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I love love love this gentle acoustic cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot's megahit, "Baby Got Back." There's something so earnest and sincere about Jonathan Coulton's delivery of this classic ode to women who have some "junk in the trunk."
Link (WARNING: do not click on this link is you are easily offended and/or are listening with young children in the room.)
Recently, my design partner and I have been wrestling with a design challenge: how do you add just enough story, setting and character elements to a casual game to make it appealing, but not weighed down? Zuma and JewelQuest do a great job of walking this line. We're on a mission to understand this area, and create some fabulous casual games with just enough story and setting to make them appealing, but still lightweight and quick to play.
With this in mind, I enjoyed reading this review of Indigo Prophecy in Game Girl Advance. Makes me want to play the game.
Unlike almost every other "cinematic" game I can think of, this one shines, and it is because the story is actually good. If you have an interest in storytelling in games, you need to play this. There is simply nothing else quite like it, especially in the console world. As a game designer, however, Indigo Prophecy most impressed me by finding a way to turn a 5 minute conversation into real gameplay.
Link.
For several weeks now, I've been trying to figure out how to gracefully disengage from a troubled client. I've done some great work with these folks in the past, but the stress and overhead of dealing with their internal dysfunction has become unmanageable for me. I'm sometimes loyal to a fault - and I keep trying to create an island of sanity within the storm, and help them ship some great products.
Happily, my client recognized that the situation is not working, and gave me an opening to complete my projects. So today, I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief. I have a wave of VERY interesting projects coming in the door - which I'll now be able to focus on. I'll be able to share more about these new ventures in the coming weeks. Stay tuned :-)
Every October, the sleepy little coastal town where we live becomes Pumpkin Central. Swarms of people from all over the Bay Area visit Half Moon Bay to purchase pumpkins, eat Pumpkin Ice Cream, go on hayrides, and generally enjoy a semi-rural Fall afternoon. This past week, Pumpkin Madness was in full swing, culminating at an event known as the Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival. It's a great event - but WAY too noisy and crowded for my taste.
So we escaped! Friday night, we stayed with our good friend Leo Hourvitz (AKA Uncle Leo) in San Francisco. It was a lovely Fall day - we had breakfast in the Haight, played in a local park, shopped at REI, and took a long walk along the Embarcadero.
In the afternoon, we headed up to Marin to stay with our friendsTom and Laura and their family - wonderful folks that we don't get to see often enough. They have two kids, a bunch of musical instruments, and a highly developed sense of play. We had a fabulous time -- we ate some great meals, play frisbee in the park, and walked to Whole Foods for organic breakfast cookies. After our visit, we took a bikeride along one of Marin's many beautiful bike paths, and then headed home -- happy and tired and deeply satisfied with our perfect Fall weekend.
Last night, we had a fabulous playdate with another Coastside musical gamer family. We played outside on the swingset; played with star wars action figures; and played folk music around the dining-room table, with everybody singing along. Now that's my kinda evening :-)
I love participatory music -- situations where everybody makes the music together. It just feels so RIGHT -- music and singing as as social bonding ritual. That's why I love Karaoke, Gospel Church and Rumba parties so much -- everybody is creating the musical experience together, with no distinction between audience and performer.
Our new friends work for PopCap Games, a company I greatly admire and strive to emulate. Popcap's bottom-up, small-teams, prototype-driven game development process has resulted in a stream of hit casual games. I think they're on to something.
Hmmm... bottom-up, small-teams, prototype-driven development process... remind you of anyone? :-)
While shopping at Costco last night, I picked up a large box of Earthbound Farm Organic Apple Slices on a whim. Today, we took a short hike near our house, and tried out this convenient, healthy snack for the first time.
BIG THUMBS UP: all organic, minimal packaging, pre-sliced, fresh and delicious apple slices - what's not to like? :-)
School morning just got a little easier 'round here. Thank you, Earthbound Farms.
Happy New Year to all my Jewish family and friends! Rosh Hashonah is a time of spiritual reflection and reckoning -- a time to take stock, make amends, build bridges, and mend rifts. Today I'm feeling blessed to live in a beautiful place, surrounded by people that I care about and who return the favor. Life is good.
My favorite part of Rosh Hashonah is Tashlikh, an ancient ritual that involves throwing breadcrumbs (or whatever "schmutz" you have on hand) into a body of water, and reciting a few prayers. During this ritual, you symbolically "toss away" your cares, troubles, emotional baggage... and prepare to start a fresh new year with a clean slate.
Today we celebrated Tashlikh with a few close friends at a beach near our house in Half Moon Bay. It was a gorgeous, crystal-clear sunny day, and we each scattered our "schmutz" into the gentle waves and meditated on aspects of our lives that we want to let go of. Afterwards, we sat on the warm rocks, watching our kids play in the waves, and formulating "action plans" to put into practice the wishes we'd made. Turning prayer and meditation into concrete action is SO very Jewish. It was a perfect way to kickoff the New Year.
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