There is little more soul-destroying than spending your workday doing tasks that could be done by a hamster.

*sigh*

I started writing a book tonight. I didn’t get very far, but I think the idea has some potential. It’s basically a game design book. Rather than presenting it as a “here’s how to design a game,” though, it’s more just a book about what it’s like to be a non-celebrity game designer.

That is, what it’s like for 99%+ of the game designers out there. It’s sort of strange, because there is that question of “why should anyone listen to what I have to say?” when writing a book about game design. I’m no Will Wright, or Shigeru Miyamoto. But I think that works in my favor for a book written from this perspective. It’s about dealing with the limitations you encounter on a day to day basis, whether it’s trying to resolve creative conflicts with someone who doesn’t see things your way (and has the power), or hacking your beloved design to bits because the company doesn’t have the resources to create your grand vision.

It is, ideally, about *practical* game design on a day-to-day basis from the perspective of someone with little power and no creative control. It’s about navigating treacherous waters, and trying to make things better where you can, and accept where you can’t.

I doubt I’ll finish, and I doubt it’ll even be very good. But it’s started, so that’s something.

What is it I want out of my professional life? Over and over again, it comes back to wanting a measure of control over my work environment, and ownership of my work. Over and over again, the risk involved scares me, and the inability to form a coherent plan of attack prevent me from moving forward.

I think that fundamentally, there’s a part of me that’s scared – I mean, you have a dream, and figure that you’ll be good at what you do, but the moment it becomes reality, the potential for failure becomes real as well. Still – how long do you keep putting something off for what, fear of failure? At some point, failure then becomes the default.

What then?

Just read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” on the planeride home. I loved The Tipping Point, but I’d heard mixed things about Blink. While I think there are a lot of valid criticisms to be made about the book, I loved it. Gladwell has a distinctively accessible, anecdotal style of writing, and he talks about things that I simply don’t think much about, but have a lot of effect on my life.

Blink is basically about the “gut” reaction, and makes a case that “gut” reactions access a different style of mental computing that at times can harness more power than a careful analytical approach to understanding a situation. I think the basic thing that sat with me was that people of varying expertise have gut reactions of varying validity, and that you can “train” these gut-level reactions, and isolate them from phenomena that cause you to make bad gut-level reactions.

I dunno that one can train their gut reactions, other than that with increased expertise in a field, your ability to make those judgements improve. But the book did sort of put my personal thought process, at least as it relates to game design, into a framework where I can actually think about it in a *better* way, so that’s good.

For me, I’ll often play a game and have a very visceral reaction to it almost instantly. I can tell you whether a game feels polished, or “good” and I’m rarely wrong *within my own biases*. That is, I hated FFX 20 minutes after I started playing it. After the opening scenes, and the game settled into the meat of its gameplay, I almost instantly realized I didn’t like it – that there was something terribly wrong with the gameplay, and the content. It took me another 25 hours of *playing* the game to be able to point my fingers at what was specifically wrong.

That instinct, and the ability to understand what that gut reaction is pointing to is getting much, much better, though. I can often tell what’s wrong with a game in less than five hours of playtime, and put into words what that gut reaction pointed at. And that – the ability to put the problems into words, and attack them head-on – is one of the harder bits that Gladwell discusses in Blink. He refers to the gut reactions as inside a locked box, and that only in areas of expertise can people start to point at the roots of those reactions.

That is to say, I’ve achieved a level of expertise as it relates to game design.

What’s weird, though, is that both my mother and I have what I would have previously described as an “innate” ability to find the thing in a group of things that *costs* the most. Not necessarily the *best* thing, but almost invariably, the thing that’s the most expensive. Now, that’s just an unfortunate correlation, since it means I like expensive shit – but I guess it means that we’re both picking up on some sort of physical cue – texture, design, whatever – but because I’m not actually an expert on the subject, I have *no idea* what those cues are. The extent of this thing is that I can simply point to something that costs a lot. Talk about a lame skill to have. 😀

Anyway – it’s a good read, IMO – more that it simply gives you an additional framework to think about stuff, and that’s rarely a bad thing. Now that I’ve read it, I’d love to hear what others thought about it in more detail. Anyone?

Man. I need a vacation from my vacation.

Had a great week, though – started out in Toronto, where my cousin picked us up, took us back to his place to drop off our stuff, have a quick nap, then headed out to Niagara Falls. Place has gone all Atlantic City, but there’s really nothing that can diminish the sheer *majesty* of the falls. Great stuff. Then trucked up to Ottawa for the first family reunion in 25 years. So, yeah – Ei-Nyung met the whole North American Helava clan, which was cool.

Played a lot of Trivial Pursuit with the cuz and the wife. Good stuff. The original edition of Trivial Pursuit is surprisingly relevant. Lessee. After hanging out with the family (and swearing it won’t be another 25 years before the next reunion), we headed back to Toronto, then caught a plane to NYC. We’d been to NYC not long ago, so we figured we’d have plenty of time to see some new stuff. Not really.

Ate at Gordon Ramsay at the London the first night with some friends, which was great – the friends more than the food, though the food was no laughing matter. I think I am getting to the stage where French-inspired “fine dining”‘s charm is wearing thin. That is, we’ve now had dinners at three or four restaurants of similar caliber, and frankly, the difference between Manresa, Ramsay, and the French Laundry is more in the service than the food, and I don’t really care as much about service as I do the food. Not to say that I don’t enjoy eating a fantastic meal, just that the novelty has worn off, and sans novelty, the value of the food is greatly diminished.

Spent next two days going to a taping of the Daily Show (the episode with Richard Gere) (I’d recommend doing it once, but it’s probably not necessary to do twice), and meeting a bunch of Ei-Nyung’s relatives and hanging out with friends who had come in from out of town, including Roopa, which was really cool. Some of the folks we tried to get in touch with were outta town, or busy, which turned out to be good, because by Saturday, I was so wiped out, I couldn’t really do much.

Ended up going to the Home Depot with the pops to pick up some drywall for their kitchen, which is currently bare walls, then spent three hours cooking three racks of baby back ribs for dinner, which was fun. Turned out alright.

Got home today, hung out with the dog, bought some new shoes (the Merrils that I’d had for ages were really shot), and then watched Ninja Warrior. I’m beat. To work tomorrow, which will be fun, then to the airport to pick up Ei-Nyung, then home via something other than the 80-580 interchange, which no longer exists. How odd.

All in all, a great week with beloved family, good friends, and new relatives-in-law. Couldn’t ask for much more, other than a couple weeks to recuperate.

Currently halfway through a trip. Toronto/Ottawa/Niagara Falls were AWESOME. New York has been shaping up really great so far, but hectic as hell. Went to a taping of the Daily Show, ate at the London, hung out with all sorts of people so far. Two more days to go, but damn – I’m traveled out. Crazy stuff.

So, Ei-Nyung was watching American Idol, and one of the contestants sang a song called “Jesus Take the Wheel” – I’d never heard it before. It’s a Carrie Underwood song, though written by some other random people. Apparently, it’s quite acclaimed, was nominated for a number of awards – maybe it won a few, I don’t know. Here’s the lyrics:

Jesus, Take the Wheel
(James/Lindsey/Sampson)

She was drivin’ last friday on her way to cincinnati
On a snow white Christmas Eve
Goin’ home to see her Momma and her Daddy
With her baby in a back seat
Fifty miles to go and she was runnin’ low
On faith and gasoline
It’d been a long hard year

She had a lot on her mind and she didn’t pay attention
She was goin’ way too fast
Before she knew it she was spinnin on thin black sheet of glass
She saw both their lives flash before her eyes
She didn’t even have time to cry
She was so scared, she threw her hands up in the air

…
Okay, I’ve just gotta break in there. I know this is meant as a metaphor, but let’s just take a look at this so far. On an icy road in winter, this woman was speeding. She gets herself in a terrible situation, having put both her and her child in grave danger, and she throws her hands up in the air? Really? She doesn’t say, try to steer out of the skid, or at least hold on to the wheel so that if the tires did grip something, she could actually *respond* to the situation? Not really engendering any sympathy at this point.

(Chorus)
Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
‘Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I’m on
Jesus take the wheel

What? So, you’re letting go? You’re just gonna do nothing? And this is supposed to be admirable? WTF?

It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder and that car came to a stop
She cried when she saw that baby in the back seat sleepin’ like a rock
For the first time in a long time she bowed her head to pray
She said I’m sorry for the way
I’ve been livin’ my life
I know I’ve got to change
So from now on tonight

Oh! So… that’s good, I guess. You’re going to take charge of your life. You managed to survive, through not fault of your own, but it’s been an epiphany, and you’ll begin to take responsibility for your actions, and work to make things better. Great!

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
‘Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I’m on
Oh Jesus take the wheel

Oh Im letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I’m on
From this road I’m on
Jesus take the wheel
Oh take it take it from me
Oooooooooohhh

OH HOLY MOTHER FUCK! What is WRONG with you?!?! So, you’re going to do what? You were gonna make some sort of change, but you’re going to make that change by… what? Abdicating your personal responsibility? Not taking charge of anything on your own? Doing … nothing? This is, in every respect, just a despicable, awful song. I’ve rarely heard more insipid lyrics, and I doubt if I’ve *EVER* heard a song with a worse message. I’ve literally only heard this once, and I hate it with every fiber of my being.

And it’s not a religious versus non-religious thing. I don’t *care* that it’s a song with a religious theme. What I care about is that the theme is SO GOD DAMNED STUPID.

Gah!

The Nintendo Wii’s been pretty interesting so far – very up and down. Hands down the biggest success on the system is Wii Sports. For what it is, it’s absolutely perfect – a collection of extremely accessible, enjoyable, simple games that are designed to be enjoyed by newcomers, and the hardcore alike. Newcomers are entranced by how accessible the controls are – how they’re similar to movements they’re used to, while the hardcore enjoys the simple novelty of it all.

The game’s tuned to be almost instantly rewarding, which I’m sure shortens its lifespan for hardcore gamers, but the best thing about it is that total newbs can instantly feel that positive surge of success. My mom, for instance, who’s probably never played a videogame for more than four or five seconds, played Wii Tennis for a few complete games and made a Mii. Astonishing. Revolutionary, without question.

When the game’s control allows the player to harness movements that they use in other activities, the Wii is a tremendous success. The player feels like they’re leveraging existing knowledge, and the connection between reality and the virtual world is blurred enough that nongamers can immerse themselves in the process without thinking about it. It is, quite simply, magical.

The problem is, Wii Sports is the ONLY game in the entire lineup that captures that magic.

Rayman Raving Rabbids, the game that I was looking forward to the most, has absolutely inspired character design, but the minigames are so hit or miss that I find it equal parts entertaining and hair-pullingly frustrating. Sonic and the Secret Rings just doesn’t feel like a complete game. It feels like an incoherent mishmash of mini-levels, and the menu structure utterly destroys any hope of a cohesive narrative arc and feel to the game. The controls are okay, but at times completely unintuitive, and often less responsive than the game would require. Still the best console Sonic game in years, but that’s not saying a whole lot.

SSX Blur deserves a paragraph on its own because the controls are completely bonkers. They feel like they must have been designed by a strung-out drummer. The control movements require you to coordinate movements between your left thumb and your left wrist, your right wrist, and your right thumb. While the Wii controls can, at times, be intuitive and simple, this is such a convoluted, complicated control scheme that I honestly don’t want to play the game. And I LOVE the franchise. I’m hoping after vacation, I’ll be able to give it another shot, but I’m not even going to try to pick it up again when I know I’ll be gone for a week, ’cause I’ll just have to re-learn the controls again. I wonder if this is what nongamers feel like when they pick up a controller to play Halo? I have absolutely no doubt that no “newbie” player will ever even come close to understanding SSX’s control scheme without literally hours of practice.

Zelda… Ah, Zelda. Such a disappointment. The game itself? Zelda, pure and simple. Buy it for the Gamecube. The widescreen mode is a mess, because they didn’t alter the viewing frustrum to match the aspect ratio of the screen. As a result, instead of looking like a wider window into a world, it looks like you’re looking through a fisheye lens. Rotate around, and watch the distortion towards the edges of the screen. The other problem is almost complete lack of camera control outside of first-person mode. It feels like a leap back to 1997. The biggest mistakes are the sword controls. The Wiimote is nominally the “sword” to the player. Waggling the Wiimote from side to side initiates a slash motion on screen. Cool, right? You want to stab? Oh. Hold Z to target something, then press A. Simple, right? Wait, wasn’t the Wiimote supposed to be like a sword? What happened there? What about jump-attacks? Hold Z to target, press forward on the analog stick, and hit A. Seems strangely similar to the other combination. Why? Because the Wiimote *isn’t* the sword. It’s a really trivial, pointless controller mapping that makes the whole battle system make no sense at all.

And that’s not the worst part. The absolute, number one worst thing ever about Zelda, and I’m really, really surprised I never read it anywhere in a review, is that so long as your Wiimote is pointing at the screen, there’s a little blue ball with wings that indicates where you’re pointing. And whenever it moves, it makes a sound. Which means if your hands aren’t rock-steady, it’s constantly “swish”ing at you. Or, if you say, “fuck that,” and point away from the screen, the stupid blue ball sits there, half on, half off screen, obstructing some part of the screen for NO GOD DAMNED REASON.

Buy Zelda on the Gamecube. It’ll be played at the aspect ratio it was designed for, with the controller that it was designed for. Instead of playing Zelda with completely fucked up, nonsensical garbage for controls, you can play it in a way that actually makes sense, and is more or less pleasant.

Every single reviewer – every SINGLE ONE who said that Zelda was a superior experience on the Wii is a complete idiot, and should be fired. There’s just no excuse.

So, that’s the Wii. One bright, shining moment of genius, and a whole bucketload of complete garbage.

So, I’ve been watching a lot of Ninja Warrior. It’s a show that’s being imported on G4 from Japan, where its original name is Sasuke. If you’re new to the whole “interwebs” thing, and haven’t yet clicked the link it’s basically a four-stage obstacle course of absolute ludicrousness. In the 10 years that the show’s been running (18 iterations of the more-or-less biannual competition), only two people have ever cleared all four stages.

It’s absolutely incredible to watch. The first stage, you think, “Yeah, on a good day, with a couple weeks of training… I could probably do that.” The second stage is more, “Hm. Might take a couple months, but yeah, I suppose I might conceivably be able to handle that, too.” For me, that’s where it ends. The third stage, even if I trained for years, I’m not sure I could handle, and the fourth, though easily the simplest… the time limit is just absurd.

I think I get a lot of pleasure out of watching the show because it’s full of people doing things that frankly, on the surface, look almost impossible, and doing them in rapid succession. It’s just crazy. And the thing that really caps it off is that the people are really doing it because they really *want* to do it. The financial benefits of completing the course are minimal (~$17K) compared to most “gameshows” in the US. Maybe there’s notoriety, or some sponsorship involved, but it’s not a bunch of millionaires playing ball. These people have jobs, and do this for fun. That’s how it should be, IMO.

So, that’s motivating. Watching people really do crazy-assed things makes me want to be at least minimally capable of similar feats. I’m in no shape right now to do such things, and I’ve largely “fallen off the horse” since winning the competition with Klay. But the last week, I re-signed up for the Y (through work, which pays for it), went swimming, did pushups and squats one morning, and this evening, got back from a run – the first time I’ve run outdoors, quite possibly, since I used to run with my roommate in college. Recently, I’ve also very sporadically gone mountain biking with Alan, though that’s not regular enough to be called any sort of exercise “routine.”

Still, it feels *good* to be doing stuff. It’s quite easy to forget, given how sedentary my work generally is, because the inertia of a sedentary lifestyle is hard to overcome. But I definitely feel better when I get a little exercise.

The funny thing is that there are a couple people on Ninja Warrior that have been doing this for years. The regulars have shared this goal, and participated for *years* together. The camaraderie that comes from working towards a shared goal comes across on-screen. It’s strange – one of the things that Simon Cowell always tries to make a point of, on American Idol, is that whenever some contestant says, “Oh, we all love each other, and we all want each other to do well,” is that they *don’t*. There’s only one winner, and if you want to win, you don’t want *them* to win. The great thing about Sasuke is that I think everyone wants each other to win. Sure, they know it’s not likely to happen, given the difficulty, but it really feels like they’re genuinely cheering each other on.

That’s how I felt when I was competing in high school – either swimming, or triathlons, with my close friends. We tended not to compete in the same events, which was great, because it didn’t make winning an exclusive event, but even where there was overlap, we knew a winner today could be second tomorrow, and it kept us motivated, and willing to really push ourselves to the limit of what we were capable of at the time. I miss that feeling, honestly, and I’m not really sure where one finds that as an adult, with a job and a family.

Devotion to anything takes time. I’m devoted to my wife, and to a much lesser extent, I’m devoted to my job. (and Mobius) There’s probably not a lot of time left to squeeze in something else, though who knows? I waste a lot of time most days playing random games, or doing other stupid stuff. Writing blog posts and the like. 🙂

I hope one day that that sense of camaraderie and shared vision can come from work. That, clearly, would be ideal – where a bunch of friends work towards a common goal, and when we succeed, we all win together. Hell – it’s even shaping up that my closest friends all have relatively compatible talents. One day, we’ll be able to marshall those talents into something extraordinary. I know it’ll happen. It’s just a matter of time.