According to yet another Facebook quiz said that my Mental Disorder (if ever I had one) is ADHD. I thought that I was just plain ADD, I mean I’m not hyper, not really, it’s the coffee, really! So yeah, well, being this attention deficit person, I constantly like doing things, but if I start one thing, and not get done by the day, chances are I won’t go back to it. So what I need is a list of all sorts of things to do for the February to keep me productive. I don’t have to do all of them, I could just pick one up and then put it back, or whatever. It’s just that I have tons of of ideas of stuff that I could do so I’m just gonna list them all ‘ere:
Fashion Photoshoot
‘coz I like having my pictures taken and experimenting with hair and makeup.
How to make a Game Video Tutorials
I am going to make a bunch of tutorials on teach hobbyist and little kiddies how to games using the beloved Unity game engine. Simple stuff, not the uber complicated ones, ‘coz I’m not even there.
Cosplay
And making costumes and props. On the list are Oerba Yun Fang from FFXIII, she has a staff, which is so cool. And then there’s Alice from Pandora Hearts and Aerith ‘coz my little sis insists on being Cloud. She loves Cloud’s sword.
Sabaw Games
Make little games that can be done in a day or a night. You know, really nonsensical ones that focus more on experimentation rather than sticking to a well known genre (mostly ‘coz I don’t actually play the well-known genres, and I don’t reall get them). I think this falls under indie gaming. Basically come up with a bunch of ideas for games based on stuff that pop in my head when I’m in the shower or walking to the office, and also based on the 3D models and characters I can filch of my sister and awesome architecture friend with mad skills in Sketch Up (Ruth, that’s you 
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Portfolio Website
I have been attempting this since forever. And the thing is, I asked my artist friends on what they put in their portfolios, and they would say their artworks and stuff, and they would wonder why I would ask, since being a programmer and all. I mean, sure I won’t put lines of codes in the portfolio, ‘coz one, that would be boring and two, well, eeew. The thing is though, (you know what, I hate labels. So what if I’m a programmer, does that automatically mean that the only art I can do is box art or cubes that jump around. I mean sure that could be cute with a smiley face on it, but seriously. I can do more than that), I do draw, I do write, I do and bunch of crazy weird things, like a rose out of chicken wire (I really did that), a paper dress (did that too, even had a little fashion shoot), oh I like having my pictures taken, so I have a bunch of pictures of myself (which is what models put on their portfolios, right, except I’m not a model, I’m too short and have no boobs). And I also make little toys (that’s what I call the little games I make in my free time, really really short ones, usually done in a day). And my stories and my many many poems. I am not a jack of all trades, because there is a bunch of stuff that I don’t know how to do, like sports, and dancing, and sports, and playing games, actually. But I am more than a programmer. And that is what I want to emphasize on my portfolio.
YA Novel
YA stands for Young Adult. Why this genre? ‘coz my sister got a book on how to write a YA novel, and I finished reading it. Also the story I have in mind is based on my work and college experiences (dejavu, or I mentioned this on my previous blog), but we are all so immature that we actually resemble a bunch of preteens who bully people and gossip.
Story Generator
My sister and I love to make up stories. We usually start out with inventing characters and choosing a setting and then think of a way to put these characters together, how they would etc. Most Korean dramas have a formula, the 4 people rule, there has to be 2 guys and 2 girls, and of course, another long list of staples (I made a list before). So anyway, ‘ere’s the idea, first you pick a setting, a period and place, and then the generator would generate the characters, you can specify how many characters you want to generate. It would generate entire lives of this characters and very very specific details, such as hair, and eye color (although you can also specify) and job, family background, etc. And then the generator would find encounter possibilities between these characters and then what might happen during the encounters, well, basically, it would make up the story for you. I attended a conference once, and this guy made a system that generates poems. So if I’m really geeky, it can even generate the text for you, Natural Language Generation style (eew).
True Non-Linear User Driven RPG
Meaning no branching dialogs. Everything, the encounters, the quests etc. are based on the user. This would be like a User Modeling powered Role Playing Game. I have thought about this since I went to that Natural Language conference last year. But I just don’t have to brains to pull it off. I don’t know why I was speaking at that said conference, but I, definitely could not pull off a flawless User Modeling and Natural Language Generation system.
Paper Doll Short Film
Actually it’s about doll wearing a paper dress. And posing in all the pretty places. Just kidding, it’s about a little girl growing up and leaving behind her doll. You know, cliche stuff. But hopefully, prettily executed.
Anywho…
What else?
Oh, if anyone reads this, and is interested in any of those stuff, talk to me.
I started a blog post at the start of January that was entitled “January is for Productivity”, well, that blog post, along with everything I have attempted to do this January have, well, gone nowhere.
It’s strange, at the start of the month, I was so perky and so hyped up about everything, but one two weeks into it, I lost interest. I am actually surprised. I know I have a very short attention span, but not this short. Or maybe the things that I gotten myself into weren’t really that interesting.
I kept saying how “hectic” my January is, but the truth is, it isn’t. It was actually rather dull.
I wanted to make games, I started two, and both, I only worked on for a day. I loose interest after a day. Oh, I meant my little indie games I do for fun, supposedly.
And this other thing, which I’m actually not interested in anymore. I guess, I just don’t like working with people.
I should really come up with a solid list of things that I should and would do for February and maybe the rest of the year. Well, I’m not doing Project 365 anymore, ‘coz I missed last month. Although I could still try to catch up, but that’s not really the point, right? I also stopped my being Coffee Free, I think I already made up for lost caffeine. Except, I realized that yes, coffee isn’t really good for me. After I had my second or third coffee, after my Coffee Free Year, I was so hyper when I got home, I started a YA novel.
Yeah, there. I will write that YA novel, it’s actually pretty interesting. It’s written as a Young Adult novel, but it is actually based on my work and college experiences, which goes to show how immature we are.
Anyway, it’s 4:25 am now, so I’m just going to go to bed now. ‘Night everyone.
[Blog Dump from my Gamasutra post]
Can “Hard Core” games be simplified to appeal to “Social” Gamers? I think so, and I’m going to look at some board games for ideas.
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First of all, thank you for all the responses you guys left on my last blog post about social gaming. And thank you Gamasutra for featuring it. 
One of the points raised in my blog post about the mind of a social gamer (este my mind), is that can “hard core” games appeal to a broader base of players, if it had cute graphics. My answer is probably, but it not only has to have cute graphics, it would also have to be simpler and easier to pick up.
So basically this blog post will be about how to simplify “Hard Core” games for “Social” gamers. “Hard Core” would mean those shooters, RPGs and tactical games, but for this post, I’m going to look into RPGs the most. “Social” gamers, aside from the fact that I am one, well, because most of my friends are also social gamers. Before Facebook,I could not imagine calling my friends gamers, because they aren’t, but with Farmville and Pet Society, they (along with alot of moms and dads and grandparents) are playing games now. So how do we simplify those RPG games? I thought we should look at some board games for ideas.
One of the activities my professor in Game Design (Ms. Luna Cruz), made us do is a board game out of paper. Our group even made a paper dice. Because if a game works on paper, it would probably work in a PC game. Not sure how you can make a paper shooter game though. Although, the ones that involve rubber bands and bullets made out of paper, that can work…
How I thought about looking at board games? Well, during one of our Board Game Nights (it’s an event my friends and I picked up from that chic flick with Jennifer Aniston, and started after we spent too much time in Hobbes and Landes),my friend (a med student who logs onto to Facebook first thing after getting home from school everyday, and then she studies) brought her brand new Game of Life : Pirates of the Caribbean edition.
Game of Life : Pirates of the Caribbean edition
Now this version of Game of Life is very different from all the other Game of Lifes I’ve played before, for one thing, you don’t play as yourself anymore, there are character cards that you pick at the start of the game, and the characters are of course, Johnny Depp-I-mean-Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann, Orlando Bloom este Will Turner, and the rest of the gang, and each character has different perks, like Jack Sparrow always seem to get the most loot, etc. And I thought, hey, it’s like role playing. And as the game goes along, you can even get a pet,and a ship. Now comes the interesting part, you can buy ships, you can also steal ships from other players, by challenging them to a duel este wheel spin-off, and the one with a higher number (plus the some other number depending on their character, I think) gets the ship. So this got me thinking, why it’s like the dice rolling in Dungeons and Dragons to determine an action. Now D&D is supposedly the classic RPG. And it’s also the basis of Neverwinter Nights, right? (correct me, if I’m wrong). So this whole board game thing got me thinking, although it has a few RPG elements, and it was simple enough that my friends (including my friend’s 9 yr old cousin) got it and enjoyed it.
Now another game (on another Board Game Night), my other friend (who now works as a banker) introduced to us is Citadels. It is a card game, but there is a ot of strategy involved. And this too, has some RPG elements.
Citadels
First off, is that this too, has different kind of characters, and at the start of the game, you are assigned a character, like assassin, thief, magician, merchant etc. And each of this characters have specific and unique abilities, like the assassin can, of course, kill someone, and the thief can steal, etc. Well, the goal of the game is to build citadels (in the form of district cards) , and you can build citadels using gold. On a player’s turn, he can either get gold, build a citadel or perform any character specific action, after he is done, the next player plays, and so on. So basically, it’s a turn based game. What’s tricky is that, sometimes, before it even got to your turn, the assassin already killed you, and you loose that turn. Of course, you can always plan your revenge as you wait it out (you can also collaborate with another player). So at the end of the day, we realized that it is actually more of a strategy game. It sounded complicated at first, but we picked it up pretty quickly, and we also love this one.
Okay, one last board game (before I realize that I’m really just forcing it), Bang! (I can’t seem to find a picture of us playing it, though). Now Bang! was introduced to us just last Christmas, by my other friend (I think he works in marketing, even though his college degree is similar to mine), it came in a metal case shaped like a bullet (I can’t believe we don’t have a picture of that!), how adorable is that? Now with Bang!, now this one, you have characters, abilities and roles. It’s like the card game, wherein there is a police, a bad guy and some civilians, and the police has to figure out who the bad guy is, and the bad guy, just well, kill peopl. So in Bang!, after we picked our role cards (sheriff, vice sheriff, renegade, outlaw, etc.), we don’t show it to the other players (aside from the sheriff, the sheriff’s card is shown and he even gets a badge). We also get character cards, like the other games, each character has a different ability. Oh, and the characters also have lives (like any shooter game, right?), different characters have different number of lives. And so the game begins, there is a deck of cards (action cards? I suppose we can call them that), some are Bang! cards, which can be used to shoot any player, and there are also cards can reinforce your Bang! cards, like a scope and burst (why, it’s llike weapon attachments in shooter games). There are also heal cards (rum and whiskey, lol). And basically that’s it. So after playing that and describing the game in the blog post, it made me realize, hey, it’s a bit like a shooter gaame too, I think. We only got to play a round of this game, but after that, we already started planning our next Board Game Night, because this game needs to be played again.
Oh, by the way, the reason why I kept mentioning what my friends does, is to show how diverse we are, and how different our interests are, but even so, we all found those board games amusing.
So to summarize a bit, this board games obviously have some PC gameplay elements. And yet, they managed to simplify it, so that kids of all ages (I think) and social gamers, non gamers, hard core gamers (?) would understand it and enjoy it (or maybe it’s just us, who are board game fans). But how do they do it?
For RPGs, I got the definition of RPG off Wikipedia, and basically it says that RPGs, are games wherein players assume roles of a fictional character and the success rate of the actions taken in the game are determined by rules. Sound simple enough, right?
Oh by the way, when I said that I want to simplify “Hard Core” games for “social” gamers, I was thinking of something along the line of… the best game I played last year… Plants VS Zombies! Now, that is basically a tower defense game, and I am usually not a fan of tower defense games, but Plants VS Zombies is really nice. It was of course, first and foremost cute (I love how the Sunflower sings at the end. There are Zombies on the lawn…), and it was also very simple to understand. And I think that is what I am aiming for, easy to pick up games. Oh three cheers for Plants VS Zombies for being one of the best games last year.
Anyway, back to the topic.
So RPGs that are easy to pick up and play. Exactly, like those board games mentioned above. I know, RPGs (I just realized that I might have said RPG games, instead of just RPG, anyway) usually allow the user to customize their characters, as in, they get to, of course, change the look of your character (my favorite part), they also allow you to customize seemingly every single statistic of the character (my least favorite part), because I don’t get it, I just don’t. In the board games, they didn’t give you a chance to pick your stats anymore or allow you to customize your character.
Oh by the way, feel free to correct (or bash) me, because I don’t really know much about complicated RPGs. For me, what makes an RPG fun is the story and the cutscenes. What makes a RPG complicated is the stats allocation bit at the start of the game.
So, I think the stats bit can be obstructed from the player, or that it can be simplified (remove those that sounds complicated). Strength and speed, we can still understand but, some of the rest just leaves me scratching my head.
Omigosh, could it be, I ran out of things to say?
Oh, another RPG element that confuses me, when it come to abilities. There are just to many kinds of abilities for one character. And it gets confusing, especially if the player is only playing the game between Alt Tabs. What those board games did, they only gave one ability per character. You can of course, have more than one ability still, but try to lessen it, so that the player can master it more.
What else?
Well, obviously, there is no dice rolling in Facebook, all those are already obstructed, which already makes it simpler. I mean, the player no longer have to add up numbers to figure out if he can do that action or not. Well, obviously, all the existing RPGs already has that down.
So yeah, so far this is what occured to me. I will probably read my blog post again and come up with even more ideas. I hope this blog post helps you guys too.
Oh and once again, feel free to comment, bash or whatever. Thanks for reading!
but I kept my feet solid on the ground.”
-Layla Dominguez, a character in my NaNoWriMo novel, “Grasping Air”
I like making little toys (games) during my spare time, but my attention span is so short that I would usually get bored of it and move on, so all I have is a handful of unfinished toys.
‘ere are some of them:
The Toys for Santa’s Factory
I was too busy with Christmas parties, pre-Christmas, so I wasn’t able to finish it. Finishing a Christmas game after Christmas isn’t really acceptable, so this project remain unfinished.
The toys are drawn using Wacom Bamboo tablet in Adobe Flash, while the game was made in Unity.
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A sketch of myself using Wacom Bamboo tablet in Adobe Flash.
I have waited for almost a year to write this, lol. Okay, maybe for a couple of months. My last blog post was back in September, whoa, back when the townhomes in our subdivision was flooded, now that was bad. I have not been blogging much lately, sigh. Truth is, I’m not really sure what I have been doing exactly for the past year, because it all seem like a blur. So yeah, let’s go through it one by one.
First off-
Coffee Free for 365 Days
I made a resolution last year that I would stop drinking coffee, because I was getting so hyper. So this year, I did not drink coffee, not even once! And according to my thesismate/officemate Gina, I talk slower and walk slower now. So I guess that’s good, right? I can slow down now.
Unforutnately, WP doesn’t support Javascript, but I made a little web widget that counts the number of days that I have been coffee free. So ‘ere’s a screenie (why is the WP uploading thing so slooow today? anyways TinyPic to the rescue):
Oookay, it says I have been coffee free for 368 days, so turns out, I have stopped drinking coffee even before last year was over. Yeah for me.
Project 365
I only got to around 200ish. So that’s a fail. But for old times sake, I will put it all here, or maybe in another post. I got desperate at the end, and even added my photoshoots to Project 365, which isn’t how I planned my Project 365 to go. So anyway, next year, I will actually draw one picture everyday. I have decided on the theme, 365 Faces. Since I love drawing faces. I used to go for realism, which is great and all, and last year, I focused on finding my own style, and stylized the faces, which is also good too, I guess, but I liked the realism ones I drew years ago better. So I don’t know about next year. I don’t know yet.
[I'm going to take a peak at last year's yearender post for a bit. Hold on.]
Umm…
Next up-
NaNoWriMo
I wrote a 50k+ word novel in a month. Well, that is what NaNoWriMo is about, 30 days of insane writing. I am very happy that I finished this, ‘coz I attempted this last year and failed pretty miserably. So yeah. It’s a romance novel, ‘coz I’m so fluffy. I am actually kind of excited to write a sequel for the book. Ooh, part of winning NaNoWriMo, is that I can get my book printed as a proof copy (with ISBN number, etc.) for free via CreateSpace. I haven’t gotten around to editing the novel yet, but I will, I promise. I actually haven’t found a picture for the cover, though. But once I do, I will definitely have it printed.
Gamasutra Featured Blog Post
I haven’t been blogging ‘ere, but I have written one blog post on Gamasutra and it got featured that week, which means I won a lifetime subscription to Game Developer magazine. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds a bit petty, but Gamasutra is sort of the industry website for games and being featured there, is pretty cool. Although, like always, my post is pretty fluffy.
ARTWORK Tshirt FAIL
Last year, my Tshirt got to the Top 100, this year, well, they only featured 50 finalists, so well, my shirt wasn’t one of them. Poor execution. I basically crammed it in a day, so that didn’t turn out so well. Oh well. I don’t even have a picture of my shirt, because I was cramming and didn’t even have time to camwhore.
[Okay, read through this year's resolution, turns out coffee free is not one of them, my gosh, I feel cheated. But Project 365, and NaNoWrimo is.]
Games
I am a big fan of Unity now, now that it is free. I love them. So anyway, Unity is a game engine, and now that it is free, I made a couple of teeny tiny games in my spare time. Although I never finish them, ‘coz I have a short attention span and if I don’t finish it in a day, chances are, I’ll never get back to it. So yeah. For next year’s resolution: Finish everything I started and will start. In short, finish everything, stop leaving things half baked! If I get game ideas, I will write them down! As a pitch document or a full fledged Game Design Document.
Cosplay
Yeah, one thing I started this year is cosplay. You probably read about it in a lot previous blog posts already. It started with Chii and the last character I cosplayed is Lal Mirch from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Next year, ‘ere comes the list: Lightning or Oerba Yun Fang from FFXIII; Len or Rin from Vocaloid; Aerith from FFVII; and possibly Alice from Pandora Hearts. Ooh, short list. Oh wait, FFXIII Agito and Rozen Maiden.
Photoshoots
New addiction, having my picture taken. We have quite a few of those this year too.
Portfolio
Now, a portfolio is something I never gotten around to do. I really should, I except, I really don’t know where to start. That is going on next year’s resolution too.
[Now I am going through all the blog drafts that I started and never gotten to finish.]
Aww this year’s post, is so image light.
Let’s add some?
Okay, anyway, that’s it for now, I will prolly post some more later.
After Bagyong Ondoy.
Picture taken by my sister.
I haven’t written much lately, but I was inpired yesterday, to write something, so I opened up OneNote (where I kept most of my little scribbles) and I started clicking on the tabbed pages and read some of my old works, and some are pretty good, so I thought I’d share it with you guys.
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Signs
She is strangely superstitious.
She looks for signs,
no,
she chases them.
She believes in dreams and
what they tell her.
The universe is her master,
she listens to him.
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This Girl
She takes the train everyday.
She stands at the station and waits
for the wave of people
like ocean tide to pour her into
the train that just arrived at the station.
She walks the streets everyday.
She stares ahead, oblivious to everything around her,
the steel and glass buildings that rise into the sky,
the fast-driven cars that leaves a trail of smog,
and the wave, again,
of people with countless faces
that blends into one another.
If you get close enough,
you can hear her hum a song to herself,
as if a band is playing in her head.
If you get close enough,
you can see how her hand seem to clasp itself,
as if holding on to the hand of a friend,
or a lover.
Even if you get close enough,
you can feel her look through you,
and make you wonder,
what’s behind you that’s so interesting.
But when you turn around, there’s nothing there.
She tears of the last of her toenail
from her bleeding toes,
the people on the train had
stepped on her feet again.
She rubs a sore
on her shoulder,
The people on the street had
bumped into her again.
She wonders why people,
even if she gets close enough,
look through her.
Am I that uninteresting?
When she looks in the mirror,
she feels, it’s true.
She takes the train everyday.
She stands at the station,
and closes her eyes.
She hears the sound of the distant train
approaching.
She takes a step forward.
The wave pours in,
the train pulls out of the station.
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Strange Little Girl
Title from Tori Amos’ “Strange Little Girl”
She sets up a board game for one.
She hums to herself the songs in her head.
She has conversations with characters
from her dreams,
and stories she read.
She picks up a pen and writes,
and writes and writes
until there is nothing left
to write.
She picks up a brush and paints the sky
with rainbows
and stars that never fade.
She smiles her secret smile,
as she crosses the street
holding on to the hands
of air.
She listens,
closes her eyes and listens,
the sound of the train approaching.
She takes a step forward,
and joins her imaginary friends,
Forever.
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Untitled
inserting a pretty adjective or two in between.
She likes to grab a pen and write,
and write and write,
until the entire page is filled
with scribbles that are supposed to have meaning.
But her emotions
don’t need to be overcomplicated
by fancy words and beautiful ideas.
Sad, is merely, sad,
just as happy, is merely, happy.
but she don’t know what they’re laughing about.
She wants to picture the places they describe,
but she never been there,
and don’t even know where to begin.
She wants to sing along,
but she don’t know the lyrics to their songs.
She draws into herself,
like a ball that shrinks
smaller and smaller,
as the world around her gets
bigger and bigger.
She draws into herself,
singing along to the song in her head.
She draws into herself,
imagining her own endings to her life stories.
She draws into herself,
drawing pictures, writing stories about a life
that is not hers.
She locks her feelings in a box
And throws the key into the bottom of the ocean
So that no one can see
Her feelings
Of hurt, of jealousy, of sadness
Of anger
She pushes the box deeper into her dresser
As she paints a smile on her face
She looks into the mirror,
She is happy.
It seems to be a must for bloggers. Well, it’s late, but I’m still gonna write something anyway. I was planning to write it before my birthday, but my DSL has been crappy the past weeks. Anyhoo…
So I’m 22 now. And insignificant age, it’s not like 21 or 18. So I’d rather turn 21 again, than turn 22. ‘coz 21 was a big. Last year, I graduated (thesis submission was actually on my birthday), I started working (and has been working for almost almost a year now). Big stuff.
The other day on my way to work (the very long walk from the MRT to the office, which is about 3 blocks away), I was thinking, did I know that I was going to be a game developer? To make games for a living, how cool is that. But I’m just thinking, that last year, when I was graduating, I didn’t know I’d be where I am right now. I’ve been hanging out in game engine forums lately and most of the people there are 13-14 year olds. Kiddies, who at their age already set their minds on making games for the rest of their lives. While I, at 13 I think I wanted to be a fashion designer, with a sketchbook filled with designs and all that. But that’s not where I am. The year before I entered college, when we were picking out courses, I wasn’t even sure then what I wanted to do. I was just telling my officemate the other day (who was CompSci and then shifted to Multimedia Arts), that when I entered CompSci that, it was the same as MMA, and I wanted to shift too, but I graduated and that’s that. I still thought about it, after graduation, but after entering work, I figured that I don’t need it. I’ll try to pick up some 3D stuff from watching my artist officemates. And I don’t know, even though I’m supposedly an adult now, I still feel like a kid, or like a student anyway, mostly since I don’t wear work clothes nor have a fixed time schedule. And mostly, because I don’t really know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life yet.
I used to make lots of plans, but now, I don’t want to. ‘coz they don’t turn out the way we want and we’d only get disappointed. Instead, I want to just live you know. Just flow. Mostly it feels like sleepwalking, but I’m okay, I like it, it has this dreamy feel to it, and I’m happy.
Lately, I am dreaming, or at least living feels like dreaming. Blurry and glowing around the edges (or maybe it’s just my glasses getting fuzzy or the fact that I’m not wearing glasses when I’m cosplaying, lol).
I don’t want to wake up, yet. I’ll maybe wake up eventually. But right now, I don’t want to. I just want to keep daydreaming and sleepwalking.
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Currently Reading: “Dear John” by Nicholas Sparks
Currently Watching: “Men in Trees”
Currently Listening to: Skillet
Korenovela like cutscene.
