Category Archives: Games and Game Development

Thoughts on games and game development

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

This and That

So the usual crew braved the elements Monday night, traveling through frightening thunderstorms to go to the usual American Chopper night hangout. We were all excited about the newest episode of American Chopper (Mikey was gonna build a bike! What’s not to love). However, we found out that when they say “On next week’s episode…” at the end of the show, they really mean “the next time we show a new episode…” Alas, reruns. To add insult to injury, next Monday they’re having a Monster House marathon. What’s up with that??? Nobody watches Monster House!! Yeesh.

Dynasty Warriors 4 is quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game (it’s nearing Halo as my favorite multiplayer game! Eeek!). I highly recommend it.

Yesterday, Matt (my boss) and I had to drive to Connecticut to return some prop furniture we’d borrowed from another theater. It was a nice little trip. Being in New England for the summer has made me realize a few things about my own home region that I would have never noticed before. Granted, the existence of full service gas stations was a new thing for me when I got up here, but we’ve found a few other things. To go on this trip, we had to take the shop truck, which is a clunky old thing with no AC and only a tape deck. We thought it would be amusing to get some tapes to play on the way. Now, I am from Kentucky, and Matt is from Georgia, and so we were always used to the fact that when you go into a gas station, there’s always a rack of really obscure music tapes up near the counter, with such favorites as “Ultra 70’s Funk,” “Cowboy Songs,” and “The Best of the 80’s” type music. Apparently, though, this commodity (or oddity) does not exist in New England, as we were unable to find any gas stations that sold tapes! How sad! Perhaps it is a southern thing? At any rate, we had found a Primus tape in the Prop Shop, so that kept us entertained for the ride.

No more days off for 3 weekends, it’s going to be hard core! I think I’ll survive nicely, though. If I am lucky, I may be able to work in another internet update before the summer runs out! I miss my computer.

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Sloooow afternoon

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Sittin all alone in the props shop. Well, not entirely alone, Keller (our props carpenter) is working away in the back. We were going to go pick up some donations today, but one of us had to stay behind in case Keller needed any help, guess who drew the short straw. Oh well.

Since Tommy is opening tonight, we’re kind of slow, so there’s not much to do right now. Things will pick up soon enough, though. We’ll have to crank out a lot for Assassins and Peter Pan, but for right now, we’re not busy (hence the journal update on the agonizingly slow 14.4 K modem x_x).

I made the luckiest phone call ever the other day. I was giving Brendan a call to say “hello,” and I just happened to catch him out shopping with Ken, Evan, and Dave Clark (plus, they were at Great Escape, where Adam Watson works). I got to talk to all of them, it was great! Super bonus phone call. I miss all of them, and I can’t wait to see them when I get home. At least I’ll get to see Dave, who is coming up to see Assassins.

This Sunday we have our last day off until all shows are open. After that, we’ll have 3 changeover weekends in a row, then everyone starts leaving. I’ll be here till the 31st, though, so after Peter Pan opens, I’ll have 2 weeks where NOTHING happens. Keller and I will probably spend a few days cleaning the props shop (we’ll be the only props crew left), then it’s like 2 weeks of pseudo-vacation. Pseudo in that many of the friends I’ve made here will be gone, and that I don’t have a car, so sight-seeing may be tricky. Perhaps something can be arranged, though. My parents will be coming up, and my dad seemed interested in going to Six Flags. I’d definitely be up for that again.

So, kinda slow at the moment, but later should be fun. Carleton bought Dynasty Warriors 4, which he says to be an awesome game, so we will have a little PS2 fest sometime.

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Update

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Whew! Been awhile since an update, but it’s been awhile since I could snag a ride to the library. Many things have happened! I will divide them up by “good” or “bad” on a case by case basis.

Bad: It’s quite hot, and humid too. The sort of weather where you drink water every half an hour and never have to pee.
Good: At least it’s stopped raining!

Bad: I had to use the router last week, which is the scariest power tool ever (on the up side, my favorite power tool–the compound sliding miter saw–is doing quite nicely and has yet to cut off my hand).
Good: I got to dull the blade of a machete by beating it against a rock.

Bad: You know how I was gonna wait until the end of the summer to buy myself a PS2? You know, as a reward? WELL, due to the unspeakable PEER PRESSURE of a certain, left-shoulder-perching, demon winged friend (I won’t mention any names (*cough*Carlton*cough*), I went out and bought one, and RUINED my goal.
Good: I have a PS2 now.

Bad: While buying said PS2, I also purchased Ghost Recon, and though I am 21 years old, I got CARDED for buying a Rated R game.
Good: I’m sure it’ll do me good when I’m 40.

Bad: I’m terrible at volleyball.
Good: Nate the Carp taught me how to throw a hammer! Now I will return to school and amaze all my ultimate frisbee friends! …or something.

Overall, things are good, plenty of work, plenty of play.

By the way, does anyone have a spare LJ code laying about? D Flo wants to start a journal, so he’ll have a place to rant, and so I won’t have to advertise his music for him (he can do it himself!). Hope everyone is well!

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

The End!

Whoosh! I let a lot happen with no entries. Here we go…

Finals went well. Senior week was relatively good (a lot of packing and playing of video games). A lot of bonding happened. Jeff taught me to drive a stick (which is good, since I’ll be helping with the driving to Massachusetts, it’ll be good to know how x_x). For the first time since high school, we broke out the old Magic cards (D Flo and , after killing me and Brendan off, spent like 2 more hours trying to kill each other).

While Wednesday and Thursday were full of cheer and play and video games, Friday was a bit intense in the wrong way. The night was highlighted by the completion of our year long proclamation of “Dude! We should hook up two x-boxes!” I totally won. Anyway, that was the fun part. The un-fun part was that every sliver of residual drama leftover and building up throughout the entire year EXPLODED. Drama here, drama there, venting here, crying there, misery and ranting and purging, you know…it probably would have been less dramatic if not for the addition of alcohol to the whole formula. Feh, no good.

Saturday, I frantically gathered the last of my belongings, went home, spent like 3 collective hours with my family, came back to school, took one more “confidence drive” on the stick shift, bought a cake, sat down to spend some time with my friends before they graduate…and realized it was frickin midnight! Tomorrow will be madness, with graduation (I have to be a Junior Marshall, which, unfortunately, does not involve guns, a star, not even a cowboy hat). Jeff wants to leave for Massachusetts right after commencement, so no summer break for Lisa.

Long story short, I’ll be noticeably absent from the internet for the summer. If anyone’s trying to email me at my aol address, I’ve blocked it from email (to cut back on the spam for the summer), so mail me instead at my wertle.com address. I was intent on doing one more website update before I left, but that didn’t happen. Alas! Well, there will always be the library. I imagine it will be slightly difficult to cram all of my normal internet chores into 15 minutes, but I’ll manage. I’ll at the very least try and update this one.

I hope everyone has a lovely summer! I’d like to reflect on the year, what I’ve learned, experiences that have been important to me, life lessons and all that, but I don’t have time. Never enough time!!!!!!!!

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

End-o-Break

Tomorrow I pack up to go home for the remainder of my break. I had a good time overall, though people were a lot busier than I had anticipated. Still, time with friends with no pressure is always nice. I hung out with Eric quite a bit, which was fun, since I’ve never really hung out with him much before. The same with Jeff, and we had dinner, woo!

Tonight, Brendan and Ken surprised me with a birthday cake and present. D Flo and Eric were there, and we had a nice little birthday extravaganza. Berea and little Sylvie came to visit (though Sylvie is much bigger now). And we rounded up the evening with some Halo and other games.

I was stomping in Halo on this particular night, so much so that some good-natured insults were exchanged, and I ended up attacking Flora. He used the opportunity to start a new game while my controller was out of reach, intending to blast me while I lay helpless. However, through some trick of fate (which D Flo blames on me being an apparent voodoo practitioner), he rolled onto my controller, and my character ended up wasting him for the first kill of the game. Muahaha!

‘Twas a very restful break, and I intend to use my time at home to prepare for the busy term ahead. I need to work on my resume for SETC, and an essay to apply for a scholarship for a glass class at Corning this summer. I’m also kitten-sitting for my brother this weekend (and I intend to take photos).

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Bleh x_x

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat, an icky stomach, achey wrists, and had to go do furnace stuff. The fates were against me, I’m convinced they were trying to foil my Halo skills for that evening. A video game tournament was thrown together last minute, and Halo was involved, so the Rodes 2 gang was very excited.

It was very fun, all in all. We did suffer some setbacks, with Ken (kenmoore) in Italy and D Flo home for his birthday, we were short some of our best players. Buddah joined us, along with some other dude who’s name I can’t remember but whose handle was “Poo” and was very very good. However, the SAE (E in this case standing for Epsilon) team proved more organized and used to group team play. Even though they won in the end, the games were very close, and I will be excited to tell Ken that we stomped them the first round, with me coming in first above everyone else, even the notorious Grey Munford (I swear, between this and the Student Film Festival, that boy is fast becoming my arch rival). That was before my wrists started going numb, though x_x

Overall, I think it was fun, and I would be happy to have an ongoing Halo battle between the SAEs and Rodes 2 (even though 3 of the 5 members of the Rodes 2 Halo Krew do not actually reside in Rodes 2, and 2 of them aren’t even in Rodes at all).

In other news, Brendan is having a contest on his forums, and everyone should participate, even if they don’t know Brendan. Why? Because it’s a caption contest for a picture of me! Go here and play…

http://www.xorph.com/xorphorum/viewthread.php?tid=211

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Mario Paint

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The first week of furnace building has drawn to a close, and I think we’ve gotten a lot accomplished so far. We seem to alternate between a day of getting lots done and a day of disaster and error and getting nothing done. But, we’re almost completely finished with the substructure, yay!

The other day, elwe was explaining his experience in practical applications in math. Coincidentally enough, I had a similar experience this week, though it mostly involved figuring out how many insulating fire bricks we’d need and at what angles they’d have to be cut to fit in the circular glory holes. It served as further proof that the easiest facets of math–like adding and multiplying–slip beyond my grasp.
“Let’s see…12 x 7…uhhhhhhhhhhhhh………..::gets out calculator.” Oh well, at least there were some math majors there to help me out.

In other news, D Flo is a musical genius. Well, that’s not really news, but we were playing with Mario Paint last night. D Flo whipped out this amazing little piece, even under the limitations of only having quarter notes, only three notes together at a time, and replacement of traditional instruments with mushrooms, geese, and airplanes. I was amazed, so I made a little animation for him (a dancing kitten, to be specific). I’d forgotten just how fun Mario Paint can be.

Plus, the collaboration reminded me of how I need to get crackin on my entry for the film festival. It’s almost all storyboarded, and since Flora’s also writing music for Patrick for Chalk Circle in the spring, I need to give him as much time as possible to help me out.

For now, I’ll just get my laundry done…

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Home again…er…no wait…

The move back to school was successful, and my room is clean for perhaps the first and last time in a term. Yesterday kicked off with an enthusiastic reunion between Brendan, D Flo, Ken and myself, and we celebrated with many hugs, since the heat in Rodes was out and it was frickin freezing.

We then proceeded to rearrange the living room, and skipped off to see Eric Abele, who had returned to us from a long fall term in Strausbourg, complete with residual German accent.

It was a perfect time, as we were all together back in the safety and convenience of the college bubble, but no classes yet with which to worry us. It’s my favorite time. D Flo is trying to corrupt me by getting me to start Final Fantasy Tactics, even though I’ve not finished Chrono Cross yet and already broke my oath by starting Legend of Dragoon (I’m one of those one-rpg-at-a-time people), and Brendan brought back the next volume of Bone, hooray!

Overall, the night was exquisitely joyous, as I’d missed everyone immensely over break. In fact, the only downside is that even though we went to Walmart, I was so excited about the fun of the reunion that I only bought a box of Clementines and a Pomegranate, both of which I left over at Rodes…and I’m STARVING x_x

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

2002

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2002, what a weird year. Well, I suppose I’ll do a little recap, for me more than anything, I suppose. I have a tendency to think in terms of ‘school years’ as opposed to real years, so it’s helpful to do little things like this.

– 2002 kicked off with my study-abroad trip to England, where I traveled from Manchester to London and many places in between, and saw 30 plays in 3 1/2 weeks. My birthday had its ups and downs, the down being I had to sit through a Pinter play, the up being that I got to go to Riki Tiki Tavi’s, the most awesome restaurant in Manchester, and have the best vanilla milkshake in the world.

– Spring term of 2002 was a rough one for me. I’d flown in from England late one night, and the next day had to move back to school. The lack of rest and busiest term I’d had so far wore me down quite a bit. I was really unprepared for the stresses of taking 2 studio art classes at once, but I managed through.

– On the up side, I had a lot of fun that spring term. I remember my Monday night 9-midnight glassblowing slot with Ian. Neither of us had class the next morning, so after our blowslot we’d drive over to Jen’s apartment, where I would make pancakes and Dr. Mario tournaments would take place.

– I got to be really good friends with Andrew that term. Seeing my beloved senior friends graduate was tough. Ian, Andrew, Liz, Nate, Sara…everyone, I really missed them, but had great times with them

– Summer 2002. Not quite as eventful as the summer before. I did manage some visits to see my friends, and it was the first summer I actually sold art. I did rather well, selling quite a bit of my glass, I was very excited!

– Fall 2002. Junior year started off rather strangely. I solidified and grew strong friendships with different people, namely D Flo, Brendan, Ken, and Squirt. This year has been eventful and fun-filled, if not DRIPPING with DRAMA. I remember being terrified of having an independent study in glass with Woody, Arijan, and Ken (who are all way way talented), but it turned out for the best for me.

– 2002 wrapped up with New Year’s with friends. I’m glad I got to see kenmoore before he goes off to Italy. My resolution this year is to expand on my other talents, especially getting over my fear of playing the piano.

Have a great year, everyone!

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Electricity Eeeeelec-tricity.

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Crew meeting today. I work for Jeff, who can juggle flaming sticks, in electrics. I used to be afraid of Jeff, he was one of those sorts who I couldn’t tell if they were joking or really seriously angry about something, but I’ve come to learn that he’s harmless. Mostly harmless.

I like working in electrics, hanging and focusing lights is great fun! This year, I’m board op (trained monkey) which is something I’ve never done before. It means I’ll have to donate a week of my life to the theatre department, but I think I have my schedule under control, it’ll all be good. And I have plenty of practice pushing buttons, I knew Halo would be good for something!

Speaking of which, Squirt has joined the Krew. I need to draw her up. It’s very strange, I never really hang out with her, but she’s lots of fun. Weird how that is.

I love you Brendan!