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What I Played: 2011 Edition
Jan 27th
I’m a little later than usual getting my “year in review” list up this month. 2011 was my first year working full time in the games industry, and I expected the idea of “making games means playing less games” to apply. It didn’t apply all that much in the end – maybe I played games for less time, but I still played a lot of different ones. If this is your first time reading one of these lists, let me preface it like I always do: I’m not an expert critic, and this is mostly an exercise for me to analyze my own gaming habits. I share it publicly so my peers can better frame my background and biases as a designer/producer/geek. With that, onward!
A Student’s Guide to Getting Into the Games Industry
Apr 12th
There’s one question other students ask me more often than anything else: “How’d you get your foot in the door?”
The economy sucks. Companies say they aren’t hiring. There are a ton of job search tools out there, but none of them seem to help. Sometimes we don’t even get automated responses to our applications, much less any feedback from an actual person. Yet somehow, some people are still getting jobs straight out of school.
I’m one of the lucky few, and now that I know where I’m going, I’ve had time to reflect on how I got here. There’s no clear-cut path to getting in, but there are plenty of things you can do to improve your chances – hopefully my experience will help somebody else.
My Gaming Habits: A Year Over Year Comparison
Feb 3rd
One of the perks of making the “what I played” lists is the ability to look back and see how my gaming habits change over time. I took some data from those posts and visualized it…
First off, it’s clear that the Xbox 360 has cemented itself as my platform of choice for this generation. I don’t play a lot of games on Xbox Live, so I guess I’ve fallen victim to Microsoft’s goal of making the Xbox the “entertainment center” of the living room. I listen to a lot of my music through it, streaming off my PC. I watch most of my movies through the Netflix dashboard app. Even though the PS3 has a Bluray player, I find myself turning on the Xbox when I want to be entertained with no particular game or activity in mind.
The iPhone also appears to have replaced my DS almost entirely. I’m intrigued by the new handhelds Sony and Nintendo are hawking, but I doubt I’d spend as much time with them as I do my phone since my phone is always with me. The ease of access to buying new stuff in the app store goes a long way. More >
What I Played: 2010 Edition
Feb 1st
I’m in my last semester of college, and I’m excited about what the future has in store. I’m also working on a couple more games that will hopefully be out the door soon. And of course, I’m looking forward to GDC in a few weeks.
Here’s the second entry in what I’m trying to make an annual piece – a complete list of every game I remember playing in the previous year, along with a few impressions about it. I especially enjoyed comparing this list to last year’s to see how my gaming habits have changed (more on that in a future post).
Reflections on Computational Media
Dec 2nd
This is the paper I turned in for my senior design “capstone” class in which I’m supposed to reflect on how my coursework relates to the work I’ll be faced in a job after I graduate. I’m posting it because a number of students in Computational Media have asked me for advice about classes and other projects, and this is probably the most honest summary of my take on Tech I’ll ever write.
Hey! Look! Listen!
Nov 3rd
It’s a new game! This is what I’ve been up to since leaving EA this summer.
Thoughts on Limbo
Jul 30th
I haven’t been away from the game long enough to write a formal deconstruction, but I’ve been talking to a lot of friends about Playdead’s Limbo recently. My opinion differs from the majority (not to say I’m on my own), and I think writing it in the blog is the best way to articulate the angle I’m coming from. In doing so, I hope I’ll be able to get some feedback on why the things that bothered me made the game better for everyone else.
Only at Tech Hacked
Mar 31st
Around 11:30 PM last night, the Only at Tech team became aware of malicious code that was being served through our website. It does NOT appear that this code downloaded any sort of malware to our users’ computers (our virus scans have turned up negative), but we have reason for concern because one of the affected files contained the login information for the site’s database. This means the attacker(s) could have gained access to a list of our registered users’ email addresses and hashed passwords.
The offending code has been removed. We believe this was an automated attack, and in most cases the attackers do not do anything with the users’ data. It was likely targeted at multiple sites running the same backend as Only at Tech. That doesn’t mean you should be careless if you use your Only at Tech password on other sites with sensitive data. To be on the safe side, we would recommend you change your passwords on Only at Tech and any other sites where you use the same email/password combination.
We apologize for our failure to secure your information on our side, and for any inconvenience this causes you. We’re currently in the process of upgrading to a more secure backend as part of a major site update, but in the meantime, we’ve taken some precautions to prevent this from happening again.
Technical details on the attack are below for those of you who are interested. This is Tech, after all. More >
New Game: SUPÉR MATADOR 3
Jan 31st
This weekend, I participated in the Global Game Jam at the SCAD Atlanta / Georgia Tech site. We were tasked with making a game that included the themes of “deception” and “rain, plains, or Spain.” 48 hours later, we made SUPÉR MATADOR 3.
Click the image to go to the GGJ site and play!
I was responsible for game design and audio. My team won first place!
The contest also had “achievements” we could get by sticking to certain constraints. We were rewarded for having no text, using less than 16 colors, and being playable in a browser. Check it out and let me know what you think!
What I Played: 2009 Edition
Jan 13th
For all the time I spent working, I still managed to play a lot of games in 2009. I’m late on the decons, but in the meantime I’ve put together a list of (almost) every game I played this year with a couple thoughts on things that stuck out to me about each of them. More >
