Category: working

Tripping over my ego.

If I’d gone down a different road four years ago and kept writing about games instead of making them, would I be the Jeffrey Lyons of the gaming industry by now?

New job, new diet.

As they say, necessity is the mother of sandwiches.

Time to recharge.

Yesterday was my last day at Secret Level.

GDC 2008: Friday: Narrative control, ranting, happiness.

Notes from the end of GDC 2008.

Feeling ready for GDC.

GDC is this week, and I’m looking forward to taking a few days off to go geek out at lectures, chat with colleagues, and generally do something other than work.

Designer vs. Programmer: Fight!

I spend a lot of my work days doing both design and programming, which is fine, except that the two disciplines are very different. In fact, they’re downright contradictory at times.

Austin GDC 2007.

While everyone was talking about how everyone’s talking about Web 2.0 and games, not very many people were actually talking about Web 2.0 and games.

Signs of the Times: My portfolio.

Replay videos of a three-year-old game that was completely ignored by the press and didn’t sell peanuts? No problem.

Back to the slack once more.

All good things must come to an end, and my contract at MGI is no exception.

Commuting, complaining.

My level of frustration with my daily commute is at Orange, and is creeping towards Red.

GDC ‘07: Just a couple more shots…

One last GDC brain dump from Friday.

GDC ‘07: Why not take a break?

More GDC brain dumping, from Thursday.

GDC ‘07: New sensations.

Random thoughts from Wednesday at GDC.

GDC ‘07: Welcome to the Fantasy Zone. Get Ready!

I’m here in San Francisco, psyching myself up for some serious conferencing.

Everybody loves Excite Truck!

The game the elderly seem to get the most kick out of? Excite Truck.

Getting back to the slack. Again.

I finished my contract at MGI today, which means that I finally have time to play games other than the one I’m working on.

AGC, Day 3: Too Tired for Titles.

Still more random thoughts from the Austin Game Conference.

AGC, Day 2: Hope and Fear the Future.

Random thoughts from Day Two of the Austin Game Conference.

AGC, Day 1: Compare and Contrast.

Very brief notes from the first day of the 2006 Austin Game Conference.

On the road again.

Getting ready to travel.

Where the HELL is my config file?

Who would have thought that a show about fashion designers would resonate so much with a game developer?

E3 thoughts.

Random thoughts on E3. Warning: extreme sleepy rambling ahead.

Alchemists of Sound.

The people who made sound effects for the BBC in the 50s and 60s did everything by cutting up little bits of tape and sticking them back together in endlessly inventive ways.

Bleary-eyed and lazy-tailed.

I know I won’t get any sympathy for this, but it’s been a long time since I got up at 7:00 in the morning.

Things I learned this summer.

Some simple lessons that I’ll want to keep in mind for my next job.

The fuse.

The Internet no longer a fertile landscape of loosely knit communities and bottom-up cultural transformation; it’s just a lot of work that I need to get done this weekend.

Making a living for a change.

I’ve picked up a contract with American Public Media to do some grunt work on their web site, slicing up a few HTML pages and putting them back together again.

UPDATE system_options SET multi_acquisition_ind = ‘Y’; (Sorry, old inside joke.)

All of this morning’s big news seems to involve big business deals between big companies.

Quitting shouldn’t be so much work.

Quitting is a purgative for those trapped in this wearying cycle of “work hard, play hard.” It’s about breaking down the binaries of work/leisure or office/home and finding an in-between space where those structures don’t define us, don’t govern every minute of our lives.

I’d like the years 1998-2001 back now, please.

I’m just now getting caught up on the ea_spouse story that’s been making the rounds and wondering, “so what’s new?”

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. (PopMatters)

I’ve started writing game reviews for PopMatters, a very groovy “magazine of cultural criticism.” Also: notes on Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

Getting back to the slack.

I finished my contract job with Monster Games today. Be sure to check out Test Drive: Eve of Destruction when it comes out this fall.

Well, that was unexpected.

Rather surprisingly, I found myself with a job today.

The downward spiral.

The problem with an extended period of unemployment is that I’ve spent so much time introspecting that it’s become repetitive: I find myself going through cycles of possible life plans.

The only thing worse than not having a job is having a job. The only thing worse than that is looking for a job.

If anyone has resume-writing advice, or knows of a good source for that sort of information, I’d appreciate it.