Hypercombofinish

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:29 EST

Weddings, man. They take forever to plan, cost a lot of money, and the vast majority of them are about as exciting as a speed run of Myst. To top it off, brides and grooms rarely have similar ideas about the kind of event they’d like to throw so one of them just steamrolls the other with turquoise taffeta and heirloom lederhosen.

In a stunning twist of fate for which I will be forever grateful, my fiance Kellbot and I happened to share a great number of interests. We’re both web programmers by trade. We both went to school for art. We both love videogames. Most importantly, we both like making things.

Thanks to our common proclivities, it didn’t us long to settle on a graphic theme for our wedding: videogames! Specifically, videogames comprised of big blocky pixels. To uphold a base level of classiness, we shied away from themeing the event itself around any specific game ( despite how excellent a warp pipe centerpiece would be ) and instead focused on creating a feeling of general videogamey-ness for the blessed occasion.

Curved lines were made verboten! Smooth gradients were abolished! Anti-aliasing was turned off -- ENTIRELY. We needed to make every angle sharp and keep our color count to a bare minimum. These guidelines were easy enough to follow in the two dimensional world of stationary and websites, but it was a little trickier to translate such wanton blockiness into the third dimension. After some brainstorming, we decided that the closest thing to a real-world pixel is a Lego brick. We ordered a pile of Legos and got to work prototyping decorations.

Armed with ideas and raw ingredients, we spent the better part of a year geeking out over every geekable part of the wedding planning process. We used a wide variety of tools: a laser cutter, X-Acto knives, Photoshop, Blender, Python, PHP, and a mountain of support from family and friends. This was the start of us building our lives together, and we were going to start if off nerdy.

CONCLUSION

Amazingly, every piece of the plan came together beautifully and we had a blast. There were great games, delicious food, awesome music, and the best friends and family any couple could ever ask for. Despite being the sort of folks who had never in the past thought about the sort of wedding they’d want to have, we got pretty deeply invested in the process and had a lot of fun.

If I have any advice to give prospective nerdy couples, it would be to make your wedding your own: don’t be afraid to inject the things your love into your celebration. If you work towards making it the sort of event you’d genuinely have fun at, both you and your guests will have a much better time. Additionally: if you end up turning your reception into a LAN party, please invite us.

Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Save the Date Cards

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:20 EST

We agreed that we didn't want the wedding or the reception to directly reference any specific game, but all materials preceding the big day were fair play for homage.

I thought that the first level of Donkey Kong would look nice with some extra definition, so I used it as the basis for our “Save the Date” cards. I re-drew the level at double the resolution of the original, adding simple shadows and highlights as I saw fit. Kellbot and I replaced Pauline at the top of the structure, pleading for guests to attend.

The theme of the card sneakily served as foreshadowing for our reception venue: We had just booked the Phoenixville Foundry, a converted ironworking foundry showcasing multiple levels of exposed beams. The building’s aesthetic reminded me of Donkey Kong’s iconic stacked girders, and the idea coalesced naturally.

Next: Website ->

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Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Website

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:12 EST

As web developers by trade, we had to do something particularly special for our wedding website. At its core was a fully automated RSVP system that grouped guests by party, allowed them to pick their desired entrees, and let them start organizing transportation if necessary.

Kellbot got the ball rolling on the design by mocking up a modified version of Super Mario Bros. 3's title screen. I took her concept and ran with it, drawing mario-esque versions of the bride and groom. With the finished design in place, Kellbot wrote some javascript that made the keyboard arrows mimic the functionality of the NES D-pad.

We built each section of the site as an homage to a different NES game: Super Mario Bros. 3 for the home page, Mega Man 4 for the wedding info page, and Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) for the RSVP system.

Kellbot ended up coding the whole site, and it worked like a charm -- we didn’t process a single RSVP through the mail. If you're curious, you can check out the website yourself at either ChrisLovesKelly.com or KellyLovesChris.com.

Next: Programs->

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Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Programs

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:10:03 EST

The event programs, like all of our printed wedding materials, were designed pixel-by-pixel at a minute resolution. We used the same visual theme here as on all signage at the wedding and reception: a blue border and the typeface from Capcom's Strider. Detail text was printed in Pixelette.

The design was tied together by yet another pixelated rendition of ourselves, this time holding up our newly acquired rings while doing our best Link impersonations.

Next: Centerpieces ->

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Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Centerpieces

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:54 EST

The reception centerpieces, unsurprisingly, ended up requiring more time and effort than anything else. Constructed from 100% basic Lego bricks, each sphere measured 25cm in diameter and was composed of approximately 1,600 pieces. There were a grand total of 14 spheres.

Kellbot has some in-depth posts about the preparation and construction of these behemoths, but in summary: She wrote a Python script that broke 3D computer models into Lego-sized pieces, then cut a series of horizontal slices and made vector files out of them. We utilized a laser cutter to make foamcore jigs for all 27 layers, using them as guides for building the final sculptures.

An intrepid group of family and friends were enlisted to help with the build. On average, building a single sphere took roughly 6-8 man-hours. The centerpieces required a great deal of logistical planning and old-fashioned hard work, but I like to think that the results speak for themselves.

Our caterering company, Feastivites, did a fantastic job setting the tables and decorating the reception venue with leftover Legos. They even helped us rent squared-off silverware and flatware to match the blocky theme. At every step of the way they shaped our rough pile of ideas into a cohesive whole, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

Next: Cake ->

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Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Cake

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:45 EST

We arrived at Whipped Bakeshop in South Philly with no solid ideas about what we wanted our cake to look like. Fortunately, the helpful staff at the bakery got our imaginations rolling after showing us square cake pans and suggesting that pixels could be replicated with frosting. Kellbot produced a sketch of our ideal cake: a boxy three-tier affair embellished with blue and green squares.

The resulting cake was pixel-perfect. Each tier featured a different flavor: chocolate truffle, lemon cream, and carrot cake. It fit the theme to a tee and didn’t make any compromises on deliciousness.

Next: Table Cards ->

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Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Table Cards

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:36 EST

Many couples name reception tables after meaningful moments in their relationships. Kellbot and I were no different; we named our tables after the games we enjoyed playing together. I made illustrated signs for each game, drawing custom sprite work wherever necessary ( I’m most proud of the Monday Night Combat sign ).

Accompanying the table signs were name cards for each guest. I drew icons for the four available entrees and placed them under each name accordingly.

Next: Entertainment ->

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Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Entertainment

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:27 EST

It would be criminal to host a videogame-themed reception without providing some actual games to play. We had two gaming stations:

A Nintendo Wii with four controllers hooked up to an LCD television
A complete Xbox 360 Rock Band 3 setup projected onto a screen with audio piped through a PA system

Rock Band, as we all know, has been scientifically proven to be the best party game of all time. Supplemented with a song list several hundred strong, the RB3 station drew a crowd of players and spectators all night long. Players at the Nintendo station favored New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Kart Wii for some more competetive fun.

In between the game stations was a dance floor, and it was expertly DJed by Jason Remaly from Silver Sound DJs. We established a playlist centered largely around ska staples like Streetlight Manifesto, Reel Big Fish, and The Mighty Mighty BossTones. I beamed with pride when the floor went from zero to circle pit in an unprecedented 3 songs.

The dinner prepared by Feastivities was excellent, but my favorite part of the catering service was the self-service ice cream bar at the end. Homemade vanilla and chocolate ice cream were complimented by a full spread of toppings: hot fudge, whipped cream, cherries, sprinkles, strawberries -- basically, everything. I’d say that I don’t understand why more weddings don’t feature ice cream bars, but in truth I don’t understand why any event wouldn’t feature ice cream bars.

Next: Thank You Cards ->

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Kellbot and RevolvingDork's Pixelated Wedding: Thank You Cards

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:09:15 EST

Two days after the wedding, Kellbot and I set out to Saint Lucia for our honeymoon. With fantastic beaches and picturesque backdrops, it was an ideal place to wind down after months of preparation and several weeks of non-stop activity. We relished being able to lie in a hammock on the beach and play games without a care in the world -- this was our first real vacation in years, and it was long overdue.

I used photos from the honeymoon as a basis for our “Thank You” cards. This was the last piece of wedding-related design work I’d have to do, so I wanted to make it good.

Final: Wrap up ->

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Designing a Videogame Tournament ( How I Picked My Best Man )

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:50:58 EST

When preparing to get married, there are a number of methods one can use to select a best man. Some husbands-to-be start with a brother or the brother of their fiancée. Others choose their best friend or a family member they've grown up with.

If you're like me, you make your groomsmen battle it out in a multi-console videogame tournament.

I made the decision to stage a gaming gauntlet early on, but I was given pause when I actually sat down to plan it out. Devising an interesting tournament can be surprisingly tricky: How do you determine scoring? What games do you pick, and how can you play to the strengths of each participant? What surprises can you throw in to keep things exciting?

SCORING

I had four groomsmen. Four is a convenient number to work with; every major console released since the Nintendo 64 has had 4-controller functionality built in ( with the notable exception of the Playstation 2 ) and a great selection of 4-player games to compliment it. Most 4-player games rank contestants from best to worst at the end of each match, so winning or losing is not a binary operation.

When it came to scoring each match, I borrowed the scheme used in the original Super Mario Kart ( SNES ):

1st place: 9 points
2nd place: 6 points
3rd place: 3 points
4th place: 1 point

4-player games are great, but omitting 2-player titles would tragically exclude all of the excellent competitive games released before 1996. We had to have a way to score both 2 and 4-player games equitably, and I wanted to ensure that every player faced off against each of the other three contestants in every game. This dictated that 2-player games would be played over a minimum of six matches to facilitate all possible unique player combinations.

I settled upon the following scheme:

4-player games

1st place score	2nd place score	3rd place score	4th place score	Number of matches	Highest possible score per player	Lowest possible score per player
9	6	3	1	3	27	3

2-player games

Winner score	Loser score	Number of matches	Highest possible score per player	Lowest possible score per player
9	1	6 ( 3 per player in all combinations )	27	3

GAME SELECTION

With scoring out of the way, it was time to pick the games themselves. Eight different games were selected across a broad swath of platforms and genres to ensure round-to-round variety. I strove to pick games that none of the players were "experts" in to prevent matches from being one-sided and boring. The playing order was dictated by rolling a d8 at the start of each round.

THE GAMES

1. Blades of Steel ( NES, 2-player )
Match scoring: Highest score after 1 period wins a match, ties lead to sudden-death overtime periods

A tight and focused classic hockey game with surprising depth. Only after playing it competitively did we come to realize that players have control over nearly every aspect of their team: the positioning of the goalie, the angle of shots on goal. This ended up being the surprise favorite of the night; we will definitely be playing more Blades in the future.

2. Bomberman '93 ( TurboGrafx-16, 4-player )
Match scoring: One first-to-five-wins match, players ranked by number of wins

Multiplayer Bomberman games are famous for being exciting and chaotic. This entry is a great execution of the core Bomberman experience: blow up walls, collect ability-boosting items, and chain explosions unexpectedly to kill your friends. We played the Wii Virtual Console port, which allows you to play with up to five(!) players. It's not quite the madness of 10-player Saturn Bomberman, but it also doesn't require any multi-taps.

3. Goldeneye 007 ( N64, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by game in five-stock deathmatches

Sadly, the ravages of time have not done this game any favors. What was once remembered fondly as a fast and furious split-screen shooter is now a muddy and nearly unplayable mess. There's a very fun and rewarding game here, but it's obscured by choppy framerates and chunks of shattered nostalgia. Despite these issues, it is unquestionably a classic that laid the foundation for modern console shooters.

4. Mario Kart Wii ( Wii, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by game in VS. racing mode, motion control only

The latest iteration of Nintendo's venerable kart racing franchise is ostensibly a party game. Laggard-assisting items level the playing field, giving those in last place they ability to rain hell upon those in the lead. The items are far from balanced or fair, but they contribute to perpetuating a sense of being in the center of a hectic free-for-all. All the players groaned when I made them exclusively use motion control, but they're all whining babies.

5. Super Monkey Ball 2: Monkey Target ( Gamecube, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by total points in 3-round matches

Super Monkey Ball 2 is an excellent single-player game, but the unlockable multiplayer minigames will keep you playing with your friends long after you've forgotten it. Our favorite is Monkey Target, which involves launching monkeys off of huge ramps and attempting to glide them onto the most point-laden targets. The targets, incidentally, are floating in the middle of the ocean: If you miss, your monkey drowns in a watery grave. Fun!

6. Super Smash Bros. Melee ( Gamecube, 4-player )
Match scoring: Ranked by game in 5-stock matches, auto-handicap turned on

With tighter gameplay than its descendant Brawl, Melee retains is place as the greatest 4-player fighting game of all time. The controls are simple yet deep, resulting in highly chaotic games of cat-and-mouse. Some of our competitors had more recent experience with Melee than others, so I opted to turn on the auto-handicapping feature. It didn't help much.

7. Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers ( Arcade, 2-player )
Match scoring: Standard first-to-two-KOs match rules

No competitive tournament would be complete without a Street Fighter game. I chose an older version to keep participants on their toes, which worked fairly well -- every match was a nail-biter. The use of an authentic X-Arcade joystick didn't hurt, either.

8. Warioware, Inc: Mega Party Game$! ( Gamecube, 4-player )
Match scoring: Survival Fever, ranked by game

WarioWare is the unsung hero of party gaming. Players are thrown into rapid-fire 2-second "microgames" where the main challege stems from figuring out what the hell it is you're supposed to do. It's wacky, it's imaginative, and it's a parody of videogaming itself. My favorite mode, Wobbly Bobbly, involves playing microgames and balancing a stack of turtles that grows as you lose games. It was sadly locked due to a corrupted memory card, so we played the more vanilla Survival Fever instead.

SURPRISES

I love the idea of having an idiosyncratic secret final game. This game would be the wildcard: worth double the points of any of the other games, giving lagging players a chance to catch up. I probed the depths of my gaming library to find something that no one would ever be able to predict, and I found it.

BONUS GAME: QBasic Gorillas ( PC/DOS, 2-player )
Match scoring: First to 2 points

This game was distributed with copies of DOS 5.0 as an example of what you could accomplish with the QBasic programming language. Its gameplay is stunningly simple: you enter two numbers. The first is the angle at which you want to hurl a banana, the second is the velocity at which you want it to travel. The banana sails through the air, its trajectory affected by gravity and the wind. Players take turns entering angle/trajectory values until one of them is hit ( and oddly, exploded ) by a banana.

That's it.

It's a bare-bones distillation of competitive gaming, but it can nonetheless lead to a surprising amount of tension. Watching a banana slowly reach the apex of its arc as you attempt to calculate how you should change your values on the next round is genuinely thrilling, in a nerdy sort of way.

RESULTS AND LESSONS LEARNED

In the end, everyone had a great time. The rankings weren't quite as close as I had planned, but I didn't tally them up until the end so they didn't have any bearing on the event itself. There were probably two or three games more than necessary on the schedule, so if I was to run another tournament it would likely have a slightly shorter game list.

We all play games together as our de facto method of hanging out, but we rarely play them in a truly competitive spirit. It's typical to forget who won or lost a given game right after the victory screen is displayed. This tournament changed that dynamic, and I think it's something I'd like to explore further -- with ALL of my best men.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii) Review

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:33:19 EST

Muramasa: The Demon Blade feels like the product of an alternate timeline. If polygons had never ushered in an ice age for 2D gaming, hand-drawn sprites like the ones perfected in Muramasa might still rule the earth. Smaller versions of today's intelligent but homely 3D visuals would be forced to scavenge their eggs, festering with jagged pestilence.

Set in ancient Japan, the game follows the storyline of two typically troubled teens: Kisuke has lost his memory and is being hunted for a crime he does not remember committing, while Momohime has had her body possessed by an evil swordsman. Though they both take place in the same expansive world their stories effectively serve as two different games, each with its own narrative, objectives, and boss encounters.

Speaking in the parlance of genre, Muramasa might best be described as a side-scrolling action RPG. It's played optimally with the Wii classic controller on a d-pad, though other options are present. Celebrating some of the finest action gameplay traditions, double jumps, air dashes, and copious amounts hack-'n-slashing are in attendance. A fleshed-out item system featuring a staggering array of consumables is eclipsed only by the gargantuan tech tree used to forge new swords. Combine these with a fluid combat system and there's more than enough here to keep both anal-retentive statmongers and trigger-happy combo fetishists happy.

It would be an act of gross negligence to omit mention of the visuals in this game. Even on the Wii, a console written off as graphically incompetent by the majority of message board trolls, Muramasa manages to elicit gasps at every turn. The game has somehow achieved the targeted "painting come to life" aesthetic by combining the characterized nuance of handcrafted art with fluid animation, a feat which very likely gifted Vanillaware's staff with debilitating repetitive stress injuries. The art in this game is simply without peer.

In recent years I've begun to wonder if my once-ravenous interest in gaming has waned. Disturbingly, the majority of recent big name releases haven't been able to hold my attention for the duration of a teaser trailer. A terrible possibility loomed: What if, after over twenty solid years of gaming, I was growing out of my favorite hobby?

Playing Muramasa has set my mind at ease. It reignited a long-dormant personal affliction: despite my best efforts, I simply could not put the controller down. I'd dash through forests, artfully dispatch bands of evil monks, forge new supernatural blades empowered by the titular Muramasa himself, and still I had to push forward through just *one more* boss fight. I wanted to find every item, complete every side quest, then start a new game on the ridiculously difficult one-hit-and-you-die setting and do it again.

Muramasa is a game that will draw you in, beat you up, and somehow keep you coming back for more. It is an obvious labor of love, and I can't commend Vanillaware enough for bringing it to realization.

Big Brother is watching The O.C.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:54:43 EST

I've got a hot tip for anyone who wants to attract lots of Twitter followers in the fastest way possible.

The life and times of an Internet startup company

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:40:46 EST

This summer I'm spending the work week in Philadelphia building waffl.com, which is a marketplace and community for bed and breakfast owners.

The direction of the company has splintered into building a broader-scale marketing tool, and this is leading to some interesting discussions.

Space Invaders Extreme (XBLA) Review

Fri, 22 May 2009 14:41:34 EST

Space Invaders Extreme is a re-imagining of the original arcade classic released in 1978 ( yes, Space Invaders came out over thirty years ago. You can start feeling old now ). Smartly opting to hammer home nostalgia, the backbone of the game’s visual design has been left unchanged. The enemies and the protaganistic cannon are all styled as blockily as they were in 1978.

Space Invaders Extreme was originally released for the DS and PSP in 2008. This version adds an HD presentation and numerous multiplayer modes to last year's offerings.

At its core, the gameplay has not changed from the arcade original. You control a cannon positioned at the bottom of the screen that can be moved horizontally. Above you, a wave of aliens measuring up to 12 pixels long moves laterally and slowly descends toward your cannon, firing lasers and missiles sporadically. Your task, of course, is to survive as long as it takes to rack up a high score.

Space Invaders Extreme deviates from this familiar template by including intricately scripted enemy patterns, a deeply complex scoring system, and weapon power-ups. There are boss fights, bonus rounds, and invaders holding tiny reflective shields.

The "extreme" icing on the cake is a soundtrack consisting entirely of PULSE-POUNDING TECHNO MUSIC. Every shot you fire is marked by a jarring synth orchestra hit sound, which gets annoying rather quickly. I found myself looking for an option to switch the sound effect voicing to something less overbearing, but no such option exists.

The scoring is quite complex and difficult to actively manage as it's based on many factors: the types of invaders you destroy, their colors, their formation, and the number of enemies you've hit in rapid succession. Attempting to nail all of these arbitrary markers while not dying is a tedious juggling act. I felt like I was missing out on the strategy whenever I had to dodge bullets to stay alive.

The multiplayer modes are a nice addition, but online play is hampered by an omnipresent lag that slows your actions down to almost a full second after gamepad buttons are pressed. If Capcom was able to get Street Fighter 4 working smoothly over the tubes, you’d think that it would be possible for Space Invaders to do the same.

If the scoring system was a little more balanced, Space Invaders Extreme could have been a truly great retro game on par with the likes of Geometry Wars 2. As it stands, it’s merely a pleasant short-term distraction.

EA Sports Active (Wii) Review

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:11:13 EST

As a child, guest reviewer Kellbot saved up her $2/week allowance for multiple years to buy a Nintendo Entertainment System. She is an entrepreneur and hacker, and is probably better than you at Geometry Wars 2. You can read more about her projects at Kellbot.com.

I caved to internet peer pressure and picked up a copy of EA Sports Active. I was getting a little bored with Wii Fit, and sort of annoyed that it takes you 45 minutes to get in 30 minutes of exercise because you have to pick a new task each time... you can't just queue up a workout.

Plus I wanted to see if it lived up to the hype.

So far Sports Active is being touted as THE MOST AMAZING EXERCISE GAME. As of yesterday morning 100% of its reviews on Amazon were 5 star.

The game starts off like pretty much every other workout video/ad/pitch you've ever seen. Some guy in a fleece vest starts telling you how awesome and perfect your life will be once you follow him and stop being such a pathetic lump. There's some upbeat ambient music to emphasize this point. It's cheesy but inoffensive.

I started the 30 day fitness challenge because it required the least amount of thought. Over a 30 day period the game picks workouts for you each day, mixing it up and making sure you're getting an even workout. If you don't feel like doing that you can do any of the dozens of pre-programmed workouts or build your own. But, I'm lazy. If I wasn't lazy I wouldn't have bought an exercise video game, now would I?

After day 1 I'll concede that it's a strong title for the Wii exercise genre, and fills some voids Wii Fit left behind, but I'm not sure it's my new religion. I had trouble getting some of the exercises to register - particularly the lunges. EA Sports Active requires a considerably larger horizontal footprint than WiiFit. Since my living room is on the smaller side I ended up standing behind the couch for some exercises, which happened to be a little beyond the Wiimote's IR sensor's range. Overall things seemed a little sluggish - my avatar would follow me about 2 seconds behind.

The exercises themselves were pretty good, and things changed up pretty quickly so I didn't have time to get bored... which was nice. I've had a hard time motivating myself to do 10 minutes of WiiFit hula hooping now that my boyfriend isn't around to appreciate the effort. I broke a sweat, although I didn't really feel exhausted or out of breath at any point during the workout.

My biggest beef is that it felt cumbersome to switch back and forth between all the gear. Nunchuck in leg strap. Nunchuck in hand. Get on the wii balance board. No, with the nunchuck in the strap. Now stand on the resistance band. Oh but holding the nunchuck this time. Yeah. The balance board didn't bring much to the experience, and I'll probably leave it out next time just because it was one more thing I kept having to bring out / push out of the way.

It's a title worth picking up if you want to add something to your exercise routine but don't actually want to join a gym / go outside. Also it tells you how many calories you've (theoretically) burned, and that's a lot like points. And I really really like points points. I'll post an update as I go through more of the workouts and get a better feel for the overall game. Program. Whatever.

Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:17:00 EST

It is surprisingly hard to portray the speech patterns of people playing games online without resorting to swearing.

If you aren't familiar with Cole Train, this video will show you just about everything you need to know.

How Your HDTV is Holding Back Your Games

Thu, 07 May 2009 02:34:57 EST

In one form or another, lag is something that most gamers have had to contend with.

In the 90s, "lag" usually referred to network latency. It was a direct reflection of the speed and stability of your internet connection. A low ping time could be the difference between a visceral game of Quake and trudging through a soup of seemingly random death.

Thanks to more widespread broadband internet access and better programming tricks, network latency isn't as big a problem as it once was. Unfortunately, modern technology has introduced a new type of lag into our games: HDTV processing lag.

What causes processing lag?

HDTV processing lag ( also known as "input lag" ) is a phenomenon that is unique to modern televisions. In the pursuit of making the end picture better, TV manufacturers have built a myriad of video processing filters into their products. These filters have been designed to aesthetically benefit the playback of movies and broadcast TV.

This video processing lengthens the time between a signal being passed from its source ( your DVD player, antenna, or game system ) and the resulting picture being displayed on the screen.

Please note that processing lag is a completely seperate entity from response time, which is the time it takes any given pixel of a display to go from black to white and back again. Manufacturers often advertise their response time figures in milliseconds ( ms ). Response time has no bearing on processing lag.

How does processing lag affect videogames?

Generally speaking, this delay is in the ballpark of a fraction of a second. In the case of non-real-time media like broadcast TV and movies, it doesn't make much of a difference. The signal may be delayed, but it doesn't matter because you aren't interacting with it.

In the case of console videogames, this situation is less than ideal. Your console is working in real-time; When you press the A button it makes Mario jump. If your display is portraying the jump late, the game begins to fall somewhere between sloppy and unplayable.

This type of lag is most apparent in games where split-second timing is an inherent part of how they're played. Music games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Dance Dance Revolution can be crippled by processing lag.

What about in-game calibration?

In the cases of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, game developers have implemented video calibration options that attempt to compensate for this lag. The newest Rock Band instruments have even gone so far as to include sensors you can use to calibrate the game automatically by holding them up to your screen.

These options work well enough to combat video lag, but there's another issue that calibration alone can't alleviate: audio lag.

Audio signals are subject to similar degrees of laggy processing. The end result is the same; audio is played slightly later than the source sends it out.

Modern music games have additional calibration settings for audio lag but you will quickly discover that they provide no substitution for real-time sound. When you beat the drums during a freestyle fill or sing into the microphone, the actual sound is reflected by your TV later than "truth". This results in a very unpleasant echo effect that drains the fun out of improvised drumming.

How can I eliminate processing lag?

We've established that modern TVs introduce video/audio lag and that it's a bad thing for games. What can we do about it?

Sadly, there is no way to entirely eliminate processing lag in modern flat-panel televisions. Every flat-panel TV currently being manufactured for the consumer market will introduce some degree of lag. Older non-HD CRT ( cathode ray tube ) displays are your only option for real-time gameplay.

Without going off the deep end and buying outdated analog TVs, let's do our best to mitigate the damage. You can try to find an HDTV that utilizes less video processing and therefore introduces less lag. Unfortunately, TV manufacturers do not include this information in their specifications. Worse yet, most professional audio/video reviewers don't mention processing lag in their reports. This kind of information can only be found online anecdotally in places like the AV Science forums ( a fantastic resource, for a message board ).

Before making a big purchase, you should absolutely test out prospective TVs in person. Bring your console to the electronics store, plug it into a set, and measure the lag ( again, music games are best for this ). You might look obsessive but you'll be much happier later on knowing that you bought the best device for your hobby.

If you own a big fancy HDTV and you want to cut down its processing lag, you have a few options.

1. Ensure that your console is outputting video at the display's native resolution whenever possible. The native resolution of a television is generally the highest resolution it can display. If you have a 1080p display but your console is feeding it 720p, the TV will have to perform additional calculations to make it fit the screen.

2. Check to see if your TV has a "game mode". Some TVs have a lower-latency video setting that turns off some bells and whistles to get the picture to the screen faster. Some have multiple game settings, so be sure to delve into your TV's manual to find them all.

3. Manually turn off every video processing option your TV gives you access to. You can usually identify these as a stream of acronyms: DRE, ACL, CTI, 3DNR. Turn them all off. You will sacrifice some picture clarity but you'll gain precious milliseconds.

4. You can eliminate audio lag by connecting the audio cables from your console directly into an analog stereo receiver. This may prove problematic if you're using a digital audio output method like HDMI, but you may be able to find a good digital receiver that's faster than your TV if you're using external speakers.

5. If you're using an AV receiver, be sure to turn on its video pass-through option to send your console's signal along without any laggy preprocessing. Some receivers don't have this option, so be careful.

HDTV processing lag is a complicated issue that is widely swept under the rug. This post is intended as a starting point to combat the general lack of knowledge about this subject. If you've got any other tips for reducing lag, please post them in the comments -- these are the solutions that have worked best for me, and I'm sure there's a great deal more to learn.

A Conversation with Cactus & Petri Purho [Interview]

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:33:58 EST

Ever since our How to Be Me interview with Petri Purho, HCF has been eager to delve deeper into the world of indie game developers and their awesomeness. Indie darlings (and budding BFFs?) Cactus and Petri Purho, who recently gave back-to-back lectures at GDC, agreed to sit down with us for some fancy, three-way IM action. In the conversation that follows, we cover topics ranging from game-related depression, to the fear of the judgment of our peers, to making games that aren't fun, to the winner that's inside each and every one of us.

Cactus, do you think you could tell us a little about yourself? Better yet, Petri, do you think you could tell us about Cactus?!

Cactus: That's way more interesting, yeah.

Petri: He's awesome and he does awesome games.

And then Cactus can take a turn describing you...

Cactus: Petri's Finnish, makes cool games when he's not being a magician. He has really nice hair.

Petri: Cactus makes games at an insane rate. Here's a motivational poster that I made for myself:

Cactus: Petri's made more games than me this year though...

Awww... really?

Cactus: Yeah.

Petri: It's not true. I've released 2 games so far. You've made more.

Cactus: But you've made games you haven't released right?

Petri: Well one. (And maybe another one).

Cactus: Yeah, I think I've made three games.

Petri: That's really lazy of you.

Cactus: I know.

Have you been busy? Doing other things?

Cactus: Yeah, I was pretty depressed during winter, and then I've been out with friends more than normal the last month or so.

What kind of circumstances are best for making tons of games? No friends and summertime?

Petri: Yeah, that's pretty much it. I've made all my best games during the summer.

Cactus: I think the key is seeing games as a fun thing you can do to delay attending to more urgent matters.

Petri: That is so true. Cactus, do you feel depressed if you don't do games, if you're not up to your speed?

Cactus: No, I don't really care. I don't take games seriously enough, I think. I want to, but I haven't been able to.

Petri: That's good for you. Because I was somewhat depressed a little while ago, as well, but I felt so much better when I made and finished a game. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I was feeling depressed because I didn't get shit done.

Cactus: Yeah, it always feels good to finish a game, but I don't feel bad about not making games. (Well, I feel a bit like I should make more games, but nothing more than that.)

Petri: I think for me the big cause of "depression" was Crayon Physics Deluxe. I was talking at GDC and pretty much everyone told me that you'll get depressed after you release your big game. So I guess there's something to it.

Cactus: Must be a lot of pressure on doing an amazing follow up, eh?

Petri: No, I don't think that's it. It's just that after you've released something it gets bashed all over the internet (which I expected) and that wasn't the cause of grief, but I think it's just that after that there's nothing really to do. Feels really pointless, like you're fired from a job or something. I don't know; it's hard to put into words.

Sort of the game equivalent of postpartum depression...

Petri: Yeah, that's what Kyle Gray told me.

What sort of satisfaction do you guys get out of making games, then? Beyond spending time on something fun in lieu of more urgent matters. :p

Cactus: I enjoy being creative, and whatever attention you get when you release the game feels pretty rewarding, although that feeling kinda drops a bit with every game you make.

Petri: There's no letdown in prototypes, really.

Even if the prototype doesn't perform as you would have liked?

Petri: Like, prototypes, I don't care how they perform. If nobody likes them and everybody trashes them it's fine with me. I have a safety mechanism that allows me to protect myself. I just say that the game was made in 7 days what else would you expect from it? It's only 7 days max. Like what the FUCK have they ever made in 7 days?

Does that go double for you, Cactus? Since your games are made in hours?

Cactus: Pretty much. I actually typed out the development time for my games as an excuse for them not being better, rather than a reason to brag when I created my website.

Petri: It's a good tactic.

I think that most people would agree you both make fantastic and fascinating games and that the short span of time in which you make them is a testament to your awesomeness.

Petri: Here's an very interesting talk by Tim Brown:

In the very beginning he points out why adults rarely are very creative. A big part of it is that we're all very afraid of the critique of peers.

Is there any amount of success you guys could achieve that would relieve your fear of the judgment of your peers?

Cactus: I don't think so. I think pressure might build up along with your accomplishments in many ways...But, Petri's more successful than me, so he should be answering that.

Petri: Not true. Like, I released my worst game up to date right after I won the IGF grand prize. :) So, I'm pretty down with failing spectacularly.

Cactus: Hahaha.

Petri: Somebody pointed out that releasing 4'33 of Uniqueness right after releasing Crayon Physics Deluxe was an very interesting career move. Never thought of it that way before.

I think I'd like to move the conversation into a different direction if that's okay!

Cactus: Sure.

There's been something that's been on my mind since Cactus' talk at GDC and that's games that aren't fun. You brought it up a couple of times. I think, for most people, "fun" is intrinsic to a "game"....So, what kind of unfun games are you imagining? And what would they accomplish?

Petri: (Naa Naa you got the difficult question.)

Oh, you will have to answer, too!

Petri: Damn.

Cactus: Well, I see it as comparing games to other media, like movies or books. Right now it feels like games are usually pretty much limited to something similar to cartoons, action, adventure and comedy. While there's certainly classics in some of those genres, I generally prefer less "entertaining" movies and books myself. So for example, if we'd describe a Nobel prize winning book, fun would not necessarily be among the words we'd choose. I think games are just aiming at trying to please everyone at the same time. I want games that are targeted at people who share my taste more specifically. Where's the Stanley Kubrick, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fellini of game design?

I'm pretty sure people have already compared you to Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch.

Cactus: Yeah, but that would be a very relative comparison, probably solely brought out from the limited output of more alternative games. Compare one of my games directly to one of those guys' movies, and it's basically just a fart in the wind.

Petri: I agree that there should be more games that explore what else we can do with games. Like Jenova Chen pointed out, the emotional spectrum of games is very limited. So, I'm very interested in seeing games done where the goal of the rules of the game is not just to be about fun, but to express ideas and other emotions. Jason Rohrer's and Rod Humble's games are a very good beginning, but I think there's even more interesting stuff to come. Jason's Gravitation is so worth checking out. But that's purely or very much on the game mechanic / rules side of things. Then there's the thematic and visual side of things, which also is very limited in scope. But I think that's the side of things that will continue to mature and develop as we see more games. But I don't think that's going to be enough. Also, I think fun is just a really bad term for games. I don't care if something is fun. I just want something that's interesting and worth while for me. So, I agree with Jason Rohrer when he said that games are hopefully going to be next big art form, but it's going to take a lot of work to get there. We're not there yet and we might never get there unless we work really hard.

What will it take to reach that point?

Cactus: I think more easily accessible tools might be the key. A movie usually has one director that gets most of the credit for the end result, books are usually the visions of a single person too, and often it's the same with comics and music. Mainstream games are usually created by huge teams of people, which makes it really hard to stay true to the original vision of whoever came up with the game concept. I also don't think a big company would care to face the risks of making something completely different, unless it was something they knew would sell.

Petri: That would also allow more interesting persons to express their opinions and ideas through games.

Cactus: Exactly.

Petri: There's also this idea that was expressed by Rod and Jason and a lot of other people, which is that in every medium there's something that defines that medium, sets it apart from all the other mediums. In movies it's editing. In games I think it's the rules of the game. Unless we explore and figure out how we can use the rules to craft and express ideas, we're doomed to this reputation that we have.

Cactus: Yeah, some people have to be the pioneers who start it all, I guess. It's up to game developers to make it happen, I think. Like Petri mentioned, people like Jason Rohrer and Rod Humble are doing a lot to help with paving the way for these kinds of games.

How do the indie game developers bring their message mainstream? Would going mainstream ruin it?

Petri: I have no idea how indie game developers could reach the main stream. I don't think they can as a whole. There might be one or two developers that make it big and hit the mainstream market, but I don't see indie games as a whole ever reaching to mainstream market . [Going] mainstream could ruin it, but also: is something indie when it hits the mainstream market in a big way? Like Nintendo is financially independent, but you don't say that they make indie games.

I'd love to see the Jodorowsky of games. I just wonder what needs to happen to bring that about.

Petri: Someone just has to make it. I don't know how to get the money to do it, but I don't know how Jodorowsky financed his movies.

Are there people you're watching? Whose work has that kind of promise?

Petri: I play pretty much all the Cactus games that come out.

What are your favorite games of each other's and why?

Petri: I love Cactus's Mondo Medicals, Psychosomnium, Ad Nauseum 2, Seizure Dome... I'm forgetting a bunch of games. [Note: All of which can be found on Cactus' site under Games!]

Cactus: I like many of Petri's games. Crayon Physics was the first one I took notice of (I sent it around to people on MSN even), but I really like ComGYBR and JLHTP too. As well as quite a few others. I hadn't played any physics games before I started visiting Petri's site.

Petri: I have no idea which games you're referring to. :)

Cactus: Hahaha.

Petri: I got JLHTP.

Cactus: Choke on my Groundhog.

Petri: Oh. Cool :)

What triple A titles do you guys play?

Cactus: I play Mario Kart...

I will own you at Sherbet Land, Cactus.

Cactus: I doubt it. ;)

Oh man, it's on.

Petri: I suck at Mario Kart.

Then I definitely want to play you, Petri. Um... I feel like the interview portion of this chat has pretty much shut down... Thanks so much, you guys, for the interesting chat!

NOTE: At this point the conversation degenerated into chit-chat. Later, after expressing my own feelings of self-doubt & despair, Cactus shared this illuminating Youtube clip that, hopefully, may inspire all of you who may experience self-doubt, too:

There's a winner inside each and every one of us.

Cactus: Yes, exactly. Don't doubt yourself anymore!

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (XBLA) Review

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:41:38 EST

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a frantic 2D hack-n-slash title available on Xbox Live Arcade. Developed by indie outfit Ska Studios, it combines the fun of classic beat-em-ups with a cartoonishly morbid sensibility.

You play as the titular dead samurai, a dishwasher who has been murdered and subsequently resurrected seemingly through the power of pure vengeance ( think The Crow ). Brandishing a set of increasingly sadistic weapons, you maul your way through mostly linear levels as you carry out your quest to give the world a taste of undead angst.

Dishwasher plays like a 2D version of the 3D Ninja Gaiden games, if that makes any sense. Players chain together a variety of attacks to inflict as much pain on as many enemies as possible. The combat is surprisingly deep, as the effectiveness of any given attack depends strongly on both its timing and the enemy that is being targeted. The lack of a third dimension works wonders here; you don't need to worry about the impairments of parkinsononian camera work and dreadful three-point perspective.

If you want to fully enjoy Dishwasher, you'll have to devote some time to exploring the combat system. There isn't much guidance provided by the game, so figuring out how to link attacks together is up to you. You can alter your attacks by holding up or down on the joystick, but because these changes don't always manifest themselves until you're already in the middle of a combo it can be difficult to figure them out. If you're patient, it's a rewarding process. There are mini-secrets to fighting each of the enemies that you will discover only through experimentation ( for example: air-throwing jetpack soldiers will result in an instant kill, tossing a special-ops cyborg while he's hanging from a high rope will yield you some extra life ).

The art style is reminiscent of something an angsty teenager would draw in their 7th grade history notebook. It fits the mood and the gameplay -- you can't adhere to anything very high-minded when you're playing a game based on hacking cyborgs to pieces with dual meat cleavers. The animation is a mixed bag, some of it is fluid and visceral ( the dishwasher's bladework ) and some of it is stilted and odd ( the special-ops cyborgs' kicks ). There is prodigious use of EXTREME™ camera effects, including slow motion, film grain, and motion blur.

One of my all time favorite beat-em-ups was Sega's arcade game Spikeout. It generated a fantastic feeling of "crowd control", something that quickly became necessary as you'd be beset by ever-growing groups of thugs. Spikeout worked because it had tight control and fun enemy-to-enemy contact physics -- if you kicked an enemy and caused him to fall backwards, the enemies he hit as he fell also were knocked backwards. It gave the game a rare feeling of "If I was good enough I could probably beat this game with one credit".

Dishwasher generally lacks that kind of crowd control. The enemies only interact with one another after a few specific attacks: divebombing aerial throws onto other enemies and strong smash attacks. Enemies are immune to one another's attacks, and I think is a missed opportunity for even deeper gameplay. The aforementioned special-ops cyborgs will frequently use a grappling hook to swing to the ceiling so they can drop a wide-blast grenade on our undead hero. If those grenades affected other enemies in the blast radius, we'd have the possibility of trying to coax that attack out for our benefit.

Taking damage is also a little too subtle for my liking. When you get hit while on the ground it's difficult to tell unless you're watching the damage meter like a hawk. A more visceral sound could have made things much clearer. It's something you definitely get better at noticing given time, but with all of the split-second timing required to play the game it would be nice to be able to devote fewer braincycles to it.

You'll have a great time with Dishwasher if you're willing to give it a chance. There is a juicy-sounding co-op mode that I wasn't able to review, plus the innovative usage of a guitar peripheral as a controller for support characters. There is a lot of game here, including a story mode, arcade mode, multiplayer, leaderboards, and a host of extras. It's a complete package, and I commend Ska Studios on a job well done.

How To Be Me: Matt Chandronait, Area 5 Founder & Producer

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:13:26 EST

How to Be Me is HCF's series of casual, vaguely instructional interviews with games industry professionals, conducted entirely over instant messenger services.

For this week's interview, HCF chatted with Matt Chandronait, former producer of The 1UP Show and co-founder of Area 5 Media, a video production company comprised of the former members of 1UP's Gamevideos team, who were laid off following the UGO buyout of 1UP. Matt works as producer, editor and *actor* for Area 5 Media's flagship show CO-OP, "a weekly look at the meaningful, the important, the interesting, or the just plain fun games that are out there or will be coming out." If you're unfamiliar with the show and have a moment (or half hour), you should definitely check out CO-OP's last episode, Indie Special -- Roundup of the Best of IGF:

Howdy, Matt! Could you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what it is you do?

Matt: I edit videoz fer da internetz. Done! Interview over! Wow, that was easy!

Whew! 100k diggs!

Matt: w00t! We win! But yeah, more specifically... Area 5 is what I do. Well, what the six of us do. We used to be the video team at 1UP. After the UGO buyout we all got laid off as original content wasn't exactly a money-maker. So we all decided to start our own business. BAM. Area 5. CO-OP, I guess you could say, is our flagship product, though we contract out our services to developers and publishers et. al. in the games industry. Rob just got back from Japan on the first such gig. Really looking forward to what he brings back as he was there during cherry-blossom time. It'll be like every Anime evar!

Can you talk a little about the other sorts of gigs you guys do? Are they secret?

Matt: Well that's the first one. It was, specifically, for Ignition, though I can't talk about the content yet as 1) I haven't seen it and 2) it's for their website and I don't wanna push any spoilers. :) We have some other in the works, but nothing definitive yet.

Did you guys know anything at all about starting a business before you actually started one?

Matt: Um... other than the fact that you need a business license, not really. :) Fortunately I have tons of people, friends and family, that I could turn to for help. We knew we had to move fast -- both because we had severance that was going to run out (which it did) and because the buzz around our cancellation/layoff would wear off quickly. The Internet has a short memory. Also, random people that were fans of The 1UP Show were *extremely* helpful with all kinds of advice and life experience that I (we) just didn't have. One guy even drove into the city and took us to coffee to talk all about starting a business and the first steps you need to take. One more recommendation for a lawyer and -- whambammo -- business license. Now I do spreadsheets in between playing games for the show. :p

How quickly did all of this turn around? It seems, from the outside, like a whirlwind of awesome.

Matt: Haha. Whirlwind is apt. So is "roller-coaster" and "HOLYFUCKINGSHIT." Yeah... it was a constant barrage of fear, joy, support, love, trepidation, all of it together all at the same time. I think that's one reason why when we came up as Area 5 (from Rez) for the name of the company that it appealed so much to me, personally. In the game, Area 5 has the theme of rebirth as well as the lyrics for the music track which repeated over and over "Fear is a mind killer." Kinda became my mantra for a few months. :p ... I guess it still is. Though, yeah, I know it's from Dune. :)

I had no idea.

Matt: <- nerd

<- not

Matt: Hahaha. My name has yet to become a killing word, however.

Quick FYI, I am monitoring your mockery via this handy image:

Matt: Helvetica. Nice choice in typeface.

Oh, so you're one of those...

Matt: Can't help it. Spend 12 years as a designer and it rubs off. :)

You worked as a designer, you say? Did you study graphic design?

Matt: Haha, no... I was just fortunate enough to know a very little bit about doing art on a computer in 1995. Which meant, in those days, INSTANT-INTERNET-JOB-MACHINE. As in, everyone and their mom needed a web designer and anyone that could make a square in photoshop and knew how to animate a .gif got a job. So, of course, I dropped out of college to pursue my dream of becoming an internet-bubble baby.

Wow! So, for 12 years you made the webs?

Matt: I did! Both of them!

How did you transition into film production?

Matt: By getting my job at 1UP. Though I guess it started when I went back to school at 28. I decided to get an animation degree, specifically I wanted to do 3D stuff for Pixar. Um... might have been shooting a little high on that one. After school I decided I was too old to start over in my career with a basic internship so I ended up back in a web job, which I hated. Then the producer spot opened up at 1UP. I was already friends with everyone there (including the outgoing producer) and that became my first video-editing gig. Turns out I'm good at it, but I think the animation education helped a lot.

And where were games in all this?

Matt: They've always been there. My first web design job in 1995 was for the ill-fated ENGAGE Games Online (you can tell it was doomed to failure since the name was in all caps). It was an off-shoot of Interplay. After that I started at GameSpy in 2000 (well, with a few jobs-that-shall-not-be-named in between). So I've always worked around gaming editorial/production. My last job before 1UP was at Perpetual Entertainment. If you've heard of them you'd be one of the few -- another ill-fated game company, this time trying to make two MMO's. Ouchies.

So 1UP was where the magic happened. Did you have an immediate knack for editing?

Matt: I'd say so... I mean I had to do a lot of it in my animation classes, and being already familiar with timeline mechanics made it easy to work in Final Cut Pro. Turns out my two best skills when I was done with my animation degree were sculpture and motion graphics. The motion graphics thing I think is what made my move into video editing so seamless.

Hmm... is that what a person should study to be a fancy video producer? What sort of educational background would you recommend for someone who would want to be you?

Matt: Haha! I wouldn't. Not that I think edumacation am evil or some shiz, just that in any creative endeavor, especially if you're looking to do gaming criticism, the best education is to just do it. Emulate people you admire and do a bunch of it. Your body of work will speak far better for you than any degree. That, and if you literally want to be me, you need to go bald or shave your head. It's a particular part of the mystery that is me.

I have to know: why do bald men shave their heads? Why not have a little something going on?

Matt: I dunno! Especially on white men. It makes them look like penises. I like my sort of Patrick Stewart cum Heihachi look.

Is that a look men wish to cultivate?

Matt: Haha! Maybe they do. I cut it all off, which makes me look like Picard, and then it grows out enough so that I can look like a fighting game hero. Either way I win. ;p

Anywho, back to your work! How long were you at 1UP before the axe fell?

Matt: Only a year. I started in January 08.

That was long enough, apparently, to make some worthwhile connections.

Matt: And that I owe almost entirely to the people I worked with there! Not since I first started at GameSpy was I amongst such amazingly talented individuals. When you're in an environment where you're inspired just by fucking being at work... hell, I don't even think there's a word for it. I mean, I could walk down the hall and talk to Jeff Green. How many people get to say that?! My only regret is that I hadn't been working there for years.

But you managed to take some of those talented individuals home with you. Three of you live Monkees-style in the same apartment!

Matt: Haha! Truth! And the rest are over here enough that it's almost like they live here... fortunately the rest of our roommates (we have 5 more, for a total of 8 people in this place) have been extremely understanding.

Are you guys working on the show 'round the clock? What's a typical day in the life?

Matt: It varies very greatly. 'Round the clock usually only happens when we're nearing the end of the week and need to deliver to Revision3 (which is supposed to happen on Fridays...we're, um, working on that). It's pretty similar to The 1UP Show, actually. Really, I don't think people are supposed to be able to do what we do. Writing, shooting, and editing a show in 5 days (sometimes more, when I'm honest :) ) just isn't the thing you think to ask people to do. Maybe that's why we're the only one doing what we do... though we wish there were more out there! Also, it's hard to make money at it. Just ask UGO. ;p

What is it exactly that you guys hope to accomplish with your show? What niche are you filling?

Matt: We talk a lot about changing the way that people think and talk about games. I mean, really we're just passionate about the medium and its potential and are fortunate to live very near a stockpile of brilliant people that have brilliant things to say about the art form/sport/hobby/whatever, but if what we do could have even just a small impact on the overall dialogue surrounding gaming then it would mean so much more than that. We want games to be taken as seriously as the Mona Lisa. It's still okay to have fun playing them and talking about them, but the perception that they're an adolescent past-time for man-children of no social aptitude, or that they're merely the latest in the line of child-corrupting influences disguised as toys has got to stop. The power of interactivity is profound, to be sure, but the potential for its use and misuse is at least partially based in the way that people think and talk about it. Maybe we can play a small roll in expanding that conversation. This is the part where someone in the comments says "Too much text. Didn't read."

Oh no, no friend of the internet would type that. I believe the correct phrase is: tl;dr.

Matt: Haha! Truth!

Speaking of man-children of no social aptitude, any chance you'd like to comment on Heather Chaplin's rant from GDC? [In which Chaplin chastised a room full of game developers with phrases such as "It's not that the medium is in its adolescence, it's that you're a bunch of fucking adolescents."]

Matt: I honestly only heard of it peripherally. I have a thought or two, but being that I wasn't there I'd take anything I type with a grain of sea-salt. (Because other salts are yucky.) In short, I think she was right on. Shit won't change unless the people making the games (and talking about them!) change it. We do our very best to remove ourselves and our show away from the greasy machine of male chest-pounding that it's become, but that doesn't mean Gears of War isn't tons of fucking fun!

Do you really think mainstream games are reaching their full interactive potential? Or, even really striving for it?

Matt: Nah, but neither are (sans interactivity, of course) movies, or music. There are diamonds in the rough, of course, and sometimes the rough is just good fun and raw entertainment (which should also be appreciated) but largely I think, no, there's far too much playing it safe. Part of it is a lack of vocabulary and a lack of a diversified audience -- chicken and the egg problem. You need a diverse audience in order to create diverse art, but how do you create that audience from nothing? Personally I think it's just the kind of thing that happens when the people that are afraid of the new shit die off and leave the honest exploration of a medium to a generation less hampered by their insecurities about it. FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER. :p

Ooh, I like how you brought that back around. Well played.

Matt: My little brother is 14. I went as a chaperone on his 6th grade camping trip. EVERY kid on that bus, boy and girl alike, had a DS or a PSP. I'm hoping we don't have to wait until my little brother is grown up for gaming to truly move into it's golden age (which is where I truly believe it is headed) but we may have to if the current paradigm can't shift quickly enough. Online and digital distribution may do it for us. But that's just a guess. :)

Going back to what you said above, how is CO-OP bringing its expanded vocabulary to the world? How are you finding/reaching your audience? It can't all be peeps who followed the 1UP show... OR CAN IT?

Matt: I think that's largely who it's been, yeah. I mean, they're the ones that donated cash to us to start the project and they're the ones that helped spread the word, subscribed to our Twitters, commented on our YouTube channels, posted on forums, etc. -- Revision3 is doing a lot to promote our show now, but I don't think we'll see the results of that for a little while longer. Getting an article in Forbes as a good start. But mostly, at this point, it's word of mouth.

So, corporate sponsorship, eh? How did you swing that? Tell me the whole story!

Matt: Well our first sponsor was EA. They had marketing budget to spend for The Godfather II and, well, I think it just so happens that we have some fans over there and a drop in the bucket to them could be GINORMOUS for us. I got a call out of the blue saying they wanted to do an ad buy with us. This, and the $18k in donations we received are what made the Revision3 deal possible. With Revision3, we're not actually making any money. It's been a common misconception -- everywhere on the Internets -- that Revision3 drove up to our door and dumped a pile of cash at our feet. We are, in fact, not making any money just yet. BUT, the long-term potential with 'em is HUGE if we can get our viewer numbers up high enough that they can sell our available ad slot for more money. It's a revenue-share deal, meaning we get a % of the ad revenue. Right now, the ads you see in our show are the default sponsorships that fund all Revision3 programming. That won't be enough to sustain us over the long term. That's what the EA and donation nest egg are for. Hopefully that money won't run out before we've got enough new viewers to make our show more valuable.

Ah, interesting. I do think people just assume you're wading in caviar and toast points.

Matt: Indeed, they do. :) Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, perception helps to create reality, but perception can also create inaction. And by that I mean we've only got word of mouth to rely on for now. If no one thinks to tell their friend about our show because we're already "just so huge" then maybe it won't happen at all. Also, what's a toast point? :)

Hahah. Seriously?

Matt: For cereal. :)

Manbearpig. It's just a little piece of toast. Like, for canapés, etc.. You can put caviar on them if you like.

Matt: Ah... see? If we were wading in dough and going to fancy parties I'd know that. ;p

I had imagined you guys like the Simpsons, filling your living room with caviar and toast points...

...or laying on a bed of pearls, eating pearls for breakfast...

Matt: Haha! Just kidding! That's what we do every day for breakfast!

Anywho, we got way off on yet another tangent here. So, what does the future hold for CO-OP and crew?

Matt: More CO-OP! And Caviar! And Toast Points! And Capitalizing Words For No Reason!

That's How the Rich Do IT!

Matt: And the ultra rich just go for straight up caps! FUCK YEAH.

HAHAHAHAH. HOW WELL YOU KNOW US.

Matt: Bahahah! Honestly, we're hoping to get more contract work to help us break even. I think we can make a good go at that and make a lot of those crappy developer diary videos much more interesting and mini-documentary-like. Hopefully we'll get into the kind of stuff you see on Blu-Ray/DVD extras for games. But, really, we're mostly looking to CO-OP to make our mark on the games industry in the most positive way possible. Also, we're REALLY looking forward to PAX. We have some ideas that I think will be a ton of fun and PAX is our favorite event all year. :)

Any hints? teasers?

Matt: Heh, I wish! We're just shooting ideas around. I'd hate to give 'em away in case nothing pans out :)

Well, we'll all be looking forward to more CO-OP. Thanks so much for chatting with me, Mr. Matt. I know you were very busy playing games and ignoring your appointments. [Matt was 20 minutes late for this interview. He was busy hanging out, playing video games on a live webcast, and needed to be reminded of his appointment via the accompanying live webchat.]

Matt: My pleasure! And I appreciate you going to the extra effort to get me to actually MAKE my appointment. :)

AND... SCENE.

Matt: fwooosh!