Suspicion Print To Play Update

It's been a month since PAX where I decided to make a print and play version of my game, Suspicion.  I haven't been idle in that time, but I haven't had as much free time as I have wanted.  I've gotten a very preliminary print and play version of my game and sent to a friend to give a once over and I've already gotten more work I need to do on that (add some pictures to the rule book for clarity and tweak the print pages so they are easy to print in either double-sided or normal printers) and then I will pots it here for the world to try.  In the meantime, I give you Murray because he's awesome:

What Got Me Into Games

The Extra Credits group had a Q&A panel at PAX where the question was raised to each of them, "What game or experience made you decide to make games your career?"  I thought that was a very thought provoking question, so I've decided I'm going to answer it myself.  I was very blessed to have parents who introduced me to games when I was little (or maybe lucky to have older brothers who requested things when I was still tiny/non-existent).  My first console was the Atari and my first computer was an Apple IIe.  Also, during elementary school, my mom was in charge of the carpool area (making sure kids found their parents and vice versa) so I had to stay late after school with nothing to do.  Fortunately, I was allowed to play the educational games our computer area had.  I think these games - Think Quick, Midnight Rescue, and Challenge of the Ancient Empire - fostered in me the idea that games can be educational AND fun.  With the Mac IIsi came World Builder, which helped me learn how to build and design simple graphic adventure games.  After that came Marathon, whose physics/game editor started to teach me how parts of game systems work and how they interact.  I think all of those, combined with my desire to tell a story like all the RPGs I played growing up (especially Chrono Trigger), are really what made me want to make video games to tell a story, improve peoples' lives in some way, and to make them happy by letting them have fun.

However, I've also had a strong desire to make board games that currently outweighs my desire to make video games.  Board games are capable of achieving those same goals I wanted to achieve with video games (and still do), but games like Fireball Island also taught me that board games can come with some really awesome pieces.  There's something about the physicality of the components that make them even more enjoyable to me and I want to bring that to others.  This is why my dream is to bring a touch screen table akin to the Microsoft Surface plus some physical pieces to combine the best of both worlds into the world.  For example, imagine Settlers of Catan without the tedious setup of the hexes/numbers on the board, but still with individual roads, houses, and cities.  Fortunately, that sort of idea is already being done.

Blog Revamp

I woke up last night at 5:20am and couldn't get back to sleep. For some reason I was feeling especially creative and was coming up with all sorts of random thoughts and ideas that I wanted to share. At some point I realized this blog would be a great place for that because I clearly wasn't using it for its original purpose. So I used what I always use when I want to remember something, Post-Its.

I make sure to have a stack of Post-Its in easy reach anytime I'm at home or at work because I learned from my mom that Post-Its are the best thing to use to remember to do things. My computer glasses' case carries my filled out reminders to and from work until whatever it was I needed to remember is dealt with. I used to e-mail myself things back and forth, but then my I'd keep thinking I had new e-mails and would open it up to find my own notes (sometimes ones I sent minutes ago and forgot already). I also tried just putting the Post-Its in my pockets, but that ended with wet soggy paper after laundry day. My glasses' case is the only thing I can trust to put Post-Its on that I can: A) have at work and home and 2) actually see and deal with the Post-It at home and work since my glasses case always gets taken out of the backpack and put on a desk.

I still want to aim for the original purpose of this blog, just not as forced as I was originally thinking. So now this blog will be more like other blogs, a random guy rambling on about random subjects they care about it.

The POV Purpose

I spend a lot of time consuming media. I am always looking for more media to consume, but I'd like to have a good sense of if I'll like it or not before purchasing media. Generally, that's where reviewers/critics/user reviews come in, but since opinions are by definition subjective, I have to know if I can trust someone's opinion. Do they like something as much as I do? This is precisely why the number/star system of ratings makes no sense. What does a 7.5 given by one person mean to another?

With this blog I'm going to try to start a revolution on how media is reviewed and rated. Along with a list of things that I like and dislike on my main page (so you can get a feel for whether you'll like what I like or not), my reviews will contain comparisons on similar things. I'm hoping this will be a better indication for readers to know that if they like one book, movie, or game, then they would most likely like another.

Also, for a better idea of how I think, I will occasionally post about my philosophies, theories, and beliefs about life. Also also, because I enjoy reading random blog posts, I'm going to be reviewing random things. Websites, restaurants, particular roads, whatever I feel like. This is my blog after all.