How To
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April 24 2012
Apps? Fun Stuff vs Productive Tools
By now you’ve seen the commercial a dozen times. The little-girl-turned-aspiring-actress that bemoans her parents’ data plan. Seems the folks have had to make some tough decisions as to what stays and what goes on the old “smartie” phone. Hello, micro-strategy app: goodbye charming video of their daughter, dressed as a tree, and her stunning delivery of her only line in the school play (“Watch out for my roots!”). She chides her parents, as only a precocious child actor can, about their prioritization of a business-related app over preserving this precious…
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April 17 2012
Bring out your dead: Tupac comes back as a “hologram” at Coachella
Music fans were shocked this week when a dead rap star appeared on stage and shouted “What up, Coachella?” before performing. It was pretty convincing. To say it went viral is a bit of an understatement. If you still haven’t seen it, you can check out the video here. As the twitterverse lit up with tweets from fans and celebs alike, you might be wondering, “So how exactly did they do that?” Well, you start with a vision from Dr. Dre, add an Oscar winning CGI company called Digital Domain, and a…
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April 10 2012
Game Balance
Game Balance Recently I have been working on some game design for a two player fighting game. The first rule of these sorts of games is to maintain a proper balance. In games, balance is a term used to encompass a handful of ideas, such as fairness and difficulty. Balance in games is not strictly for video games, but card games, table top role playing games, board games and even sports. When one is challenged with designing a game of some sort, balance must be in the front of the designers…
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March 13 2012
What I get to go to this week!
I’m in the City of Angels this week to go to the first 5D Flux conference, and I’m actually quite excited. The focus of the event is ‘digital design & world building in the narrative media landscape.’ A month ago I met Alex McDowell at Trans4m and he told me about his new venture, 5D. After many years of working in feature filmmaking with a focus on 3D and production design he was now looking to bring the concept of World Building to folks outside of the entertainment field. I shared…
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February 7 2012
The Joys of Dungeon Mastering
The Joys of Dungeon Mastering: I have just picked up the reigns of mine and my friends long running Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Thanks to Skyrim coming out while I was planning for this adventure, my story is all about dragons taking over the world. Oddly enough, in our three years of adventuring, we’ve never actually faced off against a dragon. I decided to flip that around and turn dragons from the ultimate end boss of the storyline to the most prominent and visible creatures in the game world. First night…
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