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boiling point

August 29, 2008 · by · in

I’ve not talked about games or game design for a bit due to the byzantine wording of my work contract.  Now that I’m not under that part of the contract, let’s talk.  This will be a lot of quick thoughts, with more detailed posts to come on some ideas.

–  A game about game design and running a game studio, styled like the oldschool Koei-styled sim games like AeroBiz.  Do you hire more artists?  More managers?  Do you give your lead programmer a raise?  Who do you side with in a crucial branding debate?
– Along those lines, what works better?  Design by committee, design by democracy, or design by autocracy?  I suspect the best answer is a combination of all three.

– To switch gears to a quick aside MMOs and team games in general:  what sort of bonus size would be requried to enforce sophisticaed co-operation between random players?

– A game about politics and political campaings:  DEMAGOGUE.

– A game like Final Fantasy Tactics, but in real time.  (Is this just WarCraft III?  Or would it be different?)

– Moving to some more personal experiences, I’m pretty sure I’m over D20 style randomness.  I played in a 3.5 game this summer (we started about a month before 4e dropped), and I can’t describe to how frustrating it was to work out this great plan…and then miss twice, or hit and deal 12 damage out of a possible 30.  For me, this ruins the combat side of the both as a power fantasy and as a worthy tactical game.

–  A game I was introduced to that I really enjoyed was Bohnaza, a game about…farming beans.  Yes, really.  Under the ridiculous premise, there’s a very clever resource management system and lots of interplayer politicing.  “I’ll give you three Wax Beans for that Green Bean”, and so on.

– Munchkin, which I can’t believe I’ve never played until now, had the same sort of thing going on:  the best parts of the game are the debates between players, trying to decide who to save, and who to screw over.

-BoomBlox, moving into the digital realm, has a ton of game modes, but the best is ‘Attack’, which, wait for it, leads to the same debate:  Let’s both kill green!  I think Penny-Arcade summed it up best here.

– And, of course, we played a few round of late-night Mafia, proving once and for all that if I am ever accused of anything, I will be found guilty.  Unsurprisingly, Mafia was invented in the Psych department of Moscow State University.  Leave it to the Russians to make a party game about paranoia.  Oddly enough, almost all of these games can be won with the “shut up and let other people talk” philosophy that works so well in other free-for-all games.

food is books

August 27, 2008 · by · in ,

Vancouver Restaurant Summer, 2008 Edition:
FINCH’S, Pender & Richards

KADOYA, Davie

GUU, Gastown

CLOVE, Commercial Drive

THE TEMPLETON, Granville

KAPPA, White Rock

THAI AWAY HOME, Davie

KHAI, Seymour & Robson

SIMBA’S, Denman

(I also want to talk about some books and comics and suchlike)

PHONOGRAM is really good, and speaks to the raver / ex-raver in me.  Gillien and McKelvie are talking about the heat-death of scene, and when that’s good and when that’s bad.  It’s a good comic to read as techno lurches and heaves towards another one of its demises.  DARWINIA is so so close to being an amazing sci-fi / alt history novel about religion and science and miracles…and then Robert Charles Wilson goes and pours on the techno-nonsense and it all goes to hell.  ANNA MERCURY, by Warren Ellis, is going somewhere, and I’m not sure where, and I like that.  Will be following it, probably in trades, like DOKTOR SLEEPLESS.  I’ve not been feeling FREAKANGELS as much, but it’s free, so who can complain?  Finally, I can’t belive that I’ve not mentioned Jonathan Hickman’s PAX ROMANA yet, because it’s beautiful and amazing.  Image have managed to delay the living hell out of it, but #3 claims to be coming in October.

we believe in maximum effect

August 18, 2008 · by · in

The summer of hip-hop comes to a triumphant conclusion:
Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass is an oddly indie and suprisingly bad-ass sounding affair, mostly because of Aesop’s ridiculously low voice and never-ending lyrics.  Blockhead’s production does no harm, although the album’s eponymus cut is both the catchiest and the biggest depature.  Instead of low-slung NYC funk, it’s a melodic, borderline techno sort of jam.  I was surprised as you are, but probably substantially more pleased.

RJD2 – Since We Last Spoke isn’t a bad album, but nor is it a good one.  The universal response to me telling people that I picked it up used was “oh, you should have got Deadringer” – and I can’t disagree with that statement.

Madvillain – Madvillany gets the award for being the most stoned and most San Francisco album of the summer – it’s also one of the best, with loose, textured production, casual words from MF Doom, and a bit of a (stoned!) sense of humour.

Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) ain’t nothin’ to fuck with!  Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck with!  Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck with!  Now I see why people big up the RZA so much:  because the man can write a drum track and drop a sample.

Blackalicious – NIA makes me smile, mostly because of the breadth of topics covered.  There’s a typical “rapper makes it big and forgets his friends” tune, given voice by the amazingly annoying Lyrics Born, a ridiculous jam about a magic sword, a delightful big-up track about an archetypal all-mother, and any number of get-down numbers hidden in between.

So the only question now is:  what’s next summer?

VEMF 2k8: 50,000 kickdrums

August 8, 2008 · by · in ,

(Photo by Davey B.  Further pics by Davin here)

I had a pretty darn good weekend at the 2008 edition of the Victoria Electronic Music Festival, thank you very much.  Highlights included:

Greenlaw:  I’d always missed seeing this live D&B pair before, so I was really happy to catch them playing an opening slot with lots of verve and lots of acoustic instruments – flute, trumpet, bass guitar, and vox from both members.  Lovely, summery stuff, for the most part.

The Angry Samoan:  Keoni, playing a middle slot on the Saturday, just killed it, sliding around what I think of as his typical tribal / tech style in all kinds of different directions.
Kenzie Clarke & Nathan Jonson:  The nice part about VEMF weekend is that the lousy club opening slots aren’t lousy, because the clubs are full from 10:15.  On opening duties at Sugar, Kenzie & Nathan proved that no one adds sass to techno quite the way they do.
AFK:  Our very own progressive house legend played some positively demolishing tunes, and took home the award for both MOST MELODIES and BEST MELODIES with consummate ease.

Gobe:  One of the problems with dubstep is that you really do need speakers that can shake the earth.  Gobe went up one side of the Sunset Room speaker system and down the other during an utterly exacting set of the stuff that was a fantastic way to close out my weekend.

My set with Matt went well – some tricks worked especially well, some were iffy.  I learnt how to work my EFX with the new Pioneer mixer, managed to accidentially stop the music 5 minutes too early, and we basically picked everyone up by the scruff of their collective necks and got them dancing.  Llllllook out for our next show at Hush on September 13th, for both our birthdays, with Davey B on opening patrol.

Lastly, I can’t that the VEMF team enough:  Bruce, Davin, Adam, Derrick, Chelsie, etc, etc, etc:  you’re all grand and I really appreciate the time you spend on this shindig.

my music: let me show you them

July 22, 2008 · by · in

Two new sets, because I loooooove you:

^^ Rigorous house / tech / prog / electro, from myself and Braeden.

^^ A metaphorical blast of a mixtape, from the proverbial past.  Does exactly what it says on the tin.

math gets all over your face

July 20, 2008 · by · in ,

Math is a problem.  In fact, math is several problems, or many problems, or a multitude of problems, depending on who you ask.  Having survived first year math at UVic, my problem with Math is in the teaching.

The issue here is simple:  hidden under all the rote learning and memorizatiom, math is actually a *creative* subject.

Let me be more explicit:  The most important skill in math is to be able to solve a problem using the tools and information that you have at hand.  This gets harder when you have to transform the given information to get what you need – and it gets harder still when you have to transform the tools you have to get the correct result.  These require increasing degrees of creative thought, or imaginative thought, or abstract thought, or whatever you want to call it.  Newton and Leibniz had it in spades, to dream up calculus.  So did Euler, to conjure up i out of nothing.  Likewise whoever thought up the concept of zero in the 7th century or so.

Is there a way to teach this sort of skill?  In a perfect world, we’d have one math teacher per child, and everyone would learn algebra in grade 4.  But we live in a brutally imperfect world.  Is there, then, a way to make a game along the lines of Brain Age that could teach synthesis of concepts like this?  And could it be made fun?

On the face of it, that doesn’t seem like a very tough thing to do.  Line up a series of questions & problems, sort them into sections, allow for a varying number of valid solutions…and we’ve just described a typical math textbook.  Oops.

What we need is a game that is more than a game:  a system that allows for answers that may come from outside the system.  And that’s where things get difficult, because it then becomes impossible to have a concrete set of answers, or even a concrete set of methods and hints.  The way I solve a problem about area may not be the way you solve a problem about area, and neither of them may be the ‘traditional’ way of finding the answer.  I’ll point you to the diabolical Ovuerture Facile as a kind of inverse reference:  OF forces you to do something odd and non-linear to find the ‘answer’.  Our hypothetical math-game would have to support any odd and non-linear way possible to find the answer.

sundays are for lying

July 13, 2008 · by · in , ,

And also for ideas.

I went to The Cheaper Show #8 near the end of June, and got thinking about the nature of selling art.  The Cheaper Show gets a TON of pieces together in one place, and sells them all for the same price: $200, in this case.  (They also have clever-awful ads that say things like BUY ART NOT COCAINE, but that’s beside the point.)  This got me thinking, as I was discussing pieces with my friends:  would people buy more art if they could remix it?  And would that art be better?
For example, there was a piece that had a red circle in it.  I would’ve liked it much more without said circle.  Would the artist be willing to make me a copy without the circle?  Or, contrawise, would the artist say “No, sorry, the circle’s too important, you can’t change it – but you can change this other thing, would that help?”

This, of course, assumes that you have the art in digital and can make high-quality prints of it easily – which limits things somewhat, both technically and philosophically.
On the music front, I had the somewhat insane though of “a Markov chain of Markov chains…which wouldn’t actually be that hard to do, and certainly not in code.  I also have a note to talk a bit about graph theory and tonal harmonic theory, which is basically the same thing as a Markov chain, really.  From I you have lots of choices, but some are more likely than others.  Then, from VI, you have fewer choices, and so on.

Of coures, the real interesting things start happening when you change the parameters away from western tonal harmony…

Finally:

Four Tet – Ringer [Domino]
Four Tet – Swimmer [Domino]
Agoria – Les Violons Ivres [Different]
Matt Rowan – Hot Steppin (Soliquid Remix) [Proton]
Jaytech & Rowan – Noodles [Cuurve]
Kosmas Epsilon – Soho (RR Edit) [Sick Watona]
Ladyhawke – Back Of The Van (Fred Falke Mix) [Modular]
Maurice – Feline [Distinctive]
Morgan & Shiu – 8 Feet Under (AFK Remix) [Powerplant]
Innerzone Orchestra – Bug In The Bass Bin [Planet E]

tracklists on your six!

July 7, 2008 · by · in , ,

Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince – Summertime (Hybrid Mix) [Jive]
The Lotterboys – Blazer [Eskimo]
Ilmli – All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go (Habersham Remix)
Ricardo Tobar – Boy Love Girl Song [Border Community]
Ricardo Tobar – Psprf Frame [Border Community]
Ricardo Tobar – Voy a Buscar [Border Community]
Pin Me Down – Cryptic (Phones Materialisation Mix) [Kitsune]
Xinobi – Day Off (Anoraak Remix) [Discotexas]
Michael Cassette – Shadows Movement [AnjunaDeep]
Joshua Ryan – Pistolwhip (James Holden Remix) [NuLife]

We have some AMAZING tunes line up for Tide Pool, by the by…but, of course, I have no solid release dates for any of them.  C’est la vie.

Finally, I’m playing at VEMF on the Sunday, August 3rd, from 4:00 to 5:00 with DJ What.  We’ll be playing awesome dance music.  Join us!

liner notes from the future

June 28, 2008 · by · in

It has been a good summer for albums, and we’re only halfway through it.  To wit:

Atmosphere – When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold is a gorgeous, gorgeous album of utterly tragic hip-hop.  The production, (with one or two annoying exceptions) is lush, acoustic magic, and the vocals are profoundly, profoundly depressing.  As an indicator of what I mean by depressing, the two upbeat tunes are about cocaine and speed, repsectively.  With that said, it remains a gorgeous album.

Cyne – Evolution Fight is less overwhemlingly sad, but also less varied in terms of backing tunes:  Piano over samples breaks is pretty much the order of the day.  This is by no means a bad thing, especialy where songs like ‘Arrow Of God’ are concerned…but a track or two that didn’t all have the same sounds would be nice.

Steinski – What Does It All Mean, of course, all sounds like Steinski.  This is a mind-melting album:  A first disc of the man’s legendary bootleg / mashup / mixes, including ‘Lesson 2’, ‘Lesson 3’, and ‘The Payoff Mix’ and then a second disc with his (mind-boggling) Solid Steel mix from 2002.  Sample culture owes this man a huge debt of gratitude, and this music is why.

Baby Loves Hip-Hop Presents – The Dino 5.  What happens when Prince Paul collects a bunch of hip-hop’s finest?  They make a kid’s album.  About dinosaurs.  With tracks like ‘I May Be Big and Scary But I’m Really Pretty Nice’.  Obviously.  This is pure class – thanks to Terence for the tip.

Steve Reich – Music For 18 Musicians.  My feelings on Mr. Reich are pretty well known.  That is to say, I love this album.

Jesse Somfay – A Catch In The Voice.  The next album by one of Canada’s finest techno people sounds like being lost in a forest with light tumbling through the trees.  A deer may nuzzle your hand, and then leap away.  Beautiful stuff.

Limbo – First Person is my pal Liam from deepest Saskatchewan.  His first album is all psy-edged techno, detuned pads, gorgeous leads, and sly, snappy drums.  Highlights are ‘I Like Turtles’ and ‘Flying Kites’, which sounds like every Minilogue track ever mixed into a single 10-minute joyride.

the answer, to your problems

June 22, 2008 · by · in

Music dump! (And there’s kind of a lot)
Rennie Foster – A Commitment To Transit (Fractal Remix) [Gemini]
Davis & May – Goldwashed Illusions [Back Home]
Qbical – Dust In The Cartridge [Manual]
Ignition Technician – Untitled 1 [Pirate Audio]
Perc – Serious Moonlight [CLR]
Richley & Rivera – Trackman (Gaetano Parisio Mix)
Hrdvsion – Playing For Daddy’s Girl [Wagon Repair]
Gark Beck  – Madrid [Shrimp & Chips]
Gaiser – Chlorine [Minus]
Minilogue – Ghost [Mule]
Heartthrob – Apprectice [Minus]
Kyle Geiger – Glide [Drumcode]
Rekorder – Rekorder 10.3 [Rekorder]
Perc – Troll Bait [Drumcode]
Michal Ho – Screw The Coffeemaker (Adam Beyer Remix) [Tuning Spork]

Lophase – Chlo’s Dream (Limbo Remix) [FullBodySoundSystem]
Soliquid – Blue Bubbles & Pink Rabbits [Proton]
Soliquid – Sunflower Therapy [Proton]
Kasey Taylor – Peaches (Luke Chable Remix) [Iboga]
Klien & Eyerer – Babylon [Kling Klong]
Inner City – Good Life (Mathew Jonson Remix) [KMS]
Hrvsion – Playing For Keeps (Daddy’s Angel) [Wagon Repair]

Russian Linesman – Mouth [Archipel]
Rennie Foster – Devil’s Water []
Nina Simone – Here Comes The Sun (Francois K Remix) [Innervisions]
Daso – Chair & Table [Spectral]
System 7 – Planet 7 (Holden Remix) [A-Wave]
Quivver – Surin [Boz Boz]
Fractal – Mistroad (Dance Mix) [Tide Pool]
Eelke Kliejn – It All Comes Together [Audio Therapy]

Sandji – A Walk At The Sunset Seaside [Proton]
Feihstel & Ukumori – You Made Me Smile (Instrumental) [Proton]
Ryan Davis – Clouds Passing By [Proton]
Ryan Davis – Wide Open Spaces [Klang Gymnastik]
Dibby Dougherty – Lights Out (Chloe Harris Remix) [Dyami]
Rex The Dog – Circulate [Kitsune]
Rex The Dog – italian Blond [Kitsune]
KIM – Fistogram [Modular]