For The Improv Show's last gig on April 14th, I managed to record both our longform and the jam. The Jam is our half-cast, half-audience thing whose format I nabbed from Upright Citizen's Brigade in New York. I've youtubed it for the loyal fans who missed it.
Here's the longform:
Here's the jam:
I just got back from a 54 k bike ride!
Here's the google map.
View Larger Map
Now, my average speed sport of sucks, as it took over two hours, but that can be improved. I think I'll need to buy a bike clock.
In the last month, I:
- got an Iron Ring
- finished my last exam in the Mathematics and Engineering Program at Queen's
- was accepted for a Master's in Computer Science with the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of Toronto, where I'm hoping to focus on Human-Computer Interaction and Ubiquitous Computing.
Phew! Post-graduation, I was also looking into the Master's of Digital Media program in Vancouver, but decided I wanted to follow a more academic route. After lots of soul-searching, I realized I'm more of a researcher than a business guy, and if I continue to follow the academic stream I get to keep teaching! My specific research interests are pretty fuzzy right now, but the advisory possibilities at UofT are really fantastic and fluid. More on that to come.
So this means I only have four months left in Kingston, the city I was born in and have lived for the past 11 years, after stints in Calgary and Vancouver. Although Kingston has its own funny hijinks, it's going to be weird to leave this quaint place for the big smoke. I'm really looking forward to Toronto's theatre scene though - I know that I'm going to keep doing improv and theatre wherever I go.
This summer, I will be working in the Human Media Lab on 3D videoconferencing from multiple 2D capture (details to come), but that's pretty much all I've planned for now. On Thursday, I wrote down a very broad summer to-do list:
Buy a guitar and start learning stuff on it
Buy a camera
Write a play or short story
Buy a laptop and get it all pimped up
Buy an OLPC XO and learn how to program on it.
Have sex outdoors
Read Ulysses
Finish Godel Escher Bach
Learn about Information Theory
Be on stage at least once
Learn about Decentralized Control Theory
Bike greater than 50 km in one day
Buy/Fix my bike
Get glasses (my old ones broke)
Find a house in Toronto
And then on Friday, I went on a bike for 35 km! Maybe I'll have to increase that goal. I'll keep you posted.
ps. playing through Bioshock now. Despite it's flaws, its pretty awesome.
After some helpful comments, Rock Paper Scissors Infinity is now live!
Rock Paper Scissors Infinity is a massively multiplayer matching game. Honestly, the best way to experience it is to just go look at it. And play with it, so it grows, of course.
From the about page:
By playing this massively multiplayer game, you are creating a huge network of verb-noun-verb connections. If someone tries to add a "play" or "connection" that already exists, then that connection is strengthened. The strongest connections are listed on the infinity page.
As people add more and more connections (as n goes to infinity) then this network will begin to resemble human understanding. Or maybe that's just a crazy idea. I'm probably wrong.
In only the short time I've had this online, I've already learned a ton from the people who have "played" it. Please, look around, play, don't be afraid to break the rules I've made.
- Dustin
So do it! Play around!
Well, the house just received 30 identical looking standard-size envelopes, none of which were addressed to any of us. Most of them were weird variations of either Phillip Van Stone (18) or Andrew Collins (9). I opened one for "Mike ColinManing", which I assumed I couldn't get prosecuted for since it obviously wasn't a real person. It was an invitation to some $20,000 tournament (for which we had OBVIOUSLY already been considered) at PartyPoker.com. Below is a scan of all of the Phillip Van Stone variations:
I've had the install file for City 7: Toronto Conflict sitting on my desktop for a long time, but I've been too lazy to install it. So, here it is. It's a mod for Half-Life 2 that represents an alternate timeline where, at the beginning of the game, Gordon Freeman gets teleported to Toronto (City 7) instead of Half Life 2's City 17. I played the game for an hour (so far) and I've recorded my reaction's, a la Games for Lunch. So here's my stream-of-consciousness thoughts:
- sweet, the first two minutes are exactly like in Half Life 2.
- I've teleported, and someone says he recognizes me, then runs off. Odd. I definitely get a "Valve" feel from this. Good job team. I definitely had low expectations, as I thought it would just be an excersize in modeling Toronto's landmarks, which doesn't count as game design at all. It looks like they used the same character models, but used new landmark art with a ton of new voices. Its definitely unnerving to see the trademark Half Life 2 walls next to a Future Shop.
- Holy shit! The parking meters are just like in Kingston. This both increases my immersion and destroys the fourth wall.
- No reaction from the Combine guards when I stand awkwardly in front of them. Darn.
- I tried to get past that pool into what looks like an elusive area. I climbed up onto the fence next to the park and smacked into an invisible wall. That sucks.
- I like that I'm not given any explicit goals in the beginning. Still exploring around is nice and, by the nature of the exploration, equates me with the conventions of this new world without forcing it down my throat. It does help that I'm naturally inquisitive.
- I walked past some guards into an area that was restricted and was instantly plugged full of combine gun energy. A warning would have been nice, like some warning shots at my feet or nose.
- Hmm, still want to get across the pool...in the middle of the pool...uh-oh, sniper lasers...dammit. dammit. First death.
- Restarted. There are humans wandering around, one of them complained about "typical combine maintenance". Ah, some things never change.
- I'm on a roof now. Yay, I found a crowbar! Now what? It occurs to me that I could kill a lone combine and steal his gun, but they all are in the open. I go to the one nearest to the stairs that go up to the roof and smack him a bunch of times. When he dies, he gives me a grenade but I'm still in a smacking frenzy and it goes flying uselessly. The explosion draws about five more combine and I still only have a crowbar, so I run back up to the roof. They don't follow. Maybe some of them will drop a gun, so I try to skirmish out, entice a few and lure them up to the roof, but it isn't happening. They just stay down there, and then mumble something about "losing the target". Lame.
- I try the same thing a few times, doesn't go anywhere. I go to a point on the roof where I can watch a crowd of people. Someone mentions something about "Hank" going nuts. Suddenly, Hank runs out, kills a combine with his pistols and tries to make a run across the pool. Hilarious. Results are similiar to my attempt, but it appears that Hank didn't bother to save his game. So, I guess the designers are telling me that that approach is futile. Or are they? I mean, I DO have an MIT education and I'm wearing a hazardous materials suit.
- I look around, and pick up a filing cabinet (?) to step up onto the roof. It looks like there is an area enclosed by a red fence that I can now reach. I gleefully grab a medkit and hold it (my health is at 100%, but you never know when you may need more) and trounce over to fence, standing directly on top of it. I throw the medkit down so that it lands on the ground inside, and then gleefully smack into another invisible wall. I can't jump down! The medkit sits inside the fence, mocking me. Lame.
- I go into the "restricted" area I went to before and manage to kill about four more combine this time before I bite the dust. I was picking up some health packs I found and managed to stay alive by skirmishing out, killing a combine and taking his grenade, then returning to behind a box as they all shot at me. If only they clumped so I could take them out all at once, but it looks like I'm not that lucky.
- Wait? What is that on top of those discarded(?) train cars? A generic supply crate? Goody!
- I manage, with some difficult box-moving maneuvers, to get a box on top of another box to get on top of the crate. Somehow, though I'm most likely making a racket and looking like a moron, the combine ignore me. This is pretty odd, considering that they seem to keep a tight control on the other humans.
(Oh yeah, I forgot to mention all the rations humour. Hilarious)
- I got to the top! I gleefully bash open the crate to find...no guns. Its some energy batteries for my suit. Well, now my health totals 170 or so. Now should I make a run for it?
- I turn on the sprint and race through the crowd of combine and people to cross the pool. Somehow, I avoid sniper fire and fly up a staircase and wham, into a door which is clearly non-interactive due to its pixelation. I get swarmed by about 5 combine, and its game over again.
Verdict: I'm looking forward to keep playing this, considering that its design strategy closely follows Valve's, which is superb. The jury is still out on whether or not the goals should have been clearer.
Also, "Enter the Mind"? Lame! What am I, twenty? I need to change that.
It looks like several "artists" I've been following for a while have come together and created something. I'll have to keep tabs on this:
thoughts on the audience
Wow. I just played another excellent example of platformer turned into a compelling mind-fuck indie game. Playable here.
UPDATE: I didn't really emphasize enough how important it is that you play this game, like right now. It questioned my meaning of existence, and its ending left me shocked for a long time afterwards. Please, please play it. And then comment here.
