Category: General

With a little more time to work on personal projects, I’m revisting unfinished projects from the previous year. First on the list is RockVomit, which is a game that I was working on with Simon and Jim for last November’s Game Jam.

Here are some screenshots of a flash prototype I put together:

Aesthetically, RockVomit started as a very different game, but the basic premise of the game is unchanged: you listen to music and create a dance. You can then show this dance off to other people, and they can dance along.

To me, the game is meant as a sort of response to modern music games that make you perform something predetermined (hit the right note at the right time). I wanted to create something that allows you to be the choreographer, rather than just a technical dancer.

Mad props to Simon for the awesome art and post-golf discussions that led to a this fantastic representation of a rather basic concept! Hopefully we can look forward to more dancers soon! 😉

The Australian Interzone Futebol website is now live and the first announcement is that a local Closed Beta is just about to start.

Having been part of managing Interzone‘s development studio for around 18 months, I’ve know what’s gone into making this game and what the entire process has meant for so many local game developers here in Perth.

I also know that the game is much further along that one might usually expect when they see the term “Closed Beta”. Far beyond the game being stable and playable, there are heaps of features that you won’t find in any other online soccer game.

By participating in this Closed Beta, not only you will be one the first people who gets to play the latest and greatest version of this game, but you will also be supporting the Perth games industry. So be sure to sign up!

Here’s a gameplay trailer from the Interzone Futebol YouTube channel.

Every player on the pitch is a real person. How awesome is that!? Anyhow, enough plugging…

You can stay up-to-date on the Closed Beta by subscribing to the blog feed or following Interzone Games on twitter.

Just a quick post to welcome Mash back to Planet OneTwenty.

wb. 🙂

The official Australian Nintendo DSi minisite is now live. The main focus of the site is a promotional video (in their signature “all white” style) that demonstrate the new features in a very mass-market friendly way.

I loved the old Gameboy Camera, so I’m glad to see similar features returning to a handheld. 🙂

Although I now have two cats (Mao and Bruce), I was previously opposed to keeping pets because I felt that it was unethical to subject another sentient being to a life deprived of freedom.

Recently, my thinking is more along the lines of:

• Both are rescued cats that would have been put down otherwise.
• And (more importantly) freedom is defined in degrees, and absolute freedom is impossible.

Unlike cats with collars, we like to think that we are free. The truth is that numerous factors limit your freedom. Some are natural (eg. humans can’t fly), a number are psychological (eg. you’re scared), and a lot are circumstantial (eg. you have no money).

I’d define personal power as the ability to affect the limits of your freedom. This often mean making yourself or others work to facilitate what you want to do. On the other hand, collective power is the the ability of a group to extend everybody’s freedom.

Technology can bring great collective freedom. Advances in medicine and telecommunications potentially empower everyone beyond their natural and circumstantial limitations. Unfortunately, technology can also be restricted and controlled to benefit only a few. Similarly, money seems to often only bring power to individuals and groups, rather than all of humankind.

To many, life is a struggle to improve your level of freedom, and money is a straight-forward path to power. I think this is why so many people work hard to earn money. It affords them some self-determination, so that they can live without so many basic concerns.

Control of money often equates to control of freedom, and the more that you control the freedom of others, the more you can demand for yourself. I think that this is why there are those that seek control of money (not just acquisition of money, but control of the financial system).

Freedom should never be taken for granted. It’s important that we recognise our desire for reasonable freedoms, and that we contribute to securing these freedoms for others. Unnecessary imposition upon the freedom of others is reprehensible, but unfortunately all too common.

As evident throughout history, collective social power is usually the greatest form of power. We can all play a part in affording greater freedoms when unified by common philosophies and committed to standing our ground.

While trying to gauge the level of decline in the local real estate market, I came across this handy suburb snapshot feature on homepriceguide.com.au.

You search for an Australian suburb and it provides you with some high-level statistical data such as:

• Median price:The middle price of all properties sold as ranked from the most expensive price to the most affordable price.
• Auction clearance rate: The percentage of properties sold under the hammer or prior to auction compared to the total number of properties listed for auction excluding properties not reported to APM but including properties withdrawn from auction.
• Days on market: The average length of time a property takes to sell from the initial published advertisement to the exchange date of sale.
• Discounting: A measurement on how much (expressed as a percentage) vendors are having to take off their intial asking price to make a sale.

The discounting numbers are most interesting to me. For example, I found that apartments in Victoria Park have been selling for 23% less than the asking price. That’s really puts the asking price in perspective when browsing for housing.

This information seems to be presented more objectively than what appears on the REIWA website and realestate.com.au (I always get the impression that they are trying to upsell the current market).

My photo “Tokyo Tower by night (1 of 3)” recently won the Metallic Lines Challenge meaning that it will be the April avatar for the Just Lines group on RedBubble:

Yay! 😀

I really like the Abstract Realism and Just Lines groups. I didn’t really know about abstract realism prior to joining RedBubble and checking out all the groups available. I just liked photos that removed their primary subject from overt context, and it turns out that there is a term for that.

For more of my work, check out my RedBubble profile page. I have a lot of stuff still to upload; Hopefully I’ll find the time to pu a few more up tomorrow.

Much like other people, I usually start the day by opening up my feed reader, flicking through headlines and opening up interesting stories in new tabs in my browser. I then peruse the tabs, closing them after I read the stories or if they are too disinteresting.

I leave the interesting tabs open so that I can blog about them. This usually works out pretty well, with just a few tabs to choose something to blog about. However the tabs have been piling up, so I decided to just post a whole bunch of links. Here goes!

• The BBC has a story on New Zealand’s sex industry after 6 years of decriminalisation. Looks overall positive, but a social stigma remains.
• Cursor*10 is an neat flash game by Yoshio Ishii of nekogames (japanese nekogames) fame. There’s also a sequel.
• The GNOME project is migrating to git (from SVN). Not a surprise, but it’s interesting to read their VCS comparisons and migration plan.
• Sky news is reporting on disturbing t-shirts made by Israeli soldiers. I don’t understand how things like this can be dismissed so readily.
• The ASUS EeeTop with touch screen looks neat. A cheap alternative to an all-in-one iMac. Still holding out for the EeeKeyboard with wireless HDMI.

I’ll have to post more about Yoshio Ishii in future. Rock, Paper, Shotgun and JayIsGames seem to share a fascination with him. Aside from his games, I’m particularly interested in his motion graphics work which he clearly labels:

This is not a game. In addition, not interactive. This is motion graphics movie. [Yoshio Ishii]

Awesome stuff! (Here are a few examples). I’m sure that there are other people I know who would like this stuff.

Today was a “work day” with little internet browsing and no gaming; I’ve got a lot to do for the upcoming exhibit, personal projects, and local industry evangelism!

I finished writing the first draft of the Perth Games Industry Report (based on the local industry survey that will run until next Tuesday). Clearly, the report is based on current results, but it should be easy to update when the survey is closed.

Thanks to Paul from Black Lab Games for providing an excellent foreword to the report. It’s a little nostalgic (which is endearing) and shows how far we’ve come in the last few years.

The plan for work next week includes:

• Final version of the report (online and hardcopies sent to key people in the industry, government, and educational institutes)
• Forward plan to implement practical measures to grow local industry (based on survey results)
• Construct all pieces for art exhibition and put together an artist statement and profile

I guess writing it here makes me accountable for it! 😛

Apparantly it’s a viral video, but I’m still posting it here because it’s pretty cool:

via Videosift.