I’m not sure why I’d forgotten to post this on here, but apparently, I did. This is a short I did for my multimedia class during the Fall 2009 semester. The assignment was simply “create a short that tells a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end”. Well, being the over-achiever that I am, I set to work, and ‘The Contract‘ is the result. It’s a very simple piece, although it doesn’t necessarily look it. I’m a strong believer in showing the audience only what they need to see, but having them hear everything. With that in mind, sound design was priority one for this project, and all of the feedback I’ve gotten indicates that it paid off. My instructor told me at the end of the semester that he’d used this animation as an example for other classes, and every single person that saw it was blown away by it, especially after they looked at the original fla file. I’m proud of it, because at the very least, this represents only the beginning of the empowerment that Flash provides me as an artist.
I’ve become quite smitten with Flash this semester, which isn’t terribly surprising considering it represents the culmination of many of my skills. I first tried my hand at making something years ago, but quickly realized that I didn’t have the chops for it. The program fascinated me though, and the sheer number of possibilities with it was endless.
Fast forward to this year. Coming off of being totally burned out on the idea of programming after my previous two semesters, I was eager to get started on my web design degree. I’d signed up for a class labeled “Concept in Multimedia” and saw in the curriculum that Flash was a large part of the subjects covered. I figured that I’d try my hand at it again. This time at least, I would have a leg up with a better understanding of programming in general (Python, Javascript and a brief stint in a Java class), and I’d heard that Actionscript was pretty close in syntax to Javascript. I figured what the hell…
Option+Click on the volume icon gives you instant access to changing your input and output devices. Pretty spiffy, and saves you a trip to the System Preferences. Maybe I should do a full write-up review of Snow Leopard… when the NDA lifts (tomorrow, finally).
If you grew up in the 80s, there’s a pretty good chance you remember Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. The Landmark Entertainment / Mattel produced show was essentially designed to move piles of action figures off of the store shelves. And move them they did. Every single week, kids were invited to use their XT-7 jet to fire at the army of the vicious Lord Dread while watching the show. And the mind blowing part (when I was younger anyway) was that the show fired back! Sigh. Technology innocence, how I miss you. Even though the few Captain Power toys I had are now in the giant landfill in the sky, I still have a VHS tape of one of the Training Videos that was available. Maybe I’ll have to do an entire post on the totally radicalness (yes, I just made that word up) of the entire Captain Power concept. I never had the jets when I was younger (my friends had them, but they were too expensive for me), but I did have more than a few of the action figures. Even though I was starting to outgrow toys at that point, the cool colored bits of chrome on each figure were pretty cool. Couple that with the fact that the whole thing centered around the video game idea of shooting at the TV, and I was sold. Chrome and violence, that’s my weakness…
Anyway, for your Wednesday Awesome, enjoy this gag reel from the set of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
Don't let that little blue hedgehog nickle-and-dime your wallet. Play smart!
Sega has a very interesting history. 20 years ago, they ushered in the era of 16-bit gaming. 15 years ago, they were one of the biggest video game companies in the world, constantly trading the top spot with Nintendo. 10 years ago, they launched the Dreamcast, which would be their last video game console. 5 years ago… well, let’s just say they weren’t doing so hot.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article showing the difference in power usage between older game systems and modern ones. It seemed to really resonate with a lot of people, and generated a tremendous amount of positive feedback. After spending some more time thinking about the concept of being a ‘green gamer’, I realized that reducing energy usage isn’t the only thing you can do to introduce a little ‘green living’ into your gaming. There’s another, even more basic, way that just about every classic gamer actively does already, and might not even know it; recycling.
James Griffith is the perfect example of a true classic gaming collector. I first met James a few years ago, and quickly struck up a friendship with him based on our mutual obssession with old video games. I quickly realized two things; he is extremely knowledgable about his retro gaming, and also hoplessly addicted to everything related to the Atari Jaguar. Speaking with James last week, we setup a time for me to visit him at his home in St. Louis Park to take photos of his constantly expanding collection of Atari Jaguar systems, games and memoriablia for my ongoing photographic record of classic video games. After the photoshoot was finished, I asked James if he would be willing to sit down and talk about how he got started with being an Atari Jaguar collector, and a bit of the history of the system itself.
Behold; a true side-scrolling shooter masterpiece.
During a recent interview segment on the Digital Cowboys podcast, I was asked what three games I would take with me if I were stranded on a desert island. Feeling the pressure of the question, I quickly rattled off Capcom vs. SNK, GigaWing and Super Mario Bros. I was fairly content with my answers; a fighting game that has wonderful replay value and bled style, an overhead shooter that took the concept of ‘bullet hell’ to a whole other level, and the grandfather of side-scrolling platform action. I felt I had successfully represented the full gamut of great games. Later that evening, as I was sending an email to Alex at Digital Cowboys, a terrible cold sweat crept across my brow. What a fool I was! In my haste to provide a thought provoking answer to their question, I’d completely overlooked a shooter that has deep personal meaning to me; a video game that defined large portions of my teenage years, and to this day, still engages me in a way that no other game can. That game is Gate of Thunder.
GameHounds is the podcast I co-host with Edie Sellers and Cooper Hawkes on Platform Nation. It's an adult oriented video game news podcast, with our own blend of commentary thrown in. Check it out!
The Widget : Games, Tech, Whatever is a technology and gaming podcast that I co-founded in 2005. The original show ended in 2006, but was revived and relaunched in 2009 to help corrupt a whole new generation of nerds.
This is only a small amount of the podcasting that I have done over the years. For a complete list of my work, please see the About page.
