August 29, 2011
Game Development, Gaming
6 Comments
A while back Halo 4 was announced. As you might have suspected, I’ve been pretty busy working on the game. It turns out the campaign for a Halo game requires a pretty intense amount of effort. Who would have thought. I guess people are pretty into Halo or something.
I was actually the first designer hired at 343 Industries, but at the time the studio didn’t have a name. It was called something generic like “Halo Internal.” Woooo. In any event, I was the first designer to take the plunge (there were other designers that had come and gone, but they were pulled from other parts of Microsoft).
I didn’t start as a lead either. I was just coming off a crazy amount of Treyarch crunch (which if you ask around, is some of the most legendary crunch known to mankind) and was looking to get down on some level building, scripting and prototyping. You know, hitting reset on the ol’ work life balance button. However, after working at 343 for a bit, they asked me to be a lead, and being a lead on a Halo title is not something you tend to turn down. Don’t worry, I like to stay pretty hands-on with the tools in addition to having an outlook calendar full of meetings.
> – – – Read the rest – –
August 29, 2011
Stories
No Comments
“Six Nineteen. Ascernity Administer on approach.”
“We have you now. All signs read clean. Welcome back, Ripper.”
He waited patiently at the door. For all they had learned and understood about The Universe, they still hadn’t figured out how to create personal teleportation devices.
Doors. Just like us. They always end up making doors of their own.
Sure, they could teleport planets across systems and use asteroids as their own personal weapons against would-be invaders, but small scale objects? Impossible. Well, at least until someone figured it out. It was only a matter of time, but the lack of personal teleportation was getting annoying.
And time was still a one way street. A tough nut to crack.
> – – – Read the rest – –
February 22, 2011
Life, Stories
No Comments
He had traveled across ten galaxies and had finally came to the end of his quest. He found it. He had finally found it.
The Time Statue.
He approached the two story, stone oracle, located on a remote, but seemingly habitable world. The planet was strangely devoid of life, although he was unphased by this.
The traveler opened his mouth to speak, but the Time Statue’s eyes opened and stared down at the traveler. The Time Statue’s mouth began to move. A booming voice cut through the thin air.
> – – – Read the rest – –
February 17, 2011
Gaming, Jokes, Stories
4 Comments
What are you lookin' at?
I don’t get to talk about work very much. Today, that all changes.
The Top 5 Brigade has been having some trouble with… leaks. After a lofty and well deserved promotion, my wise, handsome, and wonderfully smelling Section 10 officers sent me, Haxington, to root out a mole within the Top 5 unit. The Clown Unit.
So far, my attempts at information extraction have been in vain. Schismarch, whom I suspect to be the culprit has been extremely evasive to my lines of questioning. On the other hand, I think one EckoTech might simply be playing dumb. Perhaps they are in kahootz and they are both moles. The punishment I would no doubt have the pleasure of exacting on the two, if that were the case, would make my life complete. And I would probably get another promotion. Which I would deserve.
Wait. Maybe I’m the mole? No… no! I mustn’t think such foolish thoughts! Their mind games are beginning to weaken my mental fortitude!
I may need to resort to more… extreme measures in the oncoming months. I will find the mole and order within Section 10 will be restored. Come hell or high water. Now, where did I put that bottle of rubbing alcohol, the 9-iron, and “Ol’ Trusty?”
Oh. If you want to see video of my interactions with these two, check out the surveillance footage I’ve received clearance on posting below:
January 6, 2011
Art
1 Comment
Banksy on the West Bank Barrier, Palestine
“I don’t believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.”
“If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.”
– Pablo Picasso
Banksy is one of my favorite artists for a number of reasons. I dig good street art (graffiti!), but Banksy has always impressed me with his skill in creating a mixture of pop culture references, political messaging and dark humor in his work. I remember the first time flipping through a book of Banksy pieces and thinking “Who does political graffiti of this size and scale on the West Bank barrier of all places? The balls on this guy!”
I know a few self-proclaimed stencil graffiti artists, and they just quickly spray on a side walk or wall. That’s it. But actually trying to post it somewhere, in public, highly trafficked areas, in extremely dangerous places, in broad daylight- I always wondered how someone did that. On top of it all, Banksy stays anonymous. Very few people know who he really is. Banksy is some sort of subversive genius street artist millionaire man of mystery.
> – – – Read the rest – –
