I make games n stuff
Holden
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Posts by Holden
Game Deconstruction: FarmVille
Oct 8th
“FarmVille? That stupid Facebook game that clutters my news feed all the time with random messages about lost pigs and ugly ducklings? Really?”
When I decided I was going to do these deconstructions, Facebook games were the last thing on my mind. This time last month, I had never even played a Facebook game. I thought the very concept of Facebook games was backwards – I have Steam to play games on my computer, after all. Facebook should be strictly for staying in touch with friends. But after hearing that FarmVille has over 11 million active users on a daily basis – even more than World of Warcraft - I figured that there must be something about the game that the average Facebook user finds attractive. And in always trying to expand my knowledge of games, I finally gave in and started playing. More >
Game Deconstruction: ‘Splosion Man
Sep 4th
Here’s a concept I picked up from my room mates over the summer who interned at Pandemic Studios. Every week, one member of the team would pick a game and give a presentation on its strengths and weaknesses. There’s a lot to be learned about design by paying attention to the details that many players may overlook at first glance.
As a personal experiment, I’m challenging myself to do one “game decon” every month for the next year. It’s one way I think I can work to make myself a better designer while providing some interesting reading material. I’ll try to not just pick “good” games, but this week I’ll start with one of my recent favorites… More >
Fall is Here!
Sep 1st
I haven’t updated the blog since coming back from LA. Quick recap of the past three weeks:
- Finished an awesome internship that confirmed my slight hunch that game design is something I could be happy doing for a very long time
- Started my junior year at Georgia Tech
- Resumed work on the unannounced Indiecisive project
- Resumed work on a freelance website design project
This week is particularly awesome because it’s the start of the college football season! I’ve organized a block for most of my friends and I to get great seats to every home game, and we’ve got a state-of-the-art home theater system ready to go for away games courtesy of a friend who couldn’t fit his 60″ television in his room. It’s also a great TV for gaming, be it rocking out, shooting Nazis, or knocking down towers.
I’ve updated the “Games” section with a bit of what I worked on this summer. I made some levels for Boom Blox Bash Party that you can check out over the next few months as EA releases them as free DLC online. I’ll probably make more in the future, but you’ll find those under the username “IndiecisiveLink” as opposed to the official EA release list. Also updated my resume with some information about the other projects I got to be a part of, but I can’t go into much detail about them. I’m excited to see how the team iterates on the work we did this summer, and I’ll be sure to point it out when I finally can!
Finally, I updated the Audiball page to highlight some extraordinary praise the game recently received from MTV Multiplayer. Honestly, I don’t think the game is worthy of all that praise. So in response, Ian and I are working on making it worthy! We’ll be releasing a free update to the game later this month over Xbox Live to give it improved graphics, increased accessibility, remastered music, and a few more surprises. I’ll be sure to post an update here when it goes up. Take a sneak peek at the new boxart while you’re on the game’s page.
That about covers it…my life is eat, sleep, game with a little bit of class and football in between and I wouldn’t want it any other way. To Hell with Georgia!
E3 Impressions
Jun 3rd
I fufilled a childhood dream of sorts today by attending E3 for the first time. The show is absolutely huge. Maybe I’m sort of numb to the industry now after doing two GDCs, but E3 just seemed like an amusement park of games. That said, I got to play a lot of games that won’t be playing again until the end of the year. General impressions: More >
Seen Around LA
May 31st
I’ve started work, I’m settled in, and I’m finally adjusted to the pacific time. Working at EALA is awesome, and if the rest of the summer is anything like the previous week, I’d love to come back in the future. Unfortunately, given the nature of the work, I can’t talk about what I’m doing because it’s an unannounced project. So instead I’ll talk about the rest of LA. More >
In the words of Douglas Adams…
May 24th
“In no known language exists the phrase ‘beautiful like an airport.’”
I’m sitting at gate B9 in Jacksonville waiting for my flight to take off to DC. United tried to convince me to change to a later flight three times at check in, so they must really want me to take a different airline. Like many airlines, they overbook every flight to maximize profit. I don’t really care what airline I fly as long as my bags make it to LA.
Weather in Jacksonville has been less than desirable over the past week. Six days in a row of rain, with more rain in the forecast every day for the next ten days. The forecast for LA for the next ten days has partly cloudy skies with highs in the low 70′s and lows in the high 50′s. Providing United doesn’t delay my flight (lol) I should be getting to my new apartment in about 9 hours.
Audiball Postmortem
May 22nd
I’ve wanted to write a proper postmortem for Audiball for some time now and I’ve been putting it off for far too long. Below, I try to summarize six months of my life into a few pages of text. Audiball was not a commercial success, nor was it groundbreaking in any way, but it was my experience with game development and I’ll always be proud of it. Read on if you’re interested in the game’s original vision, what sacrifices were made, what unexpected events changed development, how the game’s soundtrack was composed, how you can learn from my mistakes, and how an announcement trailer can be the longest fifty seconds of your life. More >
Summer Plans
Apr 12th
Haven’t made a proper update here since before GDC (which was awesome, by the way). I thought I’d write a bit about what I’m doing right now and what I’m doing this summer. More >
I Can Has Moar Composition
Mar 31st
Here’s another composition I made about a year ago for a music class at Tech. I was still learning Reason at the time, but it’s better than the last one I posted. The time I spent on projects in this class laid the foundation for Audiball’s soundtrack, which I’ll also post at a later date. Of course, Audiball’s soundtrack was based around procedural generation, so releasing it as static files is a little harder than it is with these.
Download (3.17 MB)
AT&T is Being a Big Poo-Poo Head
Mar 16th
You know that whole thing where people have a bad experience with a company, and they post on their blogs hoping enough people read it for the company to do something about it? Yeah, I’m gonna try that.
After finishing up my XNA game, I wanted to play around with iPhone development. To do this, I needed an iPhone, and since it was close to Christmas at the time, I figured it was as good a time as any to pick one up. Below is the story of my unsuccessful attempt at purchasing an iPhone from AT&T that started in December and is still causing me headaches to this day. More >
