Archive for September, 2008
Thursday, September 18th, 2008
I think that Ian and I are the only people in the world who have a genuine love of the Microsoft Jerry Seinfeld ads. I love them because they’re nonsensical, expensive, overwrought and magnificently silly. Seeing the world of corporate advertising infected with a beautiful silliness is captivating.
Lots of people on the internet hate these adverts. “WTF??” they scream. “Microsoft are so stupid“. Microsoft don’t seem to like it that people don’t “get” their marketing campaign, so they’re pulling it. Apparently they’re out-of-touch with what the kids want.
Great, so now we can go back to a world of “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” and informercials that tell you how much RAM Vista is compatible with.
It’s extremely rare that I don’t “get” something. Even if I hate it, I usually “get” it. Maybe that’s because when I was an English student, it was sort of my job to “get” things – not “getting” something was the cardinal sin. If you don’t “get” something, it’s because you’re an idiot, or you’re being an idiot at the time.
There are so many comments along the lines of, “I saw the first one yesterday and I didn’t understand it.” Why do you have to understand it? Only someone who is massively insecure about their own intellect would claim not to understand comedy rife with intentional awkward weirdness. This transcends subjectivity – for example: I get 30 Rock, I have a full intellectual understanding of its particular genre of comedy, its stated aims and its ability to achieve them, but I still think that it’s drab, first-stage-joke-riffing heap of shit.
I definitely get the Microsoft ads – they were trying to be funny and weird above everything else. They succeeded, whether you’re laughing with them or at them. They are not “90′s nostalgia for boring white guys”, as I saw someone post – they’re just awkward and strange. It’s a trick that works for a lot of comedians – they cultivate a ludicrous persona so you can’t really believe what you’re hearing and the only response is to laugh. You don’t need rhyme or reason to be funny, you certainly don’t need any specific marketing aims. Microsoft can fucking afford to pay a small fortune to make something funny and put it on TV if they want, and what, you want to discourage them?
Well done internet.
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
There’s a saying I like. I don’t like the wording though so I’m going to paraphrase.
“You’ll only ever get anywhere in life by changing yourself. Don’t try to change other people.”
How many times have we had bad experiences with people and then finally changed something in us, and found that everything is improved. Butting your head against the wall in frustration is never the way to go. It’s amazing what a change of approach can do.
(I’d like to put a clarification on that though – this does not apply to your family. Those relations will always be difficult.)
Er… well after that surprisingly serious start, back to life as normal.
I’m excited today about something I can’t talk about, but Mode7 may be unveiling an awesome new product (the wording is important!) soon. This is in addition to everything else we’re doing.
Ying is working on pathfinding in Synapse. Yes I still plan on releasing the beta this week.
Posted in News | 3 Comments »
Monday, September 15th, 2008
Hungover and working on one of the trickiest Synapse bugs. Yes, it’s monday during the regular season alright.
Ying is working on Synapse a bit this week in preparation for a period where I may be busy elsewhere. Synapse is basically in feature lockdown (Ying is working on a usability thing but that shouldn’t take long and really should be it) and if I could just fix this bug today we might have a beta candidate. I want at least a couple of days of play in the office with no show-stoppers before I’m happy to unleash to the first closed users. I guess I need to write a bit of documentation too.
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
Well I said I’d see how I feel on Sunday… and how I feel on Sunday is burnt out. So nothing today, sorry guys. Will be next week.
About all I have the energy for is watching football tonight and with Slingbox + Sky + GamePass I have everything (albeit in very low quality for Slingbox+Sky). Go Falcons.
Posted in News | No Comments »
Friday, September 12th, 2008
I have broadband in my flat! Finally! I’m in a celebratory mood.
Bit of an end of an era today. Thom, our intern, is finishing his time with us. Unlike most interns he’s been hugely useful (he was originally only going to be here for 2 weeks but we decided to keep him for 6 – a good indicator of appreciation) and I wish him luck in his final year at Imperial. We’ll miss him.
Work on multiturn continues. Bin and I have not actually managed to finish a game before some new bug destroys everything yet, but I am fairly confident we’re getting there. Depending on how I feel on sunday morning I’ll either get the beta going or put in a slightly different system for aiming in the game. The current system is needlessly complex and I think I know what I’m going to do with it. It’s tough to release a beta at all because I keep wanting to make improvements like this, but it will assuredly happen in the next few days.
Despite not having finished a multiturn game yet, I can report that it’s one hell of a lot of fun and is making me unneccessarily excited. More soon.
Posted in News | No Comments »
Friday, September 12th, 2008
Two days ago I woke up and decided that there was one feature that had to be in Synapse for the beta. Basically, we’ve only been playing one turn games of Synapse for the last three months. One-turn synapse (Endplays as we call them) are central to the entire game – something you’ll be learning about with the beta. However, I was starting to yearn for some (slightly) old(er)-fashioned multi-turn action. Yes yes, having more than one turn in a turn based game may sound like an essential feature to you, erstwhile reader, but believe me the issue is more complex than it first appears.
Anyway… so I decided it was time to fix and put-back-in multiturn. Bin and I had a good game yesterday but there’s still one huge problem which is that there are a few bugs which allow you to change what you’d done in a previous turn… which would obviously be a bit of a problem to say the least.
So fixing that is what I’m working on right now. Hopefully I can get it done today!
I’m supposedly finally getting broadband in my flat today, which is quite exciting. I
Posted in News | No Comments »
Monday, September 8th, 2008
I’m excited. I’m excited because Synapse is there. Not “will be there next week” or “feels like it’s close” or “showing a lot of promise”. It’s actually there. Right now.
I’m just trying to work out the best way of being able to keep the beta updated properly, and then the closed beta will be upon us. In the run up to that (when a lot of you will finally find out what I’ve been wanking on about the last six months) I want to explain some more about the vision behind Synapse (My post below entitled “Random Level Generator” is also worth reading if you haven’t yet).
I like multiplayer tactical turn based games. Well… maybe it would be more accurate to say I like the idea of them. I like the idea that I could start a game of, say, Laser Squad Nemesis with Bin one lazy hungover sunday afternoon; and in no time be engaged in a fascinating battle of wits where every turn is an apportunity to second-guess him and pull some awesome tactical stunt.
But the reality is this:
I load up the game.
I choose a map.
I choose a side.
I have to select what units I want, and where I’m going to deply them, and
Wait, I’m going to stop myself there. Selection and deployment of units is my first massive problem with this process. I have an infinity of choices. What’s bad about that exactly? Well… it’s the same infinity of choices I had last time I played the game. And the time before.
I’m an absolute novelty freak. I have serious game-ADHD and I’m already ten minutes into this process and I am being asked to make decisions which won’t be meaningful for at least half an hour. That’s worse than meaningless decisions! If I don’t make the right decision now I’ll be stuck with the consequences for bloody ages. And the game is going to be the same game I’ve played x times before for at least the next twenty minutes.
Which brings me onto the next problem. (And just in case it sounds like I’m bashing LSN I’m not – this is typical of the genre). So I decide a cool, mind-blowingly innovative immaginative and subversive tactic which will work awesomely.
But then – like a lot of my cool, mind-blowingly innovative immaginative and subversive tactics which will work awesomely – it doesn’t work. He came around the wrong corner and saw my units and now he knows my plans.
So now I’m stuck with… er, playing a broken plan for the next two hours. Why on earth would I want to do that? Sure, so that I can recover wonderfully and make some new tactic which undermines everything. But… but… somehow I just really don’t want to. My plan is stuffed and I’m in a bad position and the last thing I want to do is rescue it. That sounds like hard work.
Or even worse! My plan works and 80% of his units are dead and now I have the massive reward of… playing incredibly conservatively for the next hour in order to polish him off. So I do something cool and I’m winning and that means I have to start playing in the most boring way possible?
Have you ever noticed in these games that it’s a lot more fun to be the underdog? You get to be stupid and try low percentage plays. Low percentage plays are a LOT more fun.
I’ve rambled for too long and it’s bed time. I designed Synapse to be a game which blew this genre out of the water and solved these problems and I’ve done it. I’ve made it. You’ll be playing it next week and I hope you love it as much as I do.
Posted in News | No Comments »
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
A huge part of Synapse since Day 1 has been randomness. Synapse is a tactical game, with plenty in common with (but plenty very different from) Laser Squad Nemesis; but a hugely central idea is that every time you play you are presented with a new, already interesting situation. In most tactical games you start on one of a small number of familiar maps. Which units you choose to deploy, where you deploy them, and what happens in the first few turns (usually taking up to an hour) creates a different experience every time.
With Synapse, I wanted everything faster. In the main mode, Synapse generates for you a situation on a fairly small, generated level. (Note I’m saying “generated” rather than “random” – random has some bad connitations nowadays. This stuff is being randomly generated, but with intelligent algorithms.) You and your opponent’s units are generatively chosen and positioned. Synapse is different every time you play it, and it’s different straight away. Load up Synapse and you will have a unique situation to analyse and play within twenty seconds.
Well, we’ve had Bin making “random” levels on demand for the last few months, but today I put in an actual situation generator. And it works. Plenty of testing to go but I’m extremely pleased with the results.
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
The NFL is back! And how do I love it. I just bought the NFL Game Pass Season Pass so I can watch the terrible Falcons every week and from wherever I want to. I’ve used the service before (it basically gives you every game Sky isn’t showing over the internet) and with a good connection the quality is pretty good. You also get American ads which for some reason amuses me. It’s £95 for the regular season which is about £6 a week. That’s good value in my book. It’s also just about essential for the night game for the first 8 weeks when five aren’t showing it.
I bought Spore yesterday and played two hours of it in front of college football at Thomas’ house. It’s too early for my impressions to be honest. I’m going to give it another couple of hours today and see what I think. It runs at max settings on my laptop though!
Paul and Ying are coming in today to prepare for a DS publisher coming tomorrow. I’m feeling ok about it (although somewhat annoyed – I’d like to just work on Synapse today). Hopefully they’ll like Puzzle Catz.
Talking of Synapse, I can feel it in my bones that SP is going to be in quite soon. We’ll probably release a closed beta pretty soon too. Exciting times.
I watched Beevis and Butthead Do America last night, and that is one funny film… I find it pretty amazing how little that show has aged. Turns out unbelievably puerileity is still funny.
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
I don’t know why, but “August” feels so much further from November than “September 1st” does.
The deadline for the IGF is November 1st, and we plan on hitting that with a pretty damn good version of Synapse. It will be a beta, but it will have the following:
- Core multiplayer 100% working
- Single player Training missions
- Small single player campaign (but without much plot, just single challenges)
- Graphics basically there
- Sound in at least competently
Despite the fact that they always spurn us, the IGF Submissions Deadline is a great event simply because it forces us to have something ready at a certain time. You’ll have read about this before as the “E3″ or more generically the “Demo” phenomenon, and it’s true.
Out plan is to release the closed beta sometime this month, and then to release the open beta very soon after the IGF deadline.
Going back to the beginning of my post, it right now doesn’t seem like we have that much time. Onwards!
Posted in News | No Comments »
