First things first: sorry for the lack of i am 8-bit pics, as previously promised. Unfortunately my photographer was not able to attend the opening, but she promises me that she’ll be able to attend tomorrow and I should (hopefully) have something later that evening or the next day!
Anyway, so how did I spend my 30th birthday this Wednesday? Well…
- Woke up and had this sudden urge to play Sonic CD, and so I did. Mind you, I also knew I was going to be on-hold all morning with folks to get my gift certificate, for my passport, so that helped to alleviate that aggravation.
… BTW, I don’t even want to get started as to why I still don’t have my passport just yet even though my trip to Japan is officially a month away, because once started, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop bitching about all the rude as fuck postal workers and needless bullshit bureaucracy I’ve had to deal with over the past couple of weeks. But anyway…
- Went to Jersey, to have lunch with MK, before she had to get ready for APE (which is where she’s at right now, along with Robin, as well as copies of my mini-comics, for those in the San Francisco area and who don’t have their copies just yet!). Went to Target where she got for me Venture Brothers Vol 2, which I haven’t watched, and can’t, because I promised I wouldn’t till she returned.
Also stopped by Toys R Us, and want to know my big 30th birthday video game purchase for myself was? Taito Legends. Kinda… anti-climactic, hugh? Hey, it was $5. Besides, I’m going to get volume two when it comes out (it is coming out in the US, isn’t it?) since that has Elevator Action Returns, since I missed out on the Saturn edition when I had the chance.
Plus I picked up Harvest Moon: Magical Melody for the GameCube since MK’s been wanting to play a Harvest Moon game for a little while now.
- Had hot dogs at Callahan’s, courtesy of MK’s dad. At one point, he inadvertedly came up with a great new possible name for my comics anthology: When a Bird Shits In Your Cup (based upon an anecdote found here which still cracks him up).
- Then stopped by the Korean food mart where I stocked up on kimchee, curry, various Japanese candies, and a particular yogurt drink that I used to love so much as a kid in Korea.
… And that’s about it? Pretty low-key, I know. I just spent the rest of my night playing Taito Legends. And it was five dollars well spent.
Like most classic game compilations, you have your obvious hits (Bubble Bobble, of course, is plenty of fun, but I’m sorry, I can appreciate Space Invaders for what it did historically, but I still say it sucks), various clunkers, and a few hidden gems. In this particular collection’s case its a pretty obscure arcade puzzle game called Tube-It. Basically, blocks fall down a well, with each containing a part of tube. You rotate each block to get them to connect. On each side of the well are the ends of tubes, so you just have to get stuff to connect, simple as that. Though if blocks pile up and touch the top, game over. Mighty simple, yet effective. Oh, and Raindow Islands, which I know isn’t exactly obscure since it has it fans, is pretty neat too.
I guess I should maybe mention the email that I got earlier that day while I was out, which ties into one of my big announcements…. remember that game design text book I announced that I was writing a whiles back? Yeah, well, its been cancelled!
Long story short, I missed my original deadline, and due to basically being too damn busy, I kept on missing every subsequent extension. Finally, the publisher just lost interest. Though to be totally honest, I had lost interest in the project myself far earlier.
The biggest blow I suppose was when I lost the book, which was 90% complete at that point; the flash drive I had been using to carry it around and work on whenever I found the time here and there died on me. I’m pretty sure I only told friends personally and didn’t say anything about it here simply because it was so damn embarrassing. Never-mind that I broke my number one rule and didn’t have a duplicate back-up on my home computer (which is something I always preach to friends, especially when they ask for help in recovering a lost/damaged/accidentally deleted file… anyhow, I just got lazy about making back-ups, simple as that), but seriously, saying that your flash drive died is the equivalent of saying your dog ate your homework. It just sounds like bullshit, even for a guy who’s a shit magnet.
The theory was that I would simply remember and re-assemble everything, and in no time flat. Didn’t happen. Partly because I am a perfectionist; it was a chore enough to begin with, so then I found myself quadruple guessing everything that I had previously thought was okay. So almost from the very beginning I had problems with the project. How so? I obviously knew the subject well enough… I’ve been designing games for years, and was a decent enough teacher, even by that point. At least that’s what everyone kept telling me. I on the other-hand never felt totally convinced that I was truly qualified for the job. The bottom line is that, despite being in the business of making games for a number of years beforehand, I still didn’t have that many completed games underneath my belt. And that’s always been a problem of mine… for years I’ve struggled to create games due to my limited resources (mostly because I can’t program), and while I guess I have enough valid excuses, in the end, they’re excuses. So being a designer with, what I tend to think, is a very limited body of work, seemed to lessen my creditability. I tried to fix this by refocusing my efforts towards getting a game done, but for a variety of reasons, that didn’t pan out, so that bit of frustration was intensified since the book was secretly attached.
But still, I taught the subject, so at least I must know something, right? After-all, there’s plenty of film teachers out there that have never actually directed a feature length film, right? See where I’m getting at? Though at the very least, my classroom would provide a platform to put my theories to test. Again, things didn’t quite pan out. I’ve never been too public about this, but I suppose there’s enough time and reason on my side to be open about it: teaching at SVA was always an uphill battle. Do to a variety of reasons, most of them being political, my efforts as a teacher were not supported by the administration. At one point I was actually removed as a teacher due to personal differences between myself and administration, and only re-instated out of reluctance, simply because they couldn’t find anyone else qualified to do the job. I guess that alone is evidence towards my credentials, but all the behind the scenes bullshit simply chipped away at my enthusiasm towards higher education, including the book. Also not helping was my increasingly negative view towards the business of enlightening potential game makers in the first place, and this is where I’m REALLY going to piss some people off. Mine was not the only game design class at the school, there was another, and it was far more popular, which therefore received more support from all accounts. And that’s because instead of dealing with theory, like in my class, the instructor simply had students mess around with the Unreal engine, by modding and augmenting it. And no offense to my fellow educators who teach in such a manner, but THIS IS NOT GAME DESIGN. It?s game modification, not design, there’s a very big difference. There are elements of design involved, that’s for sure, but not enough. Though I’m not stupid; at the end of a semester, what’s going to impress the parent that forks over the money for a college education more, a “crudely” constructed, totally functioning, and perhaps a totally original concept-wise board game, or footage of a FPS with lights and sounds and oh my!? Never-mind they have no idea what they’re seeing, at least THAT’S a video game! Not to go on a rant, but again, my increasing difficulties in relation teaching, as well as my inability to field test my theories, just left me even more frustrated.
At a certain point, I had lost all enthusiasm towards the book. Again, I had my doubts early on, but tried casting them aside and instead relished the joys from nabbing a book deal. Ultimately, that was all that really excited me, the idea of having a published book. But things were quite different at the time; I was at a different place, and as things went on, I began making strides elsewhere. Eventually, the doors that would open by having a published book under my belt began to loose their significance, mostly by other doors that were being open thanks to other efforts. Yet another reason to stop caring was the realization that the book was for the educational market, not a mass market one, which was already beginning to get flooded by similar titles. Again early on, when I told a number of my peers that I was working on a video game design text book, I was greeted with a “Oh, that’s nice… you know there’s like a million of those out there, right?” At first I tried brushing them off, but eventually realized that they had a point. Maybe being deterred by such negativity might seem extremely foolish, but again, given the market and audience, they would be the only ones to really read it, and given how over analytic and critical their tendencies are, there was almost a 100% chance it would be ripped to shreds, which would make the whole effort seem even more meaningless. So then I tried figuring a way to make those people happy… and then the book changed again, into something that addressed my aforementioned educational world. The book was becoming less a textbook and more an angry opinion piece. It was all over the place. I was all over the place. Eventually, the project began to hinder me, by diverting attention on things that were more enjoyable, stuff that simply meant more. The need to establish myself was becoming less important since I was already doing that. It became pure torture.
One might say, why didn’t I just throw all the information I had in my head out there and let the editor figure it out? Well, the truth is, and without getting into too many details, it was rather clear from near the beginning that the publisher had very little knowledge about the subject matter, so to avoid a lengthy and painful editorial process, I had to make sure everything was absolutely dead-on exact, with zero room for interpretation. Near the end, when close friends found out about my troubles, they all insisted that I just shit it out and collect the rest of advance, and even I thought about doing that for a little while, but in the end, I just couldn’t go through with such a notion. Simply because I didn’t want a piece of shit on the bookshelf with my name on it, period, despite what anyone else had to say.
So I know many people will be disappointed in me, or think I’m just plain retarded for throwing away the chance to be a published author. I can’t blame them, but once more, I have my reasons, as ridiculous as they sound. The bottom line is that I’m doing pretty well as is (more on in just a second), and that at this point in my career, I would much rather concentrate on other things, stuff that means more in the end. I still have books in me, plenty of them. There’s that history of Sega tome I want to see become reality, plus that nerd’s guide to organization that has serious potential. When the time’s ready, maybe they will happen. As for my text book on video game design, if there ever will be a time, now is not certainly it.
But once again, things are going quite well at the moment. While to some it might be bad news, the book cancellation was something good to hear. Almost a birthday present, since a heavy burden had been lifted off my shoulders. With it off my plate, so are all the anxieties that had began to form as a result! Though that wasn’t the only big news that coincided with my birthday: I also have a brand new, steady job. And its a writing gig too! I’ll wait a while before passing along details, but rest assured, you will all be hearing about it here first! I guess its also worth noting that I had two different things to choose from: one was a regular writing gig, which I obviously chose, and the other was a regular game design gig. And unlike my previous employer, where I had to lobby for my points of views when it came to design, which felt totally frustrating and futile since, most of them seemed so obvious to anyone remotely familiar with video games, this other place was quite receptive towards my idea. In fact, I did a spec design doc for them, as a test, so they could gauge my abilities, and that game is already in production at this very moment! Though in the end, I think what I chose will be a better fit, and hope some of you at least will stop by and check it out.
That doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped writing elsewhere, nor plan to. Again, with no book in the way, I actually have more time to dedicate towards all the other things that I’ve been promising for so many folks (and less stress getting in the way as well). Expect even more stuff from me over at GameSetWatch for example. Speaking off, my latest Cinema Pixeldiso piece just went live a few hours ago; its on the King of Kong which I caught last night and its by far the best video game documentary I’ve ever seen. It heavily centers around “video game player of the century” Billy Mitchell, who I actually met a few years ago at a game related event that took place in the Big Apple, in which he even had with him the key point of controversy in the movie. All I can say is the movie blows the doors wide open on the bizarre world that Mitchell is the figurehead of, and is sure to upset him and many others. As for those who always thought he was weird to begin with, the film cements him as a flat out asshole. And as for his sauce, the one that his company produces, which he passed along a bottle of, all I can is that its actually pretty terrible!
Tomorrow I’m heading to an art gallery in Chelsea to check out a gallery featuring work by Parson students that used the Sims in some fashion. I’ll be passing along a report for GSW on that as wells, so keep an eye out for that. And next time around here, I should hopefully be able to touch upon the world at largem like… Namco?s finally doing a Katamari Damacy part 4?!
