It’s been a shitty past few days. First off at work, the department’s website which I recently redid is now in the process of being tweaked and it’s taking far too long. I knew changes would be inevitable once my take on it was finally fleshed out and viewable from all angles, but my method of tightening things up was rather poor. Halfway through, I realized there was a critical flaw (thanks to a combination of a mathematical miscalculation and the unreliability of Illustrator CS), so I’ve had to abandon a weeks worth of work and start from scratch (and re-install Illustrator 10).
My pace isn’t helping either since I’m so distracted by nonsense, it’s impossible to work at any sort of meaningful pace. The situation with Nintendo last week as just the tip of ice-burg; this week we have high school students taking Maya workshops and many of them are act like… a bunch of high schoolers. We’re also seriously short staffed, otherwise I could at least have assistants deal with them.
Also, because of everyone’s schedules and all the projects on my plate, I haven’t had the chance to take my vacation, and now it’s almost too late since my one year anniversary is coming up in which I will loose all days if they’re not taken by then, as well as the beginning of the school year, which means I’ll be needed for a heavy duty hardware/software configuration phase. So I have to split my time up over the next month, instead of having a solid block to enjoy (and as anyone knows, I need time off). Of course, even if I did, what would I do? I really wanted to go somewhere, but I’m so poor I can’t afford anywhere or anything (hence my original plan of taking time off in early August when checks from various freelance gigs and my teaching post are set to arrive, but that’s when everyone else is taking their time off). It also doesn’t help that most of my friends are going to San Diego for Comic Con next week and I can’t join; I could really use one of those Seaport Village corndogs.
With that in mind, I was not looking forward to teaching class (for once). As much as I’ve immensely enjoyed the experience, it’s also been extremely trying as well. First off, this is my first stab at teaching, and I’m learning just as much as my students with each class. But things are further complicated with a subject matter that is itself abstract and almost impossible to define (as I said before, most of my friends and colleagues don’t know what game design really is… and sometimes I feel the same exact way).
When I started the class, I had a basic plan, a roadmap of sorts, of where to go. But I also made it vague on purpose; I knew that it would be simply pointless to create a rigid syllabus, because I ultimately needed to go though the actual motions of teaching (to “find my voice” so to speak), and only then could I devise a rock solid plan that I would be at last be comfortable with. And that’s exactly what’s happening now, and it’s been quite trying. But growing pains is no excuse for being a poor instructor: I want to be a good teacher. And when I think I’n not, I feel massively guilty, which in turn makes me temperamental and irrational, and hard to get along with. I feel bad for my co-workers and it’s probably for the best that I’ve, for the most part, avoided many of my friends.
Anyway, if you recall, the previous week I had the students create puzzle games. They were originally were supposed to be playtested in class, but things ran long, so it got bumped to the next session, which was last night. Originally, the puzzle making activity was supposed to be week 3, but it took place on week 5, which was now spilling over into week 6. Originally, on week 4, I wanted the class to play actual video games (I think all my friends have heard me talk about having one person play Ms. Pac Man, for example, and having the rest of the class answer questions in regards to what they were seeing and thinking and feeling and etc…. stupid idea? perhaps) but once again, now it’s week 6, and we still haven’t done it. Also, my historical overview was, at this point, starting to become disjointed: I had missed key chances to deviate from certain eras to explore others, and having these talks so far apart was jeopardizing everyone’s retention. “Playing it by ear” was now biting me in the ass.
But so much time has passed that I’m at “the point of no return”. I can’t suddenly go to a super structured last few weeks (perhaps this point is debatable, but I certianly dion’t feel comfortable doing so). So with that in mind, I approached last night’s class rather loosely. I began by going over a list of top 300 games that every designer (and player) should know. Thankfully, this generated much more discussion than past articles, though its not at all surprising given the titles that were included, and those which were left out. I have to give props to the author for including Virtua Racing in the arcade category (no one ever seems to recognize it’s importance: it’s only the first successful 3D video game ever, plus it’s still one of the finest racing games to this very day). Though I must ask why Mojib Ribbon is on the list, and why Vib Ribbon is not.
Next I continued on with the historical perspective, but tried keeping it short and didn’t go over too much ground, just the advent of the 32X and Saturn, Sony’s intention to overtake Nintendo’s top spot and how Final Fantasy would play a role in that, ACM and Donkey Kong Country, the high cost Nintendo and others paid for sticking with cartridges, the first fully realized 3D games, what Sony did to become number one and the games that took them there, and why Hollywood was starting to pay attention to video games once more. Come to think of it, I did go over a lot.
Next was (actual) playtime. All the students played each other’s assignments from last week. Actually, at one point, I wanted to bring in some surprise guests to test the students’ creations (“people off the street” who were actually friends of mine that have wanted to sit in since day one), but due to a scheduling conflict, they sadly could not make it, but I did get one guest after all: Dave Halbstein, an instructor here at SVA whom I chat with often (guy knows about a million riddles) stopped by to see how things were going, as he often does, and offered to play a game.
The reason why I had the class do puzzle games was not only to develop a sense of understanding logic when it comes to setting up the rules of a game, but to maybe tap into that “sixth sense” that tells you what seems right or not right in a game. Since most puzzle games work at it’s most basic, abstract level, one can’t hide behind silly justifications, such as graphics or story, when facing with a flaw in gameplay. Like I’ve said time and time again, if a game works on paper, it should work in a video game.
The whole play session took a while, so we took no break and simply ended the class by checking up on the progress of their final projects. Despite fears going in, the class was a success and was once again the highlight of the week. That, and I got a new girlfriend…
