geek your way to love

First things first: Come and see me opening for Shiloh at Hush, tomorrow. They’re fantastic, I’m fantastic. Simple. Now then:

Networked Music Review has a link to some gloriously otaku in-game music playing in Lord Of The Rings Online. I don’t know how much support Second Life gives to this kind of thing, and I have a feeling that the latency is still bad enough to prevent duets. However, as latency improves, online ensembles will become more and more plausible. I will, in fact, bet you money that they’ll eventually turn into their own games / interfaces / programs, etc. At the moment, MacBooks come standard with webcams. What if they came standard with mics and ‘GarageJam’ software? ‘GarageJam’ being, of course, GarageBand plus a friends list and an “Let’s Jam” button for when you’re bored and want to play / make / create music with a friend.

Damn. Now I’m all excited about that. Moving on to video games. GamaSutra did an interview with the guy who designed Elite. In it, he talks about emergent gameplay, AI-driven missions, proper “non-linear” stories in mainstream games, and so on. Meanwhile, Grand Text Auto linked to a bunch of articles about table-top gaming and how story evolved in them. Greg Costikyan’s essay is a really good read and a really good history lesson.

Those have got me thinking, mostly about quantization of narrative, to give it a high-falutin’ title. I will post more about it, later, when math is not calling my name as much, and when I can form thoughts better. Most of what I want to say is dealt with in those two linked articles. Read them!