I'm trying to fix and debug Bugzilla
bug imports and LDAP functionality at work.
Continue reading Eclipse and EPIC Perl.
March 2007 Archives
A good movie.
Stranger than the movie itself, while watching the ending credits, noticed that Britt Daniel did the music. I immediately say to Cpu that it has to be Katie's brother of Spoon fame. Cpu doubts for a second, but there can't be more than one Britt. And the music seems to fit, although to my chagrin, I haven't listend to any Spoon besides the tape Katie gave us in 1997. We used to work with Katie when ILivedInBeijing. We think to ourselves, neat.
Stranger than the movie itself, while watching the ending credits, noticed that Britt Daniel did the music. I immediately say to Cpu that it has to be Katie's brother of Spoon fame. Cpu doubts for a second, but there can't be more than one Britt. And the music seems to fit, although to my chagrin, I haven't listend to any Spoon besides the tape Katie gave us in 1997. We used to work with Katie when ILivedInBeijing. We think to ourselves, neat.
Continue reading Stranger Than Fiction.
I had a really nice GDC
this year. Thank you to work for flying me out and paying for
everything, to my co-workers past and present for your help and good
company, and to my hosts for putting me up and introducing me to Pasole.
Continue reading Game Developers Convention 2007.
In my eagerness to discuss GDC 2007, I glossed over a very exciting SOMA development. The Dirt Park
is now a real park with grass, bums, litter, picnic tables, and various
fun areas. I have to figure out how to get my pictures off my phone,
onto Flickr, and spliced into this blog via MagicTM. Hopefully it is relatively easy.
Game designers need fresh eyes to see if their game works as designed. There is some overlap in understanding with the terms focus testing and market research, but according to Steve Jackson, the rules of blind testing are pretty simple. If I find my notes, I can illuminate them further. This is what I took away from Steve's GDC 2007 talk:
The Monolith team had a presentation in GDC 2007 where they mentioned focus testing and market research. Using some kinds of play testing, they exposed several weaknesses in F.E.A.R.. More telling than what they changed based on feedback was that they admitted that the main weaknesses of the game (slapped on story system, for example) were never tested with naive users. I think they probably would have done better if they had augmented these types of testing with blind testing.
Blind testing is frequently informally performed at work, but to see it integrated into the schedule would be interesting.
- Frequently get naive users to play your game and observe the playing session personally.
- Do not help the users ever except to get them unstuck.
- Do not alter the users' impressions of the game. That is your data.
- Note everything that is unintended, and act on it in a new design iteration.
- Interview the users about their experience and cut through the impressions and advice to get to the core design problems. Do not use leading questions that may destroy your data.
The Monolith team had a presentation in GDC 2007 where they mentioned focus testing and market research. Using some kinds of play testing, they exposed several weaknesses in F.E.A.R.. More telling than what they changed based on feedback was that they admitted that the main weaknesses of the game (slapped on story system, for example) were never tested with naive users. I think they probably would have done better if they had augmented these types of testing with blind testing.
Blind testing is frequently informally performed at work, but to see it integrated into the schedule would be interesting.
There is a name conflict with Nintendo's Mii avatars and the Meez phone avatars my friend works on. Which is ironic because Meez used to share an office with SingShot, who were bought by Electronic Arts and shown on PS3 in the Sony keynote. Apparently one day, everyone from SingShot put their things in a banker's box made of money and moved out.
When talking about someone's Miis, they are clearly spelled differently than Meez. But since they are pronounced the same and both refer to computer avatars possibly in a game context, I smell a brand problem.
When talking about someone's Miis, they are clearly spelled differently than Meez. But since they are pronounced the same and both refer to computer avatars possibly in a game context, I smell a brand problem.
Cpu is considering advertising, and I suggested FeedBurner to her. Trying it myself as a guinea pig.
Continue reading FeedBurner TiddlyWiki Setup.
