Homosexual rights and what they have to do with game design

Even when I do make a point, this is totally a rant, so avoid to read it if you are sensitive to strong opinions and heavy swearing.

There is no reason to get into details, so here it is:

I was on the sub and I heard this conversation:

Woman 1: Yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda

Woman 2: Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.

Woman 1: Yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda

Woman 2: how can a homosexual be better than anyone in certain field, they are homosexuals you know.

…

I’m not homosexual, I like women a lot, sometimes I ask myself why some men are homosexual when we have a lot of beautifiul women around us. I just don’t understand it, but I do understand that if they like other men it is not my bussines, I have nothing to do with that. I totally get that.  Maybe Venezuela, the place where I live in right now, have some sort of chauvinism problem attached to its society, but this is not a local issue, is a global major problem even in a lot of societies and nations that self-proclaim to be progressist and democratic

Interview and blog updates

I know, it's in spanish.

A few weeks ago @villdaniel interviewed me, @chiguire and @jrmarcano  in order to include our opinions in a tech special report for La Verdad newspaper (Maracaibo, Venezuela). The article above is the result of that interview, focused mostly in move detection in consoles. Yes, it is in spanish. Click on the image to watch it bigger.

So, if this article is in spanish, why I’m writing this in english?.

Because I’m a snob… but besides that, the blog has been updated with links and a new page.

The most important link so far is Game Design Concepts, a basic course on general game design by Ian Schrieber. This course is the best start for any game designer beginner (or not so beginner). I highly recommend to follow those lessons. The rest of the links include game designer’s blogs and some random ones I follow. So far, it’s obvious which blogs are in english and which ones are in spanish.

The new Games page above shows my (for now) short list of games I participated in, mostly as a game designer. Hoping to update you with the WIP sooner than later.

I always write (everything, not just the blog) listening to music. It is very important for me to do it that way. I would like to share little by little the music I enjoy. Check What the f*** is this and who the f*** am I page for more.

Update: a kind soul let me in the comments the link to a second Schreiber’s blog I didn’t know nothing about, Game Balance Concepts. Already added to the link list. Check it out!. Thanks Alejandro.

Calvinball time!

“Sooner or later, all our games turn into Calvinball”  – Calvin

The only thing that could be compared with the love I feel for Mafalda, is the love I feel for Calvin & Hobbes; and maybe, just maybe, it is that way only because Mafalda made it first into my life (Spanish is my native tongue after all).

Mafalda is a rebellious child that aims to be a cartoon metaphor of the rebel youth spirit of the 60’s. Calvin is just a child.

I see Mafalda and I recognize much of what I am now. I see Calvin, and I recognize myself 20 years ago. You are probably that old too, don’t laugh.

It was a matter of time to write about Calvin & Hobbes in this blog. I just wanted to do it the best possible way I could for the first time I did it. So, let me try it.

Among a pile of stuff I love about Calvin & Hobbes, both the characters and the comic itself, there is one directly related to game design: the Calvinball. I’m assuming all my readers are awesome people who know what Calvinball is, so I really hope that this will only be a stupid reminder: Calvinball rule, as described by Bill Watterson, “It’s pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go”.

Childhood: Graphic Definition.

Which can be fun to play (if you are 7 years old) or to read in the comic (if  you too played it when you were 7), but in practice would seem pointless, hard to play but moreover, boring.

Well, that isn’t the case.

Let me tell you why.

Good morning!, and in case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night!

I wonder why Carrey made so few smart films.

Besides all the VFX paraphernalia and cult following, one of the biggest The Matrix’s (Wachowski Brothers, 1999) achievement was putting a lot of teenagers to read. Yeah, amazingly as it sounds, a lot of instant fans of the movie (including myself) were dragged to cyberpunk genre books, like William Gibson’s Neuromancer (highly recommended) and one little philosophical treatise from the 80’s: Simulacra and Simulation, by Jean Baudrillard.

Quoting Wikipedia, Simulacra and Simulation is most known for its discussion of images, signs, and how they relate to contemporaneity. It’s said that the Wachowski brothers required all the cast from The Matrix to read the book as an essential piece to understand the script’s motivation.

Teenagers reading (no matter what they were reading) inspired by a science-fiction cult movie full of guns and leather costumes.

Awesome shit.

So, why the fuck is there a quote from Jim Carrey in The Truman Show (Peter Weir,1998) as the title of this post?

And here is a picture to make that point as clear as possible.