JetFable’s Gamer Writer’s Block

A very good article talking about Pursing Happiness in Game Design: Happiness is a perspective.
Reason: A recent study explained that the mid-life crisis happens when it does because at that point in life, people have to face giving up their dreams. After and before that happens, people are happiest in life. Before mid-life crisis, people have hope. Why are they happy after giving that up? Because they reach acceptance and appreciation of what they do have.

I will never give up my dream (I think). Another one that lists the Top 5 Things you can learn from video games, and they are Resource Management, Spatial Relations, Economics, Goal Setting, Logic of Complex Systems. My personal top 1 will always be “Everything else that I don’t learn from books”.

There was a conversation about what kind of guy my friend wanted the other day. She said guys who play video games are a big turn-off, actually she spoke my miind: Girls that think guys who plays video games are turn-offs are uber huge turn-offs for me. Women who can’t find enjoyment in video games just don’t make very good wives / mom, in my opinion. If you heed my advice and read “The Game”, this is one thing you never do, never ask a woman what kind of men she wants. Because what she thinks she wants is always irrelevant because her body will never respond to those criterias she think she has.

These are sketches of the new redesign of my book cover. It is done by my friend’s cousin who is an aspiring manga artist. I got to find out her name later. The setting is kinda wrong because this isn’t a medeival piece. but I do appreciate the work and they look like concept art of a game. Hopefully more pics will come when she gets exactly what I want. It’s interesting when you compare the japanese style to my previous Amercian style cover. What can I say, I dig the East much much more (just like I prefer my women).

ZP dissed one of my favorite game on the DS, the World Ends with You. Like I said before, people who are baised towards a certain genre of games is not qualified to review games belonging to that genre. It’s like me complaining about a FPS giving me motion sickness, it’s pointless. And I don’t see a problem of linear storyline, while most Western RPGs only give you the illusion of choice (kinda like real life), and even games like Halo only have scripted events only.

My RX-8 finally flooded and couldn’t start and I had it towed to the shop to fix. My mechanic tells me that “stop and go” is not good for my motor and the chatter noise will only get worse. Well unless I can drive like I do in GTA, there’s no helping the “stop and go” in LA. The lesson is, don’t get a sports car (especially one with the rotary engine) when you live in a metropolitan with poor public transportation system and excess of dumb people. And yes, flooding is caused by turning off the car before its sufficiently warmed-up. And did I mention, I parked at a stacked place and everyday I got to move out of my way when my coworker gets out. So what am I going to do? Have it run for 10 minutes while I sit in the car and fondle myself? (This adds to my job disatisfaction, see below entry). People been saying I am being grumpy lately. This is one of those things that contribute to my grumpiness.

I am known to have certain bias against Americans becuase I think most are stupid (even though I live here and carry a passport), we did elect the stupidest president in History twice, I am not at all proud to be American (plus the dollar sucks). Like I was in Vancouver this weekend and when I got off the flight I overhead two Americans complaing about why they don’t annouce the temperature in Fahrenheit, cause they could not figure out how cold or warm it was. Do they not realize the rest of the damn world uses Celcius? This reminds me of the argument between me and my girlfriend about what is the difference between an apartment and a condo. She tells me that Americans refer to an apartment as a place you rent and a condo as a place you own but they can be the exact shape and size. I said that Americans are wrong because the name to describe an object should always be describing the size and shape of that thing and not the property of it being used (Triangles and squares). To me, an aparment will always be a “flat” (a term used everywhere else), a townhouse is a single home that shares walls and a condo is the official term that includes all of them, who gives a damn if you rent or own it. She tells me thats why I don’t have white American friends because I think they are stupid. But the point is, THEY ARE STUPID.

Finally gone from my last company, i started working for this Digital Forensics Company. The first week of work was extremely uncomfortable for me, for my browsing habit somewhat got me in trouble, that and now I sat in a cube with 2 walls in a busy intersection and I missed my old office. It was embarrasing when the Head of IT came over and asked me what was Crack.com, becuase it was flagged as an adult site. I resisted the urge to tell him that it was actually very good porn and he should try it himself. No doubt as I am typing this, I am getting flagged and recorded and monitored and studied, but seriously, I don’t quite give a damn.

I still have yet to finish my book (still hunting down the cover), but I have started on my game design project with a few people. I started my design document today and it was loads of fun. I really do realize that, damn, am I in the wrong field. I totally hate my regular job. I am seeking another artist to re-design my cover. I don’t know why I keep delaying the publication of my book (not really all my fault), but in some ways, I don’t feel prepared for it (they say that once someone attains his dream, it all comes tumbling down). The cover is important too, who says you don’t judge a book by it covers. In fact everyone looks at the cover and judge the book, that and the first few pages, provided they can get past the cover. It’s a lot like dating, you can’t really go out the first time sloppy unless you have estrablished that you already are cool, then you can wear your pajamas. On a side note, I have been dating someone for 2 months. That’s somewhat new for me, I haven’t had anyone remotely serious for 10 years. In any case, I keep recommending this book, “The Game”, to all my single guy friends (read my preivous entries if you missed it). And No, I didn’t actually use any techniques from the book on my girlfriend. But it helps, a lot, when you want to initiate conversation in the public, and it helps you understand the female psysche, and often why you screwed up and why you must give up and move on, I learned that the hard way, I suspect everyone did (unless you are Brad Pitt, or some kind of Greek god).

It’s funny since I haven’t updated my blog for months last night I got a call from my friend in HK after 3 hours of updating it. I thought that was awesome. But then I think many things are awesome for I am generally happy and easily amused.

I started playing GTA. Out of my busy schedule I get less than an hour of it a day but the game is very “short-session” friendly. The game looks gorgeous and it’s a blast playing it but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the previous ones. Because I feel that no new grounds have been broken here, and to me now as a designer that’s important. I don’t have too manycomplains, other than that now the game is just too realistic (like more realistic handling of the car doesn’t necessarily add to my enjoyment), and the RPG elements I enjoyed in San Andreas was gone. And I think they spent much less money on the voice acting this time around than the last (where’s Samuel L Jackson?), and if you follow the news you know they make (and will) much more this time around, while only paying the lead actor 10K over 15 months of work. I think the industry has gotten to the point that, writers, actors should make an uber amount, if the game sells. (On a side note, I haven’t beat up any whores yet)

Is there going to be Olympics this year? John Titor the time traveler claimed that he didn’t remember the Olympics in 08. And then the quake happened. So we’ll see whether he’s for real or not. I write a lot about time travel, but seriously, I never really thinK I would believe in it.