Anyway, sometimes we are given a chance to peek in on one of these alternate universes, and I had one yesterday.

Back in October, I was working at Funtactix on a 1-month contract, but was still interviewing with other companies as I still was looking for something full time. I had an interview with another company up in Boston, and it got pretty far; they paid for me to come up for the day and interview with pretty much everyone in the office. Afterward, the word back from the recruiter who set things up was that they really liked me, but wanted someone was more mobile experience (which, fittingly enough, I now have). While I wasn’t a fan of moving, the pay scale and position upgrade would have been pretty favorable. I might not have accepted, but it was something that was definitely on my mind. In the end, I was signed on to Funtactix, and it was settled.

Skip forward to now. I have been laid off as there wound up being no more work for me. Definitely a bummer, but kudos to Funtactix, as they did their best to keep me on, and were 100% professional about everything. A very positive experience, no question, and I don’t regret my time there for a second.

What gets things interesting is that I was speaking with the recruiter that got me that interview in Boston, and I mentioned that while I definitely was planning to stay in the city, another opportunity to land something a step up would certainly be worth a look. She then mentioned that in the end, it was best I didn’t get that position after all: apparently, the company (which had been bought by a larger studio) wound up getting phased out about 3 months after my interview.

“Wow,” I said, a bit surprised. Then I remembered that the Creative Director I had interviewed within had just started, himself, about 2 months prior, and had moved to the East Coast from L.A. for this position. “Did the people working get reassigned or were they just let go?”

“I think that one or two people might have been moved around,” she replied, “but pretty much everyone else was let go.”

So, while my current situation is not ideal, it would have been far worse off if I had actually moved to Boston, only to then be out of a job less than 3 months later, and most likely having to move again to find a new position.

As I always say, this industry is not for the faint of heart.

Appleton

Sheboygan

Oshkosh-Neenah

and Green Bay

Also, it’s worth noting that Eau Claire comes in at #11. Sure, not all cities are all that safe, but in general, I like to believe in the possible myth that Wisconsites would really rather just have a few beers, some cheese, and watch the Packers game rather than get involved in violent crimes.

I’ve told a number of my friends that I was probably the most ambivalent iPad buyer ever. I did not rush into the store, mouth agape and drooling in excitement over the latest Apple product. Rather, I somewhat grudgingly shuffled in and only after taking the time to reassure me that this was necessary did I make the final purchase.

See, I know that tablets can be very handy, but at the time, I just did not feel that I could justify the expense.

A tour of job interviews convinced me otherwise.

Even at my current job, we are moving into the mobile iOS market. So, really, mobile gaming is so entrenched that one cannot go without having experience in playing the games on the market. And since I plan to be using my Droid for a while, the iPad was a logical step. Hence, I dropped into a Best Buy, did some research, and finally settled on a iPad3, with retina display and cellular support.

So far, it has been nice to have, but for me to really feel like I’m getting the most out of my money, I plan on working this thing like a punch press. After Christmas, I plan on using some of the holiday currency to get some more paid apps for the device, especially ones that allow for my creative pursuits, including music, video, and image editing.

I also think I’m going to start working more with the eBooks on Amazon and iTunes. I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to read on the subway when the book isn’t the size of a small sedan (although that does make me feel cool).

Also, I should note that I have been impressed with the battery life: I have it where I’ve only charged up up every few days, instead of every day.

Finally, I’m hoping that the easier ability to do writing on subways or just around in general leads to some more writing. Lord knows I have enough backlog these days.

No, my pleasure is derived from the fact that the Chiefs are proof that people who failed with the Browns previously are, in fact, just not good at their jobs, and that this wasn’t some sort of failure by the Browns to realize untapped potential.

In fact, the Chiefs are practically the Browns v 2.0 right now. The roll call is frightening in terms of who’s migrated over there:

Scott Pioli — GM. He was originally thought to be a top contender for taking over as Brown’s GM, and at the time, was considered to be the best man in the NFL for a GM position. In the end, typical Lerher weirdness took place, with Pioli not getting the job, first being reported as “asking for the moon,” but later reports contradicting such statements. Whatever. As it turns out, it doesn’t look like he was up to the task, as his 4 years have only lead to the current disaster. I will say that Tom Heckett’s time in Cleveland has been far more productive (and, of course, now he may easily be fired at the end of the season due to the new regime, ugh).

Romeo Crennel — When Romeo took over as interim coach last year and won some games, and was then hired on full time, I could see this outcome happening. After all, I saw it in Cleveland: he has a great run, and then just can not keep the team together as a head coach. A great guy by all accounts, but seemingly overwhelmed with how to fix problems on the team.

Brain Daboll — Daboll, as all Browns fans remember, was an offensive coordinator for the first time with the Browns, having previously been a QB coach. He wound up taking a huge amount of flak in Cleveland for the tepid play-calling, low-scoring, and general offensive ineptitude. I don’t think that anyone in the city was sad to see him go. He went on to the Dolphins, and started to have some more success (although the Dolphins were one of the 4 teams to lose to the Browns). But so far his work at the Chiefs has still been as uninspiring as ever. Recently, the big complaint is that he is not getting the ball to his best players — a charge, by the way, that was often leveled at him here in Cleveland.

(By the way, all of the three gents above were part of the Patriots dynasty of the early 2000s, so it’s easy to see why they would all form together again.)

Brady Quinn — 1st round draft pick of the Browns, meant to be Cleveland’s new franchise QB. He came from a winning program, was a Browns fan as a kid, and was instantly loved by the fan base. Unfortunately, he turned out to transition poorly to the pro game, having constant accuracy problems and also injury issues. In fact, even the old Browns motif of the QB controversy is now inherited by the Chiefs: Matt Cassel is benched for mediocre play, Brady is officially given the job for the rest of the season, but then Brady is injured in his first game as a starter, and now Cassel is back as the starter for a couple games. This is exactly the same type of thing that the Browns have suffered through for years with Couch/Holcomb, and Anderson/Quinn. Especially because it was essentially one average QB replacing another.

Peyton Hillis — The breakout star and darling of the fans the year he hit over 1,000 yards rushing, Hillis then followed that up with a year marred by injuries, bad agent decisions, flakiness on a level not seen since a reality TV show, and questionable work ethics. Oh, and fumbles. He did get things together in the last few games of the season, but by then, it was too late. Now, he works on the Chiefs, but still has problems with fumbles and injuries.

For me, the most beautiful moment of this whole ordeal for the Chiefs was this excerpt for the recap of their week 2 game against the Buffalo Bills, which KC lost 17 – 35:

“I thought that we would be better, and we’re not,” coach Romeo Crennel said. “So we have to try and figure out what that is. From what I’ve seen, if we do what we’re supposed to do, then we would be better.”

KC’s offense managed just 71 yards on its first five possessions and then coughed up the ball on its sixth, when Hillis fumbled at the goal line.

“I messed up and let the team down,” Hillis said. “I put the blame on myself.”

I swear, replace the “KC’s” with “Brown’s” and this would have been a word-for-word reprint from a Browns recap of a loss just a couple of years ago.

The discovery of America was really just the result of two utterly massive mistakes, by both Columbus, and by his contemporaries; but when the two mistakes combined, they cancelled themselves out in a spectacular explosion.

It’s becoming better established that people in Columbus’ time were well versed in the knowledge that the world was a sphere. So, Columbus’ great revelation wasn’t about the world being round and thus enabling him to sail east to reach India. Rather, his big idea was that he was pretty sure that the world was much smaller than it really was. He drastically under-estimated the miles between the shores of Spain and India, unlike everyone around, who were, in fact, correct, that the voyage between the two countries was far to vast to make before running out of supplies.

Now, I have seen it said that Columbus’ big advantage was that he was considered to be one of the best navigators, and was able to use the trade wings across the Atlantic Ocean with great affect to speed across the waters. but the other advantage he had was that the ones who said that the world was too big to sail around (and were right about this) were also completely wrong in assuming that all of that mileage was nothing but trackless water. Nobody had the slightest idea, it seems, that there was this gargantuan continent that stretched from North Pole to South Pole, almost, sitting smack in the middle of the “empty” ocean.

As I told my friend about this, I also remarked, that for me, the thing that blows my mind is that there’s nothing in our current lives that can replicate a discovery of this magnitude. Because remember, this not only was a “whole new world” (sorry, Aladdin) with its own unknown cultures, food, and resources, but it was also someplace that was within reach of the sea vessels of the time. This wasn’t something where Columbus had the most technically advanced ships of the age, and everyone else had to spend years catching up before they could also make the voyage. Once Columbus revealed this new land, pretty much all countries that were already well-known to the sea were able to make the journey.

What would that be like today? What could it be? Where could we not only find a whole new land with its own vast landscape, food, and natives, but also was somewhere that was easy for pretty much all countries to reach who had reached a certain level of technological advancement. It’d be like if we suddenly, one day, discovered a huge floating island that nobody ever seemed to notice before, but now we could actually travel to and from using the airships that we already have today.

It’s an idea I’d like to try and develop. I’m not sure into what form, yet, but definitely something that would allow me to explore it in great detail. Regardless, it’s also just fun to think about.

I doubt anyone would claim that the Browns are on the same playing field as the Saints, but it is rather amusing when you consider the old adage: “Nothing matters except the Ws.” And right now, neither the Browns nor the Saints have any.

Personally, I think the Browns have the bigger challenge — they get to go and play the Giants on the road next week, so I doubt anyone is considering that one as an upset. Mind you, the Browns did upset the Giants on national television back in 2008, so stranger things have happened.

So, first of all, I have a 30-day contract with a company here in NYC, starting tomorrow. This will be basically a try-out period; after the contract is up we’ll have an evaluation, and see if I could come on board as a full-time employee. Definitely good news on that front, and also good news in that it’s right back in to game design. And trust me, finding game design work is not exactly the easiest thing to pull off here in NYC. Also handy is that the new place is merely 1 stop further along the F train from my old place of employment. Before, I exited at 23rd street, and now, it’s 34th. This also means that I’ll be working right across the street from the Empire State Building. Sign that I am a New Yorker: I didn’t even realize this at first until I stopped to see what everyone around me were taking pictures of.

The company has headed up the Facebook version of “The Hunger Games,” a property that you “may” have heard about. Actually, from what I have heard, “The Hunger Games” books have now outsold the Harry Potter books, something that is not only impressive, but also reminds me that I really need to get cracking on some original IP tale of my own. In any case, I didn’t know anything about the series, having never read the books or seen the movie. Hence, I picked up the movie from Best Buy during a city excursion, and watched it upon my return home.

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I agree with another person’s assessment that the shaky-cam approach, at least in the beginning, was a little on the heavy side, but otherwise I enjoyed a lot about what I saw. I was reminded of “The Running Man” film, “Lord of the Flies” (which, actually, I never have seen), and “The Truman Show,” but not in bad ways. Rather, more like, “Oh, yeah, so it’s like ‘The Truman Show.’ Okay, got it.” I’m also more interested in reading the books now, as there were a number of side characters that I’m willing to bet have even more depth and robustness to them. Some of the things I enjoyed were that the movie doesn’t “talk down” to the audience; a lot of parts of the film are presented in a way that make you understand what’s happening without the need for heavy exposition dialogue. Likewise, the characters act in believable ways, and parts of characters back stories are explained in very simple, quick pieces, so you get the gist of things within a matter of minutes. Even better, the way that the movie is put together hints at more beneath the surface, hence my greater interest in the books. Suffice to say, I was pleased with my purchase.

Finally, after wrapping up the first 2 “Thief” games, I wound spending quite a bit of time playing DOTA 2 — Defense of the Ancients 2. This is a new game from Valve that, while technically free, is also in a closed Beta (of sorts). You can’t get in without an invite, but you can actually buy an invite for like $30. So, either you spend $30 to buy the game, really, or you can play for free. What really makes this weird is that that game already has so many players that they have been holding international tournaments the past month or so, with serious cash prizes to the winning teams. Not many Beta games do that.

This game is, as the name implies, a sequel. The original was actually a mod for the Blizzard game, “WarCraft III,” which was developed by one guy, and then later on picked up and really promoted & maintained by another guy. For like, the past 10 years. Valve then hired him to make this “official” game. This is another weird thing: the game started out in the Blizzard game universe that eventually brought us World of WarCraft: you have tinkering gnomes, tough orcs, water elementals, cat riders — I mean, you can really just look at the 100+ classes that they have and almost trace them all back to a WarCraft base. Yet, this game is being made by Valve. I can only imagine that there is some licensing deal going here, as otherwise, I would suspect that copyright injunctions would be flying.

Anyway, the game is mind-bendingly complex, as you have the aforementioned 100+ classes, plus around 80 different items, each which can give you extra effects, modify your abilities, increase your stats, etc. You earn gold for each “last hit” you get on a NPC or a PC, and then use that gold to spend on items. You also gain XP, and as you grow in level (to a max of 25), your powers increase. Like most spooky deep games, it could take days or weeks to learn the best “build” for just one character; each has their own play style (support, nuker, etc.), and their own quirks that you need to get familiar with before you even worry about the items to get.

So far I’ve played about 15 matches or so, most against a team of bots (you play as part of a 5-man team). I’ve mainly been experimenting with different characters, trying to get a feel for the ones that I enjoy playing, and the ones that I think are just too deep for me to think about yet (like The Invoker (who, by the way, looks a lot like a Blood Elf from WarCraft — funny, that)). I’ve started to experiment more with a couple characters in particular, and once I get them to a spot I’m not embarrassing myself, I’ll probably move on to another one to experiment with.

Finally, something that I’ve really been enjoying in the game has been to little details to the audio, in particular the voice acting of each character (called a “Hero,” in the game, which differentiates them from “creeps,” which are NPCs). Now, it’s not that each character has an array of comments to make when you move, attack, retreat, get coins, buy an item, etc. (as neat as that is), but no, I’m much more impressed with the fine attention to detail that they have put based on which characters are playing, and against whom.

Two examples:

The first is one that backs up the established story of each Hero. In one case, it’s 2 sisters who are magic-users, one who uses fire (the older one, Lina), and one who use ice (The Crystal Maiden). Because both sides pick 1 Hero each, you can easily wind up in a game where the two sisters are playing against each other. Once while playing, I saw The Cyrstal Maiden (with help from others) take down Lina. As Lina fell, instead of giving one of her standard lines of defeat (“My flame… snuffed out!”), she actually said, defiantly, as she fell, “You.. were… adopted!” And The Crystal Maiden, instead of given a standard line of victory, merely said, simply, “Sorry, sis!” I actually laughed when I heard that because suddenly, these Heros became a lot more like characters.

Another example is when I was playing The Crystal Maiden (a support Hero) alongside Juggernaut (a “carry,” as in “you carry them through the early part of the game so they can carry your team to victory at the end). As we were playing, I heard The Crystal Maiden make the comment, “Make them feel the cool of your blade Juggernaut!” So, in this case, the developers deliberately added some special dialogue options for when two players who work well together (support & carry) are fighting alongside each other. It’s little things like that which really tend to sell me on a game, and this one was no different.

I’ll be playing more of it going forward, but for now, I have real work to attend to. And I really mean that: I have “real” work to do which results in a paycheck. Here’s hoping that it easily goes beyond that first 30 days.

The following is what I took away from the 2 games thus far, both the good and the bad.

• The stealth mechanic is still a refreshing change of pace from today’s standard model of in-your-face shooters and over-the-top action. Both games adhere strongly to this motif, with a lot of emphasis placed on how well you hide in shadows, and also a huge amount of importance on how you move over different surfaces and the noise thus created. Likewise, this is also a game of patience, something else that is a major change from games like “Gears of War,” or even the “Madden” football series. A lot of the game can be watching and waiting for the time to move, or strike. There are some moments of quickness, but overall, I tended to be the silent lurker, waiting to get a sense of the guard patrols before making a move.
• In the game, you have a variety of arrows that you can use; standard, water, fire, gas, etc. A lot of the arrows have one main function, but a nice game design touch is how most arrows can be used in multiple ways. The water arrow, for example, is mainly for dousing torches, making it easier to hide in shadows, but in the first game, you can “bless” them with holy water, and take down the undead with a couple of shots. Likewise, in “Thief 2,” you can use them to take out the various mechanical creatures from behind, shorting them out. I’ve even used the standard arrows to make noises away from me, distracting guards, and even to set off a mine or trigger a secret button. This sort of flexibility allows for a lot of different strategies to emerge, depending on the play style.
• Still, I found the games to be, at times, incredibility frustrating. The biggest annoyance that I ran across was that it was very hard to tell if I was close enough to blackjack someone or not. It might take a swing or two before I would connect. In some cases, when I was behind the target, this was not a big issue. But there were multiple times when I only had one shot — a miss and I would be noticed. Part of this was just the graphics of the time — mainly the first game, released around 1998 — but still, for such an important part of the game, it got under my skin that I be whiffing at air so often.
• Another pet peeve was that when people are alerted to your presence, but can’t see you, they always — always! — walk right into you the very first time they start moving. You could be in Candlestick Park in total darkness, not making a sounds, and still the guards would always just happen to walk right to walk 3F every time to start their search. What got me about this was that through experimentation, I realized that it really was that they homed in on you; no matter where you hid, even if they had zero visibility, they would always first walk directly at you, which was just really damn annoying.
• Speaking of which, sometimes it seemed utterly arbitrary as to when someone detects you; sometimes you can sneak right in front of them without them noticing, but other times you’re 300 yards away in total shadow and walking on moss carpeting when they suddenly spot you and come charging. I can only assume that this is due to some type of programming that goes into the awareness factor of the guards, but come on; if I can’t trust my UI to tell me when I’m hidden, then there are some serious flaws with the UI system.
• The combat mechanic I never got a hang of; keep the sword on the side of the person you want to hit, space to block, etc. It was cumbersome and flowed like dried plaster. This didn’t phase me too much, since I generally avoided combat, but there were other times that it would have helped to have had a better combat system.
• In the first game, by the way, the controls themselves were weird. I don’t know if this was because the standard WASD control scheme wasn’t fully implemented at the time across all games, but here you had “w” as run forward, and “s” as walk forward. “x” was walk backward. This royally screwed me up for a long while as when I kept trying to move back, I would actually move forward and fall off a ledge, or run into a guard.
• The main character, Garrett, is an idiot. Maybe he is a master thief and the best in a century or something, but gadzooks, this guy is inept beyond belief at common sense. First of all, the man can’t keep his finances in any semblance of order. He always seems to be in need of rent money, despite the fact that he can break into any place and steal pretty much anything. Plus, you see his apartment in Thief 2, and man, it’s really pretty modest, so it’s not like he’s spending his cash on home decor or even buying his own place. Maybe it all goes to food, drink, and entertainment, but the guy speaks in that smarmy, self-satisfied manner which doesn’t portray him as possessing any hint of a personality besides self-confidence.
• He also is blind to the embarrassingly obvious danger of stealing the eye in the first place. Let’s see, here’s this eccentric, unknown, new noble in town who has hired me to steal a unique gemstone called “The Eye.” This thing just happens to be in the center of a section of the town that was obliterated in some catastrophe that happened 50 years ago. It was then sealed in a cathedral by a group known as the Keepers, who have vowed to (apparently) safeguard mankind. They decided to seal the eye by placing the keys to the cathedral in the most God-forsaken places they could find, and have them guarded by traps and creatures. In short, they really, really did not want anyone to get the eye. Oh yeah, and The Eye also apparently has its own intelligence and talks to Garrett, then, when Garrett basically frees it from its prison, it shows its gratitude by sealing the doors, trapping Garrett unless he can find another way out. I mean, how much more of a hint does this guy need? This is like a modern thief being hired by a shadowy group to steal them all the components that they need to make an atomic bomb, but strictly for “their private collection.” Even if the person hired is not in any immediate danger from the bomb itself (which, in Garrett’s case, is not true), anyone with a working synapse is going to realize that the first step to ensure secret is to get rid of the person who stuff the stuff in the first place. It’s the first rule of successfully concealing an assassination: assassinate the assassins.
• Buying tips is kind of silly; you can buy them, read them, then immediately restart the level so you don’t have to pay. You, as the player, still retain the info, after all.
• Why 2 lockpicks? There’s really no need for more than 1. Often you have to switch between the two, but so what? All you do when using them is hold down the right mouse button, so it’s not like one is better than the other. All it really does is add unnecessary steps to the process for no real reason.
• Thief 2 tended to have the better levels of the 2 games. In particular, the rooftop part of the level where you break into a Mechanist sanctuary and the part where you have to steal a series of masks from an exhibition were the parts were this game really shined. In both cases, I truly felt like a master thief, traveling over rooftops, sneaking over the guards on rafters, and climbing down ropes to swipe the goods without ever touching foot on the ground. It really made for the most fun of the games.
• By contrast, the end level of “Thief 2″ was, in my opinion, too big, and didn’t feel nearly thiefy enough. It also took a long time to get through; this may be the point, as it’s the end level, but when have the time is just running for 5 minutes to get from one end to the other, that felt more like busywork than gameplay.
• Oh, yeah, and the main villain of “Thief 2,” Karras, really needed a different voice. When I first heard it, I thought it was supposed to be a joke, because the guy sounds like Droopy Dog. I mean, it really sounds like someone is deliberately trying to make as goofy-sounding voice as possible, and it’s hard to take your main opponent in a game seriously as a result.

Overall, I did enjoy the games. Despite the many annoying parts, and there were a lot, the over stealth mechanics, level design, and even the main story arcs worked well enough for me to get into the game. Some parts I thought needed some serious work, but other parts were perfectly set up, and those spots more than made up for the shortcomings. I would not include either game in my top tier of games, but I would definitely include some level parts as great examples of perfect game design.

I hosted my friend John over the weekend, mainly Saturday night. We meet up in the city, treated ourselves to some classic McD’s, and then returned to my apartment to partake in a screening of “Touch of Evil.” I have had this film since Christmas, and so I was glad to finally get a chance to see it. And given the rather depressing tone of the past week, I figured that this was just the ticket to a bright, cheerful, and perky weekend! Heh.

Very dark and disturbing in a number of ways, and overall a very well put-together film. There is only one part of the film that I’m a bit confused about, namely why the wife was dropped off at that particular hotel, but fortunately it wasn’t enough to take me out of the film. I enjoyed the debate about the point of the cops and the law, as well as the underlying racial tension that pretty still resonates today.

I saw John off into the city today, and I was planning on going over to Best Buy to get some replacement speakers for my computer, but, well, brilliant ol’ me, I forgot the gift cards back at my place. So, looks like I’ll be working with only 1 working speaker for a while, still. My best guess right now is that I can pick some new ones up on Friday, when I should be going in to the city for a lunch. I could always pick them up before either my basketball or soccer game, I suppose, although then I have to lug them to the scrimmages, and then back home. I’ll play it by ear.

Tonight, it’ll be more Thief: Gold, and then some work on my mobile game idea; I just need to write up the details into my own person GDD, and I will then be all set to use it as the testing grounds for my Unity self-teaching lessons. I’m actually really looking forward to this — I’ve been able to absorb a lot of what I read concerning Unity, and have gotten to the part where I can start seeing how to put things together in order to make the game work. Of course, the coding aspect is going to be tricky to fully learn, but all the same, I’m feeling pretty good about the dive in.

Roaches are an ongoing concern as long as you live within 5 miles of NYC, but I actually had been doing well in that I hadn’t seen any for several months. But then, I caught one trying to get across the carpet, and then again last night, one popped up on my computer desk. …the hell?! I know that I eat around the desk, but it’s far cleaner here in than in the kitchen. I’m glad that I haven’t seen them in the kitchen, at least, but still, why are they out around my working space all of the sudden?

The mosquitoes and flies are less of a mystery — I open the window and have no screen, so they just come on in of their own accord. But still, today, there were 2 flies buzzing around, and the last thing I need while I’m unemployed is the feeling that I’m living in a cartoon stereotype of living in a dump.

The exterminator is making his monthly visit to the building on Saturday, but it looks like I’m going to be out at that time going to meet up with a friend. Which, by the way, seems to be the 10th time in a row that he stops by the day that I am not around.

Like I said; cursed-boy, right here.