Parents Just Tend to Blame It On Computer Games
“Computer games are addictive.”
This is where all fun ends and the horror begins. Computer games are said to be stealing away the fun of traditional toys like Lego. Parents also believe that this new toy promote individual isolation therefore reducing the participation in a child’s creativity growth.
Toy in general is fun and addictive. The computer game is on a different level of fun and additivity. In Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun, fun is learning and learning is fun. The computer game is a very powerful learning medium for it is a platform of unconscious learning.
Most parents believe that they are excluded from the child’s creativity growth when the virtual world invades. I am going to turn the table around today.
This time I will just focus on the number of players in a game. Different modes of play serves different types of participations and experiences.
Single Player Games
Early computer games are majority single player games. This is where parents complain about individual but if there is audience, this could be a different story. Audience can give guidance and comments to help the player along the way. It is a good way to observe the process of learning, the best way to know how a mind works. If the player plays a game well and want to give the audience a great experience, cinematic games are perfect for this type of participation.
Two Players Only Games
There are 2 types, one that rival against each other and helping each other. This type of game only focus on the participation of 2 players. Best for building close bonds. Audience do not have much fun watching. Recommended for parents and siblings. (Drinking session maybe?)
Online Games
The best thing about online? Social convenience. It is not so hard to find a friend to play with you now. Players are having fun making new friends and most importantly, getting things done in a team. The level of competitiveness in game is a moist environment for team building. Weird thing is, parents treat real players in virtual worlds as fakes and their reason is standard, “You don’t even see them.” Well try playing MMORPGs with parents and let them know how real they are! Invite your family to play, I am sure that your family are going to make a great team!
Children love sharing the fun and I am sure that everyone had ask their parents to play a game with them before, but then again they would usually answer:
“I don’t know how to play.”
Dear gamers, parents are actually afraid of trying new things. So be patience on educating parents about games, I guarantee that the return is priceless.
Yes, I am back from China and hope you enjoyed my opening blog post.
inspired by How Killing People with My Dad Improves Our Relationship
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After hours
In the darkness, on the soft earth, the First Being lay.
The strange world, thoroughly barren in every direction the boy looked, had areas of light and shadow. He had crossed a border a while ago, a blurry line, slightly jagged from the bumpiness of the ground. Stepping across that border marked the instant transition from light to darkness. The First Being looked back, trying to find the Lightgiver through the buzzing purple and green objects in front of his eyes.
The Lightgiver was still there, though only a sliver of white light was seen from his angle. In the darkness he could still see his hands and feet, as well as the bluish wings of his friend. The wings gave off a very faint glow, invisible under the Lightgiver but now illuminating the air around him.
“If only I could bring the Lightgiver with me,” the First Being mumbled. His friend nodded nonchalantly.
“Why not try crafting it?” His friend asked.
The First Being did not say another word. He closed his eyes and channeled power into his fingers, still lying down. He pictured the Lightgiver in his mind, focusing on crafting the essence of Light on his fingertips.
A seed of Light formed on his palm. Then leaves, stems, roots. The seed swelled into a bud, and burst into petals.
Beneath his eyelids, the First Being sensed light. He opened his eyes. Hovering above his palm was a plant. A flower with petals of yellow and white, curving up towards a center, where a fuzzy ball of light bobbed lazily.
Forgetting his fatigue, the First Being got up on his feet and planted the flower into the earth. Focusing energy in his palms again, he crafted another flower, and another…
The standard working hours in Hatchlings is 2pm to 12am. Most of the people leave a the strike of midnight. Choo just picked up the habit of staying in the office until 3am. Kwang will not be here until Wednesday. Slade went off to fetch Iris from the airport… so right now, at 5.51am, it’s just me.
Our office has this small extension room, which is meant to be the storeroom another company’s room. So far they have not turned up, so we gladly took control.
The room is about a third the size of our office, though it can comfortably fit 4 (or even more) if the authorities would just throw away the dozen or so broken monitors (hence, ‘storeroom’). Choo’s PC takes up the other corner in that half of the room.
On the other half is a couch and two mattresses. Slade and I usually sleep there after hours. I mean, not together. That’s why there are, you know, two mattresses. And a couch. Right? Usually Slade takes the thicker mattress and I take the couch. And we’ll have nightmares of each other.
After office hours is pretty much casual time. Sometimes Iris, Slade and I will have a casual discussion on game design (Yes, work can actually be relaxing… but only at night), otherwise I’ll be goofing around on my Nintendo DS. I usually pass out at about 7am, just when the sun rises.
Cyberjaya is very sparsely populated at night, largely due to the fact that most of the land here is occupied by offices. No cars on the street. Just streetlights and lights from hourses far away. A medley of yellow and white.
The future crafters came to the world, and stunned by the flowers’ radiance, named the area the Glimmermeadows.
How fatherhood affected game developers
Happy Father’s Day to all fathers, husbands and dads! Since this is a company blog, I will stick to writing on topic. But since of us are not father’s yet, I can’t answer the topic question. I certainly wish to though but I think that have to wait until Quasr and our next game succeeds.
For Father’s Day this year, I went home and had dinner with Dad. I don’t go home that often but I certainly hope to do so more often for the rest of the year. When I told my family that Zie Aun, Sufiyan and I will most probably visit Shanghai for GDC China this August, they were eager to join me. I wish my dad can come for a few days too.
Back to the topic question. As I was researching for this post, I saw a father’s day feature on Gamasutra entitled What Father’s Day Means to Game Developers. The article contains interviews with many game developers, including Rob Pardo (Blizzard VP Game Design), Noah Falstein (President, the Inspiracy and an acquaintance of Iris), Sid Meier, etc.
Rob Pardo’s 7 year old daughter Sydney is a Level 54 Warlock!
Games & Programming in My Life
Hi, I’m Lim Leong Kee. This is my first post in Hatchlings blog. I will start with my history then my current work.
I work as a full-time game programmer in Hatchlings Games Studio under an Industrial Training Program. The company is developing a game named Quasr, which is an online trading card on board game. I’m currently working on the client side game programming.
How did I involved in the project – Quasr?
Kuan invited me to work on the game with him. Back then Kuan was working on the client side but now he is the lead programmer of Quasr. The programming design pattern used the MVC (Model-View-Control). We divide the work into parts. Kuan did the model and control part for each object in the game (by the way, our code is in OOP – Object-oriented Programming). I did the view which is the user interface.
The client side programming uses Action Script 2 to code and it is suitable to be written using OOP, Object Oriented Programming. Although I learnt OOP from University but I my thinking and programming weren’t in OOP. Working on Quasr forces me to change my mind into an OOP state. I love OOP so much because every object is separated neatly and changes are easy to be made in future. OOP is fun. I gained a lot from Quasr.
Games greatly influence my life. I wanted to be a game creator when I made first contact with console games. I was 8 and I didn’t know how a game is made or what was used to create a game. I first made my own game using pen and paper.
In the search of a way to make games I was often attracted by applications that create moving graphics. I thought that was the way to made games but I realized what I did was just animation.
Later, some games came up with map editor. My first experience with Map Editor was Starcraft. I used its map editor to create a lot of mini games and campaign.
I was going to give up on creating games until I found Macromedia Flash. I bought a Macromedia Flash Book with the Flash MX software from a bookstore in KL. This book answered a lot of questions and the road to my dream is closer…
I am very happy that I am part of Hatchlings Games Studio.
Hatchlings is a team. We work together to make Quasr a success. Best of all, we keep learning. I did the client side while Kuan on the server side. We fix game bugs found by our game testers. I enjoy my current work since I love programming a lot. Last Friday (15 June), we finished all the game elements and fixed all the reported bugs. All the card abilities can be used in game. I haven’t got the time to make the effect animation for each abilities. It is playable at Quasr.com. The game is still imbalance. The new game design will be confirm on this Friday (22 June), so I may have a rest or learn other new things before that day comes.
Quasr Alpha tournament will be held on 29 June to 2 July in this year. We are expecting to get the great responses and comments from our game players. Hope that Quasr will be everyone’s favourite game. I want to join the tournament too!
Perfect Planning
I found the following video when I go through some of my regular websites. It is amazing to see how well they planned the landing period and also the skills that the pilot have. Tourist visit the place just to observe the event.
Put it in the management way, it is not impossible as long as we took the trouble thinking thoroughly of the problem and eventually we can solve the problem in the end and also create advantages from it.
It’s just a sign of you building a company
Are you an entrepreneur having a tough time selling your idea or building your product, raising money or repaying your debts, dealing with work and family/relationship problems at the same time? I know, all these didn’t seem all that bad at the beginning. Your spoused warned you against the risks and stress of venturing on your own but you couldn’t halt your own enthusiasm at that time to go for your Big Idea. But its been two years and your startup has yet to make a single cent. With all the problems you still cannot “give up” for whatever reason. It might be that you are just an optimist or that you do not want to prove yourself wrong or just because you still truly believe.
There’s no light at the end of the tunnel
Thing is, you are not the only one who suffered to start a company. Every successful entrepreneur that has built great lasting enterprises have given blood, sweat and tears to make it come true. Starting a business is not a picnic. It is incredibly difficult and emotionally draining. I guess you sort of knew that before you started. But still when it hit you, you were still unprepared. Face it, you were not prepared; or else you wouldn’t be feeling so overwhelmed now. It is hard to face those brutal facts.
You probably already know how difficult it was for past entrepreneurs who have succeeded. You know that they all faced the brutal facts of their situation and never gave up. How much longer must you persist? Should you give up now? You can try, but I bet you won’t. And rightly so.
The fact is it will probably get worse before it gets better and you will not see a light at the end of the tunnel. The successful entrepreneurs did not see that when they were down either. But you should have expected this as well. You have to admit that you can’t see it. With Hatchlings Games, I do not know when we will make money. Two years ago I told Jarod and Zie Aun (and many of the others that were with us) that we will get millions within the year. Two years later and thousands of Ringgit (Malaysian currency) invested, we still don’t have any income. Quasr is the only game we managed to get to Alpha ( early stage). It took us a year to get from concept to Alpha. And at early Alpha, we are already having problems with production, especially game design and art. Not to mention, we do not know what business model we are going to adopt when we launch the game.
Investment has been harder than I expected. It is not because you cannot get anyone to listen to you. When investors offered us millions, we decided not to take it. I can’t tell the exact reasons but the main reason for saying no with the deal was the need to give up too much equity for too much money when we do not need it. Let’s just say it is easy to get offers for short-term deals (that could be worth millions) but hard to secure good long term partnerships.
The truth is we all don’t have a clue how to be successful. We don’t but so didn’t any successful entrepreneurs. Everybody took risks. They wouldn’t be called risks if they knew it would work.
You are doing right
So much for the fire and brainstorms talk. With the above paragraphs, I was trying to start a dialogue with you; to see if you are facing or faced what we are now or worse. But here comes the part that is probably more useful.
I think you are doing right. I think we are doing right. The constant stress and self-doubt is natural. And I know one day you will have vacation homes, exotic cars and travel all around the world. One day we will own streets and neighborhoods. But the time is not now. There is no clear cut, and you probably hear that all too often. So why am I still stressing on it? Because in many cases, we are always thinking of ways to get out of our current negative situation but everything we’ve done seem to be wrong decisions in the near long-term. I don’t think that is unusual.
All those wrong decisions and nasty problems gives us doubts. Sometimes we can’t sleep because everything seemed wrong. I know how that feels. But I have a feeling that EVERYONE, whether an entrepreneur or not feels the same. Even Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, even Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft or Mike Morhaine at Blizzard Entertainment. They are facing constant stress as well. They still have to think of sustaining their growth, building a company that will last through this century and what-not. Those problems will come for us as well. Point is, all these negative feelings are a sign of you building a great lasting company!
Related posts:
- Funding options for Malaysian entrepreneurs
- Top 10 links for the internet entrepreneur in you
- How to activate your creative state
- The agitated gamer and other mildly amusing anecdotes (funny post to unwind after this badly written one)
- Slade went mad
Life of a game programmer in Hatchlings
After one and a half year working as a part time game programmer in Hatchlings Games. Kuan finally upgraded to be a full time game programmer! It’s been 2 weeks since I started working full for Quasr without distraction from tedious assignments or boring test papers. These 2 weeks are…Awesome!
It just like my dream job. Hatchlings Games…
1, does not have compulsory morning working time. Programmer working time is from 2pm noon until 12am midnight. Some of the game designers even work overnight in the office so that they can use the early morning time for brainstorming and quiet debates.
2, does not have compulsory fixed attire. I can wear my favourite style – t-shirt + short pant + sandal. Personally, I feel bad about wearing formal. For me, it just decrease work efficiency.
3, does not have bad politics, because Hatchlings is a team :). Quasr earn, we earn. Quasr dead, we FIX!
4, has a harmonious and fun environment. Everyone is passionate about game development, close in age, love Quasr, are friendly, playful, have dinner together, and laugh together… I doubt this is common in the working world out there.
5, Is all about game development. Involving in game development had been my dream since young.
Here are some of the pictures I snapped in the office today.
Most of the hatchers bring their own laptop (limited space? good, everyone can talk!) I like this feeling, all work together, discuss and yell together.
This is my space, my 2 years old wife and girl friend’s head phone. Why headphone? Because I need music to steam my brain to think ( not because of the noisy office? no…of cause not…)
This guy with a soft toy in his hand is Nowing aka Quasr’s God (Because he create it). It’s common to see somebody playing with a toy in the office, since there are many of them (Sponsored by John :P)
Anyone felt excited or attracted after reading this? Hatchlings Games are still recruiting 😛
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Tale of Tales’s Tale
One day, when I am searching around the Internet using Google service, I found this website called Tale of Tales. And guess what I found, a very interesting and new game called “The Endless Forest“. For me, it is one of the unique game that I played before. The game is ACTIVATED through screen saver. I manage to contact the game designer for a little chat and have a brief idea what happening in the game industry at the other country.
To me, it is always fun to be connected with all the game developers and have discussion on the game development scene. Previously there is a lot of game industry related events held here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But now, it is so silent and boring that I am planning to organize an informal one soon. I miss those days where developers gather together and talking about their experiences.
Game Design Novice
Recently I found a website called Game Design Novice. It is indeed a website for those who passionate to be a game designer. This will be a good start.
Check it out for details.
Other relevant websites:
The agitated gamer, and other mildly amusing anecdotes
… It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
That was what the low-polygon professor from Brain Age told me when I, on a fine day, thought I’d do some elementary math after two months of… doing something else.
Brain Age is one oddity. Last weekend I brought my Nintendo DS Lite home for the first time (seven months after I bought it), my younger sisters were naturally attracted to its ‘weird controls’, but my parents were wary – Both of them are primary school teachers for about 25 years now, and as far as primary school education goes, games and television are bad for children.
I wasn’t too surprised when I saw my mum hogging the DS a few days later, trying to break my record for 100x Calculations on Brain Age (1 minute, 1 second). I said nothing, and just smiled. I don’t think Brain Age or the DS would break their “Games are bad for children” mindset, though I suppose they’ll be referring to the DS as ‘the GameBoy with the maths game.’
It always happens – The general public merely takes the lowest common denominator and uses it as a norm. That’s why any instant noodle here is called ‘Maggi’, any chocolate drink is ‘Milo’, any image editing program is ‘Photoshop’. I didn’t do any tedious research, but here are the five media stereotypes that currently irk me the most. And in no particular order (but it just sounds more exciting when done in countdown):
#5 The conspiring friends
This one’s pretty common, and I’m sure that I’m not the first one to talk about it. Here’s the scenario: Little Jimmy was a quiet little boy, until his ‘friends’ introduce him to cigarettes, Ecstasy, pornography, video games or whatever is the current social ill. Little Jimmy got himself addicted to said vice, and his personal and social life slowly crumbles into a mess. A tearful confession full of regret ends the message with a powerful note.
Witness the power of testimony. It’s always “I drank and drove and lost both my legs”, never “My friends got me into smoking and we all got lung cancer.” What happened to said victim’s so-called friends? They’re pretty much never heard of again once the protagonist falls far enough. Sometimes you’d think if ‘the rest’ are conspiring against the poor guy.
The influence of testimony doesn’t stop here. Remember your visiting aunt, who told you that sleeping after 11pm will give you prostate cancer, or the friend who is sure that Sonic will be in Super Smash Brothers Brawl because he read it in a forum thread started by this guy whose uncle works at Nintendo (Personally, I sure hope Sonic will be in SSBB). It doesn’t matter that radiation from microwave oven would not cause cancer even when there’s a scientific explanation behind it, to some people radiation is radiation. It’s just so convenient to get ‘facts’ from friends, and when something bad happens it’s always their fault.
Which would lead me to my next point…
#4 The ‘Brand X’
My country, Malaysia, is a country that likes superlatives. Everything has to be the ‘biggest’, ‘fastest’, ‘first’. True story: There’s this banner in front of my apartment complex, proudly advertising a fishing competition with ‘the highest prize money in the country’. Imagine winning twelve thousand ringgit (That’s about US$3,500) in a fishing competition.
With that out of our way, it’s not hard to think of an advertising plan in Malaysia: you just have to compare it with something else, and somehow show it’s better. That brings us to the ‘Brand X’.
Sample TV commercial: A guy in a lab coat interviews this young woman. “I used to have dandruff problems”, says the woman, smiling, as she twirls her finger in her hair, “but after using [name of shampoo being advertised], my hair is shiny silky smooth!” Obviously, said brand of shampoo is better than ‘the others’ because ‘the other shampoos’ don’t solve her dandruff problem.
Some advertisements take it further by introducing the ‘Brand X’, the perpetually unnamed victim of inane advertising campaigns. Invoking the law of typicality, as long as something is better than something else of its league, it’s better than any other item of its kind by inference. This brand of detergent washes away grease stains better than ‘Brand X’? ‘Brand X’ might as well be a bucket of paint.
#3 The ‘and more’
…Because, well, the supposedly main attraction just isn’t enough.
Pardon me for naming names here, but I’ve been long irritated by The Chicken Rice Shop‘s tagline. “Chicken Rice… and More” – it doesn’t take half a brain to think of that. Imagine a world of and-mores:
KFC – Fried Chicken… and More!
Dell – Computers… and More!
EA – Challenge Everything… and More!
See, even I can do it.
The and-more tagline is another instance of the law of typicality in effect. You don’t have to love chicken rice, just come on in and you might find something you like because, you know, we call ourselves ‘The Chicken Rice Shop’ but we don’t want people to think that we sell only chicken rice.
I have a suggestion. Instead of ‘and more’, people should use ‘and stuff’, or even ‘and blah’. “KFC – Fried Chicken… and blah.”
#2 The thieving woman
The man wakes up in the morning, bleary-eyed. He shambles to the kitchen counter to make some coffee. The coffee done. With a satisfied smile he puts his lips close to the coffee…
And his wife pops out of nowhere and takes the cup away from him. The woman happily walks away with her loot while the man is clearly disappointed.
And Nescafé isn’t’ the first commercial that’s doing it. Because you know, a happy family is composed of a man that tries to get himself a treat, and a thieving woman.
#1 The Agitated gamer
I didn’t have much to say on the last point because I’m saving it for this one. Technically both fall under the same category – annoying stereotypes – though the agitated gamer grazes a raw nerve whenever I see a ‘gamer’ on television, butt-jumping up and down on his couch, jerking the wired controller with a force enough to throttle a child, frantically pressing the shoulder buttons without any apparent pattern.
Because people can’t keep their elbows still while playing a game on his favorite console (Typically a Playstation). Because these people have this crazed look in their eyes when gaming. Because games now still show “YOU WIN!” in Arial when you clear it. Because being able to tolerate your thieving woman makes you a real man. Because people actually slip on banana peels in real life.
These are simply tools to get the message across easily. Guy bouncing in chair = gamer. Girl runs out of house after a quarrel with dad = car accident. It’s like how the black guy or the guys in the red shirts always die first. I couldn’t care less about the others, but the agitated gamer stereotype keeps gaming at an immature, ADHD-rife level. That’s why DS-es will always be fancy GameBoys to my mother. First person shooters will be murder simulators to Jack Thompson. And gaming, in general, will be bad for kids.
I told my mum that the fancy GameBoy is actually a DS. Now she thinks that it’s a ‘PS’ (Playstation). Oh well…
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