The week in review
In an effort to explore new free WiFi places, I am at Tech Superpowers cafe. Well, it's not really a cafe as there are no real beverages or food served. And the pretentiousness reeks as much as the smell of rotting wood in the air. Strike this one off the list.
Guitar Hero
You can call me what you will but I purchased a new guitar strap for my Guitar Hero guitar. It's black and white checkerboard. Yes, I do play way to much of that game and love every moment of it.
Edit:
Emerson College Podcasts
We started podcasting at work. This podcast will be for accepted students in the month of April with the hopes to increase yield to them. It's also us testing the waters for a more frequent set of podcasts for the Admissions offices in general.
Though we are targeting accepted, there's nothing preventing anyone from subscribing. It would help me out if you subscribed as well. The more people I know are viewing it, the more likely I'll find out about problems.
Uru (aka: Mudpie, Until Uru, Myst Online, etc)
Recently, Rand Miller announced that Cyan will house their own Uru server, removed the payment for account to an invite system like Gmail, and added that they are actively seeking feedback for a potential resurrection of the on-line component. This is very exciting news; So much that I even bought the Complete package (all expansion packs rolled into one) for $10 just to make installation easier.
The reason this is exciting for me is an apatethic feeling. Here are some artists that got screwed over by their publisher, but now have the opportunity to save their project they believed so hard in. I admire that a lot and so I want to do what I can to help them.
If anyone wants to try out Myst on-line for free, I can hook you up. Cyan's not getting any amount of the $10, so there's no guilty feelings about copying.
Antidote
In light of Adobe's plans for Universal Binaries and the deliberate omission of Director, it seems clear that Antidote can't continue as a Director project. I'm started looking for another engine again to see what's changed since I last searched. It seems that the GarageGames engines may do the trick. The bugger is getting movies to work within the engine for both Windows and Mac. I think it can be done, but it requires that either I learn and code or employ someone else to make it all happen. The money for the tools are right; $100 for the full engine and Quicktime is free. But the work needs to be done, and I'm not sure if I want to invest in redoing the engine. Not to mention the project is preeminently scarred with the ending.
Game Developers Conference
This past week was the Game Developers Conference (GDC); the conference I went to last year. It's been a somber week for me for few reasons. The largest being the Independent Game Developer awards. This is the awards that I was going to submit Antidote to. Obviously this is a milestone I missed completely.
Another reason for pause was my lack of involvement in the game industry. The only blip I've had so far is the Gamasutra article and applying for a UI Artist job. I had a year break and working on UI. I should have done more with Antidote specifically, but as I hammer out these contract gigs, I'll be able to work on Antidote and finish the fucker. I need to reevaluate myself and exploit my strengths more.
Contract gigs
I am currently involved with three contract gigs. Two websites for Kelsley (kbphotos.net and Pucker the band) and template designs for a medical foundation. Frankly, it's too much work for money I don't need that badly. I really should be focusing on Antidote now. But I'm almost done with the photo site and the template designs is a quicker gig. Pucker... I fear it's going to be the same size as the photo site.
Guitar Hero
You can call me what you will but I purchased a new guitar strap for my Guitar Hero guitar. It's black and white checkerboard. Yes, I do play way to much of that game and love every moment of it.
Edit:
Emerson College Podcasts
We started podcasting at work. This podcast will be for accepted students in the month of April with the hopes to increase yield to them. It's also us testing the waters for a more frequent set of podcasts for the Admissions offices in general.
Though we are targeting accepted, there's nothing preventing anyone from subscribing. It would help me out if you subscribed as well. The more people I know are viewing it, the more likely I'll find out about problems.
Uru (aka: Mudpie, Until Uru, Myst Online, etc)
Recently, Rand Miller announced that Cyan will house their own Uru server, removed the payment for account to an invite system like Gmail, and added that they are actively seeking feedback for a potential resurrection of the on-line component. This is very exciting news; So much that I even bought the Complete package (all expansion packs rolled into one) for $10 just to make installation easier.
The reason this is exciting for me is an apatethic feeling. Here are some artists that got screwed over by their publisher, but now have the opportunity to save their project they believed so hard in. I admire that a lot and so I want to do what I can to help them.
If anyone wants to try out Myst on-line for free, I can hook you up. Cyan's not getting any amount of the $10, so there's no guilty feelings about copying.
Antidote
In light of Adobe's plans for Universal Binaries and the deliberate omission of Director, it seems clear that Antidote can't continue as a Director project. I'm started looking for another engine again to see what's changed since I last searched. It seems that the GarageGames engines may do the trick. The bugger is getting movies to work within the engine for both Windows and Mac. I think it can be done, but it requires that either I learn and code or employ someone else to make it all happen. The money for the tools are right; $100 for the full engine and Quicktime is free. But the work needs to be done, and I'm not sure if I want to invest in redoing the engine. Not to mention the project is preeminently scarred with the ending.
Game Developers Conference
This past week was the Game Developers Conference (GDC); the conference I went to last year. It's been a somber week for me for few reasons. The largest being the Independent Game Developer awards. This is the awards that I was going to submit Antidote to. Obviously this is a milestone I missed completely.
Another reason for pause was my lack of involvement in the game industry. The only blip I've had so far is the Gamasutra article and applying for a UI Artist job. I had a year break and working on UI. I should have done more with Antidote specifically, but as I hammer out these contract gigs, I'll be able to work on Antidote and finish the fucker. I need to reevaluate myself and exploit my strengths more.
Contract gigs
I am currently involved with three contract gigs. Two websites for Kelsley (kbphotos.net and Pucker the band) and template designs for a medical foundation. Frankly, it's too much work for money I don't need that badly. I really should be focusing on Antidote now. But I'm almost done with the photo site and the template designs is a quicker gig. Pucker... I fear it's going to be the same size as the photo site.