as of this weekend. Next week I'll be at GDC in San Francisco, and then I'll be in Phoenix sitting in some boring meetings for a couple of days. I'm thoroughly excited about going to the conference, though - it's an important step for me, I reckon.

Then, when I get back from the US, the missus and I are taking a break together for a few days down the coast. Which is what I'm looking forward to most of all. I could use the rest.

In the meanwhile, my second best mate Effie is coming to stay. Which should be fun. I've also got a shitload to do at work this week, before I go away - wish me luck.

So, basically, I think I've done alright. Talk done, article submitted, and big important conference on the horizon. And before I go away for a little while, it's not a bad time to take stock. Where I've let myself down a bit is in two areas:

1. Money. It just seems to keep slipping away, despite my best efforts. I ought to be making better progress than this.

2. Writing. Well, there's just never the time. All this other stuff isn't necessarily more important, per se, but all of it is at least more urgent. Which trumps important every time, sadly. I actually had quite a neat idea for a story the other day while on the crapper, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to spin it out into something readable. I'm going to have to make the effort, though, otherwise it'll never happen.

Something of general interest and not quite so self-indulgent next time. I promise.