EwA's Secret Lair

Quote of the week - Hey Fool!

2007-03-29T00:46:00.000+08:00

"

Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

"
-- Martin Fowler

Understanding Games

2007-03-22T03:37:00.000+08:00

Wow, its been a long time since I've blogged.
Academia life took too much of my precious time :p

Now, for the interesting links I want to share:

Its a series of Flash games that introduces the basics of games.
Understanding Games Part 1
Understanding Games Part 2
Understanding Games Part 3
Understanding Games Part 4

Done by Pixalate, it teaches the wonderful world of game design while playing some simple Flash games.

Definitely recommended for all to try. Because its both educational AND entertaining :D

( ._.)Ø

God knows...

2006-12-01T18:09:00.000+08:00

guitar by KURIKINTON FOX (Satoru Kousaki)

Removing Busywork

2006-11-29T07:56:00.000+08:00

Richard Garfield wrote an article on how busywork is removed in games and the examples from the history of famous games.

Click on Read More for the full post.

LINK to Full article

"

Busywork in a game are the things done that are necessary to play, but not really part of the fun. As with most definitions, this will have some gray areas, but to illustrate, some of the things that I would consider busy work are:

Shuffling and dealing
Banking in a game like Monopoly
Setting up a complicated board game

Where it starts to get muddy is when the busywork is incorporated with play. An example of this is a game in which one player is so far ahead that they are definitely going to win; playing that game out to its bitter end would be busywork. Also, one could argue that the beginning of a game like Monopoly has a lot of busywork. If I am going to roll, move, and buy if possible then the game in some sense starts at the point the first decisions are made: trading, buying houses, or at least choosing not to purchase a property. What happens until them could be called busywork, though players may enjoy seeing the “start” of the game unfold.

The historical drive to remove busywork has made it so that most classic games play pretty efficiently relative to modern games. Some examples of where I would say history has driven out busywork would be in backgammon and chess. In backgammon, a game in which you race your pieces around the board and the first person to remove all their pieces wins the race, the ancestors had you start with your pieces off the board. Later, the game was played where pieces began on the board. Later pieces began on the board in an advanced position. Later the doubling cube was added which made runaway games possible to truncate. In chess, originally the pieces did not move as far as they do now, where they sweep across the board. Also, the difference between eastern and western chesses are defined mostly by how the games handled the pawns gumming up the works – eastern chess removed many pawns so there was room to move, and western chess created the “double move” that you can do when you first move a pawn.

Often there will be resistance to removing busywork from a game on many grounds. Generally the people playing the game have made their peace with whatever the mechanic is, or have even learned to enjoy it. It is certainly easy to believe that some modest amount of busywork can be worth the cost for whatever benefit is being given. The tactile pleasure of shuffling a deck may be worth the shuffling. The awe of looking over an elaborate military game might be worth the setup time. However, frequently when the busywork is removed there will be a lot of new players interested in playing, and a lot of old players who don't look back. This has happened very recently with prepainted miniatures in the hobby market. In Wizards there was a group of game designers advocating them long before they became popular, and they never managed to overcome the people entrenched in the old system where all miniatures needed to be painted. After all, the old school believed that was one of the big appeals of the game form. That may have been true, but the ability to buy decent looking prepainted miniatures opened up the game form to far more people. I imagine there was similar resistance among the players to changes in chess that moved it along – undoubtedly some players enjoyed the original game, which by modern chess standards plods along, and resisted changes.

The gaming form that can most learn from this is computer gaming – specifically, but not limited to, roleplaying games. From the early days of MMRPGS I have longed to see the “busywork” removed – the travel time, the boring combats, the tedious inventory management. Cynics have responded that once you remove all that you are left with nothing (try playing progress quest, a free online game, to see the most succinct argument to that end). I personally don't believe that – I think some care needs to be taken, similar to the care that one could imagine being exercised in chess where someone might advocate doing away with all the pawns, or making them move like queens. Entrenched players often respond that they like these elements, and somehow can keep a straight face saying that while holding the move button down for ages as they lumber around an artificial world. They claim that getting rid of the travel would hurt their feeling of immersion. They say this as their character dies and they respawn and go out to search for the corpse.

In recent years you can see the forces that remove busywork playing out here as well, however. Every generation of these games introduces more and more tools to speed travel up or keep combat and other play experiences fresh and interesting. What I am waiting for is for one of these games to be designed with reducing this busywork being not something done incrementally, to be a little better than the competition, but boldly making it the foundation upon which their game is built, jumping directly to the endpoint of this evolutionary process. But, as it is, it looks like I may just have to wait for the game form to crawl there.

Eva sama dash! Negima Pani Poni Dash Parody

2006-11-27T14:48:00.000+08:00

Things I Am No Longer Allowed to do in an RPG

2006-11-23T03:57:00.000+08:00

hreaper just added our campaign's "Not to do again"s in the 2001 Things I Am No Longer Allowed to do in an RPG.

Click on Read More for the full post.

p.s. I'm the blue-eyed blonde half orc Paladin XD

LINK

"

2972. There's no such thing as a LG blonde half-orc Paladin with blue eyes no matter what his back story is.

2973. Said half-orc Paladin do not have a huge fascination of blood and keep cutting himself in rituals for his deity to the point that the other party members start wondering how much pints of blood he has.

2974. When creating a spell that disarms an opponent by force of wind, said wind does NOT declothe them as well (they called it dispelling gust or wind).

2975. May NOT prestidigitate a deck of 52 playing cards and then imbue said cards with powerful spells thus enabling you to cast it 52 times (imbue spell does not and should not work like this!!!)

2976. IF 2973 and 2974 are ignored, may not prestidigitate a deck of 52 playing cards and then imbue them with dispelling gust of wind and then throw the deck into women's dressing rooms.

2977. Party members should keep an eye on the NE Hexblade to make sure he doesn't start raping any of the dying drows.

2978. When receiving a powerful flying battleship, make sure that the crazy CN Tinker does not dismantle the cannon.

2979. If the CN Tinker did not dismantle the canon, make sure he's pointing it at the right direction and no other party members are in the way when he fires it.

2980. Before firing the canon, the shooter MUST first warn the party members in the blast radius.

2981. Do not leave the CN Tinker alone with a bagful of explosives that he just recently made. Especially when you're in the BBEG's castle and he's off somewhere tossing the explosives around for fun.

2982. Never ask the CN Wild Mage to break the chains binding your hands. You may never know if she'll just call down a Meteor Shower to help you.

2983. If the Ninja happens upon a heated argument between party members, he may not knock out all the party involved (including the innocent bystander), toss them into their rooms and lock them in and say that it's the best solution to resolve the problems.

"

Our DM just added more "Not to do again"s to the list:

LINK

"

2984. Just because I am no spellcaster and some holy power worshiper, I am not allowed to insult and harass the only party Cleric and then tell him, "Heal me, okay?" at any time.

2985. This also includes during an intense overwhelming battle.

2986. The fact that he has the highest AC among everyone else in the party due to the full plate mail and spells does not mean I am able to do that in the first place.

2987. And because he's the only party healer, I am not allowed to toss him out and shutting the door close to let him confront a group of enemy archers behind wall slits all alone while everyone else is safe.

2988. And also because I know he just leveled up and gain new spells.

2989. I am not allowed to pee on an angel just because I do not believe in them.

2990. After carefully sneaking stealthily into the deep reaches of the enemy temple with the whole party, I shall not leave a note saying, "We're here."

2991. I am not allowed to find thugs in the city alleyways and beat them up just because I'm bored.

2992. And whine on how I am trying to rid the city of evil because of it after getting lock up in the city jail.

2993. I am not allowed to constantly ask anyone new I meet for a +1 Great sword.

2994. And for a +2 Great sword, after getting a +1 Great sword already.

2995. And for a +5 Great sword, after getting a +4 Great sword already.

2996. And for a +6 Psionic Great sword, after leveling up as a Psionic Warrior and getting a +5 Great sword.

2997. I am not allowed to disguise as a Drow, sneak into the lairs of the Drow temple, slaughtering half of the drows on the way, then telling them that I am here on a peaceful diplomatic meeting with their leader to inquire some information on a certain NPC.

2998. I am not allowed to throw shurikens at new NPCs whom I just meet together with the whole party.

2999. Nor when the whole party and NPCs could not understand each other at the moment.

3000. Nor when the whole party and NPCs are trying to communicate using non-hostile hand signals & body language to prevent any hostility.

"

疑えば目に鬼を見る("Higurashi-no-Nakukoroni" MAD MOVIE)

2006-11-17T19:38:00.000+08:00

by kogarashi

I really like this AMV,
and I'm a really big fan of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni :D

LINKS, the Rebellion

2006-11-12T02:46:00.000+08:00

*picture from Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion
A recent new anime I've hooked on. An anti-west, pro-east story.
It got mecha, girls, bishies, and an whole lot of backstabbing and political intrigues. Oh ya, and there's mecha fighting too :D

Click on Read More for the links.

Amazing blind kid
A real life Daredevil!!!

Teen tries to steal steam account but gets owned in the process
Really...how dumb can you get? o_O

我猜2006.07.01超女生男孩｢
A guy that looks and sounds like a girl ... and kinda pretty too (damn!!! its a trap!!!)

www.mistakesofyouth.com
An interesting web comic about American Otaku's point of view of life

anonymouse.org
This service allows you to surf the web without revealing any personal information. Pretty neat stuff.

Dungeons & Dragons Commercial 1983
D&D in its early years, their target audience seems to be young teenagers(both boys and girls :P ).
The commercial made it look fun and harmless, but nowdays any D&D commercials might be aired late night and target audience might be for 20 something young males :D

Real life Dungeons and Dragons
Seems fun. I wanna play too :p

2001 Things I Am No Longer Allowed to do in an RPG
Does creating an half-orc paladin with blue eyes and blonde hair counts? :D

Quote of the week - True Happiness

2006-11-12T02:21:00.000+08:00

"
The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid self-interest!

"

- Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes

Been busy lately, after finishing my Industrial training with eGames at the end of October, I came back to university for my third year there. (Long Live Education!!)
New updates will be up soon.

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - Sex discrimination

2006-10-27T11:32:00.000+08:00

"

Leave it to a girl to take all the fun out of sex discrimination.

"

- Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes

Story Flow

2006-10-26T16:41:00.000+08:00

An Adventure we will go....

A few months ago, I've ask a friend(he's a Game Master for my weekly D&D sessions) on his method of making game campaigns for Dungeons and Dragons Role Playing Game.

His method uses Story Flow. Treating the campaign like a single story. He gave me this flow on how he made his game campaigns:

Story -> Setting -> Plot -> Flow (and hooks)-> End

Click on Read More for more details.

Story
First, you have to make up a story for it.
Is it an adventure for fame and glory, or a quest to save the world from the clutches of an evil overlord? It can be anything.
The story form the basis for the campaign. It gives motivation and reason for the player characters to involve in the story.
Setting
Where is the story set in? The time period, the culture, the people, every details of the world or at least some aspect of it have to be prepared.
Even thought its a fantasy world, you still need to prepare the setting of your campaign. It helps if you can describe and let the players interact with your world during a session. It foster role playing and make the campaign more interesting, at least it won't be a boring hack and slash session.
Plot
The plot twist.An important element to keep the story interesting.
Having your ever dependable NPC turning out to be a spy for the enemy or having the city suddenly engulf with zombie inducing plague. Whatever needed to spice things up :)
Flow (and hooks)
The story flow. How the story or campaign goes.
If players stray too far away from the story flow, you can use hooks to pull them back.
Hooks are ways to pull the players into to the story.
For example, if the game is set in a desert and you want the players to solve a quest in a certain area, but the players wants to go someplace else. You can make a great sand storm that traps the players in that area, thus forcing them to concentrate on the quest.
End
The ending. You need to know how the campaign ends.
Making things up without knowing how things going to end will make the campaign draggy.

( ._.)Ø

Go LINKS, Emo Kid

2006-10-23T13:37:00.000+08:00

My Little Cthulhu
Ever want your own He who Sleeps Beneth the Great Waves by your bedside?

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, God Knows
Someone made a cute AMV (Anime Music Video) for the song God Knows, sung by Hirano Aya of Haruhi Suzumiya fame.
The editing is not that good, but still passable :p

Magic the Gathering Commerical
Awesome...Bob from Accounting vs the Orgg :D

Turn zero win possible with Time Spiral
To think this is possible just because Time Spiral brought Gemstone Caverns?

Steer well clear of all meetings
Guy Browning offers 20 top tips for surviving life in the workplace.
I know it was suppose to be funny, but its so close to reality that I can't really laugh.(Really, people actually do these things...In Real Life) :/

GAME MAKERs SERIES
Thanks to exiang for compiling a list and links to the Game makers series.
Game Makers is a TV show on G4. The original TV series followed the process of game development, as a company attempts to finish a big new game in time for shipment.
A must watch !!! A++

Physics games reviews
A cool list and reviews of Psysics games.

( ._.)Ø

1 hour interview with Brett Bibby

2006-10-19T10:54:00.000+08:00

Found an interesting 1 hour interview with Brett Bibby of Gamebrains with some MMU students for their project.

Click on Read More for some snippets of the interview.

LINK to full transcript

"

Eliecia : Since your company is licensed developers for the varieties of platforms like PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance, Windows and OS X platforms, so why you focused on Playstation 2 and Gamecube only?

Mr. Brett : Because the PC market has actually been in declined for awhile and I think that console games which includes Gameboy are growing more rapidly than other segments in the last few years even while the world economy was actually quite depressed, and the video games market sets a lot of record and this is mostly due to the extension of the market from the hardcore gamers into less hardcore types of games and gamers. So, console platforms are the ideal platform to do that.

If you think about a PC, I mean even your own PC right. They are probably stuffed in the corner. It’s not very comfortable. The monitors are not very good, like the spec is not the greatest it can be. So, when you make a console game even though the hardware maybe less powerful than a PC that you might have but from a developer’s point of view. We know that everyone in the world that owns that machine has the same hardware so that means we can exploit every last bit of the hardware.

For example our Backyard Baseball 2007 PC game, we don’t push the envelope too much because there are so many PCs out there and we have to decide what is the minimum spec PC that you can run on. And it’s very costly and time consuming to support multiple versions of something. Well, I mean multiple platforms and multiple versions on the same platform.

For instance, you may have the latest dual core Intel CPU, 2 GB of RAMs, NViDia 68 graphic card, but the next guy doest. So that means I make a game, I’m standing in a scene. So, are you going to make all trees higher polygons? The rocks, the ground? What about the grass? The textures, everything. So, you can imagine the developer’s headache to have to develop so many different of assets just to cater to, you know a certain level of graphic card. So it’s really difficult to provide an optimum experience on PC to every user. We always have to make sacrifices or trade-offs.

The only people that get away with doing something more is something like ID Software can do for DOOM. They can do something really hardcore and customers know they are pushing its bleeding edge technology and probably won’t run really well on their machine if it’s older but most people don’t have that luxuries so we have to target on a very lower level of machine. You know, different resolution, different everything. It’s a real mess to develop. That’s why you see in the world, lots of PC developers or lots of multi-platform console developers, that you don’t really mix that much. People are using PCs but there’s not much specialties. Specialties as console.

Eliecia : Does that means that GameBrains focused on the International market compared to the local market? Because here in Malaysia, online PC games are more popular compared to console games. Each of us has computers and fast internet connection like Streamyx and we prefer a more interactive game that we can communicate with others on the net. So why GameBrains doesn’t try to make a online PC game?

Mr. Brett : Because that market is still nothing. Hehe. I mean, I heard the THQ’s Warhammer 40,000 : Dawn Of War is the best selling game ever in Malaysia and they localized it to Bahasa Melayu. It was sold like, 20000 units or 30000 units so I mean, for an average game of war even not that much marketing can easily do 300,000 units to 500,000 units. So, a couple thousands of units is nothing. It may seem like there’s a lot of games here but there’s not.

Eliecia : Does that mean that the games that GameBrains developed are not marketed in Malaysia?

Mr. Brett : They can still buy it here, but we don’t really care. The focus for us is North America for sure. North America represents traditionally the majority of the share, they are getting less but for a really really good game that everybody knows they will still probably make 55% to 60% of the market, and then Europe the second, Japan is the third and then the rest of the world. So, if you eliminate Canada, US, all the EU countries and Japan, so you are left with 15% of the market for the rest of the planet. So you are talking about 150 to 160 over countries only represent a few thousand units. If you think about at it, it’s worth doing but it’s not worth focusing.

Eliecia : So, do you mean that the local games development companies in Malaysia have to focus at the International market? They have to ship their good out?

Mr. Brett : GameBrains. That what GameBrains does. If you want to make games at a certain level, I don’t think you can make money on PC only games in Malaysia at a certain level. If you wanna make a casual game in Malaysia for PC, for Malaysia, probably can.

Eliecia : Yeah, but you don’t earn much profit right?

Mr. Brett : Well, you might but you need a really tiny team. Hehe. I mean we’ve got about 22 to 23 people here, and the Playstation2 development kit alone is about 70 000 ringgit. So, if you have 5 programmers and 70, 000 ringgit, it’s already 350, 000 right? So, 350 000 ringgit there and if development takes a year and you people are not making much money, salary wise, a big team is going to set you back at least 100 000 ringgit a month. So, got a year of that, that’s 1.2 million ringgit, and 350 000 for dev kits, and 3D MAX which is 12 000 ringgit per copy, so you have to pay 12 000 times how many artist and your programming environment also cost money. License fees, everything. You can’t use pirate softwares in development, it’s not right.

So, the total is like easily 2 to 3 million ringgit just to make one game. Easily, that’s pretty cheap actually that’s why you see like in US standards the US currency is 3 to 5 million US but here is 3 – 5 million ringgit so the cost is advantage to us but US publishers won’t pay you US rates to develop here, right? That doesn’t make sense. I mean, there’s a famous analogy that I like to use to help people understands business and risks.

So imagine you work at a Bank and you are the project manager and you want to do a new program to print the statements for the Bank. Let’s say you build it up locally and they want to charge about 100 000 ringgit. So, your budget is 100 000 ringgit and you got a company locally that will do it for 100 000 ringgit. But some company in Nigeria will do it for 20 000 ringgit. Will you do it? There is no advantage, and you personally don’t get the 80 000 ringgit savings so there is no incentive to do business with company at the other side of the world. When you sleep they work, when you work they sleep. So, you can never call them, you can’t see them. You only get emails everyday. So, if the project fails you will certainly lose your job. The bank will be unhappy, you know it’s a loss.

But there’s a company that’s just down the street, you can table talk with them, you can drop in anytime, you can have meeting with them, they can come and show you power point slides all the time, so if they fails, nobody’s going to blame you because there was a local, whatever sense of trust in that local company right? Also, if they fail you can have a legal back-in. You can sue them at the Malaysian court against a Malaysian company so you know you have some recourse.

So, you can see that, where the stuff is done in any industry, where the market is, is where the people that provide the market are stationed. So, their incentive is just to stay local. So, the Publisher in LA they want to do business with developers in LA or in Austin Texas, right? They can always grab a flight over there or drive all the way over there if they want to. So, I think that understanding the business risks help you to understand the business models for the whole industry. So, a casual game that has very little risk for you to develop the whole thing, so nobody pays you to do it, so that’s why you can do that kind of thing here or anywhere easily. You can upload it and then people can buy it, and then they can pay. So the risk is very low. So you have to think through that.

Eliecia : So, is there any local Game Publisher or Game Publishing company in Malaysia?

Mr. Brett : Umm, there is a few. There is like, New Era or something like that. There’s a couple but there must be localization and then published and I don’t think that they are doing spectacularly well but I’m sure they are making some money. But there’s also a very big divide between publication and development. Like, Imagine you going into a book store, the people that make the books are very removed from the people that write the books. That makes sense. I mean like, you got Dan Brown and you got book publishers. Book publishers are all bout shipping units to the store, buying paper, buying ink, printing it, getting it out, doing some promotion, But Dan Brown could be on a sail boat somewhere in the Caribbean writing a book.

You know what I mean? The content is always developed very independently of the distribution change. Same as movies, books, video games, so when you look at the people, my point is that I wouldn’t look at the Malaysian publishers and think that, assume that they are involved in development. They are probably very separated. I mean I’ve been here for 12 years, GameBrains has been here for 8 years and I don’t know anything about Malaysian Publishers. I mean, they don’t talk to us, we don’t talk to them. It’s just that we are not in the same business or market together.

Eliecia : But the local games development company could not afford to contact the overseas publishers and they can not make it to the International market so they have to start with the local market first. So, what do you think about this?

Mr. Brett : I don’t think that’s a bad idea. I just don’t know that you can translate the success in one into success of another. I mean, look at Bollywood right? So how come Bollywood movies are all over US screen cinemas, you know what I mean? And there are famous Chinese film makers, why don’t they take the world by storm? I mean, I don’t think that you can just say that success in one market means you can be successful in another market. If I make a game truly targeted at local market, I don’t know those will appeal to American consumers, right? I’m not saying it’s not helpful but I will be cautious about predicting success and translating that from one market to another.

There are plenty of French game developers who are successful in French that you’ve never heard of. And so forth in Germany, Russia, Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, lots of local local games company. Maybe bits of PC get out. So, you can be successful in one market but it does not, usually. I think like to international. You can go international, or you want to go local, but doing both is tricky, in my opinion.

Eliecia : How many units per game (in average) that GameBrains can ship per year?

Mr. Brett : Uhh, this is, mostly what we’ve been making so far is we work with the publishers to do a licensed based titles. The sale of your product is completely limited by how many they manufactured. So it’s kind of different model. So, what they do is, like we did “Buffy the Vampire Slayers” for FOX Televisions. So they will look at the market, they will look at the development cost and they know that it’s kind of fad product. It builds up momentum, you push it out, people buy it and then you wanna cut it. So because there is a long lean time for manufacturing, if you order like, say you game is selling well, you think you wanna restock the game. If you ordered today it will takes 8 to 10 weeks to actually get the new units on the shelf.

So the problem you have is, if the game sells really well, you practically need to re-order the first day itself in order to replenish the stock when it’s needed, right? But most people don’t do that. Most people will like, sale go and by the time the people realized that they should re-order it’s probably too late.

So, what you see is, the publisher will pick a number of units they want to make, the development cost, they will find the window and schedule to push the game out and they wont make anymore. So in our case, of the first 9 games that we’ve done, are completely sold out world wide. You cannot buy them anymore. You can only buy them used, and the publishers wont make them anymore. They actually make only one batch for every those nine games. So, to them, its like we make X units, we sell them and after they recover the development fees, marketing, whatever, they will make a profit, they will just take that profit and they will just move to a new game. They won’t bother to resell the current game.

So, also another factor in this business. So, everything we produced is sold out. But you know, we could have sold a lot more if they make more initially, they made a wrong guess. They’d say “Wow, we can make money here” and they definitely don’t want to make too many because when the price drops, the consumer feels that the game value is not that good, this publisher is making faux price games. So they always want to leave the public warning more and then move to new stock, new games. That makes a retailer happy. People like Wal-Mart, you know. They will take the game, and sell through and there will be new game and that will sell through and there will be a new game, and that will sell through. So, its like to convince somebody to carry a game to second round is very tough. There are always pessimistic. Pessimists. They are always sold out. So the first 9 games we sold a bout 1.2 million units, roughly.

Eliecia : 1.2 million for the nine games?

Mr. Brett : Yup. For the first nine. So that generated about 30 million US Dollar itself. So the gross revenue is easily over 100 million ringgit.

Eliecia : Okay, so according to our research, the biggest issue in establishing a games development company in Malaysia is the funding problem. So, can you please tell me how GameBrains solve this?

Mr. Brett : Can you first tell me about your research? Cause I disagree with that section that’s the problem

Eliecia : We got the information from the online newspaper, The Star Online : TechCentral. It said that funding is one of the biggest issue and it state that you’ve got some Angel Investors in the past and some funding from the Malaysian Government.

Aeris : Because we think that we need a lot of money to make a game development company. What if we got the human resources but don’t have the money to start up?

Mr. Brett : Anyway, I disagree. Money is not the problem. It’s the human resources. It’s the problem. Yes. GameBrains started with no money, It’s just me one guy and we did a demo, we got it out, we got a deal, we plough all the money back in, back in, back in, We were profitable after 60 days. We didn’t take any money for like, years. Like all that stuff you see on the website was only late stage. For the first 6 to 7 games we did it on our own, with no essentials or capitals of any kind. The only money is just invested by myself that was literally like I didn’t get pay, no pay cheque. I got my pay cheque like few thousands a year. It’s like this month I got my pay cheque I will buy a PC. This month I got my pay cheque I will hire another guy. This month I got my pay cheque I’ll buy one copy of Photoshop and we will start texturing, whatever.

So the business will grow organically. And if I can do it as a foreigner, I mean in Malaysia, anybody can do it what. I mean if you want to make games, you can make Pocket PC games for free. You can go to Microsoft.Com and download Visual Studio or Visual C++ for Pocket PC embedded in C++ and all that. You can download that for free. You can download the emulators to emulate that PDAs. You can develop a Pocket PC game. You can go to Hadango.com and you can sign up and upload your game there. You can get sales and you can get cheque every month.

So, what I think that is, Malaysians always scream that they want money but I think that that’s a shortcoming of the Malaysian mindset. Especially when you look around Malaysia, I see loads and loads and loads of businesses, especially Chinese businesses that I doubt that seriously the Government give them any money but they seem to be doing quite well. So, if they can do it. Why cant you? I don’t understand. Why people want to have doubts.

Also, a follow up to that is that, I’ve been told by some groups that, “We want money, we want money” and I’ve actually offered them money and then, they go away. It’s more like a convenient excuse. So I think, funding is an excuse. I think, If you wanna do it, you can do it. I’ve done it. And I can point to a thousands of businesses that I can see from my window, they might not be game businesses but they also did it right? I wan to sell food, I just get tables, chairs, plates, and thing to cook, I need buy a wok, I need to buy some plate wares, did Government give me that money? No. And I bet its more expensive to set up a coffee shop than to develop a simple casual game and get it online. So, what are they talking bout?

Aeris : May I know what’s the title of the first game you developed?

Mr. Brett : 720° Skateboarding

Eliecia : Do you mean that the local graduates do not meet the requirements of the IT industry?

Mr. Brett : Yes. They do not meet the requirements.

Eliecia : What’s your opinion on this? About the local graduates and the local technology?

Mr. Brett : Errr.. Its' bad. Hehe. I think that the universities, there’s a vast of students that I demanded a refund. I think the universities aren't doing a good job, of developing good co-curriculums. They are creating a bunch of “Mouse Monkeys”. They want to teach people applications. Businesses can care less whether you know the application or not. I get resumes all the times that lists every programming acronym language you can imagine. Yet, they can't program a single one of them.
I can ask him a question about any language and what they study and they never can't tell me that they learnt anything. Seriously. It's dismal. We give them exam, I give them an exam for programmers here that most 13 year old of the United states could ace and that usual average is about 1 out of 4 questions right here. And this is for the 4 year degree. It is a appalling. It's a appalling what they teach people.

As Artists, tell me about colour theory. How does a human eye work? They cant tell me. Tell me about light, contrast, shadows, they can't tell me. Tell me about motion, they can't tell me. Tell me who René Magritte is they have no fucking clue. Programmers don't know what’s subordinates. They don’t know anything about data structures, algorithms. It is ridiculous. *cough* And MMU is one of the worst so… it's really appalling. I can care, anybody can come in here and say I know MAYA. I can care less. I know MAX. I can care less. What I want to know is to describe to me the muscles of the upper torso. Tell me how they affect lighting and tell me how they affect motion. Show me that you know color theory. Tell me about full view vision. Tell me about how people see. Tell me about complementary colours and contrasting colors. Tell me about warm colors and cold colors. What are they. What they suppose to make you feel? Is there psychological impact on that? I'll hire that person in a second. And that's what western education only teaches, focus heavy on theory. And then if you know the theory of course you can learn an application right? If you think about it, right?

If you set down on a 3D package say “Okay, ummm.. I know how I want this arm to move because I know motion. I know motion I know the theory of the motion. I know how people think this object should move.” So yeah, figure it out which part to click on and to rotate and whatever. That’s like 30 seconds of learning. You know? The tools don't matter. Only the theoretical, the basic knowledge you need to actually build upon, is all that matters.

Same thing with programming right? Programming theory. If you know like I can have a sorting algorithm right? Like I got A, B and C and I want to sort them. I wanna to do whatever. It's just like anything, you know, its like I wanna…If I can cook pasta at my house I can probably go to your house and cook too, right? Whereas if you think about it, the school teaches you here is the exact pan you need. And It's like they teach you to grab this, go to here, go to the sink, put this on, do this, do that, whatever. You are not learning how to make a pasta, You are learning how to be a robot, you know? Just do this do that. So, then if I take you to a different kitchen and ask you to make pasta it’s like, you'll be like wow, “The sink isn't where I expected it to be or whatever. You don’t think that you need to know about the pasta is too wet or too dry, this is how it works, this is how long needs to cook, this is why we cook it this long at this temperature to release the flavors and the aroma. You don't know that, all you know is turn it on and wait for 30 minutes and just serve it. That doesn't mean you are cook. Heh, you know.

You're Mouse Monkey. That's why I call them Mouse Monkeys, they are stupid, they are idiots, they are pointless. It's like theory is everything. And the people we hired here from MMU are the people that brought nothing from MMU with them. It's what they learnt beyond their education, that they are hired. They were already fairly brilliant in what they did and they sought other sources of education and things. So when they came in, they actually known these things. But the things they learn were not from MMU. There were on their own.

Eliecia : Is the Malaysian Government being supportive to the local games development company? What has the Government and MSC did so far?

Mr. Brett : I mean, I think the Government is actually quite great. I mean, I grow up in Silicon Valley. The thought that the Government would even care or try to help you, or even meet with you and ask you like, “What are the issues you are facing” and “What we can do to help”, you know.. it’s just, unheard of in the west. So I think that’s one of the things that’s great about Malaysia. They are actually very proactive. They come, they see us all the time. They come down and meet up with us at least once a month and ask us like, you know, any recommendations, any ideas, or suggestions or things they can do. We gave a lot of feedbacks for the 9th Malaysian plan for the last 2 years before it was actually put forward.

The ministry consults to us as well where they should allocate the money, how it should be spent and stuff like that. I think that’s really great. I think that it’s really sad how critical, what’s that word.. *cough* You know, I think that people are quite cynical about their Government. You know, they assume it’s all like under handed, bribe-based business, some ministers driving new Mercedes instead of giving people the money this and that. I’m sure stuff like that goes on but I never have any such experiences. I’ve never pay any bribe, I’ve never been asked for a bribe. It’s all been very regiment and it’s all on board. And it’s all really really positive. Even when we apply for grants and stuff like that, it was really really well executed and well done. The people that brought to inspect our grant applications and to take us to task on different things is really outstanding. Really really outstanding. So, so I think the Government is great.

Eliecia : Can you please explain what kind of help has the Government give to GameBrains? What did they do to support GameBrains?

Mr. Brett : Ummm, we’ll say that nothing we’ve got from the Government has been that helpful to us or has been required. Like I said, we did the first 6 titles without any Government assistance whatsoever. Mostly, we got involved with the Government as a way of showing support. So like, MSC status doesn’t really do anything for us, but we became a MSC status company really just to get more involved, not to get something. I think that’s one of the problems of, a lot of with businesses in Malaysia is that they always want something. I find that really appalling as well. It’s like they very cynical and they just want something. They always have their hands out and they are always saying, “What can you do for me?” but, that’s kindda ridiculous, you know, it’s capitalism. It’s like you’re doing something because you want the benefit.

So, no further, if you look into the Chinese community and you’ll realize that they are successful in spite of the Government not because of it? You know, they’re discriminated against in schooling, you know there’s a lot of things where like reverse of prominent actions in Malaysia, right? They favors the Malays heavily yet the Chinese are very successful. So it shows you that you don’t need the Government to be successful. Just go do it.

So I find it very odd when it comes to MSC especially and technology and stuff and somehow somehow people feel it’s Government’s responsibilities to provide them a living and fundings and all kinds of other things. I think that it’s great that the Government does stuff but it’s just extra stuff. It’s just icing on the cake. You know, it’s not a requirement. Like I said I grow up in Silicon Valley and it’s just a big flat piece of orchard and people turn it into technical powerhouses, so just get off your ass and do it. Just get it done.

Eliecia : But, from your website right, I found out that you get funding from the MSC and MDeC, so is that the only thing that they did to help GameBrains?

Mr. Brett : Yeah, we applied for some funding to buy the Playstation2 development kit and other stuff and it was great. It was helpful. It wasn’t required, but it was there. We took advantage of it. I’m saying it’s great but I just don’t want people to give the impression that GameBrains wouldn’t be GameBrains without it. We would. We are already doing it. It was just more like, you know we could contribute, we could help give back something. I know that they gave us money but in return, we gave back a lot.

You know, we’ve worked as partners we’ve provide some of the technology we developed. We meet people like you guys, *laugh* I mean, we write a lot of papers, we consult the Government a lot so, for me it’s just like working closely together. By them giving in us the money and they get involved with our business, and we can use that as a way to work with them to help them understand the business better. As opposed to just let them go off, and do their own things. It just, you know it’s going to be very private, very non-public, non transparent process. So for us, it’s just a way for us to develop a closer relationship with the Government to help them understand what it takes for a company like GameBrains to be successful. But the grant money didn’t, didn’t… err… it wasn’t a requirement. We’re already have investors and fundings and so they are just another source of funding that we used.

Eliecia : GameBrains has been in Malaysia for 8 years until now, so what kind of barriers you faced besides financial, technology and manpower problems?

Mr. Brett : The number one problem is manpower. We don’t have any technology problems.

Eliecia : I mean, besides that. Besides financial, manpower and technology.

Mr. Brett : Right. Obviously, I think probably just Marketing and Promotions. You know, getting…Most Americans, I mean, America is a big place, I grow up there, Americas are really ignorant of the outside world, and the reasons why are pretty to understand, I mean if say you want to watch the news right, like from 5.00 to 5.30 is Local News. Local news is like, literally your town. 5.30 to 6.00 is County News, that will be like, equivalent to Klang Valley news, right. Then from 6.00 to 6.30 will be State News, news about California. Then 6.30 to 7.00 will be National News. And so you know, you’ve already watching the televisions for 2 fucking hours just to figure out what’s happening. By the time it gets to International people will just like, too much. So much happening, so much going on, and I mean, like I said I grow up in Silicon Valley, good God there are so much freaking news. It’s like, I’m not very much a news person anyway, and there’s so many other things to do, so many activities, people play all kinds of sports.

So, if you grow up in the States it’s really easy to understand why they are so naïve about the rest of the world, it’s because the US is such a huge place and there are so much happening there already, it’s really tough to put your mind outside of that. So when you ask somebody from US, like US Publishers, you know, “Hey we’re from Malaysia”. They probably couldn’t find it on the map. They probably don’t even know where it is. They probably know it’s Asia only because it’s “MALAY-SIA” and there’s “ASIA” . Like, it’s some asian country, something like that. They might know it’s west of them but they don’t know much more than that.

So we spent A LOT of time and effort, educating people,as to, you know, where we are, what we can do. What we have done in the past. That kind of thing, and it’s tough. We use to keep early on,we started out working 7, 7.30am in the morning, and we still do quite a bit just so we overlap the US time zone a bit, so we come in, we call them. It’s like late in their day, very early in our day. It’s just like a contact, “Hi, how are u doing”. And they expect that when they want to talk to you, they want to talk to you NOW. They don’t want to like check their watch and figure out what time they wanna call you. So, you have to work really really hard with that. I think that’s one challenge that everybody misses.

You know, when you set up a game development business, if you gonna deal with publishers, you need to think about, you know phone services that forward calls to your house, or your cellphone 24 hours a day. And you need like, what we have cameras there live on the net showing our studios. You gotta do a lot of things to help people feel that you are just down the street. You are just there. If they want to get you, they can get you. Never mind just call GameBrains and it rings to my phone, never mind it’s middle of the night. You wake up, you answer the phone, “GameBrains!” *laughs* You want them to not think that you are not just there. And that to me is also a single biggest point of failure for other Malaysian developers, or Asian developers to speak with. They don’t think through that, that they need literally need 24/7 available.

So, money is not, money, manpower, technology, honestly, manpower is probably the biggest problem but that one is really not apparent to anyone of the outside. So, the three problems you said it, I would actually say that really aren’t really the big problems. I wouldn’t focus on those. If I did, I would only focus on manpower. It scratch technology, it scratch money, so its literally marketing presents and manpower. This are the 2 issues.

Eliecia : In your opinion, how can Malaysian’s Game Developers companies improve our Games Industry? How do we get in par with the International companies? For example, like Blizzard Entertainment?

Mr. Brett : Uhm.. I’m not a big fan of out sourcing. This is one of the things that sadly gone into the 9th Malaysian Plan which I don’t agree with. The idea is that we could get started making like, arts and stuff for games and we could attract other game companies into Malaysia. I mean, it’s good but I don’t, I think it’s also a recipe for disasters. Like CodeMasters coming in, this company coming in, that company coming in. It sounds good, but the reality is they wont bring any knowledge and skill with them. They will just create a spot and go make me trees, go make me cars. Oh, so you make a tree, so make me more trees, more trees, more trees, you know, it’s like it would be a factory. So it’s hard to believe that a graduate who get a job say, Codemaster. Yeah, they gonna learn how to make trees, but I don’t know is that going to ever translate into great, you know like pre to your questionnaires, say Blizzard. I don’t think that you can take a bunch of ex-codemasters Malaysian staff and make a Blizzard. Cuz all you going be able to do is make trees, rocks, cars, do some animations. Stuff like that.

So, I’m a big proponent of, you’ve gotta do it all. You’ve gotta learn, I mean learn just art. Or You can learn just coding. But this an isolation they are just islands. It doesn’t do anything. It’s important to do the whole thing. From the idea, to the final delivery. So, Game Design, Product Management, Project Management, Technology, Art, Art Theory, delivering, you know clearing the accounts, doing business transactions, hearing back directly from your customers. That’s what really important. That’s what gets you the skill to gain through inside into how the game industry works, and how to make great games and then you can develop. So, my idea is that you need to grow, start small and do everything, from end to end and then go after bigger and better things. I think that’s the only way that Malaysia can ever become a world famous development. Otherwise you are just an out sourcing house.

Eliecia : What do you think about the future of games development in Malaysia?

Mr. Brett : Uhm… I’d say it’s a task up right now. I think that, I think that there is huge opportunities out there that nobody seems want to take advantage of. The fact that the Government does offer some support is amazing but I wont rally around that. At the end of the day, you can give a bunch of people who don’t know what they are doing money, they will lose the money. It’s not, money doesn’t do anything. It’s like if you don’t know how to make a great game nobody’s gonna buy it. So you wont make any money. So, if I give you, okay, it’s like, if I give you a 1000 bucks go make a casual game. The game sucks you never sold any. Then you’re just gonna come back to me and give me another 1000 bucks so that I can make another game. So I give you another 1000, you make another game nobody buys it, then you make another, and another and another. What are we doing ? I mean, it’s like, if you cant, the money is just like to make something. But you’re trying to make an entertainment.

So, I can pay you to write a book but that doesn’t mean you are a good writer. So, you gotta be a good writer first. So, writing Lord Of The Rings isn’t the best first project for you. You know, maybe you should write a short story. A one page story and practice your craft. Then two page and a short story then something something. You know, you gotta grow it into something. So that’s why I think. I think if the Malaysians people pursue that, I think they can be wildly successful, but if they look for handouts or foreign company, or you know they looking for something like free ticket to get there, then they missed the point f the exercise. They didn’t learn anything

Eliecia : So you mean we have to start from small like how GameBrains start from four people and build up from there?

Mr. Brett : Yes.

Eliecia : That means that we have to start developing easy games and slowly move to platform?

Mr. Brett : You can develop a casual game, you can develop mobile games, you can develop Pocket PC game, you can develop board games, right? Why does it have to be digital? Yoy know, even like the games design we do it here for original products, we actually, I would actually create a board game of the game and I’ll play it. I’ll try to understand the rules and mechanics, and I’ll try to isolate each piece. And isolate the mechanic from the genre from the story from art from everything, you know it’s the holistic view. You must have the holistic view. If you don’t, you’ll fail.

Eliecia : Lastly, what is your word of encouragements or advice to the current or future games developer in Malaysia?

Mr. Brett : Just do it man. Hehe. It’s like, it’s all out there. It’s like, we don’t learn for free as well, you know. It’s like, I can say if you wanna make a Pocket PC game then go make one. Even a programmer making his own art it can be done. Make a trivia game. Just start simple. People always wanna go like “Okay I wanna make an MMORPG game “ Oh my god, like even for a company that has a lot of experience and skills doesn’t guarantee that they will be successful. So, if you start small, the important thing is to take the idea, and get it produced. You wanna make a board game. Get some card board, get some spare glue, do it, do it by hand, develop the packaging, develop a small little promotional site for the game and try to sell it. Give it away. Give it to somebody. Get their feedback. Learn. You know, because Malaysia still has the cost advantage. It is cheap. It is easy to do. There is no excuse. You know. Its so much easier to make stuff here, than it is in the west. Yet people make stuff in the west and then people over here point to them, and then imagine that they have some benifits that you don’t have it here. You’ve got more benefits here. It’s easier to do it here than in Silicon Valley. Way easier. I don’t know what. People just need to do it.

Eliecia : How can GameBrains be so successful? As we all know, GameBrains is one of the top games development company in Malaysia. What are the special steps taken?

Mr. Brett : Same. Started small, started with just one person, me, and I actually got, I actually developed the demo, did all the art, developed all the tools, did everything, did my pitch, got the project, then hired three guys,. Taught them what I knew, worked with everybody, worked in a room, its 10 by 10, we sat all basically in the same table and I thought them everything I ever learnt in development then I hired a few more people, we all sat in the same room, and shared the knowledge,and thought them but always doing the smallest, simplest project we could do. First game we did was only three months. Took us about 6 months to finish, it was like, 3, 4 month project, by the time we hired everybody, got up to speed, took us up to 6 months to get it out, Second project we did was only about 2,3 months long, third project was also 2, 3 months, so we did small projects and practiced.
Development is easy, shipping is hard. So that’s the key, it’s to make sure you know what the end looks like.

Once you know what the end looks like, then you can do it again and then set it a little further, right? It’s just like running, jogging ,working out. You know what I mean? It’s like, the first time you go for a jog, you go for a jog, then like okay, wow, that was too long, or too short right? Then you do it again, and again until it becomes easy. Then you increase the distance then you keep doing it, so there’s a beginning, a middle and the end. So you know what the end looks like. You know what its like to finish something. That’s very important. Very Important.

Shin Shen : You said started alone right, but developing a game has a lot of different stages right? You need programming, you need to do the art, and maybe some animating. So, when you started it, you just do it alone?

Mr. Brett : Yes. Yeah, You mean for GameBrains? I mean, I’ve been doing this for 20 over years, and GameBrains is only 8. And, yeah, I mean, if GameBrains is tanked tomorrow I’d still be doing the same thing. I might go out do a board game. Just sitting around design it in my house, go down to the local store get some matt board, cut it out manually, get some zip lock bags, make my little pieces, you know, I will do it.. if you’re not willing to invest in yourself, then, there is no point.

Shin Shen : So, those skills, art and programming, you learnt it from?

Mr. Brett : Myself. Actually my background is Electrical Electronic Engineering. I never took a programming course in my life. Never taken an art course at all. But I made loads of art, loads of code. I lead the programming team here now, so you could do it yourself, it’s just knowledge what. It’s just information. It’s not hard.

Aifa : Do you have any new plans for the next console games?

Mr. Brett : Yeah, we already got 3 more games. I can’t tell you what they are but we have 3 more games that will be released over the next 12 months.

Aifa : For which console?

Mr. Brett : PS2, GameCube, PC, XBOX, Macintosh, we also will be doing Wii I think.

Aifa : Oh, Wii? Not XBOX 360°?

Mr. Brett : Nope. We’re not really interested in next gen at this point. There’s no market, there’s no money, So it’s a money losing proposition at the moment. But erm, in the future, you know, when the market is there.. right now, there’s a fair amount of opportunity at current gen consoles, so perhaps in the next three years? It’s different. So, anything else?

Eliecia : So, you never thought of marketing the games you developed in Malaysia?

Mr. Brett : Nope.

Eliecia : Not at all?

Mr. Brett : Yeah.

Eliecia : No wonder that most of the people here, the Malaysians, they don’t know that there are games developers in Malaysia. They thought that Malaysia doesn’t make games.

Mr. Brett : Yeah. I mean we see our games sometimes at the pirate shops but you know, heh.

Aeris : Yeah, what do you think about piracy?

Mr. Brett : I don’t mind piracy. I mind if you develop games using pirate software. That’s wrong. We don’t use pirate software here. Everything is fully licensed. So I don’t mind people playing pirate games because if I was to eliminate piracy they would stop playing games. When the day comes, that they could afford their games, then yes, I would oppose piracy. Like in Singapore, piracy is bad because Singaporean can afford a game on a Singaporean salary but if we charge 300 ringgit for a game in Malaysia no one will buy.

Eliecia : GameBrains doesn’t use any copy protection? Any “Anti-Piracy” technology?

Mr. Brett : Nope. Cause it’s nothing. I mean, PC, GameCube and PS2 combined pirate sales in Malaysia of one of our games is probably like 3000 units. Who cares. Heh. Its nothing. More important is to establish game players. I’ll figure out how to charge them later. But if I we eliminate piracy they will just become non game players, and it’ll be very difficult to convince them to play games later.

Difficult means expensive. I’ll spend a lot of money marketing to them to convince them too come back into the game play. So, I don’t think piracy is that bad. But when you can afford it its bad. Businesses should not use pirate software. If they need pirate software because they can not afford it then they should not be in business, the profit margin is too small. Its not right. It’s not right. Yeah, I think people who use pirate software in business and get caught should get much stiffer penalties than they have now. There’s no excuse.

Eliecia : But, normally, the Government, they don’t check whether business companies use original software or not. Malaysians, the businesses like Cyber Cafes, they just just pirated softwares.

Mr. Brett : I don’t have any knowledge on that. Everybody I know uses real software. Cause it’s really its not right. I would report somebody in a second if I knew they were using. Go and do a new line of business get a better business plan cause if you can’t afford the software you need to make your staff productive then you’re in the wrong business.

Shin Shen : Is it very costly to use the original softwares in your company?

Mr. Brett : It is. It is, which is why if you were to think about it. Like, why would I hire somebody, like a fresh graduate from a university who doesn’t have good grasp of color, of art. I’m hiring artist, I want a real fucking artist, cause I’m spending at least 12000 ringgit for the license, 3 to 4 thousand ringgit for the PC, plus Photoshop and others, its probably 20000 ringgit minimum just to hire them, So, you know, I want somebody who is good at what they do. Good at what they do doesn’t mean they know how to use the application. Cause what’s the point. I can come and say ok, go make me a tree and yeah you know 3D Studio Max and you could make that tree in an hour, but if it’s a piece of shit you have to remake it, heh. So its not really an hour isn’t it? You know, its like, I look at a lot of the demo reels and they’re just awful. They’re really really awful. So it’ like they got free software but this just shows you free software doesn’t result in good quality art.

So if you don’t know how to make art, a 100000 dollar package isn’t going to help you. You know what I mean? And it’s really common that a lot of fresh artist could remake something 20-30-40 times you know they get upset and said I just don’t wanna make it again. Ok, then quit. Go on, I’ll find someone who can. If you can’t understand how to make something correct,if you can’t have that vision in your head, the tool is pointless.

So we spent a lot of money to hire people, you know, fresh grads, I think, a lot of people don’t realize that. Programmers cost us about 100000 to hire one. So, you know, I’m looking for a real programmer, I’m looking for somebody who’s gonna be here for the next 10 years and build great software with me and you know, there’s out entry level salary, a couple of thousand of ringgit a month is nothing. Its like. Its like spare change on the floor. I want somebody who is a good programmer. They got to know programming, they got to know art. They got to know design, whatever position I hire them for. I don’t care if they don’t know how to use a 3D package, cause if they know what they want to make, the rest will come very easily.

"

*this interview is slightly abridged, to make it readable

Quote of the week - You cannot teach a man anything

2006-10-18T10:00:00.000+08:00

"

You cannot teach a man anything.
You can only help him to discover it in himself.

"
-- Galileo Galilei

I found this quite true, do not try to be spoon fed, you must first be willing to learn things yourself.

( ._.)Ø

LINKS for me, please?

2006-10-17T13:50:00.000+08:00

Well..sums up how I am now :p
comic strip is from Dork Tower.

Titanic: The Sequel
Fake trailer for the sequel to Titanic. Quite nice :)

Technology For Country Folk
Technology terminologies explained simple for country folks.

Kitten Composer
So cute~~
The soundtrack would fit nicely in a horror movie :D

Dawn Saves Wildlife
A Web-based program to educate visitors about how they can help save the environment and protect aquatic animals from pollution.
Site visitors can become virtual pelicans, penguins, ducks or seals and form “flocks” with their friends as they learn simple sea-saving steps such as recycling used motor oil and disposing of cooking grease in sealed containers.

Some game development stuff.....

Stiff asks, great programmers answer
A guy named Stiff sends emails with questions to famous programmers, some of them replied. He ask them about how they learned programming, is math really that useful and what skill do they believe is important for programmers. A really nice read and a good insight into minds of great programmers.
Features Linus Torvalds,Dave Thomas ,David Heinemeier Hansson,Steve Yegge,Peter Norvig, Guido Van Rossum,Bjarne Stroustrup,James Gosling,and Tim Bray.
Thanks to Hilmy for the link :p

Becoming a Stellar Games Industry Manager,
Part 1: Building a Great Team
by Marc Mencher

( ._.)Ø

The Society of Loli-Hunters

2006-10-11T16:20:00.000+08:00

Believe in the love of Loli

Made with the Offical Seal Generator.

( ._.)Ø

The Supporters of Mahou Shoujo

2006-10-11T15:58:00.000+08:00

Support your local Mahou Shoujo (Magical Girl)

Made with the Offical Seal Generator.

( ._.)Ø

LINKS from yesterday

2006-10-11T10:18:00.000+08:00

The Programmer Hierarchy
Made by Luke Welling, I can't help but agree with his hierarchy chart.
For anyone who wants to know, I consider myself as a C programmer. >:D

Calls For Cthulhu
Can't sleep at night? Need advice? try Calls for Cthulhu, see if he who sleeps beneath the waves can point you in the right direction!
A really funny parody show featuring Cthulhu, I really enjoy it and recommend this to all Call of Cthulhu RPG fans.

If anyone wants to read the original short story, here is Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft.
also watch a 'trailer' for the movie, Cthulhu Lives. :D

Magic: The Gathering terms
Being an avid player of Magic: The Gathering, I've notice that the more seasoned players used a lot of terms while playing the game.
Here's a list of commonly used ones :p

Offical Seal Generator
A site for you to make your own official seal :D

Here's looking at how script writers in the movie industry writes.
How to write scripts for film making
Script writing secrets

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - Villain

2006-10-09T17:54:00.000+08:00

"

As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow.

"

- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Hardrock Halellujah!! LORDI

2006-10-05T14:03:00.000+08:00

I've heard of LORDI before but this is the first time I've listen to their songs.

They simply won me over with excellant rock music and impressive stage costume.
In short, I like their style of dressing and music :D

Also check out LORDI's other songs:
Would you love a monster man?
Devil is a Loser
Blood Red Sandman

and LORDI playing at Eurovision Song Contest 2006 Final.
...and oh ya, they won :p

( ._.)Ø

Bad people won't look at you in the face?

2006-10-05T11:37:00.000+08:00

"

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

"
-- Charles Dickens

I've found this quote simply true. Always I'm having problem talking to people cause I can't talk to them while looking them in the face. I have no idea why they want me to do that and I can't concentrate on my talk when I'm looking at someone's face.

anyway, Kian gave me some tips to find out if someone is lying to you:
"
If you ask someone to remember something, look where his eyes move to.
If it moves upper left, he's trying to recall something in memory.
If it moves upper right, he's creating a fiction.
"

( ._.)Ø

LINKS, the Second Barrage

2006-10-04T14:08:00.000+08:00

Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage

Announcement of 2nd. season of Black Lagoon.

Detective Conan - Kudo Shinichi's Written Challenge ~Trailer
This is a trailer for an upcoming drama spinoff of Detective Conan.

Death Note 2: the Last name
w00t. Next Death Note movie \0/

Anime Trailers for this fall's lineup

Daicon 4
Music video from Daicon IV, a sci-fi convention held in 1983 in Osaka.
Its a short animation made by Gainax in its early years.

Neon Genesis Evangelion, Asuka-Shinji Combo
A clip from Super Robot Wars MX, featuring Asuka and Shinji as they do their 2 man attack from the show against the 2 Shi sisters.

Die in Style
An experiment in death. Just what is the most practical way to kill a stickman?

........ and some interesting links for game design ;)

Flow in Games

Flow in Games
by Jenova Chen
Some interesting reads on exploring and developing different design techniques to enhance the Flow experience in video games.
Check some of the game examples on the site. My favorite is Cloud. :D

Path
A really innovative puzzle game. I don't know what to call it, but the gameplay is skill-oriented and is really addictive.
You decide how the 'circle' reach the destination.
Draw the path for the 'circle', but be carefull cause you have a limited amount of ink.

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - V

2006-10-02T16:00:00.000+08:00

"
V: Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you, and you may call me V.

Evey Hammond: Are you like a crazy person?

V: I'm quite sure they will say so.

"
-- V for Vendetta

How much I like this quote :D
I loved the comic, enjoyed the movie and pretty much idolized V.

( ._.)Ø

Genuflect and Lactoburst

2006-10-01T17:45:00.000+08:00

Last Friday, when I went to my weekly game night. I've learned 2 new words :D

Genuflect and Lactoburst

One is a real word, while another is made up (I think :p)

Genuflect
gen‧u‧flect [jen-yoo-flekt]
1. to bend the knee or touch one knee to the floor in reverence or worship.
2. to express a servile attitude.
[Origin: 1620–30; < ML genūflectere to bend the knee, equiv. to L genū-, s. of genu 'knee' + flectere 'to bend']
Source: Dictionary.com

Commonly used to show superiority over other people. During game night, some of our players used the word when they did something awesome. No more "ownage" or "pwned"; its now "Genuflect!" which literally can mean "bow down and worship me, you noob!".

Lactoburst
This one came from the spur of the moment from one of our players.

Our DM was explaining a situation to a player; "....and there are some leftovers from....", when another player burst out "What!? Lactoburst?"
Everyone burst out laughing...HARD.

To understand the meaning of this word, lets search thru the dictionary for some guidelines.
We can find the word is formed with 'Lacto' and 'burst'

lacto- or lact-
pref.
1. Milk: lactoprotein.
2. Lactose: lactase.
3. Lactic acid: lactate.
[From Latin lac, lact-, milk. See melg- in Indo-European Roots.]
Source: Dictionary.com

and...

burst [burst] verb, burst or, often, burst‧ed, burst‧ing, noun
–verb (used without object)
1. to break, break open, or fly apart with sudden violence: The bitter cold caused the pipes to burst.
2. to issue forth suddenly and forcibly, as from confinement or through an obstacle: Oil burst to the surface. He burst through the doorway.
3. to give sudden expression to or as if to emotion: to burst into applause; to burst into tears.
4. to be extremely full, as if ready to break open: The house was bursting with people.
5. to appear suddenly; become visible, audible, evident, etc., all at once: The sun burst through the clouds.
Source: Dictionary.com

Hmmm...from the definitions from the two words "lacto"+"burst", we can get "lactoburst" as:
A sudden explosion or outburst of milk?
but still, its a cool word :p
hmmm...I wonder where I can use this word >:D

( ._.)Ø

As a Game Designer, in meeting with a client

2006-09-27T14:07:00.000+08:00

Something I've pickup after having several meetings with a Japanese client.

In meetings with a client,

Don’t give clients ideas
-In a game development project, its OK if the clients give inputs on features he wants when the project is still in early production stage. But when development reach the middle of production, its best not to ask for ideas for 'improving' the game. The middle of the production stage is the time when you cut down on the features not adding them.
Be decisive
-As the game designer, you must be decisive on the features that can be done. Don't make empty promises that you can't deliver (and even if it can be done, doesn't mean you have the manpower and time to do it).
Print out designs on paper
- If you have several design variation, and you want the client to choose one. Its best to have them printed out and gave it to the client to review them overnight.
If its need to be approve immediately, print them out and paste them of the walls (or place on the floor). Let the client go thru them. This is a good chance to discuss with the client on the design variations, or the client can look thru it for themselves.
Always leave a email/paper trail.
- Put things in black and white, and get the client to sign it. It can be meeting minutes, design specs, design document.
So that the client can't turn the tables on us. Saying that he didn't agreed to things already done.
If the client just gave verbal approval only, they can change their mind and demands something else in the future.
Best if there's a clause in contract stating that if producer/client doesn't sign, the project can't continue forward.

( ._.)Ø

LINKS, my dear

2006-09-25T16:22:00.000+08:00

Sunrise, Sunset

Hard Gay's Sunrise, Sunset rap translated by Bakafish.
Yes, I'm a big fan of Hard Gay Razor Ramon. And Yes, this song just cracks me up.

Tenacious D
Tenacious D - tribute act
Tenacious D/Tribute - Music Video
Lip Synching to Fuck Her Gently by Tenacious D
Some Tenacious D video links :p
I can't get Fuck Her Gently video link cause the video itself is pretty "sexual explicit", hope the lip synching video can make up for it.

Movie trailers
Frank Miller's 300
DeathNote
These 2 are my most anticipated movies this year :D
Death Note is already out in Japan, but I don't think they gonna show it in Malaysia. And 300 doesn't seem can pass the censorship board.
Looks like I have to buy the DVDs.

Nintendo's Wii games lineup
Upcoming games for Wii, seems more fun than those lousy Xbox 360 and PS3 :p

Poke The Bunny
Try poking the bunny

on some serious side......

What Came First, the Violence or the Video Game?
by Nelson Rodriguez

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - School

2006-09-25T16:19:00.000+08:00

"
How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?
"
-- Elliot, "E.T."

White and Nerdy

2006-09-21T15:49:00.000+08:00


"Weird Al Yankovic"'s new video.

Dammit, I understand everything he says.
ROTFLOL

( ._.)Ø

Are you proud to be an OTAKU?

2006-09-20T10:41:00.000+08:00

An Otaku lifestyle?

An old news article got me intersted in writing this entry:
Self-professed 'real otaku' rips into 'moe' fetish fakers

The response to the article on some anime blogs:
kenny-liu.com
www.anime-ni.co.uk
heiseidemocracy.net
anime.jefflawson.net
and
Forum discussion in Anime News Network

Some info on the interviewee:
Interview session with Mimei Sakamoto

When No Choice is a Good One
A girl's guide to finding happiness in Japan
By Mimei Sakamoto

'Otaku'
A term still in debate for its meaning.

It interest me that in campus recently there are people who proudly proclaiming themselves as Otakus.
To them the word 'Otaku' means an avid fan of anime, manga and games.

In Japan (the origin of the word), most people associate 'Otaku' with "people who stayed at home all day, had no social life, and just watched hentai all day".
And these negative connotations is still prevalent in modern japanese society.
Interesting enough, the term 'otaku' became famous after tabloids (in the 80's) start calling the serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, the Otaku Murderer.

Is calling oneself an 'otaku' a good thing?
I rather opt for the non-enthusiastic sounding 'hobbyist'. XD

If anyone wants to argue with me that 'Otaku' means something else in wikipedia, then let me ask you this: "Do you trust a source that can be edited everyday by anyone?"

( ._.)Ø

LINKS for all season

2006-09-18T12:09:00.000+08:00

Imperial March - Star Wars/Lego

and...
Star Wars 2007, a game only playstation 3 can handle.

www.dontclick.it
Experience a button-free world

Indian Superman
Indian Superman Part 2

Cave Story ~ Doukutsu Monogatari
A really good doujin game by a japanese hobbyist game developer called Pixel. RECOMMENDED

Sling
Sling your way to victory in this interesting puzzle game, I may not be a fan of casual games like this...but this one is really well made.

On game development side.....

Game Maker
A really good game development tool, new developers should try it :D

7-days game (experimental gameplay project)
Interesting concept of game development. See what kind of game you can do in 7-days. Challenge yourself :p

The Role of Director in Designing the Halo 2 Interface
by David Candland, Bungie Studios

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - Speaking correct English

2006-09-18T11:36:00.000+08:00

"
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to
speak it to?
"
-- Clarence Darrow

Memory hack

2006-09-18T11:25:00.000+08:00

Definition from counter-hack.net:
Memory Hack: When games are ran, their code is mapped in memory. This can be useful to hackers, giving them the ability to do everything from enhancing their characters speed, to gaining the position of enemies.

This is really bad for online games. As hackers can easily modify their characters to gain god-like weapons and abilities.

This kind of hacking usually happens because the client program itself stores most of the game data to lessen the strain on the game server.

An interesting concept to handle this is by storing the attributes of characters and events in the game server, the client will take the values from the game server and process it. There won't be much stress on the game server as for this it only does balancing and checking only, and lets the client handles all the calculations.

( ._.)Ø

A good game designer needs good communication skills

2006-09-15T16:08:00.000+08:00

Somehow people listen to you when you're holding a machete

A good game designer needs good communication skills. This is because they must be the ‘middle man’ to the different part of the development team. They must able to communicate ideas to programmers, artists, sound engineers, UI team, the producers, and occasionally clients.

Game designers must be able to convey instructions, requests, and informations between the teams. So that there are no misinformation and the project can proceed following the designer's vision, and not other people's.

( ._.)Ø

How do you handle Double Login?

2006-09-13T09:42:00.000+08:00

A common situation in online games, where a same account ID being login twice at the same time.

Situation:
User A logs into a game using his account ID. After a few minutes, user B enters into the game using user A's account login (user B could have borrowed or stolen user A's account ID). How do you handle this situation?

From server side, there are a few ways to handle double login:

Push out the earlier login
Kicking out user A and let user B enter the game. User A have to login again (and kick out user B from the game) to enter the game again.
A common practice in local game servers, but it can turn into a pushing war between the 2 users. Currently, the most effective solution.
Deny the new login
User B cannot enter the game as long as user A is logged in the game. But this could lead to problems like user B is logged in for a long period of time and user A (the owner of the account) cannot enter the game.
Can enter from other PC with the same login
When user A enters the game, he is issued an electronic key(Key A). As long as he has the key, he can move freely within game.
When user B enters the game(with user A's account ID), as long as user B uses a different computer (with different IP address), he also was issued a key (Key B).
This solution seems favorable, but is not recommended for online games that have paid subscription.

In the end, the best way is always to take good care of your account ID, including never reveal your password to anyone.

By the way, Game Masters doesn't need to know your password when you're reporting problems to them, all they need is your account ID and they can find out everything else from the database. So beware of scammers!!

( ._.)Ø

LINKS is life

2006-09-11T18:21:00.000+08:00

Melody-chan sings the LocoRoco song

If you want to sing along, here is the lyrics for the part in the clip:


    Bajumbo moi noi noi jecker
    Dabatto bunkergait jun jun
    Nora juerue-rotto pura-pura petto
    Puraret dum dum
    Papuranoi noi noi jecker
    Dabatto bumperget tum tum
    Ora poerketino bookeran tan-tan-so

*LocoRoco is a PSP game. Lyrics are from lolitron.org

www.googleityoumoron.com
When someone ask you a stupid question.....

(1978) Japanese Spiderman
The Amazing Spiderman....with a Mecha??

How to eat sushi at a sushi-ya
A humorous take on "Eating sushi for dummies"

Dice War
A game almost similiar to Risk, it utilizes dice to represent your armies. A really inovative tactical game, with equally smart AI opponent. Kudos to the game designer who made this wonderful game.

Werewolf
A wonderful party game, utilizes some basic psychology to spice things up (Evil Grin). Its a game of accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, assassination, and mob hysteria. Do try it :D

Usability in games
The age old debate of Fun vs User-friendlyness. Are they really that important?
Read on....

Are Games Suppose to be User Friendly?
by David Dick

User Interface Design for Games
by David Kieras

Heuristics and Usability Guidelines for the Creation and Evaluation of Fun in Video Games
by Melissa A. Federoff

And a quiz to see how good you are in user interface design:
A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts
....before that you need to brush up on Fitts' Law

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - Overcoming adversity

2006-09-11T10:46:00.000+08:00

"
However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional
manner ... sulking and nausea.
"
-- Tom K. Ryan

Dumping LINKS for a Better Tomorrow

2006-09-07T09:24:00.000+08:00

RedesignMalaysia.com
Tired of bad broadband speed in Malaysia? Check this site for how you can make the change.

Interesting reads on science in movies
*The Biology of B-Movie Monsters
*Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

Love Bleach
An upcoming love simulation game...featuring Bleach male characters!!!!

Moving on to game related items.....

Utada Hikaru is a gamer girl!!!
A Tetris DS gamer girl to be exact. In a recent Nintendo Tetris DS event, Utada-chan challanges 30 people and 2 professional players to show her how much of a gamer she is XD

- Tilt!
A deceptively simple game that gets harder the shorter your balancing stick gets.
A fun and innovative game, simply genius :D

The Game-it-Yourself Canonical List of Free Print-and-Play Games
Got a printer? Got scissors? Want free boardgames? We got'cha covered.

Links to sites related to board games
www.tomvasel.com
www.dicetower.com
www.boardgamegeek.com
www.boardgamenews.com

Paper Burns: Game Design With Agile Methodologies
By Rory McGuire

( ._.)Ø

Golden rule of gaming

2006-09-05T09:22:00.000+08:00

Continuation from my last post, these are some rules you have to remember as the game organiser or Game master.

You are the Game master

You set the rules, you enforce them.

If the game doesn’t go well, immediately stop or switch

The reason for using games in the classroom is to make learning fun. If the situation is becoming hostile (kids getting too involved in the game) or the kids are not having fun, stop or switch to another game.

Keep the game exciting, quick and fun

Kids have short attention span, so keep the games fast and exciting.

Know your game

Before you start the game of your choice, make sure that you know how to play that game. It can be frustrating to the kids and yourself if the game stop midway because of problems or disputes over the game rules.

*Golden rule of gaming by Tom Vasel

( ._.)Ø

Using games to teach by Tom Vasel

2006-09-04T11:27:00.000+08:00

Continuation from my notes from Tom Vasel's talk on "Using Games to Teach".

Why use games in the classroom
-change of pace
-fun for students
-fun for teachers
-an excellent way to teach

English
Thinking skill
Logic
Social skill
Strategy

“Don’ts” when teaching with games
-don’t win at all cost. This isn’t about the best player
-don’t allow fights between the students
-don’t allow ‘friendly’ cooperation
-don’t let the game slow down.
Keep the game moving, keep downtime to a minimum
-don’t be rigid an un-flexible
-don’t worry about finishing the game

“Do’s” when teaching with games
-keep it fair
-do simplify if necessary, but realize that children are smarter than you think
-do change the rule if necessary
-do explain everything thoroughly in English
-do enforce penalties and rewards
-do improvise
-do setup and prepare
-do play a variety of games

and remember, when choosing a game (be it a board game or party games);
If the game rules are too complex, it will spoil the game.

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - SCSI cable

2006-09-04T10:41:00.000+08:00

"
Just think -- blessed SCSI cables! Do a big enough sacrifice and create
a +5 blessed SCSI cable of connectivity.
"
-- Lionel Lauer

Quote of the week - Peace and Government

2006-09-01T14:53:00.000+08:00

"
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
"
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

LINKS a bunch

2006-08-30T14:16:00.000+08:00

Techno magic

Fansubbing
Fansubbing, is it really what it is?
Guide to fansubbing
Some interesting links to fansubbing.

Plus...
Check out how Eureka Seven gets dubbed.

Chiyo-chan's cooking song (JAP) (ENG SUB)

Kawaii~~~ Chiyo-chan from Azumanga Daioh :D

Some really good animated Flash
Little foot
Final fantasy A+

Wpnfire
Cool game, you control a stick figure and use multiple weapons to annihilate everything (EVIL Laugh)

Comiket 70
Watch the Comiket rush. Comiket (Comic Market) is a bi-annual event that is held at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center in Japan. This video is from the 70th event that is held from 11th - 13th August 2006.

Lets go to Akihabara, "the promised land of Otaku"

Since Malaysia's National Day is coming up (on 31st August), here's some interesting read I dig up from thestar.com :D

Let’s continue to do it the Tunku’s way by WQNG CHUN WAI
Stopping the ‘danse macabre’ by TUN HANIF OMAR
The way we were By MARINA MAHATHIR

( ._.)Ø

Can a game company succeed in Malaysia?

2006-08-29T11:20:00.000+08:00

Can a game company succeed in Malaysia?
- Yes, there are case studies of successful game companies out there. The problems that all face are the same (mostly time and finance) but they can be overcome with judicious application of insight, knowledge and experience in the game industry and market. If game companies outside of malaysia can overcome these problems, then so can we. In my opinion, the best way to go is the garage games concept.

- Forget about doing a AAA title or competing with the big boys already established out there, they have the money, time, resources, experience, man power, marketing strength, brand power, connections, established channels, knowledge and expertise to beat the crap out of any small upstart company that fantasize about matching them competitively.

- Do small games for niche markets to keep development and production costs low so you don't have such a high break even number while building up your knowledge, experience and expertise.

- Remember that there is no fast profit to be made in game development, the key to success is sustainability and the more games you develop and publish the better your next games are and the greater the chance that one of them makes a big hit that will bring you the desired success.

- Organise your finances properly and ensure that you have enough margin to keep yourself solvent and working on a second game/project during the long wait for the first completed game's income to roll in.

- Know the capabilities of your team and DO NOT be greedy and take on a project that you and your existing team is ill prepared to handle, it is not easy to quickly expand your company for a hoped for big project as you can't find good developers on the spur of the moment and scheduling will get f@(ked up. Develop games that your team know about, if they play FPS and hates RPG, for gods sake don't make an RPG, make an FPS instead.

- Research and know the industry and the market throughly, so as not to rely on the hyped up crap that is frequently bandied around by those who relies on hearsay for their news as it is in THEIR best interest to keep the hype up, however false it may be (easiest way to tell this people from the really informed ones is to watch out for the buzz words 'i hear...' or 'so and so told me...').

- Take a big grain of salt when reading published business and market reports of the game industry as alot of hype and self interest are normally weighted into them, the best and most accurate indicators are the users, independent organizations like IGDA, forums and actual market statistics, but you need to know how to weed out the chaff from the grains.

- Remember that although IT skills are required to develop a game, the game industry as a business and market is NOT an IT business or an IT market. It is an ENTERTAINMENT business and market. The only parts IT principles should play in is the development pipeline for the technology and management of game content and assets. This is a problem that many game development managers in Malaysia still don't understand. Applying IT based business and market principles to the game business and market is a sure fire way to failure, unless you are developing middle wares, game code solutions and game engines or components for others to make games out of.... in that case you aren't a real true blue game developer, you develop technology for the use of the game industry, you don't develop games.

Written by ShaDee of Phoenix Game Studio

Source: IGDA forum

Tips for making games by Tom Vasel

2006-08-28T17:07:00.000+08:00

1.If you make a game, playtest it with people you don’t know.

- In regards to playtesting, having non-related people giving opinions is important. They don't have anything to lose or gain, so most of the time their remarks are honest.

2.If people says your game is bad, its true.

-You're making games for the public, you must not be stuck in a selfish attitude. Even though you think your game is cool, others may not. Remember that your making games for the people, not for yourself.

3.Accept criticism.

-Something all game makers should have, its a bumpy road in making a game, you have to take it and learn from it.

4.If you’re designing your own game, its necessary to have other people do it for you.

-Its always a problem when game designers always have this 'once of a lifetime' game odea but dosn't have the know-how of implementing it. You can always hire other people to make it for you :D

5.Remember that your game has a small chance for company to receive them

-Be prepared to be rejected, no matter how cool or unique your game is, if the game publishers are not interested, you'll have a hard time selling it to him.

6.When you’re designing your own game, the theme is fairly important.

- Most game companies sees a game by the theme first, before gameplay. So you have to prepare to make games with not just impressive gameplay, but also with an interesting theme. But be prepared when you give your game to a company, that they might change the theme.

7.The rules,

-You know the rules, but the players don’t. The rules need to cover everything. Go over them, have some one else go over them. Make sure the rules are good.

8.You need to think of every possibilities

-While making the game, make sure it can handle every gameplay situation possible. You don't want your game to break down just because some player did something weird or stupid XD

9.When making a game, your game have to be fun, where everybody have fun.

10.‘Judge a book by its cover’,

-When designing your own game, its very important to make the game look nice, most people will look at a game that have good components.

11.When designing your own game, talk to others,

-There are many forums online that have many game designers and developers converge and talk on different issues. You can always go to these places and ask for their opinions and advice for your game.
International Game Developers Association
Board Game Designers Forum

I went to Tom Vasel's talk on "Using Games to Teach" at Gamecon1(DEC 3rd and 4th 2005). These are the tips he has given on making your own games.

The tips are from him, but the explanations are from what I can remember from the talk :p

( ._.)Ø

Always prepare an escape plan

2006-08-25T09:57:00.000+08:00

An advice from a colleague of mine in my office (an experience Game Master)....
In whatever campaign you play, as a GM, you must always prepare an escape plan for your story.
Usually done by giving the players small random items or events. Like a distant sounds, they saw a car moving, etc

He also gave some examples:

"A player of mine(in one of his campaigns, Shadowrun) made a car, really fast but weak. He made it for fast escapes and loves it. I (as The Boss) gave him an envelope that looks and feels like empty and told him not to open it until the mission ends. The next session I had another GM take over as I had things to do. That day the guy's car was wrecked. He came and complained to me. I remembered about the envelop and told him to open it, there's a letter inside written by The Boss. The Boss has been interested in his car and had it secretly switched with a look-alike to study it. So the car that was wrecked was a fake, and his real car is safely in the garage."

Another example:
"I had the players raid a factory and kill the boss there. But I had planed for the boss (really strong) to survive. While the players was outside the factory, I told them that they saw a truck going inside the factory. The players storm the place just as the truck entered the compound. Somehow they managed to defeat the boss(some really good rolls), and they celebrated. I told them when one of them kicked the body over, they notice the body was a fake and that they have been fighting a robot. Suddenly the truck outside started and leaves the compound, it was the boss running away."

These are just some examples of preparing escape plans, when you're stuck in a bind, these helps you a lot. Always prepare something for the unexpected. Be it some small envelop or a distant noise, these insignificant things gives you alternatives to fall back to.

( ._.)Ø

Jasonlam604.com

2006-08-24T14:19:00.000+08:00

A step in mobile game development.........

A source I found that is really good in teaching making games in J2ME.
You can download the book J2ME & Gaming by Jason Lam for free in pdf version.
Try it out, I've have and it had helped me made a game in J2ME :p

Link

Download the book

and.....
Related links for J2ME for games
Resources primarily for J2ME development

Download J2ME Wireless Toolkit 2.2

( ._.)ø

LINKS to brag about

2006-08-23T17:55:00.000+08:00

Melty blood
A doujinshi 2-D fighter game based on Tsukihime. Really nicely made.
As a Tsukihime fan, I loved it :D

Wizards Announces Price Change
My favorite trading card game, Magic: The Gathering just got more expensive.
What can we do? Lets Feed the wizards

Kamen Rider Kabuto: God Speed Love (2006)

A fan of the TV series, so I'm really excited about the movie :p

Trailer
more info and pictures

Now, to the Stephen Colbert section (LOLz).

With the release of Dungeons & Dragons Online, Steven Colbert hangs up his polyhedral dice with a hilarious homage to his former days as a D&D geek.

The Colbert Report - The Word: Confidence
The Colbert Report - The Word: Superegomaniac
The Colbert Report - The Word: The Long War
The Colbert Report - The Word: XMas
The Colbert Report - The Word: Dumbocracy
The Colbert Report - The Word: Me
The Colbert Report - The Word: Martyr

The Colbert Report - 2006.07.19 - Joe Scarborough

Stephen Colbert interviews attorney Neil Katyal. He defended Guantanamo detainees before the Supreme Court to get them a honest trial, in particular, Osama Bin Laden's chauffeur.

Stephen Colbert on Parenting - "What the hell is wrong with them?" Includes The Word psychopharmaparenting.

Colbert Report - 666

Jack Kingston on The Colbert Report

The Colbert Report - Easter under Attack

Stephen Colbert interviews Catholic League president William Donohue. One of the most surreal and awkward interviews ever conducted.

Stephen Colbert with Congressman Westmoreland

Military man Steven Colbert goes nuts

Stephen Colbert takes a Fox News clip of John Gibson and then proceeds to compare Iran and Democrats, taking the argument to its logical conclusion; why vegetarians are Hitler-lovers.

Stephen Colbert & The Daily Show - Fruit Juice (Part 1) & (Part 2)
Stephen Colbert's piece on the homosexual influence in advertising.

White House press dinner April, 2006
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Bush Realtime Reaction to Colbert Speech

On a more serious note.....

Stephen Colbert meets Jeffrey Sachs
Stephen talks to professor Jeffrey Sachs about his book "The End of Poverty", or why eradicating poverty might be more effective in fighting terrorism than the military. (The Colbert Report, March 2, 2006)

Professor Jeffrey Sachs explains why the best way to combat terrorism is to eradicate poverty and make the world a safer place through justice for ALL. An impassioned plea for action based on our common humanity (CBC HotType, 2005)
Fight Terrorism? End Poverty! - 1/3
Fight Terrorism? End Poverty! - 2/3
Fight Terrorism? End Poverty! - 3/3

( ._.)ø

Quote of the week - Masked

2006-08-22T09:52:00.000+08:00

"
Evey Hammond: Who...who are you?

V: Who? Who is but the form following the function of what. And what I am, is a man in a mask.

Evey Hammond: I can see that.

V: Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation, I'm merely remarking on the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.

"
V for Vendetta

( ._.)Ø

More funny clips of Stephen Colbert

2006-08-21T11:14:00.000+08:00

I can't stop, kinda addicted to his shows now :P

The Colbert Report
The Colbert Report - The Word: Hell, Yes!
The Colbert Report - 'Knowledge of War is Bad for You'
The Colbert Report - Bolton = Colonel Mustard
The Colbert Report - Cappuccino
The Colbert Report - Marrying your cousin

Daily Show
The usually stoic Colbert loses it while reporting on the alledged homosexual charges against Prince Charles
Stephen Colbert's The Jobbing Of America, Stephen Colbert learns what it takes to run for Congress
Stephen Colbert - Olympic Ice Skating Scandal
Stephen Colbert - What the Tech?

( ._.)ø

I’m a Bigot

2006-08-21T09:28:00.000+08:00

I’m a Bigot, I stereotype people and I’m proud of it.
I don’t see the color of their skin. Well, I don’t see Malay, Chinese, Indian, etc.
I put people in categories like assholes, lazy bums, fucktards, dimwits, attention seekers, etc.
So, I’m a bigot.
:D

( ._.)ø

Some more fun LINKS for this week

2006-08-18T09:09:00.000+08:00

I'm bored and has nothing to say......
So more links for this week!!!

Kamen Rider Hibiki

Kamen Rider Hibiki (Masked Rider Echo Demon) is a really good show, It might stray away from other Kamen Rider series but the concept and style is really good. It also has a good storyline and plot. Kamen Rider Hibiki is about the battle between a Japanese secret organization called Takeshi and an assortment of monstrous creatures called Makamo. Hibiki's main point is its character driven story, it follows Adachi Asumu, a 14 year-old student who befriends Hibiki, an agent of Takeshi. Its heart warming story is a good break from the normal 'hero kill monster weekly' in normal Kamen Rider series.

Koriki Choshu
I watch the anime School Rumble Ni Gakki, and in episode 17 I saw a really interesting scene.
Its Koriki Choshu!! The Para Para Dancing Wrestler!!

To commemorate his appearance in School Rumble, I add some cool videos of him with the Para Para dance group HINOI Team :p
HINOI Team with Koriki - YEAH! (ParaPara Version)
Hinoi Team with Korikki - Night Of Fire

Tankmen
In the year of 20XX, the world has been destroyed, all nations obliterated. All that survives are random factions of warriors that fight for..well, who the hell knows. They are the TANKMEN.

Tankmen is funny as hell, the animation is good and the voice acting fits the situation really well. The author should consider going mainstream with this :D
Tankmen
Tankmen 2

Alignment (role-playing games)
If you play any form of Role Playing Game, you know role playing your alignment is very important. Its the essence of characterization of your character(sounds weird :p)
Anyway, I found the information as educational to me, hope it helps other RPG players too.

Be Good or Bad, your choice.

Alchemy of Encoding: Demystified
A really cool insight and guide to those interested in doing fansubbing.

( ._.)ø

Go Go Links

2006-08-15T09:51:00.000+08:00

Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report
Colbert Slams Today Show And GMA For Asking Why Politicians Go On His Show...

Stephen Colbert Explains How To Be An Expert On Everything...
I like watching Stephen Colbert, he's funny and he likes comments on real world politics a lot.
With his constant bashing of politicians and American policies, its a good thing his show is on Comedy Central, or he'll get a lot of heat from the "patriotic" majority XD

The Colbert Report: Devil vs. a Balrog
The Colbert Report: Threat Down - HomoSexy Edition
The Colbert Report: The Word - Truthiness
Watch more of The Colbert Report.

Clips from his days on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The Daily Show - Colbert in Baghdad
The Daily Show - Stephen Colbert's republican pornstar interview
The Daily Show - Stephen Colbert Piece On The Ten Commandments Monument
The Daily Show - Stephen Colbert: Fast Food Restaurant Lawsuits

Enjoy~~ :D

Batman - The Dark Knight Returns
Ever want to see "The Dark Knight Returns" animated?
Its actually a clip from an old Batman animated series, the episode is called "Legends of the Dark Knight", it features the different versions of Batman in the comics (from 1960's to 1990's).
The Dark Knight Returns is a famous graphic novel in 1986 drawn by Frank Miller.

Batman: Origin
If you're wondering why Bruce Wayne becomes Batman :p

Batman Dead End
My favorite Batman fan movie ever, see Batman vs Alien vs Predator (Grins)

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
A spinoff from the anime/game Triangle Hearts,
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha features cute girls and a lot of Techno-magic!
An interesting thing to note is that at the end of the Triangle Heart anime, Nanoha announces that she gonna have her own mohou shoujo (magical girl) series :D
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha 2nd Season
Good thing that what comes out is the techno-magic Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.

Nanoha + Gundam SeeD
Nanoha vs. Vita

I'm blogging about this after Kian told me about the Techno-mages in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha :p
Damn you Kian for making me a Nanoha addict (LOLz)

Coca-cola: Grand Theft Auto
GTA in its all not GTA-like glory :D

Vector arts that is as good as a photograph
Well, vector art this good need to appreciated, check out the details in it XD

( ._.)ø

Quote of the week - Want to be a Game Designer?

2006-08-14T12:58:00.000+08:00

"
If you want to be a Game Designer,
Stop dreaming and start doing it now!
"
--Psychotic EwA

No more talk about how you want to make the next best game, or creating a new genre.
If you're passionate about it, you should start doing something now.
Either start design or make a game of your own or join a game project.
If you want to take it further, sign up to work with a game company as a trainee/intern or game tester.
Do something NOW!!

( ._.)ø

Bullets are invisible

2006-08-11T17:51:00.000+08:00

In truth, most games that feature guns never really animated the bullets that comes out of it. We see explosions, smoke effects and opponent being hit, but no bullet animation.
Its confirmed in the codes(on the game that my team is handling), that there is no bullet object or animation.
The bullets fired are just variables and the hit is calculated directly.
So it creates less strain on the game engine.

The processing power saved can be allocated to the graphics and animations (more special effects w00t).

But still, this doesn't mean you can cheat other bullet animations.
Logically you can't see the normal bullets because they are too fast to be seen :p
Other slow moving ones still need to be shown, to signify that they are slow.

( ._.)Ø

Quote of the week - Tutorials

2006-08-10T10:34:00.000+08:00

"
In game design,
help people in game,
without (having them) looking at manual

-- Akimoto-san
TanTanTown

"

He's referring to the setup of help section or tutorial within a game.
It should either be:
1. An in-game tutorial, going step-by-step teaching the player how to play the game.
2. Giving it in an explanation type (a demo) of how the game is played.
3. Using the 'Help' button, putting a help button on every page (screen) so that the player can click on it for explanations on features he or she don't understand.

He's right by the way, our current game design isn't prepared for a tutorial (for lack of manpower and time).
The guy can't speak english, so he talks to us thru a translator.
We're lucky in a sense, since he have experience in art (graphic design). While he can't speak out his ideas clearly to us, he draws it out on the white board. Which is a good thing as we can understand the visual aspect of his idea.

But his cocky attitude of 'teaching us' on how to make the game makes it hard for me to actually 'like' him. It feels like he's on a power trip, flaunting his experiences in the game industry back in Japan.

The meetings with him were pretty much stressful.

There is a saying, “we should take the good with the bad”
and I learned something new today :)
While he's giving us good advice on game making, he's also giving us hell by requesting a lot of complex features.
I can only blame the management, for promising to him that “it can be done”. (=_=)”

( ._.)ø

Some random links

2006-08-04T17:34:00.000+08:00

LAND WALKER -Japanese Robot suit-
A real-life mecha!!!

Star Wars on a Banjo
This guy is good, playing the Star Wars theme on a banjo.

Hello Vader
I can't believe someone actually cosplay it!
A total contradiction of character, yet so funny when you see it :D

Scribble!
Using your crayon, draw each picture as fast as you can in connect-the-dot style gaming. Get through all 20 levels to receive a rank for your artwork! Start at one, hold down the mouse, and work your way up.
The game is kinda good in a way, simple and the rating system is superb.
The rating system is able to distinguish how well you connect the dots and the way you did it in.

The Daily Show : The Internet
See Jon Stewart of the Daily Show bashing US senators who wants to regulate the Internet and yet don't know shit about it.

Eddie Izzard - Brit vs. U.S. Movies
Eddie Izzard - Big Tits
Eddie Izzard - Being Bilingual
Eddie Izzard - Ich Bin Ein Berliner
Eddie Izzard - Stonehenge
Religion ala Eddie Izzard
I like standup comedy, more so if its Eddie Izzard :p
The guy is fucking hilarious, even though he wear a dress (LOLz)

( ._.)ø

Artists are Your best friends

2006-08-03T09:54:00.000+08:00

As game developers, the artists are your best friends.
During design, you need the artist to create a "visual" for your clients. It helps convey your concepts and lets your clients see what you see.

Usually they (artists) will one-up you by doing the art their way, in what they claim to make it looking good "visually". It is not wrong, as long as it suits the concept and structure of the game. In fact, you should promote it, having creativity outside of the box is good when you're still in design stage.

But you really have to put your foot down when their art designs conflicted with your game design, because its what they drawn out (the concept art, the character model, etc) is shown to the client.

The client won't look at your level design, what he'll look at is the artists impression of how the level will look like. It what the artists draws is different from what you originally designed, the whole design process will get screw up. The client will want what he sees in the concept art and rejects your original designs.

Working with artists is a give and take situation, you have to give space in your designs for their “creativity”, while they have to accept that looking good “visually” is not always important when you're making a computer game.

All this is in the design stage, when you go to development stage, its a whole different situation :D
I talk more about it.....IF I can survive the design stage :p

Jya Ne

( ._.)ø

Quote of the week - Government

2006-08-02T09:22:00.000+08:00

"
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

-- V
V for Vendetta
"

( ._.)ø

Some interesting links

2006-07-28T09:39:00.000+08:00

Kevin Smith talks
Watch Kevin Smith giving a talk on his experience with Superman Returns before Bryan Singer got hold of it. Its pretty hilarious with stories about his screw up producer and Warner Bros execs.
Kevin Smith is a cool guy, I can't say I've watched his films but he's damn sarcastic in this interview that I liked him on the spot.
He would make a good writer for superman (LOLz)

Crescent Pale Mist
A pretty decent doujin game, have nice effects and can be made a reference for any would-be game developers. The simple special effects proves that you don't need super flashy effects to make a game look cool.

Stop The Press
A cool superman mini game, you as Jimmy Olsen, star reporter of the Daily Planet tries to capture the best picture of Superman for the front page.
Try it, its fun :D
Its a nicely made game, I really liked the simplicity and the theme fits really well.

Talking Tech
Mark Rosewater explaining the changes that goes thru Magic: the Gathering after 11 years. What makes the current design of MTG different from the older sets of 11 years ago and what they have learned from what the previous developers of MTG.
Its pretty much on the evolution of MTG and thats what draw me to it.
Any budding game developer should read it, to understand what kind of efforts one need to do to make a game successful.

Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Revisited
Mark Rosewater giving the low-down on the different types of players in MTG. Its kinda cool from a game developer's point of view because he went on to the details of these psychological profiles and the needs of these players. Fulfilling them is hard work, but you are able to ensure that the players are happy and your product sells.
Plus the article have a simple test on what type of gamer you are, MTG players should try it out.

Endurance Challenge! Mordred's Isle
OMG this is the most wicked take on reality television ever!!
A reality show in a Dungeon & Dragons setting, now THIS is a reality show that I'd watch!
I loved the character designs and the voice actors are really good in portraying the characters.
What I liked best is when the Orc complaining of double standards on his race.
"Human walks in an orc village, kills everyone, they're heroes. Orcs walks into a human village and kill everyone, and they're monsters!? Thats sounds fair to you?"
I can't stop myself laughing, IT SO TRUE!!!
I've definitely gonna watch the next episode.

oh ya, the shows are made by a studio called "Hatchlings Studios"
I think I've have to tell Key about it, now his company have to be called a different name.

Michael Moore says his Michigan film festival is not political
I'm a big Michael Moore fan, so the article caught my attention.
The article isn't much political, it just Michael Moore explaining about the Michigan Film Festival.
Its more about showing films, good film that never got a change to be show in major cinemas.
Its not about independent films or experimental films, the festival actually shows a number of good films that have little promotion and good foreign films that deserves attention.
I kinda like the concept and I wish MMU has this kind of festival too (T_T)
I'm a huge fan of good films, I don't care much about the popularity or 'blockbuster y' of the film, as long as it have a good and meaningful story and plot, Its on my list :D
I've might lobby for something like this festival with some clubs and societies when I get back to MMU, its worth a try.

( ._.)ø

Quote of the week -H.P.Lovecraft

2006-07-27T10:02:00.000+08:00

"
The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

-- H. P. Lovecraft

"

How true it is.... (evil grin)

I've renamed the segment to "Quote of the week", since I can't update the quotes on a daily basis.

( ._.)ø

Quote of the day -GM without tools

2006-07-20T10:55:00.000+08:00

"
well, then your boss is really a dick - what is a GM without the tools?
You guys are reduced to nothing more than spies, or make it uglier by putting it in the player's aspect, the company's underdogs.
--Jad [Alt] Kaizer
"

basically how my friend sums it up,
my situation in my company TT_TT

( ._.)ø

I'm not suited to be a GM

2006-07-20T10:51:00.000+08:00

*GM = Game Master

I'm cold-hearted and don't care about the feelings of other players,
as long as the ratings are correct and the matches goes smoothly,
I don't care how pissed off the players are at us.

I cant comment on what the other GMs on my team are doing,
being overly friendly with the players,
thats also the reason the players are walking all over them.

I hate being the bad guy, but someone have to put the foot down,
no more "nice" comments, no more abiding the players needs.

We know the tournament system is flawed, and there's players abusing the system,
whine all about it if you want, we're tied by certain laws to protect ALL of the players rights. Ever if those players cheat, as long as we can't get hold the proof of cheating,
those players are innocent, no matter how much other players complains, its the laws
protecting them that allows such things to happen.

Yesterday I got so fed up that I told one of them that "I care only about the rating system being correct and the matches going smoothly." The kid just log out after that.
I bet he hates me now :/

The people here are suppose to be following company rules, those who don't gets fired, one of the rules of the company is to to be trustworthy and fair to the players, we can screw up anyone else in life, but not while we're handling any e-arena work, so basically im a untrustworthy guy forcing to do trustworthy work.

( ._.)ø

Quote of the day -Ask questions

2006-07-19T09:46:00.000+08:00

"
Being reserved will get you no where,
no one will ask your questions for you.

life is all about survival,
for that you need to gain knowledge.

So ask a question today.
"

an original quote by the Psychotic EwA

( ._.)ø

How people perceive me

2006-07-18T17:13:00.000+08:00

I make more enemies than I make friends.

It could be that I like to speak my mind out LOUD...
than carefully plan out what I want to say, so that I don't hurt the feelings of people I talk to.

I never cared about the feelings of other people,
nor do I care about my relationships with them.

I tell the truth from the bottom of my heart,
(the truth that I believe in anyway)
So I always clashed with people with different opinions.
But I have a habit of saying sorry when my opinion is wrong :P
'If its wrong its wrong, you've learned a lesson today' thats how I live my life :)

Is this a valid reason for me to make more enemies?

My sister always commented on me saying that I need to be nice to people,
"in society, you can't live without other people's help" she says
She always nag me about "fitting in" with other people, that I should change myself to fit with others.
ya, right :P
I never listen :D nor do I do anything much to change myself so I can be friends with people around me.

I DO make friends, they are the people who accept me for who I am, and have the same interests as me.
I don't care if they're from different religion or race.
my belief in life is "Acceptance", if you accept others, others will accept you too.
I try not to discriminate against others, I treat everyone with the same respect and trust.
They are the people I can speak my mind to,
and they are the people who will tell me in my face things that I do wrong.

Somehow being picky about friends makes ones 'anti-social'(as they call me),
I don't care if I can't fit in your clique, I don't care if I can't join activities.
I rather be alone than be with snobs that reject anyone who are different.

( ._.) Ø

Quote(s) of the day -Abraham Lincoln

2006-07-14T13:45:00.000+08:00

"
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time
-- Abraham Lincoln
"

I want to thank coffee_ping for bringing it up :)
Abe Lincoln sure have a great insight into the mechanism of goverment
In my opinion, one of history's greatest leaders,
a supporter of equality, he spoke out agaisnt oppression and slavery.

My favorite quote from him is this:
"
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln
"

Even though he's refering to his own country, the US of A;
it kind of applied to all countries, even Malaysia.
It is not outsiders that will destroy the country, but the people in it.
If we lose our self and abandon our own culture, our own people,
this country is as good as non-existent at all.
I know a few people who is like this =_="
they prefer staying in New Zealand than staying in this rotten country(they say, ceh)

Thats all fer now,
Jya ne

( ._.)ø

Google SketchUp

2006-07-13T17:03:00.000+08:00

I've been having problems conveying my concepts and views to the artists on the concept of my game maps. Its kinda hard telling people why certain objects are placed in in a map. People always have different views of how a place should be.
It doesn't matter if you think having piles of crates or warehouses is normal in factory/industrial area, they will argue with you that its "visually" doesn't suit the map, and changed the out door scene into an indoor (inside of factory) one.

In the end the artists always draws and modeled the things that they want and generaly screws all of my level designs. Just because they can't get what my original idea nad concept looks like.

Recently, my supervisor for the game dev project, Azfar introduced an interesting tool to me.
A simple program called Google SketchUp.

Its a really powerful tool for quickly and easily creating, viewing and modifying simple 3D models.
With SketchUp, I'm able to convey what my vision looks like in full 3D, than just top down view layouts or lists of measurements of areas.

A sample I did, its more of a obstacle course and have no relation to the game my company is doing XD

Give it a try, it might help you in your game dev projects.

Jya ne

Quote of the day -Freedom of Speech

2006-07-12T09:23:00.000+08:00

"
the Psychotic Ewa supports the freedom of speech
he hates you and he is damn proud of it
"

an original quote by the Psychotic EwA

( ._.)ø

Quote of the day

2006-07-11T16:22:00.000+08:00

"
...So there was this guy at work today, who brought back a copy of Madden '06 because it wouldn't play in his son's Xbox.
He starts mumbling about how when he was young, he never had to worry about his baseball being compatable with his glove or his bat.
And before i can stop myself, i blurt out "true. but no one ever died chasing their Xbox into the street."
"

quoted from: bash.org

( ._.)ø

Quote of the day

2006-07-06T11:18:00.000+08:00

A: [wned
B: I like how you mistyped 'pwned' as [wned when pwned itself is an intentional reproduction of the common mistyping of owned
B: I have a feeling that in a few years people will be typing \wned without any shred of irony

quoted from Bash.org

( ._.)ø

I'm an over-eager 'student'

2006-07-05T11:59:00.000+08:00

I went to a meeting with a Japanese client today.
I'm suppose to be the assistant to the Game designer,
but somehow I'm screwing up by butting in with ideas without thinking about the limitations in the game.

I look like a damn "over-eager game student", as some game developers might call them.
even our client, Mr Akimoto seems to realized this,
but he's kind enough to help out by giving ideas while giving space for limitations.
A professional indeed :)

There's a phrase Mr Akimoto used while explaining what he thinks is important in designing a game map,
"Like planting a single flower in the middle and have everthing else revolves around it"
to put it more bluntly, the translator says:
"like putting in the Eiffel tower, and the players will think the area is Paris"

Another point Mr Akimoto sees as important is the harmony of the objects in the game map, instead of item filling the map, the items should be natural and balance out the feel of the map's theme.

I've learned a lot today. Now have to go back redesigning the game maps :p

Thats all for now :p
Jya ne

Hirano Aya ...Kawaii~~desu

2006-07-04T09:42:00.000+08:00

I'm a fan of Suzumiya Haruhi :p
so that makes me a fan of Hirano Aya, the seiyuu for Haruhi.
this clip really caught me, its amazing the way she can change her voice from cute(high pitch) to mature (low pitch).

Hirano Aya's real voice is soooooo much different from Haruhi!!! (in Hey Hey Hey Music Champ)

*translation of the interview with Hey Hey Hey Music Champ (by Omni)

Long Live Haruhism XD

-More of her interviews (with NTV)
-Interview with Anipara Guest Talk
-Interview with Hirano Aya in a recording studio

what are you waiting for?
convert to Haruhism now!!
Jya Ne :p

I hate GDC....a random musing

2006-07-03T11:02:00.000+08:00

GDC is the "Game Development Club" in my university that I joined.

I hate to say it, but the club is getting more problematic than what I've expected this year.
Without any enthusiasm or response from members, its slowly dying out.

From what I've heard from other people(since I cant go to the meetings in Cyberjaya), the new High Committee are comprised of people who don't want to join but are assigned posts by the last year's president, John. (Heard a rumor that the new president is John's girlfriend,but I'm not sure)

I cant say that John's move is bad (seeing that he wants to save the club from dying), but this creates an even bigger problem, letting go of the 'soul' of the club.

Not only choosing an entire High Committee without an open election is constitutionally wrong in the university's society and club rules, it beats the purpose of having a club or society.

A club or society is suppose to be a gathering of people of similar interest. Most of the clubs and societies in MMU fit this archetype. GDC is suppose to be the same.

We are not living FOR the club, but the club is suppose to live FOR us.

If there are less members or the current members are less enthusiastic about the club,

I say we should do what we can, promoting the club while holding activities to foster togetherness among club members. It doesn't matter if other people (non-club members) doesn't know our existance, as long as we're active with our own activies, it fulfill the purpose of the club.

When I help out ITS(IT SOCIETY) with their IT Blast events, I participate in Linux seminars, new technologies talk, held discussions with IT faculty. I basically enjoy myself being an IT student.

I always care about catering to the game dev community in the unversity. Our activities aren't suppose to be mainstream anyway :D

My last event that I organized for GDC, "The Masquerade" was suppose to foster game design (for those who participate as working committees and as side characters) and creativity by having a live-action RPG(role playing game) with players actually "role-play" their characters, its also to promote 'having fun together' within GDC members; instead most who joined weren't even GDC members and they're mostly friends of the working committees.

A total failure I must say. T_T

And the money in the club's bank account, it's keep adding up without being used.

I just hope it get used sooner or later, maybe to sponsor an event so that we don't have to keep charging people to join our events.

.................

I really do need to shut up, I never care much about the club anyway, the way things have been...
I've prioritize my studies more than actually being active with GDC.
for me GDC always is no. 2 , even thought I want to do a lot of game development activities,
assignments and exams always gets in my way T_T
well, just have to wait and see what will happen in the next AGM

well, enough screaming...
Jya Ne

Transformers - they are still the IN-thing

2006-07-03T10:44:00.000+08:00

Cant wait for the Transformers Live Action movie to come out?
well, feast your eyes on this cool clip XD

Optimus Prime Transforming

Miko Miko Nurse

2006-06-29T14:23:00.000+08:00

Just a few days ago I found this while I was browsing in the web.
It completely blown me away with Kawaii~~ness :P

short version of Miko Miko Nurse
The album (single)

Try it out :)
Jya ne

Playing DOTA after office hours

2006-06-29T12:52:00.000+08:00

People here at e-Games really like to play DOTA.
Every day after office hours, most of the staffs here stayed back and play DOTA over LAN(local area network).

I don't join them much, not that good in DOTA though :P

I could say e-Games have a really nice working atmosphere.
You do your work seriuosly during office hour, then play games together after office hours.
Where else can you find this kind of working environment :)

thats all for now
Jya Ne

Back to blogging

2006-06-22T12:40:00.000+08:00

a lot of things happened and no time to blog :p

where should I start.....
ok then, stared my industrial training at e-Games (used to be called Terra ICT ) on 1st of June and I'm now working in shifts (or seem like it). I work for the e-Arena team in the morning (before lunch) and work as a assistant for Azhar(Non-e in MGDC) in game design.

well, thats all for now.
Jya ne

Kai Sunreaver is...me?

2005-11-03T10:05:00.000+08:00

2 days ago(during Deepavali), I went a a few of my old friend's open house.
it was good to catch up with old friends,
we talk about the good old days ... :)

then it caught on to me, of how I was (still am but now a bit mild),
back then I was notorious for my hot temper, the trouble I got into(lol), how I have this great sense of justice(I'm a prefect that acts like a police lol ) etc
You could blame it on my old school, being one of the few chinese in school helps make you a target.

It look like I've put in all the things I was during my secondary school into Kai Sunreaver.
The spiteful, vengeful, and angry religious fanatic.

And our Gamemaster Yong thought I was role playing,
he was expecting all the players to put in part of thier personality in the charcters they played. well, it seems like I'm playing myself XD

Thats all for now,
Jya ne

SELAMAT HARI RAYA

2005-11-03T07:40:00.000+08:00

Yay, pagi raya XD
Saya ingin ucapkan Selamat Hari Raya kepada rakan-rakan Muslim saya yang menyambutnya.

maaf zahir dan batin XD

Happy Deepavali

2005-11-01T12:40:00.000+08:00

Happy Deepavali to all my Hindu friends.

I'm going visiting later, this is your last warning XD

Why I should even blog

2005-11-01T11:28:00.000+08:00

just today my flame war in MGDC forum just got interesting.

one of the newcomers posed an interesting point to me:
"....that i know more about you than you do of me...ean wey ann...a self confessed troll...either you are a really smart person or otherwise...." blah blah
even to the point of calling me a mama's boy LOLz

like I even try to hide who I am.
I've even put my real name in some of threads in the forum XD

but it got me thinking, and I googled my name and my forum name
so far I'm only active in MGDC and a bit in some anime forums
I have a blog, this one
and the first search result for my name is in a MMU student directory.

what have I done?
do I even have a purpose to let the net dezidens to know who I am

I've look thru my posts, and find that its very erratic
I'm not even sure of what to say or do

will do some soul searching....
and then will decide if this blog should continue

Jya Ne

Who is Doctor Who?

2005-10-30T07:03:00.000+08:00

I've been wondering about that for sometime now, always hearing it as 'the best sci fi of all time' and 'a piece of popular culture'.
Yet I never bother to actually to find out Who is Doctor Who?

Until a few hours ago,
I searced thru the web (including wikipedia) and found out that its actually a TV series.

Doctor Who official website
Doctor Who in wikipedia
History of Doctor Who
Who is Doctor Who?

Doctor Who, a sci-fi series first appeared in BBC television in 1963.
Was one of the earliest sci-fi series ever,
It involves The Doctor who travels thru time and space in the TARDIS(Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), which is dimensionally transcendental (larger on the inside than on the outside), and seemingly never fully under his control. The TARDIS originally had the ability to disguise itself according to its environment, but became "stuck" in the form of a police box after landing in London in 1963.

Haven't seen the series myself, but from the reviews I've read, it seems to be enjoyable.
It should also noted that the series' most notable characters are perhaps one of his adversaries, The Daleks.

The Daleks even appear on a stamp celebrating British popular culture. XD

Interesting enough, theres a new Doctor Who TV series airing now in the UK,
wonder if the local TV stations here in Malaysia will pick it up soon :)

Top 100 toys of all time

2005-10-30T05:21:00.000+08:00

Found an interesting site:
Top 100 toys
The top 100 toy of all time (or so the writer says),
to me it look just like a list of top 100 'old' toys, most of the games I never heard of, but are still in existance like Operation, Cluedo, and even Mastermind XD

What I like about this site is his commentaries on the toys he listed.
He always has something to say about the toy in question, nice insight into the kids of yesteryears.
From the accent in his writings, I would guess that his British.
Some of the old toys he features are also use to be popular here in Malaysia :))
But I think the site would cater more to the 80's and 70's kids

Check it out, you might find some toys you have played when you were young ;)

Dungeons and Dragons at no.44! XD

[RPG]Kai Sunreaver - a profile

2005-10-27T09:51:00.000+08:00

If anyone been reading my blog since it started, you might notice that I'm a RPG(Role Playing Game) enthusiast.

This is a profile for one of my characters in a campaign I'm playing.

Name: Kai Sunreaver
Original Name: Kaiern, son of Thrag
Title: Acolyte of Lenellia; Knight of Vengence; and "that stupid Orc"(as his party members likes to call him; amazingly he havn't kill them yet)
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Orc
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Class: Paladin/Rogue
Deity: Lenellia, Lady of the Avenging Blade; Goddess of Justice,Law and Revenge
Domain: Vengence

Origin: Rath, middle-east of Dekarra
Clan: Mogg
Family: Mother-Human(deceased),unknown; Mother-Orc(deceased), Marg; Father(deceased), Thrag; 12 siblings(deceased)
Background:
Was born into slavery by his Human slave mother, his mother died after giving birth to him. Adopted into his master(his father)'s family.
Faced abuse and humiliation during his growing years.
At the night of his 13th birthday, he was visited by Lenellia in his dream, he was enlighten by her that night.
The next day his entire family was found dead, their throat was slit in thier sleep.
Kaiern, son of Thrag has left the orc village and adopted the name Kai Sunreaver.
He joined an order of Paladin in Rath called the "Selesnya Conclave".
And has since set on his mission for Lennelia, ever the devout acolyte.

Weapons:
Katana, the "kitsune no uta"
- an oriental weapon his father obtained from one of his raids. its one of the few things Kai brought from his old house on his journey.
-it is now destroyed, broken to pieces by the element, Earth.

Orc double axe, the Man-Slayer
- his father's favorite weapon; Its one of the few things Kai brought from his old house on his journey.

Drow Scimitar
-obtained from a body of a drow that tried to ambush his party.

Twin chained sickle, the twin sisters
-obtained from Erien

Spiked Shield of Bashing, the Basher
-forged by the twin dwarves, Yardek and Ilde Rumnaheim

============================================
For the DM:
can I use these? :P

page 118, AEG-Accessory-Gods

Regarding the Blood Rune Magic, can I refer to these:

Runewright
AEG - Accessory – Magic
pg. 83
spells – pg. 87

New Bleach movie is coming (YES!!! at last!)

2005-10-27T06:59:00.000+08:00

A new Bleach movie is coming, yay \o/

" in a recent roundtable at a University in Vienna, Austria; Studio Pierrot confirmed that they are in the process of making a Bleach Movie. Not much is known, but expect the movie to release in the Summer of next year"
See the complete articel here

Hoping its as good as the series,
usually I don't dig anime movies, cause they(the producers) always screw the storyline and characters.
just like the first Naruto movie, at least that movie was entertaining( seeing Sasuke asking Naruto to complete the mission was good enough for me. HE HE, knowing you can't see that in the manga, LOLz).

So far the Bleach series has been true to the manga, even the Jump special featured a plot from the manga(Ichigo vs GranFisher). Which was really cool, better executed that the one in the series.

Now can't wait for the next year to come, hope it don't get licensed before that (please don't).
Jya ;)

[DM Yong & Yoshitaka] Character Concept Art

2005-09-20T07:41:00.000+08:00

I'm putting up some artwork of my characters in my Dungeon & Dragons sessions.
A picture of your character may not be important during gameplay, but it helps smooth the role-playing as the other Player Character and DM knows what you looks like and your dress sense.
Since I'm bad at drawing, I've ask a friend of mine to help draw it for me.

OK, here goes;

For my character under DM Yong's campaign:
I'm playing a katana wielding blonde half-orc Paladin, so this is what I'm suppose to look like;
All credits go to my friend Koh Ping.

Kai Sunreaver, Paladin of Lenellia

Below is some concept art on the character:

Early Concept

Armor Concept

For my character under DM Yoshitaka's campaign:
since I'm playing a 12-year-old girl sorceress/treasure hunter, so I basically look like a girl going camping. LOLz

Cindy (Orlexian), Treasure Hunter

ok ok, so I rip it from Cardcaprtor Sakura, but the mood is there.
and she fits the look of my character well.

Until next time, Jya Ne

[Game Apllication]Battleroom

2005-09-20T07:09:00.000+08:00

In this documentation, I will discuss on the design of the battle room from the battle school.

Concept:

The concept for the design is the battle room that appears in the book Ender’s Game. In the book, Ender goes to Battle School and has mock battles with other armies in the Battle room.
The mock battles are fought in zero gravity and the battles usually involve 2 armies at the same time. But later in the book, there will be 3 or 4 armies in the battle room at the same time. The battles are to simulate battles in space.

The battle room is a battle simulation room where 2 opposing armies will face each other in flash suits and laser guns. When one is shot by the laser guns in a flash suit, the flash suit will froze, immobilizing the wearer.

At first the battle room is empty with only the combatants in the room, later the teachers at the battle school will add obstacles in the battle rooms which the combatants called ‘stars’. The stars are either randomly or symmetrical distributed.

Objective:

The objective of the game is to reach the opponents door and pass thru it. But the condition is 4 members of the army must touch their helmet on the 4 lighted corners of the door to disarm the forcefield on the door and a fifth member to pass thru the door.

Design:

The battle room itself will be in the shape of square box. Inside the box there will be a hexagon sphere.

In each hexagon there will be a door. Only 2 doors will be unlocked. The unlocked doors will be the target of capture by the opposing armies.

Door design

When a door is unlocked, it will be closed by a forcefield. Only the army that has been assigned to that door is allowed to go thru the forcefield. There are handles on the side of the door to help the combatants enter the door and to help the opposing army position themselves on the lighted corner. The opposing army must send 4 of their members to use their helmets to light up the 4 corners of their opponents door. Then the forcefield will subside and a fifth member has to go thru the door for the winning condition.

Front view of the door

Side view of the door

There will be obstacles in the battleroom. It will be in the form of stars and other combatants.

The obstacles:

stars (static)

The stars will be in the form of brown boxes.
It be distributed randomly or symmetrically depending on the difficulty level.
It will stay in its position.
Can be used as covers or strategic position for snipers.

stars (floating) –

The stars will be in the form of brown boxes.
It will be distributed randomly or symmetrically depending on the difficulty level.
It will not stay in its position, instead it will float around.
Can be used as covers, but only for a short time.
The star’s direction can be changed by hitting it with enough force.

other combatants

Other combatants can be the opponent or ally.
Players can use frozen opponent or ally to jump across the room.
Players can also use allies as leverage to spring in a certain direction.

[Game Application]Reference for Game Design

2005-09-13T03:33:00.000+08:00

reference for Flashsuit design
HALO Armor

reference for gun design
R:STC Morita

reference for battle room
hexagon
hexagon 2

[Game Application] Intrasitive Relationship

2005-08-30T02:21:00.000+08:00

In this chart, we uses console machines to represent intrasitive relationship.

As we can see, PS2 (Playstation 2) beats Xbox; Xbox beats GC(GameCube); and GC beats PS2.

The reason is that PS2 beats Xbox is of the superior number of games that PS2 has over Xbox.
PS2 has more games than Xbox, and this reason made players more inclined to PS2 than over Xbox.

While Xbox beats GC because of its advanced graphic displays.
Xbox has better quality in displaying graphics than GC, thus making Xbox more worthwhile to players than GC.

GC in the meanwhile beats PS2 because of its better gameplay.
For example, the mini-games in the loading screen. Players choose over PS2 for GC for its simple game control and its user-friendlyness.

The chart above shows how each console reacts to each other after the introduction of an outside item.

The chosen item is "Son Goku".
"Son Goku" is a fictional character from the manga Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama.

How do Son Goku affect the relationship?
Basically it reverses the cycle, making PS2 able to beat GC; GC able to beat Xbox; and Xbox able to beat PS2.

PS2 able to beat GC in viewing how PS2 treats fighting game genres, Playstation is known for many of its fighting games, knowing this PS2 would also continue churning out fighting games.
Son Goku and the Dragon Ball casts would be active in PS2's fighting games, it'll beat GC in this term as GC doesn't have much fighting games in its wing.

GC is able to beat Xbox in marketing character-based product. Nintendo is known for its ability to market characters from its game products. Thus utilizing Son Goku as its maskot for its console, GameCube. GC will be able to beat Xbox in a marketing war, as Son Goku can reach a boarder audience.

Xbox is able to beat PS2 in utilizing its better processing power to churn out better gameplay experiance. In using Son Goku's philosophy in making the fullest of one's ability and expand it over the limit. Xbox will be able to beat PS2 in the processing competition. Xbox will be able to produce better graphics and a stable environment for processing intensive games.

[EwA]Naruto quizzes!

2005-08-27T00:51:00.000+08:00

take time to try some of it....
:)

What Ninja Class Are You?

Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

What Village Are You From?

Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

Who's Your Dream Naruto Girl?

Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

I'm a Naruto fan....so it was fun for me,
so, how bout you?

[EwA]Which Bleach character are you?

2005-08-24T20:27:00.000+08:00

Take The quiz yourself

I took a quiz on what kind of Bleach character i would be... and I'm Rukia?
Cool!

By the way, she's my favorite character in Bleach. So I won't mind it.
LOLz

Power Puff Girls Doujinshi

2005-08-24T00:33:00.000+08:00

I found this interesting site from a link in one of my friend's blog.

http://bleedman.snafu-comics.com/

Its an online doujinshi of Power Puff Girls.
check it out, its damn cool!

[EwA]So what type of dice will you ever be?

2005-08-18T21:42:00.000+08:00

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Trying to write a story....

2005-07-31T04:25:00.000+08:00

I've finished 3 acts for my Dungeon & dragons character Kai Sunreaver.
He's a katana wielding half-orc paladin.

Its not actually a story, but a log of what my character has gone through during the D&D session.
the session itself is a weekly event we have at every friday.
The DM's are usually Ronnie or Yong.

For this character, Kai Sunreaver, he's a character for Yong's campaign.
My other character(which is for Ronnie's campaign) is a Human Fighter named Alex Braver; dont let the name fool you, he's actually a Lawful Evil character.

anyway, the 3 acts for "The story of Kai Sunreaver" are:
1. Prologue : Dreams
2. Act one: Arrival
3. Act two: An unexpected charity

Forgive me for my grammatical errors and bad story writing. Its my first time writing this kind of stuff. Hope you guys can give some comments on it.

Till next time,
Jya

The Story of Kai Sunreaver : Act 2

2005-07-31T04:21:00.000+08:00

Act two: An unexpected charity

The half-orc goes around the temple asking paladins, knights and clerics for aid. And they pointed him to the direction of a single paladin sitting on the bench outside the temple.

The paladin at the bench wears an unusually shiny armor plus he looks unusually extravagant for paladin. He sits cross legged while having his squire standing beside him.

The half-orc approach him.

“Good day brother, can you help a fellow poor paladin in need of aid?”

The paladin on the bench replied, “sure~ what do you need?” While saying that, he blinked at the half-orc.

“I am in need of some armor and I has no money to purchase one, do you kind brother have some old armor to spare for a fellow paladin in need?”

“Ah~ that’s all?” with that the paladin on the bench snapped his fingers and his squire runs off.

“Anyway, you are a peculiar little thing. Being a half-orc and all, we don’t see much of your kind here in Bacrind.

My my look at those muscles,” he winks at the half-orc with a smile.

“I and my friends are having a party later at Tanchirone tavern. Why don’t you come with me? They would really love to see you.”

“I am sorry brother, but I am on a mission, I may have to pass on your kind offer.” the half-orc replied.

“Oh well, your loss”

After that, the paladin’s young squire came back with a heavy full plate armor and gives it to the half-orc.

“Thank you brother, how should I repay you for this”

“You still won’t change your mind? Tanchirone has the best rooms you know? Plus you would really like my friends” and he gives the half-orc another wink.

“I am sorry brother, but I am on a mission, again how may I repay your gracious gift”

“Oh well, just take it. I have more where that comes from”

“Thank you brother, pray I can see you again in the future to repay you”

“You still won’t consider it again?”

“I am sorry brother”

“Oh well, just take it”

“Thank you brother” after saying that, the half-orc left the extravagant paladin.

Nearby, a cleric whispers something to a knight, “that’s the most polite half-orc I’ve ever seen”

And suddenly the extravagant paladin stands up and says “Yeah I’m gay! Yeah”

The people around the area somehow act as if they didn’t hear that and walks away from him. The half-orc did the same thing too.

The Story of Kai Sunreaver

2005-07-31T04:18:00.000+08:00

Part 1: The arrival and the conflict

Act one: Arrival

A half-orc appeared from the eastern gates of Bacrind. He carries a strangely looking oriental sword and made no sign to hide it. He is dressed in some cheap adventurers suit carries no armor and shield with him.

The half-orc figure itself is a sight to behold. Being tall and muscular and with blond hair and blue eyes. Maidens would have fallen for him if not for his orcish features. His greenish skin, lupine ears and jutting jaw signify him as an orc. People at the entrance would try to stay away from him as much as they can.

The half-orc made his way to the nearest Temple of Knights. There, the guards at the entrance let him pass as they can sense his Aura of Good. The half-orc made his way to the chambers of the high priest of the temple.

The high priest was waiting for him in the chamber.

“What is it my child?”

The half-orc kneeled in front of the priest.

“Father, I wish to consul you of my dream”

The priest reply “continue my son”

“A few days ago, I had a strange dream in which I was alone in a great wide field full of yellow flowers.

And a beautiful woman descended from the sky and pointed to a great city in the horizon.

Father, do you know what does this dream signify?”

The priest went to a veiled part of his chamber, there are other priests there waiting for him. He consulted with them for a while and came back to half-orc.

“The dream has two possibilities;

One, is that it signify a destined true love is to found by you in a great city in the east;
And two, it means that a great destiny for glory awaits you in a city somewhere in east.”

The half-orc stands up. “Thank you Father for your counsel”

With that, the half-orc leaves the high priests’ chamber.

Prologue: Dreams

2005-07-31T02:06:00.001+08:00

A figure is walking alone in a wide plain of yellow flowers…..

Where am I?

What is this place?

A bright light appears….

A woman surrounded by white light descended upon the fields.

Who are you?

The woman gestured to the figure to come closer.

What do you want from me?

The woman pointed to her left, to the horizon.

Is that what you want me to do?

In the horizon, lies a shadowy image of a great city.

The figure kneels down.

He took out a dagger from his waist, and wound his other palm with it.

He clenched his wounded palm and let the blood drop to the ground.

As you wish, my mistress.

My sick day...OH JOY

2005-07-29T12:28:00.000+08:00

yesterday was an interesting day for me....
its one of the few rare days that I'm sick!

yeah thats right, I got sick yesterday and I skipped the entire day's classes.
It started in the morning when I had a terrible stomachache and fever.
I treat it as a normal pain and just go on....
I went to see Mr.Omar at STAD for some business,
and then I went back to rest...
amazingly I slept the entire day!!
I woke up on 10am and went out see mr.Omar after that, later I came back to rest at 12pm, and slept thru the entire day...woke up at 10pm at night!!
Later I slept early at 2am!? Then the next day woke up at 7am....
thats amazingly 15 hours of rest!!!

missing 3 lecture classes on that day and even skipping my kickboxing training(that I dont want to miss)
Arghhh....

I'm better now,
seems a day worth of resting did the job.

Interesting thing that happen this morning is I got a email from my senior stating that I sounded hostile in my email to everyone last night(the day I was sick...duh)
Seems that me being in pain and dazed(from the fever) wrote the email in an hostile tone,
I didnt even notice it. LOLz
Looks like I have to refrain myself from writing letters when I'm having a fever or stomachache.

Thats all for now
Jya ...

updates on my mum

2005-07-17T02:30:00.000+08:00

I've havn't give any updates on my mum for sometime now....
since some of you ask bout her condition, so this is it:

so here goes, she's fine now
she's out of the hospital a few days after my post Working with cables
on the day my mum is out, my grandpa went into ICU for multiple organ malfunction.
the whole week after that is hectic for me cause I was at the hospital from evening till the next morning everyday.

my granfather passed away after that (on 26th of May 2005)
may he rest in peace.

since then I stop writing in this blog and start again after I joined back GDC.

well, life goes on...
interesting enough thats what everyone tells me when my grandpa was in ICU.
even thought he wasnt gone yet but everyone was expecting the worse.
I'm not going to blame anyone....
but life is short,
I don't see it as a misfortune, but something that happens
Its maybe because of this thats why I'm always indifferent when someone close to me dies
I've had friends and family who has passed away, and someone once ask me why I never shed a tear for them.
but...life is short, everyone will be gone eventualy.
there is no use to keep thinking of people who is already gone while you still have a life to go thru.
I will always remember the people who is gone, even if I cannot remember their names, I'll remember the short time we had.

ahh, I'm getting sentimental here..
time to shorten this
maybe I'll pour my heart out in another post,

EwA signing out, Jya

Oh ya..about that trip to Phoenix Games

2005-07-17T00:15:00.000+08:00

about that trip to Phoenix Games stated in my earlier post.

It was cancelled at the last minute....
which is a good thing for me cause I got to Bon Odori.
but pity those who canceled their plans on Saturday just for the trip...

Anyway, our lecturer just got confirmation for another trip,
will update about that later.

EwA's Secret Lair

Quote of the week - Hey Fool!

Understanding Games

God knows...

Removing Busywork

Eva sama dash! Negima Pani Poni Dash Parody

Things I Am No Longer Allowed to do in an RPG

疑えば目に鬼を見る("Higurashi-no-Nakukoroni" MAD MOVIE)

LINKS, the Rebellion

Quote of the week - True Happiness

Quote of the week - Sex discrimination

Story Flow

Go LINKS, Emo Kid

1 hour interview with Brett Bibby

Quote of the week - You cannot teach a man anything

LINKS for me, please?

The Society of Loli-Hunters

The Supporters of Mahou Shoujo

LINKS from yesterday

Quote of the week - Villain

Hardrock Halellujah!! LORDI

Bad people won't look at you in the face?

LINKS, the Second Barrage

Quote of the week - V

Genuflect and Lactoburst

As a Game Designer, in meeting with a client

LINKS, my dear

Quote of the week - School

White and Nerdy

Are you proud to be an OTAKU?

LINKS for all season

Quote of the week - Speaking correct English

Memory hack

A good game designer needs good communication skills

How do you handle Double Login?

LINKS is life

Quote of the week - Overcoming adversity

Dumping LINKS for a Better Tomorrow

Golden rule of gaming

Using games to teach by Tom Vasel

Quote of the week - SCSI cable

Quote of the week - Peace and Government

LINKS a bunch

Can a game company succeed in Malaysia?

Tips for making games by Tom Vasel

Always prepare an escape plan

Jasonlam604.com

LINKS to brag about

Quote of the week - Masked

More funny clips of Stephen Colbert

I’m a Bigot

Some more fun LINKS for this week

Go Go Links

Quote of the week - Want to be a Game Designer?

Bullets are invisible

Quote of the week - Tutorials

Some random links

Artists are Your best friends

Quote of the week - Government

Some interesting links

Quote of the week -H.P.Lovecraft

Quote of the day -GM without tools

I'm not suited to be a GM

Quote of the day -Ask questions

How people perceive me

Quote(s) of the day -Abraham Lincoln

Google SketchUp

Quote of the day -Freedom of Speech

Quote of the day

Top Ten Video Game Weapons

Quote of the day

I'm an over-eager 'student'

Hirano Aya ...Kawaii~~desu

I hate GDC....a random musing

Transformers - they are still the IN-thing

Miko Miko Nurse

Playing DOTA after office hours

Back to blogging

Kai Sunreaver is...me?

SELAMAT HARI RAYA