Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.

Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

Dr. Swanson: Wow, that’s messed up.

Birthday today. Got up really early this morning (6:30) for no particular reason at all. Ei-Nyung made me a wonderful omelette, accompanied by one of the extra pancakes I’d made Tuesday, and frozen. Weird getting up that early, frankly, but made for a nice, leisurely morning experience.

Work was work, whatever, except that mid-day, I got a small, lovely flower arrangement from Ei-Nyung. Really brightens up my desk.

In the evening, we went to Chez Panisse with my mom, which we just got back from. A spectacular meal, all told. I’ll write more about that tomorrow. Joe & Uyen cleaned up the garage, which was … astonishing. I mean, the garage was really full of stuff, and to have created as much space as they did was just a monstrous feat. Truly awesome. 😀

Ei-Nyung did all sorts of things today to make me feel good – she’s really quite the catch! I suppose I’ve known that for many years now, but it’ll be good to finally reel her in for good next month. Bwahahahaa.

So, I spent part of the weekend reading Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, after having seen the movie Friday night. And though I know that like a lot of Alan Moore’s work, I’m going to have to read V slowly, a few times, before I really grasp the depth of what’s going on, I enjoyed the movie more than that from which it came.

Yes, yes, I hear the cries of blasphemy.

There’s a few reasons:

1.) The movie, as James Wolcott puts it, is *engaged*. A friend of mine wondered whether it would hold up, 15 years from now, or be seen as a quaint relic, and to that, I’d say that I don’t care what it’ll be like, 15 years from now, because what it is *now* is so compelling, and so … relevant, that even 15 years from now, I’ll be able to look back on it, and remember the atmosphere of public complacency in the face of evil that I’ll still understand the sentiment that drove it into existance.

2.) Hugo Weaving is extraordinary. That he could deliver the whole “V” monologue near the beginning of the movie and not only make it not seem ridiculous, but a very quick introduction to an extremely charismatic character was an incredible acheivement. Throughout the film, his performance is superb – slight shifts in the direction he’s looking seem to change the expression of the mask he’s wearing – emoting a face that cannot emote.

3.) While the source material is excellent, there are many plotlines that feel … superfluous, in many ways. There are a number of characters that I suppose I just didn’t really “get” – I didn’t see the purpose of their existance in the context of the story. Sure, they illuminate the world itself, but I guess I just felt like the level of complexity was … well, it was too much for something that should be accessible. But I suppose that’s not necessarily the point – Moore’s work isn’t “accessible” – it’s something you really have to put some time into to really “get.” I doubt if I got a lot of the details of The Watchmen until the fourth or fifth time I read it. Didn’t get the genuis of “Fearful Symmetry” until probably the third. Still, the level of complexity in the movie was exactly as it should have been – interesting, yet not explicitly convoluted. There were a few times where I wished they would have left a line out, as it went from a nice reference, to an obvious plot point, but such is life.

Anyway. Blah blah blah. Point being, I thought the movie was *spectacular*.

The arrival of a coroner’s van is never good news. Or rather, it means that the hope for good news has passed. Rumor is that a husband & wife had died, though I don’t know who those might be, as I had always thought that Mrs. Oliver lived alone. RIP, whoever you are.

So, two houses down, facing the house, on the left caught fire. Reports are that the residents of the house behind them heard an explosion, and by the time they looked out the window, the entire rear of the house was alight. Strangely, I didn’t even realize anything was going on until I saw the lights from the fire engines, by which point most of the neighborhood had gathered. Such is the power of Guitar Hero, I suppose.

I hope Mrs. Oliver is ok. She’s a sweet old lady who never seems to remember me. They found her, and took her out on a stretcher. I couldn’t tell whether she was alive or not, but she had clearly been near the fire, as most of her hair had been burned off. Not all, and her face looked ok, so… I hope she’s alright.

V: Saw V for Vendetta last night, and was blown away by how incredible it was. I hadn’t read it before seeing the film (I know, blashphemy), and I think one of the things I really loved about it was how relevant and engaged in the times it is. I started reading it last night, and was really surprised by how much the Wachowskis appear to have updated the content to really fit the current day. Hugo Weaving is absolutely incredible, and Natalie Portman does an excellent, excellent job as well. I loved it – probably the best movie I’ve seen since Memento.

Y: Joined the local YMCA today. I really desperately want a place I can swim regularly, and this looks to fit the bill. I’m pretty psyched, and need to run out this afternoon and pick up some new goggles and some trunks. Woo!

So, I was incredibly frustrated about stuff a couple days ago. I came home from work so wound up, and so incredibly agitated I was having trouble focusing on anything at all. I ended up searching through iTunes, looking for Big Beat – Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim – stuff like that.

I wondered, after a little while, why I was looking for that particular genre of music – I didn’t even find Vegas, the only other Crystal Method album I own, to be particularly exceptional. But there’s something very … I dunno – not really soothing – but sort of comforting about the regularity, the repetition, and the loudness of it all. I suppose maybe the reason is that essentially, the beat tells you what to do – you don’t have to really think about it, or contemplate the meaning of it all, or wonder how it’s going to upend itself from one minute to the next.

boom-chik-a-boom-ba-boom-chika, for six minutes on end, you can just turn your brain off, and feel the beat.

When I’m anything other than mentally beat, I find most Big Beat kind of boring – because there’s really not much to latch onto. But like Gatorade, it only tastes good when you need it.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. Issues at work, coupled with a weekend with people who I’ve known forever and really, really care about, have just made me really think about what I want out of life, work, and what makes me happy.

Obviously, the thoughts have ranged the happy-miserable spectrum, but for a change, I’ll focus on the positive.

I love making games. I love the creative process, and I love designing things. The high concept phase is obviously fun – are we going to make a game about eating ice cream, or giant robotic gorillas? Usually, it’s relatively constrained, but really, this is where the really wild ideas come from – can we actually make a compelling game about ice-cream eating robotic gorillas? Wouldn’t it be weird if we could?

Still, that gives way to a more detail-oriented process. Once the concept is found, it’s a matter of trying to figure out what it’d actually be in practice. This is a very, “What if?” sort of process, but not an unfocused one. To me, this is where a designer really shines, because anyone can find the obvious answers – it takes hard work and some measure of creative talent to find the odd solutions, the ones that really truly explore the core of the idea, and turn it into something that’s got the potential to be fun.

After that, another drill-down into the ideas – here’s where the weird little details emerge – the aspects of the game’s personality. In the same way that while writing a novel, the characters almost autonomously act without input from the author, this part of the process is where you find what the game has developed. It’s often surprising – the details simply emerge from the decisions you’ve made before and really fundamentally internalized.

Once the drill-down’s complete, it’s almost as though the scale is reversed, as the design goes out to the rest of the team. Engineers have to worry about implmentation, artists have to figure out the visual style of both the large scale, and the individual items in the world. This is where the design process becomes really large-scale collaborative in a way that encompasses every aspect of game development. Other people in varied disciplines add their input on how a particular aspect of the game might function, or how it might be implmented more efficiently. Obviously, many of these people have been involved in the process at every stage, but this is really the first time parts of the design “go public.”

A designer, in some sense, has to be fearless. Showing the team an idea that you’ve worked on for a week, or a month, or longer, is scary. People tear into it, find the holes, wonder about the implementation, the resources that are available, and begin to cut away at it. Sometimes, the response is good, sometimes it’s not. When you’ve got a good team, the end product is always stronger.

A good designer has no ego. Good ideas come from everywhere, and it’s a good designer’s job to harness that energy and turn it into something positive. Finding someone who’s excited about a concept, and really wants to make it happen is a happy moment. Sometimes, the idea emerges, fully formed and considered, nigh-ready for implementation. Other times, the idea comes out raw, and the person may have little experience taking that idea and shaping it.

Teaching someone to design, rather than simply speculate, is a really satisfying process. What is the core of the idea? How does this work with the rest of the game? How do you think a player will interact with this? What is necessary to create the feeling you’re looking for? Being able to quantify these things, to look at an idea critically, and where appropriate, mock it up or prototype it is so immensely fun and satisfying, I can think of few other things I’d rather spend my time doing.

Then, there’s watching the game come to life. Little bits of art, animation, gameplay… all functioning together – creating weird little moments where what’s on screen matches the vision in your head – or better yet, surprises you. Being surprised by a game you know every little detail of is … well, it’s genuinely surprising. It’s happened a couple times, simply because systems that are in place are complex enough that they’re generally not predictable. So, when Seaman asks “Do you like your job?” at just the right moment, as you’re having a conversation in real life about work… what other medium can do that? Serendipity, sure, but it’s so eerie, so perfect, and something that’s really unique to videogames.

I love it. I can hardly imagine doing anything else but building giant robots and taking over the world.

When a number of people all have the same problem with you, doesn’t it stand to reason that there’s some chance the problem is with you, not with them?