The Ultimate Question

Due to me teaching job and games that we made, I get to asked about how to get into game development and which way to go and similar nonsense. People are basically trying to evaluate that whether they are fit for the job or not or what’s the shortest way to get achievement and success.

I read a lot of articles and advices from “successful” game developers through the years and recently found a question that answers it all, and no, it’s not 42, at least not this time. I believe that answering honestly to this simple question should be enough to guide for either someone who just got into game development or even someone 10 years down the road and re-evaluating.

From the experience, I think one should not think twice about his answer and the first answer that comes into your mind, is the answer. Just don’t.

*drum roll* and the question is : “Do you see yourself doing something beside game development?“.

Reason behind is that this is hardest thing I’ve done my whole life and from what I’ve heard from fellow game dev’s, it’s not easy for them either. So if you see yourself doing something beside this, chase it and don’t ever look back.

I honestly believe only people that can not do anything beside it, should pursue it.

Serious Uplifting

One of the sources of energetic music that I find myself enjoying is Trance. And thankfully there are numerous bands/individuals doing it so there is no lack of it. And due to this great amount of generated tracks each week, there are several radio shows that select and promote “selec-chin” of these in their programs. You can listen to them online when they broadcast or download them from their websites or download them.

The main one I’m following is A State of Trance by Armin van Burren but there are others as well like Group Therapy Radio by Above & Beyond, Ori Uplift, just to name a few.

I can’t listen to them for a long time and I need a break after a few months of them but they are very positive and energetic and sometimes I find awesome tunes in them.

Due to their genre, they are very emotional as well which I like and not harsh like Drum & Bass and doesn’t mess with your brain as is with sub-genres like Dubstep.

Don’t get me wrong, I love D ‘n B and Dubstep, but I can’t work while listening to them since they need me consciously listening to them and also lose their “favor” after a few hours.

Hope you enjoy them as well.

A little bit of Automation

One of the great features of the eternally loved Winamp that I cherished is being able to delete current song and go to next track. It’s especially useful to me since I tend to listen to a lot of new materials and since most of them are trash, I prefer to delete the songs that I come by via shuffle the right instant that I get to not to like them.

Finally I found a way to do that for iTunes in OS X via Applescript:

Continue reading “A little bit of Automation”

سلام

«حمایت از بازی‌های ایرانی “خیابان‌های خونی” و “اکسیر سیاه” برای عرضه روی Steam»

دوستان دو بازی رایانه “خیابان‌های خونی” (Bloody Streets) و “اکسیر سیاه” (Rot Gut) به حمایت و رای شما برای عرضه روی شبکه Steam نیاز دارند. این دو بازی که اکنون بر روی Steam Greenlight به رای گذاشته شده‌اند از جمله موفق‌ترین بازی‌های مستقل ایرانی هستند.بازی Rot Gut سال گذشته در جشنواره بازی‌های رایانه‌ای تهران عنوان بهترین بازی مستقل سال را به خود اختصاص داد و خیابان‌های خونی هم امسال با کسب شش جایزه به عنوان بهترین بازی مستقل سال برگزیده شد.

با مراجعه به لینک زیر، قدم به قدم نحوه حمایت از این دو بازی به طور کامل شرح داده شده است:

http://bit.ly/VoteGuideFarsi

ممنون میشم تو شبکه های اجتماعی هم این مطلب رو به اشتراک بزارین.

15 Million Merits

“I haven’t got a speech I didn’t plan words I didn’t even try to, I just knew I had to get here, to stand here and I knew I wanted you to listen, to really listen. Not just pull a face like you’re listening like you do the rest of the time, a face that you’re feeling instead of processing.”

“You pull a face and poke it towards the stage, and we lah-di-dah, we sing and dance and tumble around. And all you see up here, it’s not people, you don’t see people up here it’s all fodder. And the faker the fodder, the more you love it, because fake fodder’s the only thing that works any more. Fake fodder is all we can stomach. Actually, not quite all; real pain, real viciousness, that, we can take.”

“Yeah, stick a fat man up a pole and we’ll laugh ourselves feral, because we’ve earned the right. We’ve done cell time and he’s slacking, the scum, so ha-ha-ha at him! Because we’re so out of our minds with desperation, we don’t know any better. All we know is fake fodder and buying shit. That’s how we speak to each other, how we express ourselves is buying shit.”

“What, I have a dream? The peak of our dreams is a new app for our Dopple, it doesn’t exist! It’s not even there! We buy shit that’s not even there. Show us something real and free and beautiful. You couldn’t. Yeah? It’ll break us. We’re too numb for it. I might as well choke. It’s only so much wonder we can bear. That’s why when you find any wonder whatsoever; you dole it out in meager portions.”

“And only then until it’s augmented, packaged, and plumped through 10,000 pre-assigned filters till it’s nothing more than a meaningless series of lights, while we ride day in day out, going where? Powering what? All tiny cells and tiny screens and bigger cells and bigger screens and fuck you!”

“Fuck you, that’s what it boils down to. It’s Fuck you for sitting there and slowly making things worse. Fuck you and your spotlight and your sanctimonious faces. Fuck you all for thinking the one thing I came close to never meant anything. For oozing around it and crushing it into a bone, into a joke. One more ugly joke in a kingdom of millions. Fuck you for happening. Fuck you for me, for us, for everyone. Fuck you!”

Bing’s speech on Black Mirror episode “15 Million Merits”
Channel 4
performed by Daniel Kaluuya

I haven’t got a speech. I didn’t
plan words. I didn’t even try to…

Four “Game of The Week” Sessions on Roguelike Games Presentation Slides

In our indie game development center, we have a weekly volunteer based game analysis session that game developers and designers gather in order to analyze a game and talk about it’s various aspects.

With my long love for Roguelikes, I volunteered for 4 sessions on analyzing 4 distinctive games on the genre and last night I held the last session of it and I thought to share the slides of the presentations here, in case someone might find them useful.

DoomRL session

Teleglitch session

Dungeons of Dredmor session