Back!

After quite an epic trip through Europe, I’m back in Cambridge.

First stop was CHI in Florence. I got to hang out with lots of current and former Media Lab students, plus Frances (who was there with a bunch of APMs).

Next was Madrid, where I spent a much-too-brief 48 hours. I got to do one proper day of sightseeing - most of the pictures are here.

Finally, I met up with Dietmar in Gijon, Spain to set up Stiff People’s League in the Homo Ludens Ludens exhibition. Pictures from that phase of the trip are here.

All in all, it was a great trip, but I’m glad to be back home in Cambridge.

I have a new favorite Java keyword: continue. Dunno how I missed this for all this time, but it’s wonderful.

In any loop, it advances to the next loop cycle.

Candyland

For to be writing:

A Flash implementation of Candyland [warning: god-awful music and animation]. It should feature an elaborate lobby/matchmaking system inspired by modern multiplayer, networked games and have the option to play ranked or non-ranked games. It should feature an elaborate ranking/stats system, too, modeled off of well-recognizable systems like Halo 3’s (by way of bungie.net). Players would be awarded medals for accomplishments in game, and a fancy replay system would allow for sharing of dramatic video clips of exciting in-game moments.

Since Candyland is a game of chance, though, the gameplay should be simplified to the point that the delay between pressing the “start game” button (perhaps with a Halo-style game-start countdown timer?) and reaching the end of the game should be less than a second. Rather than the countdown being something like “3, 2, 1, go!” it should be more like “3, 2, 1, lose!”

As I see it, this would accomplish four main things:

1. It would parody Candyland, but this is low-hanging fruit.
2. It would parody unnecessarily elaborate game ecosystems. To be fair, I think these actually do a lot to make games better and generally like them when they’re well done. That doesn’t mean I can’t poke fun at the bad ones, though.
3. It would, by way of juxtaposition, show that a well thought-out game ecosystem is actually a pretty important to the gaming experience. There are lots elaborate, complex games with basically no ecosystems. In contrast, we’d be creating an elaborate, complex ecosystem with basically no game.
4. It would be awesome.

A surprisingly easy transition

The end of “Strawberry Fields Forever” (The Beatles) and the beginning of “And It Rained All Night” (Thom Yorke) flow together really well.

This transition brought to you by Pandora Radio.