Saturday, March 10, 2007

End of GDC...

Well I must say this week has been one of the many amazing types of weeks to soon follow in the near future. I've learned so much within this short time, met and networked with so many people and still had room for tons of fun. I'm glad I took this opportunity, this investment towards my future. After attending the last and final conference, I felt a tad bit sad that the conference was over with. But not my spirit - my energy and my passion for the video game industry has ever grown stronger. I am truly on the right path.

The night of video games ended at the Video Games Live concert. Must I say it was a fantastic show, full of great special guests and appearances’. I also had the chance to meet Miyamoto and others once again.

The night completely ended after me and the gang (DePaul buds) went to see the movie 300. (Awesome movie!!!)

However, the day was really topped off with this.

After leaving from the last conference session, I spot my pals on the street. They call out to me and tell me that Miyamoto just passed by. I was like no way! So I sprinted to catch up with him. And catch him I did. I called out to him, and asked for an autograph. Pulled out my Super Mario Bros. game and boom my mission was complete.

I am sealing and framing that game along with the picture. It shall be one of my modes of inspiration.

Such an honor it was to be among such a master of the gaming arts.

I shall always be grateful.

I will be posting some more detailed summaries about my workshop sessions hopefully later in the week.

Thanks again for hanging out with MORTEGA on da Street!!!

GET NAKED !!!

Friday, March 9, 2007

Day 4... Nintendo Keynote

Well nothing could top the happenings from last night. I was really upset with myself, because I sooo wanted Miyamoto to sign my 1st copy Super Mario Bros/Duckhunt NES cartridge. But noooooooo I forgot it in my hotel! Grrrrrrrrr! But hey I guess the picture is worth more.

A quick re-cap of today's keynote.

No super huge announcements.

Mario Galaxy shipping later this year.

New type of Mii channel to arrive or in development still.
Will allow Mii's to compete in fashion shows and other similar stuff.
Main focus about the conference was to explain Mr. Miyamoto's philosophy and ideas creation towards video games and how they’ve evolved. I thought it was an interesting speech, but was hoping for some more new release stuff.

Overall it was great, and met some more cool people.

Going to have to cut this short, because I need my rest!

Will go into more detail soon.

-A.J.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Day 3... Awards Night

Must I say anything else???


This is Alexei Pazhitnov, he made Tetris!!!














I met a bunch more people too........

Well to quickly recap the important stuff of the day.

Sony announced their GAME 3.0 Philosophy. Similar to the Web 2.0

Sony announced their new piece to the PS3 which is called HOME a virtual onlin
e environment that utilizes customizable avatars. (Think Second Life but with better graphics) However, you are not really able to develop for it other than just buying new items for your character and place.


HOME

  • Online virtual world
  • Customizable avatars
  • Large social community
  • Special in game advertising (Mostly gaming related content, new game releases, sony products)
  • HD video streaming
  • Huge Physics engine
  • Actual working games (Pool table, bowling, arcade games)
  • Movie theaters (you can rent movies, watching movies, etc...)
  • Personal Apartments (private spaces, public spaces)
  • Customizable furniture, downloadable content (content for purchase or developer created)
  • Special Trophy room


Special new stuff with SingStar online. Special EyeToy features, to record and upload videos like Youtube.

The coolest thing was a new game, developed by the guys that made RagDoll KungFu. They formed a new company and were brought on to develop for the PS3.

Its called LittleBigWorld

An AMAZING GAME!!! Its a game where you collaborate with others to make your own game. They call it communal play.

I'll try and post vids and more pics. But roughly the game is based on a huge dynamic interactive world utilizing heavy physics which allow for infinite possibilities.




And Gears of War won Game of the Year!
That's it for now, just a small recap of the days events. I'll try and catch up with everyone again soon.

-A.J.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

GDC Day 2...

The IGDA party was freaking awesome! I am soooooooooooo beat. As you can see every day I keep getting in later and later and the parties get bigger and bigger. I tried getting into a Second Life party, but was not successful. Sux cause all the Linden Lab people were there.

Anyways I saw, listened, and met tons of people.

I will update this later. I should have some time during the day tomorrow, I hope!

Don't worry, I've taken tons of notes so I have lots to talk about.

Will inform the masses soon!

Keep checking back!

-A.J.

Monday, March 5, 2007

GDC Day 1...

WOW!!! I am exhausted... Please forgive me but I'm going to have to finish my entry tomarrow as I am beat and have to wake up early again. But let me tell you, I met sooooooooooo many cool people today. It was just amazing, lets just say I met a couple of dudes from Square Enix, had lunch with some MTV video game devs, drinks with a bunch of Serious game developers, and partied with the entire team from TallTell games (makers of Sam & Max). It was the B-day party of the CEO lol... Met a guy from Nintendo there and many others...

That is just a mini snap shot of what I did this entire day. Wow wee wow wee... And tons of people from Chicago!!! It's great were representing. Shout outs to Tim Ghost Ship games, Tim Lobes, Action (Indie Game Dev), Profs from DePaul, Charley Wilcox! and a bunch of other koo peeps I met.

Well I promise I'll go into sweet detail later, as I took notes. Man o man good times and this was just the first day lol.

Thanks for reading.

-A.J.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Help I'm in Jail!

So yea I'm sort of stuck behind bars, but I escaped because the door was left open.

Alcatraz was just one of the places I visited on this jam packed day. I walked all along the bay front, along the beach, onto piers, past museums, stores, restaurants, into the Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39. Oh yea did I forget to mention that I rode the cable car.

Another amazing day.

Started off early in the morning, around 6am. Found the continental breakfast room, and set off for my adventure. To my luck, the cable car which takes me all the way down to the pier areas was half a block from my
hotel.The cable cars are awesome, very old styled and just fun to ride. They are not really used for major transportation anymore, mainly a tourist attraction, but for $5 it took me from my hotel (start of the line) all the way to the pier (end of line) all within good time and a fantastic scenic view. I have some great video footage, but I'll post the link to it later, need to compress the file.


Down by the beach, a race or marathon was going on. People were surfing and swimming and on the pier many were fishing. The city is so active everywhere you turn. I had a great view of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge from this one Pier, I forgot the name but its the one that curls the most in the map below.


The red marks roughly all I traveled today. The long straight line was the cable car and the rest was on foot.

I need to reach pier 33, which was said to be a 20min walk from where I was. That was the place I needed to be to get on the ferry to Alcatraz. During my trek there I pass all these interesting places. Ripley's Believe it or not museum (I so wanted to go, but it closed early), a wax museum, and all this other stuff. (I'll upload most of the pics online, where you can practically follow my steps)

I reach Pier 33, a protest is going on against the Ferry company.





Finally I get in line for the ferry and head off to Alcatraz (at this time I sent a billion people a text message saying I was going to jail and they called it the rock. Some people got it, but others were freaked out and thought something happened to me. (Thanks for those that cared =P) Anywho the ride out was cool and quick like less than 10mins.

The island tour was interesting, it didn't hit me so much that this was a real jail and that crazy dangerous people once were here and many had died or been murdered here. Oh yea and this used to be a military fort. Yea it didn't really take notice till I started going through my pictures and video clips. How really eerie this place was. I took the audio tour which I highly recommend because if you don't, you'll just walk around aimlessly. Anyways, I learned a lot about the place and you know walked around. There are really great views from the island.

Well I finally got back on my boat, and headed for shore. I was starving at this point and headed over to Pier 39. This place is sooo cool, it was like a mall but outside on a pier. So many great restaurants and shops and ICE CREAM! There is like an ice cream shop on every corner it was great. I ate at the Wipeout Bar and Grill, had me some Fish and Chips (mighty good). After that I ventured throughout the rest of the pier and into the many shops. They even had a carousel and other little rides, like virtual simulators and bungee jump stuff. There was an arcade which I couldn't pass up and found Time Crises 4!!! It cost me $1.50 for one play, which gave me three lives. I was like WTF? The game was really sharp, but omg the bullet response was sooooooooo SLOW! The game was fast paced, but my shooting couldn't hone up. I only played it twice, because that took $4 already. But the game looks good, just need more practice, hopefully they have it at Game Works.

Well I went into a few more shops and took off back towards the cable car. At this time, the place was packed all around. People were everywhere, and street performers were quite abundant. I saw some break dancers, a silver mime (we have a few in Chicago), a hustler (this guy had a box setup with 3 caps and a red ball and was betting people if they could find the ball. It seemed way too easy as I watched I picked the right one all the time. But this one guy kept losing money to him and then would win it. It was way too fishy, but I left without going for it.)
I finally had the chance to meet a beatboxer, Humanoid. Cool dude.

Well I headed back to the cable car finally and got back to my hotel where I took a much needed nap.

There's still so much I did, but I can only write for so long without making everyone bored. I'll try and get the rest of the pics and videos up soon.

As tomorrow or actually today is the FIRST DAY OF GDC !!! WHoooooooooooooooo!!!

-A.J.