Google Docs is awesome, for those of you who weren't aware.
In other news, I thought you all might like to see what's in the works for my thesis. Below, if this works the way I think it will, is a little widget containing the slides for my presentation on Thursday, and below that are links to my thesis proposal paper and my directed research proposal. I don't think the docs will be editable, but if they are, please don't. That would make my life difficult :-)
Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll do my presentation on Thursday for the faculty and my classmates, and then there will be some minor edits to my two proposal papers, and then I'm good to start production in late May. So, let's see if this works:
Thesis Proposal Paper
Directed Research Proposal
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Hi all,
So I'm getting vibes that I haven't updated recently and should probably do that. Here's a rundown of where things stand in DianaLand:
-Liberty Under the Law: This is the educational game where I'm working as a tech producer. Production is going well; I expect we'll have a working prototype sometime in May (working meaning you can play a round and everything does approximately what it should). We have some early implementations of the interface working in Flash, and I've been working with our server programmer to get the database side of the game up and running. Our deadline for having a full level complete is in June, at which point Corporation for Public Broadcasting will tell us if they intend to fund a full version of the game or not.
-One Week Project: This one was awhile ago, but I realized I never wrote about it. So in the second semester of the second year in my program, they have you do this project called the One Week Project. Basically, they give you an object as a prompt, and you have one week to build some kind of interactive experience utilizing that object. This year, the object was a handle, so we all had to build something that either had a handle in it or had otherwise clear affordances (if an object has very clear affordances, you know exactly what you're supposed to do with it, like how a handle is clearly meant to be grasped and pulled). For mine, I built a voodoo doll from canvas and foam and filled it with press switches, then wired that to a microcontroller (like a very dumb computer) that was hooked to my laptop. The way it worked was, when you pushed a pressure point on the voodoo doll, something ridiculously Looney Tunes esque would happen to a cartoon character onscreen. Rocks might fall on him, he could get hit with an anvil, he could catch randomly on fire, etc. It went over pretty well. I might get to show it at SIGGRAPH, which is a big deal graphics conference that they have every year; we'll see if that goes down or not. Here's a pic of the doll, and his onscreen counterpart:
-Thesis Prep: This semester, we've all been thinking, prototyping, crewing up, and writing proposals for what will be our master's thesis projects next year. I've done a lot of research and prototyping, and I've decided to do a game where the controller is a stuffed animal. I found this type of electronics that people call e-textiles, which basically means using threads and fabrics made of conductive materials to build electronics that are soft, bendable, wearable, etc. I think that this type of electronics would be a fantastic way to make something as soft and cuddly as a stuffed animal interactive, without adding a bunch of stiff hard stuff to it. I won't go into full detail about the project here, but if you're interested, I'm keeping photos of prototypes here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihughes/collections/72157604523950739/ and there is a web-viewable copy of my in-progress thesis proposal here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddgscz8c_112rfhkxqf2
I have to pitch my thesis next Thursday, and given that it's approved, I'll start development on that over the summer.
-BrinStar: BrinStar is a networked Flash game that we're doing in my advanced game development class. We've been working to make a game where two teams compete to conquer planets in a solar system by beating the high scores of arcade-style games hosted on each planet. It's been...an adventure. I wrote a lot of the code that handles the network connections and stores all the necessary info in a database for retrieval. I might also be building one of the planet arcade games, we'll see if it's needed or not. The art style is kind of Monty Python, with cutouts and weird non sequiters, and the music is just brilliant. My friend Jamie wrote us a theme song that's part Gene Roddenberry and part...well, Jamie singing in a silly falsetto voice. It's pretty awesome. This game is due to be exhibited next Wednesday, during IMD seminar (the class where the whole department gets together to look at what each other have been working on).
-Thesis Show: Yeah, remember when I said I wasn't going to work on thesis show this year? That was a big fat lie. Well, not a lie, but a declaration I made before considering my financial situation. Sigh. So for this year, I am NOT running the thesis show, but rather am just a member of the much-reduced construction crew. We hired an architecture student this year, so he designed all the stuff and is helping us build it; what a DIFFERENCE that has made! We get about twice the construction done with a third of the people in the same amount of time, because we aren't just making it up as we go along. Very nice. So I'll be doing construction for a few nights a week until the show goes up in May. Tomorrow is hanging drywall, woo!
-Summer Plans: I've been interviewing with a couple of different game studios to do a summer internship, and on Monday I accepted an offer from Double Fine Productions in San Francisco. This is the studio that did Psychonauts, for those who have played it, and they're currently working on Brutal Legend, a heavy metal and Norse mythology inspired game where you play rock music and swing a big axe to combat against demons and...sounds kinda familiar, don't it? Basically, when Brutal Legend was announced, I figured that it was the bigger, better version of Ragnarokk and so I wanted to work for Double Fine. I flew up there for an interview on Monday, and WOW are they awesome. I got to play an early version of the game, and the owner/lead designer of the company, Tim Schafer, sat down with me to chat about my work and his for awhile (this would be the equivalent of a film student getting to sit down with Steven Spielberg and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark or something). I'm pretty excited to start. Of course, this means that I will need a place to stay in SF for the summer, so I put down a deposit on a sublet in an apartment about four blocks from the beach, near the zoo, and right by a muni station so I can take the train to work. I'll have some friends in the city; my friend Mike from USC is doing an internship on the other side of the bay, one of my roommates from Bradley is in the area, and I've got a friend at Google, so she's within a train ride as well. Needless to say, I am chomping at the bit to get this semester over with and get started with summer!
Man, I feel like there is more stuff I'm forgetting, but these are at least the major high points since the last time I updated. Hopefully ya'll are well and getting more sleep than I am. I'm going to try to get home at some point this summer to see people, so if you are going to be around, drop me a line!
So I'm getting vibes that I haven't updated recently and should probably do that. Here's a rundown of where things stand in DianaLand:
-Liberty Under the Law: This is the educational game where I'm working as a tech producer. Production is going well; I expect we'll have a working prototype sometime in May (working meaning you can play a round and everything does approximately what it should). We have some early implementations of the interface working in Flash, and I've been working with our server programmer to get the database side of the game up and running. Our deadline for having a full level complete is in June, at which point Corporation for Public Broadcasting will tell us if they intend to fund a full version of the game or not.
-One Week Project: This one was awhile ago, but I realized I never wrote about it. So in the second semester of the second year in my program, they have you do this project called the One Week Project. Basically, they give you an object as a prompt, and you have one week to build some kind of interactive experience utilizing that object. This year, the object was a handle, so we all had to build something that either had a handle in it or had otherwise clear affordances (if an object has very clear affordances, you know exactly what you're supposed to do with it, like how a handle is clearly meant to be grasped and pulled). For mine, I built a voodoo doll from canvas and foam and filled it with press switches, then wired that to a microcontroller (like a very dumb computer) that was hooked to my laptop. The way it worked was, when you pushed a pressure point on the voodoo doll, something ridiculously Looney Tunes esque would happen to a cartoon character onscreen. Rocks might fall on him, he could get hit with an anvil, he could catch randomly on fire, etc. It went over pretty well. I might get to show it at SIGGRAPH, which is a big deal graphics conference that they have every year; we'll see if that goes down or not. Here's a pic of the doll, and his onscreen counterpart:
-Thesis Prep: This semester, we've all been thinking, prototyping, crewing up, and writing proposals for what will be our master's thesis projects next year. I've done a lot of research and prototyping, and I've decided to do a game where the controller is a stuffed animal. I found this type of electronics that people call e-textiles, which basically means using threads and fabrics made of conductive materials to build electronics that are soft, bendable, wearable, etc. I think that this type of electronics would be a fantastic way to make something as soft and cuddly as a stuffed animal interactive, without adding a bunch of stiff hard stuff to it. I won't go into full detail about the project here, but if you're interested, I'm keeping photos of prototypes here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihughes/collections/72157604523950739/ and there is a web-viewable copy of my in-progress thesis proposal here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddgscz8c_112rfhkxqf2
I have to pitch my thesis next Thursday, and given that it's approved, I'll start development on that over the summer.
-BrinStar: BrinStar is a networked Flash game that we're doing in my advanced game development class. We've been working to make a game where two teams compete to conquer planets in a solar system by beating the high scores of arcade-style games hosted on each planet. It's been...an adventure. I wrote a lot of the code that handles the network connections and stores all the necessary info in a database for retrieval. I might also be building one of the planet arcade games, we'll see if it's needed or not. The art style is kind of Monty Python, with cutouts and weird non sequiters, and the music is just brilliant. My friend Jamie wrote us a theme song that's part Gene Roddenberry and part...well, Jamie singing in a silly falsetto voice. It's pretty awesome. This game is due to be exhibited next Wednesday, during IMD seminar (the class where the whole department gets together to look at what each other have been working on).
-Thesis Show: Yeah, remember when I said I wasn't going to work on thesis show this year? That was a big fat lie. Well, not a lie, but a declaration I made before considering my financial situation. Sigh. So for this year, I am NOT running the thesis show, but rather am just a member of the much-reduced construction crew. We hired an architecture student this year, so he designed all the stuff and is helping us build it; what a DIFFERENCE that has made! We get about twice the construction done with a third of the people in the same amount of time, because we aren't just making it up as we go along. Very nice. So I'll be doing construction for a few nights a week until the show goes up in May. Tomorrow is hanging drywall, woo!
-Summer Plans: I've been interviewing with a couple of different game studios to do a summer internship, and on Monday I accepted an offer from Double Fine Productions in San Francisco. This is the studio that did Psychonauts, for those who have played it, and they're currently working on Brutal Legend, a heavy metal and Norse mythology inspired game where you play rock music and swing a big axe to combat against demons and...sounds kinda familiar, don't it? Basically, when Brutal Legend was announced, I figured that it was the bigger, better version of Ragnarokk and so I wanted to work for Double Fine. I flew up there for an interview on Monday, and WOW are they awesome. I got to play an early version of the game, and the owner/lead designer of the company, Tim Schafer, sat down with me to chat about my work and his for awhile (this would be the equivalent of a film student getting to sit down with Steven Spielberg and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark or something). I'm pretty excited to start. Of course, this means that I will need a place to stay in SF for the summer, so I put down a deposit on a sublet in an apartment about four blocks from the beach, near the zoo, and right by a muni station so I can take the train to work. I'll have some friends in the city; my friend Mike from USC is doing an internship on the other side of the bay, one of my roommates from Bradley is in the area, and I've got a friend at Google, so she's within a train ride as well. Needless to say, I am chomping at the bit to get this semester over with and get started with summer!
Man, I feel like there is more stuff I'm forgetting, but these are at least the major high points since the last time I updated. Hopefully ya'll are well and getting more sleep than I am. I'm going to try to get home at some point this summer to see people, so if you are going to be around, drop me a line!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
If you ever wondered why I assiduously avoid the "making games for girls" thing, this is why:
http://www.missbimbo.com/
http://www.missbimbo.com/
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