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christian nutt

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warmup [May. 17th, 2012|12:10 am]
i have a couple big blog posts planned out but i haven't found the time. my brain is revolving like a crazy thing that revolves very quickly and slightly off center and nearly constantly.

long distance relationships are hard even without crushing neuroses (or so i imagine! ask someone who doesn't have them.)

really i'm just writing this blog post to loosen up my fingers a bit, check in, say hi, drain my brain of a bit of pus, keep the blog alive, that stuff. (i am liking livejournal a lot in theory still so how about liking it in practice! here's a caress.)

i've been watching rupaul's drag race and working. plus there's the whole boyfriend.

i love drag race. it's so fucking gay and funny and stupid and uplifting and i love rupaul. a real role model, honestly.

amanda palmer is tearing up kickstarter (this is how you get the limited edition version of her next CD, btw, [info]maluket, if you weren't aware, btw) and that is on my mind. it's so interesting to watch her work this. <3

tonight actually she released the first track to the kickstarter backers. i am listening to it for the second time right now. it's very NEW for her. it's pretty epic. the link will be floating around tomorrow i guess?

work has been highly active. work is REALLY heating up with our current staff, we're jelling and working together to improve the site. it's inspirational. i had an editorial i wanted to write this week and it's thursday and so i better do that. because i found that the last couple i wrote really made me feel like i was doing the right thing for myself. and thanks to fran for kicking my ass and making me do them, btw.

yeah i am way into this new amanda palmer song.

i'll be fine in a minute

fran is coming back on may 31 and staying, well, basically staying the summer -- till august when we return to germany for GDC europe. i actually am highly looking forward to germany. you know, somehow until i typed that out, i didn't really process what it's going to mean to have fran here for that long. that's going to be a profound shakeup in a very good way. i have really come to realize in the last year how totally my brain has been programmed since i was a kid to be a once and future only child. i aspired to a relationship when i was young, and then not at all, and once i came out with an almost desperate intensity, but i never really realized the logistics of the thing. and of course i broke off about the hardest one i could possibly do. i'm not good at planning or thinking. i hope i'm learning on the job though.
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nothing's gonna stop me from floating [May. 8th, 2012|11:48 pm]
tonight was kind of weird because of the amendment 1 stuff. nothing will ever trump my disappointment at prop 8 but this sucks all the same. here are some nice respones though.

the upshot as far as i see it is that this will just call more attention at a national level to the unfairness of this situation; there may be fallout in NC because a plurality of the state voters support civil unions which are now also abolished (this was not a commonly understood fact by the voters), and there will now be another legal battle coming (i'm sure something is already in the works -- this amendment was widely expected to pass.)

but still this shit is ludicrous. you know, it fucking hurts, too.

but this was a little pick me up for me tonight, so i'll share it.

so last week my jeans tore, so i needed to replace them. i tried some places close by, but couldn't find anything i really liked, so i decided to drive out to macy's since it's usually a jeans selection paradise. the closest macy's (besides SF) is in hilltop mall, which used to be my old stomping grounds when i first moved to CA, so a visit there interested me. i haven't been in 10 years.

after my shopping i was hungry and wandered the mall looking for food. lots of stuff was shutting down since it was about 8:45 (the mall closes at 9) but i peeked in the pizza place. the owner was doing the numbers at a table with (obviously) his (college age) son sitting beside him.

i peeked in but it looked dead, and the case was empty of food, but the son jumped up and asked me what i wanted. he handed me a menu and said "we'll make you anything!" there were no slices, i pointed out, but he told me he'd make me a personal pizza -- "it's not on the menu".

just sort of loved how this guy was supporting the family business so hard by making me a special one-off pizza at 8:45 pm. it was delivered to my table, even, while i waited for it to bake, and it was cheap as hell, too. just put a smile on my face.

dunno if i'll be back at the hilltop mall anytime soon but that's the kinda thing that you want to support, isn't it?
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more on vic [Apr. 29th, 2012|09:46 pm]


someone asked me this on twitter, and i meant to post about it back then, but i didn't get around to it. i'd still like to, though.

but before i launch into that, i should link the retronauts podcast on working designs which has since gone up, which contains essentially the other half of that same conversation, but in the form of a look back at working designs.

so i guess i'll kinda start at the beginning and go from there. let's see what i remember.

i first encountered working designs via its first-ever release -- or one of its two, i should say: parasol stars for the turbografx (which came out the same exact time as cadash, which i never picked up.) i was a big nerd with a turbografx and i liked cute japanese games (things have not changed.) it's a bubble bobble spinoff, and a good game, but at the time i had no idea what lay in store for WD.

as victor explains in the podcast, he became hooked on japanese PC engine RPGs, and his next product was cosmic fantasy 2.

alright already, this is gonna get crazy long )
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well! [Apr. 22nd, 2012|04:19 pm]
he's a quick one (a bigger one is in the works)

i was on 1UP's "games, dammit!" podcast talking to vic ireland of gaijinworks (and formerly of working designs) about his (clearly failed) kickstarter for class of heroes 2 (it's here).

the blog post and download link

i don't think i need to go into detail on why this kickstarter failed any more than i did in the podcast. if you don't feel like listening robert boyd explains why here in fine detail. (developer of cthulu saves the world, and bigtime JRPG fan, if you don't know who he is.)

i wish vic well. i have had my differences with him over the years, but i've followed his work since he began his career localizing games (and i bought parasol stars for the turbografx 16!) and i wish him well in his future endeavors. if we get some cool games we would not have gotten otherwise (which is increasingly a possibility again, these days) thanks to his efforts, that'll please me.

and everyone, go buy arc the lad 1 and 2 (especially 2) on PSN. srsly
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well hai thar [Apr. 13th, 2012|06:01 pm]
been awhile.

last time i posted, francesco was here. he left a couple of weeks ago and i really fucking miss him. we're talking about when we'll next see each other, though.

work has been going well, but i'm busy. i worked pretty late a couple days this week but still failed to get completely caught up to everything i want to do. i'm going to be working late today too but that has a lot more to do with the fact that i was out of the office a fair chunk of today for different meeting/event type stuff so that means i have to make up the time. well, and i procrastinated.

tonight i am going to put fez through the paces. dunno what to expect from this one. the indie release of the week that excites me much more is skullgirls, the 2D fighter from reverge labs (and my first game credit, to my surprise -- i'm in the special thanks.) just SO much attention has been lavished on this game, both in terms of the visual presentation and the gameplay. it's something else.

this reminds me to say that rayman origins is really overrated. i've never actually stated this publicly anywhere, but it's what i believe. i beat it with fran and i can't think of a more overrated game. it's the least interesting (from a gameplay perspective) 2D platformer i've played this generation, it's buggy, the visuals are not really anything special... i guess people love it because it's HD 2D? i mean, i get it. it's the kind of game you WANT to love. but if you actually play through it, it's kind of a mess. should have stayed an XBLA game and had a reduced scope (it's VERY repetitive) or had another few months for design work to get the later levels to introduce new ideas. plus debug. man. also they really overrely on the fact that it has infinite lives + frequent checkpoints later into the game and make shit REALLY cheap. and you have to be super precise, and the controls aren't as precise as they want them to be... and some of the levels just suck for co-op, which is supposed to be the point.

man, feels good to get that out.

speaking of overrated, i wrote an editorial about why skyward sword has issues, or at least i theorized about it. that game... it's some amazingly brilliant polished stuff and a pile of tedious irritating crap. i dropped it about 10 hours prior to the end of the game because that's the last time there's any new content, more or less. after that it's just padding, including the very end, as i understand it. AWESOME. i mean not awesome. what a waste of time that game (half) is.

i also beat ninja gaiden 3. i also wrote about this.. this game is getting slayed by the critics, and really unfairly. yes, the team made some really boneheaded creative decisions with it, but it's also symptomatic of the fact that "game made by 40 people in 18 months" is not going to stack up as far as a retail 60 dollar release with the reviewers anymore. it's either 250 people in 24 months ala asscreed, or 80 people for 48 months. i don't necessarily expect people to forgive a game because of the scope of its team, but the truth of the matter is, this game is not a fucking 3. it's fun. i played it till the end and i sure didn't have to.

but they did make some stupid fucking mistakes that have nothing to do with the team size.

in fact probably the most disappointing thing to me about it was the masato kato story was just super typical/predictable japanese crap, if you've read manga/watched anime/played games/seen j-movies, etc. yawn. from the guy who put the twists in chrono cross and baten kaitos i expected more.

speaking of weird japanese shit that IS interesting, i picked up some manga: bokurano and dorohedoro. both recommendations by fran when i took him to kinokuniya, and both part of viz signature line of mature manga from ikki, a japaense underground-ish anthology. dorohedoro reminds me a bit of reading vertigo comics in the 90s -- punky weird and violent. funny dialogue. somewhere between that and when shit gets weird in akira (manga) when things are all postapocalyptic and tokyo is a disaster area. plus i dunno what else. it's also hyperviolent. like full page illutration of a person getting his brain chopped in half in mid-slice.

the main character is an amensiac with a lizard's head on a human body, who's looking for the sorcerer who transformed him. he does this by grabbing every sorcerer he meets and shoving their head into his mouth, at which point the guy who lives inside of his mouth looks and figures out if he's the right guy. then he pulls the sorcerer back out and asks what the dude said. it's fucking weird in that underground comics way that's nice. wish we had a game with this kind of attitude coming out of japan right about now.

bokurano seems to be like, i dunno, evangelion meets battle royale meets something more naive i can't really pinpoint. subversive, but very clean art and pure art style, which gives it an airy feel. it's not bogged down by Anime Crap. it seems like a good one too. i like the unhappy stuff. this is the kind of manga i want to be reading; good job viz.

i actually bought a lot more stuff at the kino. oh yeah, i bought kaba2, the new otomo art book. the first kaba book covers the 70s to 1989. this is 1989 to present. was crazy expensive but i will buy any otomo anything and be happy about it.

what else? i'm playing tales of graces F (good) and kid icarus (good). fran and i beat the last story, the european version, and will tell you two things:

- it was really fucking good.
- it is going to get 7s at best cos it's a bit unpolished and for wii.

i am getting even more tired, if possible, of the game press lately.

this game just kept trying new stuff even PAST the ending. it was just fun to play -- fran and i traded back and forth, trying not to proceed the story while the other wasn't around, so one night when he fell asleep on my lap i just parked in an area and fought battles and battles and battles and got experience. it's so smartly designed in that regard, like the old suikoden games, the experience you get from enemies decreases as you level up, so you level up really quick at first and people who haven't been in your party for awhile level REALLY fast.

i dunno, i can't recommend it enough honestly. i could go into why ... but this post is already long and i haven't finished it yet! plus i have work to do...

i also beat FFT for the first time. i couldn't hack it when it came out and i got sort of pissed off and rejected it -- i have a bad attitude about games i can't figure out. it's kinda childish. but fran is a big fan so he helped me make it through the early stages -- well through the middle really -- and i came to adore it. really a classic for all the right reasons.

thinking i won't bother picking up 13-2 again. the thought fills me with dread post FFT. sigh.

and here are 3 nice interviews of mine of late:

The Structure of Fun: Learning from Super Mario 3D Land's Director
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/168460/the_structure_of_fun_learning_.php

'No Bullshit': The Management Style Behind Deus Ex: HR's Success
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/168181/no_bullshit_the_management_.php

Inafune: The Hope of the Japanese Industry?
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166988/inafune_the_hope_of_the_japanese_.php

actually i have to say, people love that inafune is the howard beale of the japanese game industry but frankly i'm ready to see him put his money where his mouth is.

and here's a song that may or may not be by aphex twin:

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good chance to catch up [Mar. 1st, 2012|11:58 pm]
a lot has been going on!

livejournal is clearly not a habit anymore, though darned if i don't keep tabs on my friends page.

there's probably a lot to catch up on.

the most obvious, biggest, and exciting thing is snoring away on my couch right now: francesco is here. he's been here since sunday and he's here until april, which is just amazing. ah, to live a normal life of a couple for that long. some people take that for granted.

we need to figure out our next steps, but for right now, this is pretty heavenly...

he's been hit really hard with the jetlag stick. i'd be more sympathetic, except that the last time i came to europe and was dying, he lectured me about how jetlag doesn't exist and if you don't want to sleep JUST DON'T SLEEP what could be easier! *facepalm*

i took him out to kinokuniya where he freaked and dropped $120 on artbooks within moments. :3 and then to the board game store. he's been happy. and so have i~

next week is GDC, which will be a madhouse. my schedule is shaping up really well, i think. it should be a good show. i love it, though it's such a long, draining week. one work day left until that happens... which i'll spend, at this point, trying to get as much unrelated stuff off my plate as i can, so it doesn't have to get all cobwebby. my schedule is about done.

i had a bunch of things in mind to blog about but then i had to run off and do some grownup chores and i forgot about them. erm.

oh, one is the last story. this is the new (A)RPG from mistwalker (sakaguchi's studio) and published by nintendo (well, in japan and europe -- it's being brought over by xseed in the US.) fran brought me a copy from italy and we have been tearing through it since he got here so he can review it.

well, also, we've been tearing through it because it's FUCKING AWESOME. i can't remember the last time i've been this into a game. fran and i have been handing off the controller and trying to play together exclusively (i've missed some because of work and stuff, but not that much.)

it's really an action RPG. it has some tactical elements to the battle system but basically (especially before they are introduced) you're more or less mashing on enemies musou-style. but this is fun, as everybody knows. the game gets so much right, too. pacing, for one. things (dungeons, battles, cutscenes, story segments) neither last too long nor are too short.

the story is a bit on the 16-bit JRPG side at times (hi sakaguchi!) but this is sometimes a benefit because you lose the kingdom hearts-ish ultrapretentious megacrap that infests the genre. also the localization is top notch -- the voice acting (all UK actors) is fan-fucking-tastic.

the game reminds me a lot of a bunch of other games thrown into a blender. and some of them might surprise you. gears of war is an obvious influence but it's only to the good. there's a cover system (!!) and some slight nods to the locust in the form of the burrowing reptids (though they're not the main antagonists.) it also has a merry band of mercs as the party, which is not exactly GOW but it's shooter-ish. but the characterizations are great -- which, again, is a 16-bit thing, if you think about it. really effective.

and the story is interesting. sometimes the characters will even surprise you by commenting on things being fishy or unlikely, which is such a refreshing change of pace for games. usually they follow the jem rule of "everybody just goes along with it for the sake of the plot."

i feel like i ought to talk about the gameplay more: you control the lead party character, and the rest of your group is AI. they can either be mages or melee characters, and they run around big battlefields. your job is basically to target the tough enemies that are the most strategically vital targets, or unravel the pattern/trick to the boss so you can actually damage it. you also have to resurrect your party (run and touch 'em, again, a bit of the gears influence.)

the main character steadily gets new abilities throughout the game, but it doesn't feel like an FF13-style drip-feed because the gameplay is always fun -- the new abilities just make it more strategic anytime it threatens to get samey. it's really well paced, did i mention?

and it looks gorgeous. yeah, you'll notice shit textures sometimes (it's a wii game) but the models and environments are as good as they get on the wii. it's a lovely game to look at -- really.

all in all i'm super into it. you simply have to buy it later this year. that and xenoblade as well.

which makes me realize that the two most innovative and cool JRPGs of the generation are both of the wii, both first party, and both released after the system died. what the fuck?

but beetween xenoblade, last story, and dark souls, nobody can make the argument that japan doesn't know how to develop games anymore. they just need to concentrate on (a) learning design lessons from contemporary games while innovating on them (b) sticking to tech they know and can work with (c) in genres they actually know how to make, not aping western stuff for the sake of aping it.

i mean, compare the last story -- an ARPG influenced by gears of war, with quantum theory, that piece of shit tecmo game that was a ripoff of gears of war with some attempts at innovation. i actually like shibata, the guy who directed that game, but it was such a misguided attempt to try and beat epic at its own game + innovate + code an engine from scratch instead of licensing unreal to do it. so wrong.

i hear binary domain is OK though. i really wanna try that and see. yakuza team shooter? neo-tokyo? uh, sure. yes. please.

and speaking of musou, as i did a bit above, i picked up one piece kaizoku musou as a surprise for fran, as he's an OP fanboy. after last story we might play that next. though i am dying to get my paws on asura's wrath, which i also have. interactive anime by cyberconnect 2? um, yes.

i still have a lot of 2011 games to play. and, hell, older. i'm playing dragon quest 9 now. it's nice! i know i was a hater up front, because i liked the direction 8 was taking the series, but that's obviously down the shitter for now, looking at 10. meanwhile, 9 is a really nicely made game if you take it for what it is, not what it's not. (that's something fran has been reminding me to do: take things for what they are. also, to give games a chance, since they all have flaws, rather than writing them off early on. that's the most important lesson, and one i already knew, but jadedness lured me into stopping doing.)

anyway.

i guess now i'll just layer in some links to my recent good work in case you aren't following me on twitter or facebook...

Mojang, take 2: Scrolls

everybody knows minecraft, but i speak to the co-founder of the company about mojang's new game, scrolls.

Unity's Future In High-Definition

unity, as far as game engines go, is becoming more and more powerful, and there's a big push from within the company to make it happen. so i talk to them. this is one of the things i did in sweden.

Emotional Poems: Mizuguchi's Expanding Future

tetsuya mizuguchi talks lumines, child of eden, and the future of games + humanity. for real. guest-starring my old coworker james mielke, who now lives in tokyo and works at Q.

Hanging in Limbo

big interview with the two main guys from playdead, the studio behind limbo. which is very overrated. i've been dying to say that publicly and my lj is obscure enough i guess.

David Jaffe and the Language of Interactivity

david jaffe talks about why games are the wrong medium for storytelling. playing the last story, i don't agree! but it's not as though his argument isn't easy to understand or compelling.

Building the World of Reckoning

a really interesting interview, imo, with the lead world builder of reckoning, that RPG that came out a bit ago. as far as an interview that really is developer-centric, this is my recent favorite of mine.

Talking the Future of Minecraft

interview with jens "jeb" bergensten about what the hell is up with the biggest little game ever.

Games That Can't Be Duplicated: Arc System Works' Ishiwatari Speaks

the dude who invented guilty gear talks to me about what he thinks. wide-ranging and fun.

The Verge of Change: Ben Cousins on Founding Ngmoco Sweden

this guy is bloody convinced that we are in a similar transition from consoles to tablets as we once (twice?) were from arcades to consoles. and he is going to be doing his damnedest to usher that along, btw. industry-watchers should read this one.
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ghostworld [Feb. 6th, 2012|11:44 pm]
[Tags|]
[Current Location |US, California, Alameda, Emeryville, San Pablo, 3898]

so trying the iPhone lj app. because I haven't used it since the last time I had an iPhone. it keeps crashing when I try to insert a photo. charming.

well can't imagine I'll use it a lot. but that really makes it useless.

(in fact, this was getting complicated so i pulled it onto the mac and started working on it more. so there we go.) 

just watched ghost world for the first time in I don't know how long. probably since i lived in orange county (that would be 2002 - 2004) if I had to guess. used to be one of my favorite movies, when it came out, but somehow I just found it all a bit small and sad tonight. partially it's just my mood, I know, but that isn't all. it showed me how much I've changed. suddenly I relate more to Seymour than Enid. I'm not really either, of course. on the other hand I picked up on all these details that escaped me in the past that mitigate the baleful cynical eye I thought it had back then. which is strangely somehow comforting to me actually.

it came out in 2001 but I remember watching it in new jersey. at the ritz in voorhees. I must have been visiting.

i can't even understand why i loved it so much then. and i used to like the ending too. again, it's partially my mood, but i'm really not that person anymore. or not enough that person, anyway. 

tonight I cooked Japanese curry for dinner. I'd post a photo but I can't. well, maybe if I actually got on my pc I could, right? I can post via email too but I forget how.




continues. like the old days )
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so [Jan. 31st, 2012|01:39 pm]
final fantasy XIII-2 is out. this is what i have been thinking about

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39921/Questioning_the_vision_behind_Final_Fantasy_XIII2.php
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what's he up to? [Jan. 22nd, 2012|10:54 pm]
well! it's been 9 days since my last post: what's he up to?

not a lot, i guess. been talking to francesco, working, and playing some video games. i played more skyward sword. i'm about 35 hours in, and from what i hear it pretty much turns into "fetch quests until endgame" so i've been really debating whether i want to go back to it or move on. leaning toward going back.

when i first played solatorobo, i got the DLC quests, but the last one doesn't unlock until you beat the game and beat all of the other quests. i was stuck on the second boss rush, so i shelved it. but then sheffield (who just played the game) pointed out to me a good way to score some revive (healing) items, and i abused them to get through the boss rush... and the final DLC quest didn't unlock. i tried reconnecting to nintendo WFC. i went to every town and talked the quest broker: no new quests. in short, dunno what happened, but it seems bugged or somehow screwed up, and i can't do the epilogue. i'm not going to sink 22 more hours into this game. i'm really disappointed, as i hear it's a really nice epilogue. it's also not on youtube, either.

so that kind of sucks.

work hasn't been fancy or weird lately, so nothing much to report. we did a SOPA protest, which the audience seemed to mostly get behind. SOPA/PIPA seem quite dead in the water just now, but insidious copyright-protecting legislation is always just around the corner these days, and there are weird, unpleasant international treaties, too. bad stuff. it seems like the laws getting debated these days are more and more grotesque.

i'm realizing thanks to fran that i don't do enough original work anymore -- no writing. well, i've realized this for a long time but fran is trying to kick my butt, which i appreciate. because really, i'm often too lazy with my free time. and honestly, my creative muscles always want to be exercised. as do my real ones, but that has its own challenges.

in positive news i tidied the apartment a great deal today which helps a lot with the ol' mental state. it's about halfway there, i guess. the latter part of last year, between the travel and whatever else, things really fell apart.
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talky-shrew [Jan. 13th, 2012|09:49 pm]


note that the 'device' in question is colloquially known as a 'door'.

so at any rate, i am 20-something hours into skyward sword and it is very good, and extremely polished and well-designed. except for the bits that are tedious or bad or superfluous or backtracky or awkward.

hrm.

sometimes it's just a wonderful, wonderful game. the last boss battle i did was the sort of reason i'll always buy any system nintendo puts out. and the dungeon was nice, too, and god was it gorgeous as well.

but the preceding couple hours were "why is this ... what ... what's wrong with you people?" level what-the-fuckery. padding, padding, with even the new content rather paltry and unfinished feeling when it popped up. strange game. despite the presumed "five year dev cycle" i really don't think that's what it had. there are too many signs of "rush job". strange.

but still: when it's good it's SO good. and i'm liking zelda. leigh wrote about it for gamasutra -- nice pics too, so you can see how the design works. you want to help zelda because she's likable.

while a lot of the dialogue is meh (and the localization actually ain't that great) zelda is super appealing. you want to chase after her. just that little touch, while extremely simplistically implemented, makes it feel a bit more modern and appealing.

anyway, it's a nice game. i hear it gets worse.
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