T-Minus 5

Uncharted 2 And the Wonders of PS3

2011-01-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

Oh my god! I'm totally blown away with Uncharted 2. This game has pulled me into the dark halls of gaming where you just waste all your life and spend 2.5 hours on it everyday for 3.5 years while eating 2.5 pounds of chocolate mouse per night. Well, not quite, but close.

I'm actually playing this baby for a week now, I've finally took the plunge and bought a PS3, guess what? Avatar Ultimate Edition looks absolutely stunning on it! Yes, I bought it just for the Blue Ray but now I'm actually playing... Shame on me.

The engine is sheer stunning grace, its digital bits blended with insight and precision. The set pieces are marvelous bits of cinematic history blended into the action crux of the main character. I've never experienced something as captivating as this game before on a smaller screen. This is the true blending or art and cinematography.

I'm amazed at the detailed script, and the blending of action-adventure queues with cinema bleeding-edge animation. This thing just Never Stops. It keeps going and going making you and your PS3 SixAxis wrapped into a single juxtaposed existence!

When you find relics you feel joy, when you kick the hell out of a soldier you find relief, when a monster of a beast throws you off a cliff you cringe, when your female companion gets upside of you over a bed, you get, well, pretty graphics. Its all in place. The emotions are there and are sustainable enough that you get a seamless experience from role-playing your avatar and going back and forth between story the (un) cut-scenes, such is the transition linear and smooth from one to the other.

Technologically is superior to anything out there, and this is out for some time now. They can put a train with more carriages that I could count moving between gorgeous mountains in full LOF view. WOW! Talk about engine power. Those SPU are in high gear!

There is such amazing artistry at work here. Its awe inspiring to mesmerize at the graphics and have gut intrusive emotions playing it from end to end. I'm humbled and grateful for getting to play this game. Its not everyday that someone yanks you out of your everyday life and pulls you in into an adventure. Nathan Drake is the New Indiana Jones. This is really play time for me once again.

I'm in child-like wonder mode.

Now I just need to make more chocolate mouse.

Eye Web - Surfing will never be the same

2010-09-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

Finally! Eye Web is now officially in the App Store for approval by Apple. This means generally 2-3 weeks before its publicly available.

I am very happy to be making this post, it represents another beacon in my little shop called T-Minus 5. For this time, I wanted to make a splash, if not a total meteorite crashing wave, at least a nice whooshing effect that creates a smile in you once you see it.

I guess you know this already.

So, yeah, very nice icon, did you know it costed me $100 to do it? Oh yeah, don't be fooled by the economics of today's freedom society. Artists (the good ones, that is) are an expensive class I must say, but the results are totally worth it. Isn't it nice to watch? It represents the world in all its multitude of people. The globe. The mass of beneath our feet. Revolving around it we have... a fire arrow, a blaze of yellow awareness, with this big eye looking into your soul. I love it.

Now, what is Eye Web after all? What was all the fuss about? What is it, and why did I do it?

By the icon, you can see its a Browser, by the name you can see its related to seeing. So, elaborating and in simple words:

Eye Web is a Mobile Browser

for Speed Reading the Internet!!

Speed Reading the Internet? Am I crazy? Well, I guess so.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth so much more.

Please, take a look at it.

If you like it, you can hype it up. ;) Thanks!

http://eyeweb.tminus5.org

G-Mail Priority Inbox & The World Of Tomorrow

2010-08-31T11:34:00.000-07:00

Finally! Google is putting their Bayesian algorithms to the test with this pretty damn amazing feature.

Priority Inbox might be the first of a new wave of applications, there is no way around it. They will be here. These new apps have something in common. Simplicity and minimization of the complex is the goal.

Check out the cute video of google on this:

So, yeah, pretty neat? Yeah, but its more than that; its useful. Twitter is neat. This is practicality at best.

The world is getting increasingly complicated and yet we are striving to get those web 2.0 interfaces up and going. Web 2.0 promises clean and uncluttered interfaces. It promises that the world will be a better, safer place, one where everything is organized under the Search umbrella. One where more than 3 clicks to do any given operation is 1 click too many.

That means clarity and above all, effectiveness. All the information related to what YOU are, what YOU want and what YOU do must be quickly accessible, indexed and searched on a whim of thought. The ultimate goal being a Brain Sync of sorts where you plug yourself into the Matrix and let yourself zone in with all the things you must do or experience.

Its almost like a freak-show GTD for the masses. And it will probably be a reality.

There are many talks going on about the role of Augmented Reality and the total big-brother like scenarios it can bring. Besides good fiction it can also bring a new sense of wonder about the world yet unseen. We can be sure to be revealed little pieces of information right where we need them the most.

Lets visualize it. National Geographic did an article about augmented reality and the implications of such a dense, informational world. Check the link.

Yes, its not a pretty sight. Looks awesome though!

If most consuming media streams are going the Point To Point route instead of Broadcasting this is the way forward. TV is out, Social Networks are in. Why? Focused content. Profiled for you and your personality.

For example we go on a vacation to a foreign country, we engage the world with augment reality glasses and in all the HUD glory of Adobe Air, layers upon layers of knowledge bits are presented with clarification article snippets straight out of Wikipedia about such and such subject we are currently watching. Is that David's statue we are looking at? Why bother with the little text on the corner of the pedestal when you can have a virtual textual representation overhead in mid air about what your are looking at? There! We can see it now! The status history bullets points, snippets from art curators all over the world explaining the meaning of it, your friends comments about it....

Is this a good thing? We can argue that yes, it is because we now have a context from where to appreciate the piece of art we are looking but also then downside is that we are not looking at that piece of art any longer... we are looking at an abstraction of it superimposed by this new grid of information on your particular human experience in that time of awareness...

In essence...

You are GONE, WIPED OUT.

What will happen to YOU, the human being? Are you ready to give your soul to the cloud machine?

What will happen when we all are on this freak Truman Show like wonder of world. Is this the 21st century?

Is Sky Net a fictional artifact?

Augmented Reality is actually the OPPOSITE of what Google is doing. Google is all about making lives easier, and yet augmented reality is all about adding informational layers on top of our old and boring non-pixelated world in 3D.

Or is it?

By the way do you want to see in 3D? Buy a Sony 3DS? No, no. Just look out the window! Its 3D already folks. Thats why Augmented is the way to go.

Or is it?

Nah, lets buy a 3DS anyway...!

How Pomodoro is throwing Tomatos at You

2010-07-25T04:03:00.000-07:00

Go to the first page of pomodorotechnique.com and the exit the browser. Don't read it further. Just notice it and then step back.

Its all Fluff.

Ah, Time Management. Nothing beat my system now, I just love it. I love my breakfast in the morning, I just love it, with eggs, cheese, and tomatoes! Oh darn, its time to make another task! Here we go! Set and Go! Yeahiii!

Tick... Tick... Tick... there goes the tomato!

This is getting really troubling. All these new so called "Concepts" for Time Management are really pushing the edge of acceptability. This stuff is nothing more than Fluff around a well known paradigm of pressure by time restrictions.

So, you don't have your priorities straight and then you go to this Tomato site to get them? People are actually buying Tomato Clocks, and then, bring them home to achieve goals? Are they? Or are they just meandering around a more deeply seated problem? Do they think Tomatos ARE the solution?

All the so called "experts" on Time Management with these fast over-the-knee solutions are just selling us Fluff around our core needs and they are marketing it all up so they can have another Passive Income Stream (another product sold by others of course).

Plastic Tomatos, News, Events, Fans, Videos, Workshops (oh yes, Tomato workshops!) great! And soon... "Pomodoro For Teens!" (this one is always 2 years after).

Really... Are you inspired by revolving Tomatos? Or are you inspired by your work?

And so, for the ones who were contemplating buying Tomatos I propose an alternative.

You see, I use eggs. FREE range ones.

http://e.ggtimer.com/

Ciao.

Its called "Eye Web"

2010-07-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

http://eyeweb.tminus5.org

I am making a new app! My gift to you!

2010-07-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

I am hard at work on a new app here at T-Minus 5.

It is almost near the cycle of development now. It is still under wraps but I'm beginning to spread the word on it as it nears completion.

Transport Me Up was not an app for everybody in any respect, it was and is made for a very focused core audience (the ones who take transports on a regular basis), for those it is effective and it is cool, and serves its mission with grace and style. I'm proud of that app, it solved a particular day-to-day issue and created value for its users.

So, yeah, I'm pretty proud of Transport Me Up. However for this second one I will shake some things up!...

I want to go out and make a true impact on people everywhere, I want to surprise, to make a standout and to create shock and awe! It will be outstanding!

All I can say its that it something really special, something surprising and best of all.

Something... FREE!

Yes, FREE, I was thinking about all this new iAd business and trying to see if it fits the new app or not. Yes, it is a great source of revenue, as perhaps it might have its uses but I really can't get my head around it... it just seems a little too in-your-face still due to the shortage of screen space in the iPhone and all I don't want is to have users having another lousy app in their hands. I mean, I am actually spending a lot of my personal investment in effort and time doing this and I don't want to make a sub-standard product.

The other side of the coin is that as a developer I do want to get noticed by my efforts and the quality and value I provide and I do wish I could get a return on that investment, even more to pay the setup fees on all this adventures in iPhone Development. It costs a developer $100 per year and even more dollars and a lot of man hours to research, design, polish, build assets, graphics and market it all up. Its money and time and effort.

So, how do I get a return on investment but still cater to a large audience? How do I put an outstanding product out there, in the hands of as many users as I can while at the same time giving as much as I can as an artist would do but still allow room for people to thank me in return for my work of art?

My answer is this one: No iAds, Go Free Version and allow the users to Pay/Tip/Donate you using in-app Purchases.

So, this is my take on it: "Premium Versions with the Gift"

As for the app, I will not disclose any further! ;)

Stay tuned!

Rome Adventure

2010-07-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

Me and my new friend Raj on extreme adventure at night time on the Coliseum.

We had such a great time together that we decided to take some photos for posterity. Raj was about to return to his home town in India without going to the city center, so I called his bluff and there we went to catch a glimpse of the old city.

It was the first thing that showed up in visual range when I exited the subway. To reach the city center we had to go though some hell of a transit system. To call Rome disorganized its to call them a favor. Its true that they are not the best running city in the world, but the charm is all there.

Regarding the Coliseum. Yeah, its big, not that large, but big, and cool looking depending on the time of day. At day time its a mess, the marble is made of some dirt sucking rock. At night time its a Alice in Wonderland feeling.

There are a lot of people around the area. Snack, food stands, and the occasional permanent seller. One funny bit was when this Indian guy tried to sell Raj (another Indian guy!) a crystal laser engraved Coliseum. That was pretty funny!

There were also some fruit selling stands at 5 Euros per kilo, not quite the basic consumption product you're used too but the apples were great anyway.

All in all, this bit of the adventure went well and Raj got home with some nice mementos for the trip.

I will post more tidbits later after some more in depth photo processsing.

Ciao.

Transport Me Up update

2009-12-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

We got a new update on Transport Me Up. The Free version is now back with a vengeance and Steve@Apple was nice to point the thumbs up at the new SDK. Bravo, I say.

This little app is taking some nice wind now, people are appreciating its value and I'm soon to re-evaluate its impact by redesigned the all product layout, so that the folks at App Store can have a nice warm and welcoming page.

Awesome things happening. Its the things that make you spark and rosy.

Climategate

2009-12-03T03:18:00.000-08:00

Rebentou o escândalo. Mais uma vez verificamos que o nosso mundo é um cojunto de expectavivas apoiadas em fogos-fátuo e histórias da carochinha passadas de geração a geração.

Nesta verdadeira almágama de dados, deduções e contradições ainda por mais disseminadas num meio ultra-rápido como o da Internet surge agora a verdade transitória de mais uma manipulação das massas que vai dar origem à história mundial.

E agora? Quem tem a razão? Quem é Al Gore? O que é o movimento verde? "Green To Win" é meramente um chavão comercial, uma moda passageira, ou uma necessidade ditada pelos novos tempos de insurgência?

Climategate e a Conferência de Copenhaga - Expresso

Climatologists under pressure - Nature

Quando sera revelada a verdade, ou pelo menos, a próxima mentira?

Cargo Tunnel

2009-08-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

Absolutely incredible... its one of those sci-fi concept that we all have as a child and someone is actually taking that and building into reality.

This automatic tunnel will make the future of transportation a stunning thing to behold. Imagine that all your groceries, all your online request, all your food, all of it, to be automatic and at express speeds. Imagine a system capable receiving everthing better that conventional mail, but also, sending out things on a whim to be delivered as you see fit.

I've actually been pondering on these systems while thinking about Project Venus. In fact, this is a MUST for Zeitgeist to change into a better world. Its almost like magic.

These system are not entirely new, this is actually a new version of a very romanesque Julius Verne apparatus that went into service in London on the 19th century.

“Pneumatic post or pneumatic mail is a system to deliver letters through pressurized air tubes. It was invented by the Scottish engineer William Murdoch in the 1800s and was later developed by the London Pneumatic Dispatch Company. Pneumatic post systems were used in several large cities starting in the second half of the 19th century (including an 1866 London system powerful enough to transport humans), but were largely abandoned during the 20th century.”

Its great to have all this tech back with a vegeance!

Now we just need to have the mag-lev trains going also!...

Promotion

2009-08-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

Promotion, promotion, promotion, no, not from your boss, from yourself. It pays to do the right things with some thinking behind it. Here's some ways to promote your product:

Do the best work you can and let the product speak for itself.
Create a connection with your consumers and hype your product.
Throw out small nuggets of quality info on a regular basis.
Use sites social-content like Facebook and Youtube.
Use mash-up sites news sites like Digg and Slashdot.
Keep your site as professional as you can, polish it at every level.
Do a developers' journal coupled with a product's forum.
Create a buzz with other developer's and ask them to write about your product.
Network with plataform specific product review sites.
Network with genre specific non-product sites related to your content.
Be a guess writer on other sites; write only amazing posts; make links back to your site.
For games: check alternative distribution channels like PC-online, PSN, XLBA, Wii ware or Steam.
Write, network and keep the fun going.

Zeitgeist

2009-08-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

The most prevalent issues today for humanity are really those that permeate its fabric and are part of the ineffective status quo that turns the wheels globally. World wide problems such as hunger, poverty and environment are all recognized but only partially acted upon.

The most fundamental issue for humanity is to escape its own stupidity. The way to do that is to be aware of the global issues and the deep rooted problems that generate them.

Zeitgesit; the times are changing.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

This movie is so important that it should go viral on web, and it would be justified to do so. Spread the word. Take part of the true revolution for tomorrow.

The KISS of Interface Programming

2009-07-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

I've just sent a complaint letter to C.P., the train transportation company here in Portugal. My issue was with the way they handle the elevator on a overhanging passage to get from one side of the track to the other.

Here's the thing. We enter the elevator and we have fours buttons; "0", "1", "Open" and "Close".

So, currently, if a person is on the zero floor and enter the elevator, first it has to wait for too long, then door closes, and then, it just sits there... waiting for the user to press the obvious "1" button so that the elevator can continue its route to the only available course of action to take in this circumstances.

Also, why do I need to press the "Close" button when starring at an open door of an elevator? Why can't it just be a "Door" button there? If its "Open", it closes and the other way around. Simple. Effective.

We can even take into consideration an emergency open action, in that case, the same button still applies, if the doors are closing then by pressing the same button they, logically, should just open.

So, in essence we really just need ONE BUTTON. I'm on the zero floor, I enter, press the button, the door closes and moves to the first floor, doors opens. All this is transparent to me and I'm happy. But this is not the way its working now, I'm painfully aware of the deficiency in the system.

Why is this so? Why do we need all these buttons on a two floor elevator? This is a binary problem, if its not one, its the other. Why do these details go unnoticed?

This is a clear example that good design is sometimes, obvious... when its already done.

Apple is a tremendous example here, we now have multi-touch screen all over the place showing up in ever grandiose experiments in social delight, but not all of them are working examples of greatness, and even so, they're only there because a company stood up and took it upon themselves to reinvent history.

What are you doing today that is over-zealous and with too much thinking and/or process intensive? What can you do today to do KISS the popularity it deserves?

Humans tend to over-analyze things too much and sometimes they just end up with over-implementation and under-design. They don't think well, they think too much and then, display this dumb notion of effectiveness by coming up with elaborate mechanisms that just contribute more to the problem instead of re-imagining it.

The cycle continues, so that in the end; when its all told, said and done in the history annals, someone will go, look at it, and say; "Duh, of course!".

Wave of the Future

2009-07-24T10:25:00.001-07:00

Google has gone full throttle to show us the new spec of communication. Its not only fascinating to watch the tidbits of information to flow in real time, but also very comforting too see it doesn't resort to reductionary tactics to imply smart communication as having, oh, lets say 140 chars per message.

This product is the new e-mail and messaging combined. It folds both worlds into one pretty coherent vision. Some people call it revolutionary. I think its more like an alignment of current technology into a whole clean package, and it works in a very nice, intuitive, googlish like way.

I can see a huge effort to push this into companies and other media entities out there. But one thing is clear, it will make open-source and production efforts a lot more handy. I can clearly see using this for distributed game production meetings and creative hubs. Its like having pools of knowledge waving out there.

Sure, there are lots of questions that arise from this on the security, ownership, privacy and control fronts but having the project on an open-source basis is a good start. And as all things, "make no evil" still applies until we know otherwise.

Enjoy the Wave. Lets Surf.

Google Wave

Edutainment

2009-07-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

In this article by Don Tapscott a clear case is made in favor of the concept of Edutainment. It's a much needed article on the global awareness needed to teach our next generation. It flags internationally Portugal's prime minister José Socrates brave crusade against the separatists of old ways and derogatory thinking patterns.

The article's author is right in acknowledging all the good work that has been made since Socrates took the helm of the Portuguese Caravel into the new undiscovered country of Education. The model of action was spot on, Portugal's lead in the technological shock culture was needed to shake away the old and make room for the new, and as the article demonstrates by merging the necessity of Education with the natural appeal of discovery that children of all ages display.

Edutainment is a merging of truths. Its true that schools today are a boring example of life and its also true you need to know how to read Encyclopedia Britannica. These are both poles of truth, but one of them is the correct measure of health on a human being and the other is a symptom of something wrong in the way we do things. Peter Pan's motto of "We never want to grow up" is perhaps right, maybe that reaction is a defense mechanism against the formating society will undoubtedly impose upon them and make them turn into mindless "I told you so", negative and criticism, yada yada posters and twitter users alike.

Education must change. The existing model is failing in all fronts and must be refactored into the 21st century in order to promote a new sociological framework for all of us to life freely. Education is not a self contained vessel of dusty knowledge made by old beard man inside a room ready to be passed into the next generations. This reductionary vision is what lead to misguided activities within society that try to mine the efforts of governance. Socrates is under attack by those beard man and woman who are trapped in the never-ending cycles of self defeat. In fact, the very presence of these types of cultural currents in the present is a clear proof of the need to change the path of Education for the future to work, because the current examples of persons that mold our society today are forged out of the old system... and are not quite what they were supposed to be.

Its almost as we don't know how to educate anymore, perhaps we never did. In many ways its astounding that we could create a country in these conditions, but we did. Portugal will always find a way to break away and move into the next step to the right way. Its our way.

As for the U.S., George Lucas's Education Foundation Edutopia is one working example today of such efforts already underway, and it has some years behind it already, its a remarkable little experiment that is soon to expand into mainstream America. Its not they don't have examples too. Its that their own governance also mired evolution. This is a chicken and the egg problem gone wrong, the crazy chicken that lays the crazy eggs but someday wakes up and decides to go sane.

Back to Portugal. We must shop the shame, we must stop the Fado of old. Today we can be a flag of truth to the world. We can sail away again into America and show them that the old country still has some tricks left.

We are back at seas.

Creativity and the Time Wave

2009-07-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

This post was based on a thing I've read that just cracked me up, but its very interesting indeed. A guy in the 70's made a theory that is hysterical to read, please do so next.

Timewave zero

Timewave zero, which is part of Novelty theory, is a numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of "novelty", defined as increase in the universe's interconnectedness, or organised complexity,[25] over time. According to Terence McKenna, who conceived the idea in the early 1970s, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity on December 21, 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur instantaneously. This idea has failed to gain any scientific credibility or recognition.
McKenna expressed "novelty" in a computer program, which purportedly produces a fractal waveform known as timewave zero or the timewave. Based on McKenna's interpretation of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching,[26] the graph appears to show great periods of novelty corresponding with major shifts in humanity's biological and cultural evolution. He believed the events of any given time are recursively related to the events of other times, and chose the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the basis for calculating his end date of November, 2012. When he discovered this date's proximity to the end of the 13th baktun, he adjusted it so that the two dates matched.

Full post on Wikipedia here.

This got me thinking, first that we surely don't know enough to even understand this particular individual thinking patterns, and trust me, my own thinking patterns are actually over-skewed as well. Its interesting to see what cross-checking of information and derivative deduction work can occur in any field of knowledge known to man. Its not that this guy was right or not, I surely will not say for sure, what I do know is that its fascinating stuff to read, and stuff that goes well beyond your daily trip into an art-museum which is already as non-conformance as an environment as any.

Creativity; my definition of creativity is any process that can bring new material out of decorelated information so that it can be used to bring a new light into a subject, new derivatives, new insight or even, new fiction.

Not all of use have such amazing minds as Arthur C. Clark or Carl Sagan, both of them as I recall hard left-brain thinkers with a twist, they both professed a love for science but also a love for the right side of mind, a way of bringing with them a novelty and a sheer magnitude to what was always regarded as "dull material".

And this is absolutely fascinating, when we cross the event-horizon of the known and go into unknown marvelous things can happen. We can start to see new patterns of awareness that can reveal to be absolute gems when we go back into the known territory of day to day activities. From the labs of hard science to the halls of a game studio, this kind of new information frontier can be a true land of opportunity, like gold was to Cowboys or the Undiscovered Country was to Portuguese.

The Mind of Man is a wonder of escapism, of true liberation and freedom that must be tamed for the good of all and the continuing endurance of equilibrium. We should endeavor to go out more and explore such territories, we must liberate from the grasp of the status quo and run into the light of liberation, better put and better know as; creativity.

And this last sentence was not made within the grasp of Psychedelic Mushrooms.

ATTENTION Gamers... Invest

2009-07-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

Now, here's a twister of an idea if I ever saw one!

In this article, Gabe Newell of Valve spits out one the most amazing ideas I've ever seen on the game biz side of things for a long time. On a nutshell:

"Lets Games Fund Development"

Yes, you read it! Let gamers fund development! This concept is huge and it certainly can open up a lot of unexplored territory even for the indie developer. The publisher was tradicionally the hub of producing financial efforts mainly because of the money backing they provide. If sudennly the dream of self-funding was provided by the gaming community by means of an investment product, then the product producing teams of tomorrow will be the open-source ventures of today.

Here's a snippet from his own words:

One of the areas that I am super interested in right now is how we can do financing from the community. So right now, what typically happens is you have this budget – it needs to be huge, it has to be $10m – $30m, and it has to be all available at the beginning of the project. There’s a huge amount of risk associated with those dollars and decisions have to be incredibly conservative.

What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games. In other words, ‘Hey, I really like this idea you have. I’ll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I’ll also get a copy of that game.’

So move financing from something that occurs between a publisher and a developer… Instead have it be something where funding is coming out of community for games and game concepts they really like.

Wow! Right?

The numbers are a bit odd to check, for a 30 Million budget like Newell says, assuming a general low-end-investing, if gamer-investors were to put in say $30 each, this means we will need 1.000.000 willing gamers to put their money on the project. Of course, for this to really succede I think we're talking more about actually investor-gamers than the other way around, we're talking about people willing to put in 1.000 to 5.000 or more. Only this kind of value can create the edge for those stellar-mega-budget Valve is going after. But you know what? I'm signing under that investment line tomorrow, how about you?

I can even imagine this working with a social site structure by which teams can post their project vision online, share it with the gamers and then chip in the financial efforts by investing on that team and that project. One thing that could be puzzling is how the money return policy would be handled but sites like eBay have used credit cards and buy-in protection for ages so this might be feasible on the long run. To actually enforce policies and for the ROI (Return On Investment) actually ending up on the hands of the social investors some kind of policy would have to be available, judging by human nature, perhaps the best option was for the social site to handle publishing as well, but that defeats a bit of the point of not having a publisher on the first place, but certainly on thing is clear, Gabe Newell has it with Steam and sites like BigFish and all the flash-web hubs out there will be dumb no to capitalize on this model since they already have the structure in place. So yeah, I'm giving this idea a thumbs up. I'm in for the Steam game fund. How about you?!

This is a clear, Win-Win idea for gamers and producers alike. Bravo Gabe Newell!

Please read the original article with video here.

O Dilema/The Dillema

2009-07-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

Eis que me apresento agora com um novo factor de entropia para as minhas palavras, porventura elas agora em Português poderão passar por Chinês para algumas pessoas, nomeadamente as de fora deste território à beira mar plantado.

O Dilema que me assiste é precisamente o se farei os meus artigos em Inglês ou se continuarei a fazer "postings" e tentar a internacionalização de contéudos que serão de modesta qualidade mas de especial interesse.

Não é fácil de acertar numa decisão clara para esta situação, pois se por uma lado é bom ser entendido por uma boa parte da população mundial pois contam-se entre 500 milhões de falantes de Shaskspeare, em contrapartida, nós por cá somos 10 milhões mas que apesar de pequeninos ainda temos direito a entrar no top das linguages universais, senão vejamos:

Neste estudo recente é com prazer que vejo Portugal já no 5º lugar das línguas mais faladas no mundo, isto depois de estarmos em 7º e 8º há ainda não muito tempo. Existem um total de 232 Milhões falantes de Camões, ou seja uns incríveis e apenas 40% dos Englishman, vamos fazer isto de grosso modo e dizer metade do alcance da língua dos bifes e associados pelo mundo fora. Ou seja, não será por estar aqui a escrever em Inglês me fará menos susceptível de ter leitores pelo mundo fora muito embora eles se encontrem em grande parte no Brazil a beber água de côcô em vez de estar a programar em C++.

Uma coisa é certa a linguagem franca da indústria do videojogos é realmente o Inglês e portanto isto poderá trazer alguma vantagem face a quem chegar por qualquer cerimónia até estes recantos da net. Por outro lado, eu adoro escrever em bom Português e isto sem dúvida faz com que me faça focar ainda mais nesta nobre arte, mas ainda assim do lado oposto, está a possibilidade de treinar o meu Inglês escrito, que apesar de igualmente bom se calhar precisava de algumas manobras de treino in-loco.

Com isto tudo se calhar não irei tomar nenhuma decisão e poderei tomar a terceira via que será ser o primeiro blogue bicéfalo e bílingue sem tradução simultânea e fazer assim sofrer os restantes indivíduos do outro lado da língua que não possam perceber patavina do que está na página.

Algures no meio está a verdade. Como sempre, transitória.

The publishing game; How to get it out there?

2009-07-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

Publishing, the mere word makes you shiver the spine with joy but also trepidation. Its just not an easy task for someone who's living off the bahamas with an Internet Connection using Com-Sat technology to just go out and make true use of any certified publishing method run by the giants such as Electronic Arts. The dream of having a cardboard box displayed in the likes of Wallmart or Fnac are still wavering around in all wanna-be-producers out there. Its a concept than never dies, an idea so alluring in can capture everyone into its wake. This author is responsible for that Karmic Cloud too and I must say its a tantalizing idea even if we know that the shelf-life of a game is within the Week scale, we still want to have it, the cardboard Box, the materialization of dreams.

So, what can a mushy-eyed dreamer do to actually put the product out there into the hands of the consumer? Even if we don't have The Box, what can we do to actually have real people, really playing our game?

3 Quick Steps:

1) Make it fun

First we need to understand that a good product sells itself, so the first thing is to make sure the product you're putting out there is Fun to begin with, so, if its fun its sellable, and you might as well not wait until the Publishing phase to find this out if this is so, please make sure all all you do is Fun, that everything fits in, cover all the basics, from inception, to conception.

2) Use the Internet

Second, use the global network called the internet, be sure that with in this communication age, remote promotion using the internet is a clear winner; a small budget can for go the extra mile if you are willing to put the effort into it.

3) Talk about it

Third, its good to know that the proverbial word of mouth has still something to say and can go a long way to extend the awareness of your products. The goal is to put people talking about your game. Make a concentrated effort if you must, do lists of things to do and people to contact, networking is not just a bunch of cables anymore.

...

In practice, there are many ways to market our game. Some pop in my head, some don't. I'll make a checklist for ways to promote a game more specifically in a future posting.

From Nothing to Something

2009-07-10T09:22:00.001-07:00

Execution is more important than Design, that is what we are told. Ideas are a dozen a many. You never run out of ideas, but you sure run out of code. Write code, not blogs. All of these are clear design motto's that we can promise to adhere to. All of our knowledge base as game designers is targeted to reach the desirable goal of making a good product, but what path can we take to optimize our endevours? Is there any clues to follow? Any yellow brick road of invention to get along with? You know, meet some buddies along the way, have fun, play with it until we get to the Wizard's Castle of Gold Master?

There might be, there are some clear rules of thumb of design that we might want to take a closer look at:

1) The Brain Storming Phase

You need to impersonate the Gods, you need to show up a big stick into the sky and conjour up ideas of grandeur. You need to make a Bible, part the red seas and start to dream.

The Game Design Doc is not a fancy thing, it can have less or more structure, it can have less powerpoint and more words, less bullet points and more paragraphs but in the end the content is what matters. That content is your dreams, your creative output put on paper, your infused soul going into the very fabric of paper and be there for further exploration down the road. You need to be free to rove around and generate as many ideas as you can without being too focused on you first "Mega Super Idea". The Mega Super Idea sometimes is a flash of light seen on level 18 and yet the game is something completely different. Please be willing to let go and free yourself from expectation. When you do do you will be filled with a better understanding of what parts can actually end up on your game, and this my friend, is called Conceptualizing Creativity. How do you think I'm witting these articles? Thinking Left-Brain? Think again.

2) The Game Prototype Phase

Make prototypes, play with it, make cardboard props, draw in big white or black boards, use posts its in your hands, whatever means necessary. When the time comes to go digital you should have a pretty close concept to implement and it might as well be a throwaway one, so you can dispose of it economically if not close enough. Remember that only when you derive work from a multitude of aspects can your output be truly creative. Never mind if you are a prolific writer and create the most amazing back-concept for the thing you are presenting the world called A Game, if nothing fits in the game play arena. If it ends up being as boring as watching a white canvas on an art-deco museum you are in serious trouble. Better be ready and be willing to cut the cord on concept early on, its a lot less painful to go through a 50 page game design document you did three years ago, conclude its crap, shuffle into your back-story archive, be done with it and start a new Word Document page than it is to actually reserve time each and every day to open an IDE and actually code something without any idea to be able to deliver something special. You might not yet have a significant back-pocket of engineering tools but you sure are capable of stick-figures.

3) The Execution Phase

This is where the rubber meets the road, this is where you are actually putting out there all your skills and all your mighty knowledge for all to see. You will stumble, you will fall, you will get to a point where everything is desperate and you will want to quit but the goal remains there in all the shinny glory, untouched by reality... and so you make room to deliver. In this phase, the pragmatic implementor has to take precedence over the cloud dreamer and actually have solid understandings of the issues involved. Only with left-side thinking here can you ever hope to ship something solid, not to mention on time. When all the cards are dealt with that Gold Master is waiting to be delivered through a combination of solid production skills, qualified management, deep coding mojo, renaissance artistry and visionary guidance.

...

So, here we are, phase four, you have your game. Congratulations.

Game Design and the Recreational Fun

2009-07-09T05:22:00.001-07:00

There are moments in the life of a game producer where you want to expect the unexpected, you want to derive from your work the wonder that a good game can make. That impression is not without constraints or mechanics known as Game Design.

What constitutes a good game? One that is fun, engaging and above all elaborately delicious to actually get to the end, one that is unpredictable, yes, but with the rules of the game master deep within the core skills required to plow though all the levels, bosses, crazy polygons or the Eve from Planet X.

But can we actually metric this illusive and escaping quality called "Fun"? Can we make up a formula and be done with it? Can the human spirit be reduced to a couple of electrons buzzing around in our brains, be checked out on an MRI scan, that scan be spotted by a would-be-game-developer that will use that information to build up the perfect and enthralling game for us, the poor souls on the other end of the LCD?

Many cultures have always turned into fun the most mundane aspects of its existence. Rocks were being thrown way before you or I were born and the "oldest game know to man prize" falls under Chess, a neat grid-tile-based rock game invented circa 600 A.D by Chinese stick wavering people. With all these wonderful history behind its impossible to see that we, as sentient beings can just not get along without fun. Its a quality that makes us bond together and let us be free from the chains of reality, more than mere escapism it serves as a pooling test ground for our informational capacity on a day to day basis. When we play a game we get into it, analyze the current condition and take actions based on what we do in life, not what we do on the desktop shuffling around folder files. In essence, the rapport with the machine is the rapport with your own self-awareness and the responsibility you owe yourself by making a mission statement to get to the end the level, the end the game and receive that little dose of Serotonin right in your nerve receptors.

Fun will always be a striving to change one's psychological state, we all are doing it, either through medications, nutrients, food, recreational drugs, exercise, sex, and yes, game-playing. It can be considered that playing is a drug, just like passion was declared a form of mental illness some time ago, some day Fun will be considered a drug too, because in effect everything*IS* a drug. Habit patterns form our representational efforts inside reality and if those efforts can be translated with a considerable degree of overdrive into a Game Playing, then well, Why Not? Why not play and be done with it?

I mean, its Fun! Right?

MJ Arcade

2009-07-09T01:05:00.000-07:00

You guessed it, its Michael Jackson's Arcade Collection on glorious VR Runtime.

Check it out here.

Neverland.

The Cost of Game Production

2009-07-08T02:54:00.000-07:00

What is cost of game production these days? We have titles that can go well into the Millions range scale and take up as much as 4 years, with the odd number reaching decades such as the ill-fabled Duke Nukem Forever. We have titles that can be made from shoe string money and yet earn the original creator thousands of hard cash. There is no single tooth pole to make our numbers from however when we enter such production endeavors we must take into consideration the monetary implications of running your own studio or even your home based operation running a fleet of freelancers over the internet.

Lets start with a marketplace I'm familiar with, the iPhone. According to Apple there are now over 10 Million iPhone units out there, that an hefty number for any developer to want to produce games or apps for it. What's the cost of producing an iPhone game? If you are doing it off your garage near zero of course, one thing Technology Industries have in favor over traditional ones is the total lack of current costs beyond the intellectual power deemed necessary to actually design and code fine products for the most amazing mobile device ever. Apple deserves all the merit to turn out quality at this high level, from user interface down to the tubes, bolts and wires of the fine APIs they expose to the developers. Its a fantastic world to get to it and explore the possibilities. But whats the cost?

The typical cost metric for software development has been the man-month, that although mythical it can be quite expressive if you have to pay you bills on time each and every month. So, the cost of development for a practical single person can be your life expenses budget per month multiplied by the number of months required to design, implement and ship the game PLUS all the non-personnel costs involved such as game assets in the form of textures or audio that you outsourced, tools acquired and above all else, the publishing and marketing costs.

So in essence the cost of a game production is equal to the formula

Cost of Game Production=
Cost of Living Beings Working On Project per Month * Number of Months to Ship
+ Assets/Tools Expenses
+ Marketing Budget
+ Cat Food and miscellaneous office pizzas

Theoretically, lets take into consideration a single developer with programming skills with say, a moderate expense of 1500 Euros per month which is an average salary/expense for a mid-level TI job in Europe. Lets say we are building a nice shooter for the iPhone and that we are sure we can do it ourselves if we spend 20 Weekends on it plus burning away 10 full vacations weekdays (yes, this is indie development for you, no I'm not doing that). In this case we have 20 days for weekends plus 10 full days, so 50 days in total. Lets also say we hire on getafreelancer.com a kid around the block that does some nice artwork well beyond your stick figures without much thinking and let's say the kid will do all your artwork for a cheap 300 Euros, also you think about it and you reach the conclusion that for you to be successful you have to make yourself noticed among the myriad of games our there so you need visibility in the form of Marketing, for this you make aside 500 Euros for that, you decide to spend it wisely on various marketing sites on the web, you are smart and you going to do that well, so we plug the number into the formula and arrive at:

Cost of Game Production=
1500 * (50/30) + 500 + 300 + 0 (allergic to cats) = 3300 Euros

So here we have it, 3300 Euros in our fictitious example, your mileage may vary and you may very well go over budget, in this case. If you still have a day job, you are still getting money out of other sources, so the over budget in no longer you running out of money, but you running out of time before your budgeted play money expires. So why make yourself doing all this work? After all if you still have a job as an indie developer and you are doing this on free time, why would you not simple say that this costs 800 Euros for money actually spent as in the example?

Because time is money. And because if you think of your time as money you might see yourself doing some extra work, and some extra push to get stuff done. Also when you have your own studio this will not be hypothetical and this will be an actually interesting exercise notion for you to have.

Theoretically of course.

The dream of electric sheep

2009-07-03T17:50:00.001-07:00

Do android dream of electric sheep? This was the question that Philip K. Dick asked some time ago. His answer was built into our own fabric of sub-culture. Many words have been written on the subject of humans versus technology versus the capacity to dream big and to dream electrically, force-fields or not force-fields, nuclear energy or renewables. What lies ahead after all, and who the hell are the sheep anyway?

Computer Video Games is a rare medium, for only 30 or so years until now have we at our disposal such a phenomenal tool for computation and mathematics, the large numbers that can be brought into existence by the silicone inside a wafer die is daunting, it is estimated by Moore's law that everything doubles in capacity every two years. Mr. Moore was probably not even aware he was making a claim at a law, merely speaking his mind, but one truth be told, he was right, and from that point on, everything changed.

Gaming Changed also, we now have the most glorious hardware capable of astounding features and GFX galore, its a non stop shock and awe for our senses, today we can expect the unexpected, be free to enjoy without being constrained by what our fathers thought about Pong or Castlevania, today we dream and those dreams can be as exquisite as the mind who dream it into reality. We can take it as it comes, we no longer have to wait for make belief to settle in.

This can be a tremendous setback or a pathway to freedom, technology is humankind's best hope for achieving the ultimate dream for all and that is too free ourselves from the necessity of hard labor and the incredible proliferation of under paid work and lets say it, slavery that goes around the world.

Nike can be the 'Lets Do It' company, but that motto only inspires the kids that live in the Eastern World on the grounds of New Jersey and the pimp-outlook clothes shops because the reality is that this company makes terrible demands on their factory workers. It is all done on an aura of legitimacy, all abiding by the law but the truth is these people do not even know their own rights to begin with and to the exclusion of any quantum of good will they even have monitoring productivity tools that calculate work schedules metrics... on the 3rd decimal place of the second... Its a bizarre world Nike lives in.

Going back to that hope and to what it could really bring to all of us and society at large, the exact opposite of factory labor is what the future holds and the extraordinary work underway by the brilliant minds of planet Earth. All that science work and brilliance of it is not only for the geek oriented to have another thrill on an empty day, no, that work is far far more reaching and expansive, makes us believe we can actually do it, but this time on a more effective and humane manner.

Since the advent of the Industrial Age we all got a Promise, that promise was to reduce the work week from well below the 40 hours that many, and indeed the most fortunate few, have today. This luxury we have is not enough to guarantee The Promise. We all want to work on the things we like and yet, so many few actually do it, its a shame that this monopolized world is still on its infancy and yet, it is exactly this discontinuity on our humanity that makes us do more. We strive to get to this goal of working less and having more fun so we can actually say, lets work on more fun, that is, the things we love and our passions.

Man has a dream, the dream is to escape the drudgery of mere existence and begin to dream again. To dream of electric sheep is only the first step on a series of steps that will conclude in the ultimate survival guide: Robots.

The future is Robots and Robotics, today we have more and more of these creatures roving around our backyards, they mow the lawn, they clean our floor and they even, for the US Military on a non utility way, to pave the way for ground invasion by means of small devices the size of bricks that can create a Wi-Fi network on non-internet friendly locations such as War Theaters. Of course one day we will have Robots doing the dishes, the clothes and taking care of all our Domotics Houses. All impressive and with deep creative insights into a future built by Humans for the benift of Humanity.

I'm not even talking about Artificial Intelligence, we do not need that, we have enough of Artificial Thinking out there as we can see in Nike's case. What we need now is to outsource our physical work into our mechanical counterparts made in our image. In fact, the use of technology as a means to and end, not the end itself.

SPC Videojogos

2009-07-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

I've just called for my subscription into SPC Videojogos, a Portuguese community for Videogame Science. They are a non-profit organization and they mission is to facilitate the communication with the developer and academic worlds. The president is Nelson Zagalo, a nice chap from Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. They produced a conference last year which I attended and it was a damn fine effort for a first time conference, I can't wait to go this year and see what they come up with and meet the wonderful people on the development world there. Oh yeah, and I hope to get a XNA certification... Cross your fingers!

See you all November 2009 in Aveiro!