It seems like everyone about now is talking about lists, making lists themselves, linking to lists of lists, or listing to one side while list-ening to a podcast about another list.

Shut up, it’s been too long since I’ve written anything. Bear with it.

I figured instead of listing what I thought was the best of 2009, I’ll take it to the future with the games I’m most excited about. As a game developer (especially working at perfectionist-filled, and often haterade-drinking Naughty Dog) it becomes difficult to enjoy games and anticipate things being awesome. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a trailer and scoffed: “probly gonna suck”. So I find that me being excited about a game is a rare occasion worth writing about!

It will be interesting to see at the end of the year what I really enjoyed, and what really DID suck.

Red Read Redemption
Right now, this has got to be my most anticipated game. There really aren’t that many western games made, and I don’t understand why. I remember playing Red Dead Revolver and really enjoying it, and even Lethal Enforcers 2 on the genesis had all the crazy wild-west shootout stuff that’s never really been replicated recently. The most recent trailer looks to have train robberies, gatlin guns, shooting bears, dragging dudes behind your horse(!), and most promising of all: an intriguing story. Just hope they refined the hell out of the GTA shooting. At the very least, I hope it sparks a resurgence in the “Western” sub-genre.

God of War 3
It may be an embarrassment to admit this, but I had never actually played God of War until the remastered collection just came out. I now see what all the fuss is about. GoW1 freakin’ holds up! The combat is gorgeous! (in a game design-y way, not a visual way) The story is simple, but I got pulled into it pretty easily. And the final boss fight was insane! The potential for what can be done on PS3 fills my imagination with all kinds of cool and crazy shit. Especially with these Titans I keep hearing about. I guess I should finish GoW2 first.

Medal of Honor
I have hope that the reboot of this franchise will take MoH back to what made the first games so amazing to me: an awesome story, and a sense that one man is changing the course of a massive war. It’s modern day, and it’s afghanistan so I hope it’s based on real events. I mean, it’s no WWII but grounding it in reality makes it soo much better. I guess I’m excited because I think “it’s time” for EA to take back the war game crown. I believe modern war and good story can co-exist, and I think EA believes again! All has been lost, you’ve been wallowing in the dark night of the soul, now let Act 3 begin, find synthesis and give MW a run for their money! I’m rooting for you!

Split Second
As a huge racing game fan, it’s good to see the genre getting new life. How to make a better racing game: amazing crashes? No, Burnout has that covered. Super-realism? Uh uh. GT and Forza will crush you. The answer: blow up every fucking thing that’s NOT the car. Buildings, planes, the track itself! I know I will never get my beloved Need for Speed shortcut-laden, jump-filled, exotic-car-infused “good ‘ol days” back, but this looks like a step in the right direction. I LOOOVED Pure, so Blackrock’s take on hazard-filled street racing should be nothing less than fuckin’ rad.

Gears of War 3
This hasn’t been announced yet, and no I don’t have any “insider” info, I’m just assuming that it’s highly likely that a gears 3 will drop in 2010. Believe it or not, one of my most enjoyable experiences of 2008 was playing Gears 2 co-op with a stranger the night of release, and finishing it in one sitting. I don’t care what anyone says, I thought a level set inside a monsters digestive system was pretty frickin’ awesome. I respect Gears for knowing exactly what it is (testosterone, in game form) and just going all out with it. I’m curious where they go from here, gameplay wise. More traversal? Stealth? More manly chainsaws? No matter what they come up with, I’ll definitely be there day one with a friend.

Others Worth Noting
It’s worth mentioning that I’m super amped about Bayonetta, but it comes out Tuesday, so my anticipation will be quenched. And it’s a waste of energy to anticipate anything from Valve like HL: Episode 3 or Portal 2 as I’m sure both are years out. But if they did announce for 2010, those would go to the top of my list.

Sadly Un-amped About…
After playing the recent demo, I can’t seem to get myself excited for Gran Turismo 5. This is a small tragedy because I’ve been a die-hard GT fan since the first. Even the graphics didn’t excite me. Probly Dirt 2 spoiling me on fancy damage modeling and more arcadey gameplay. It’s probably just been too long. The desire will come back.

Since I’m not a big RPG fan, I can’t get my panties in a bunch over FFXIII or Mass Effect 2. But these games may just be big enough and talked about at the office enough that I take the plunge. We’ll see.

I will never buy anything at Gamestop again.  Today I went to my local gamestop at the westside pavillion, as I often do on a Saturday afternoon perusing the games before I hit a matinee at the Landmark.  As I am someone who works in the industry, you might ask me “wtf? doesn’t Gamestop make billions off of your backs in used game sales that you don’t see a penny of?”  The answer to that is yes, I know. But you forget that I’m very shallow and I had a new Uncharted 2 t-shirt that I wanted to wear in public in hopes that someone would spot it, be impressed by me, and strike up a conversation about what I do.

Anyway, on this particular Saturday, I was keen on actually buying a game.  I was feeling a racing game like Burnout, but I wanted the ultimate edition with all the extra motorcycles and crap until I realized that was a download only package on PSN. Shit. I finally settled on The Chronicles of Riddick : Assault on Dark Athena, because it includes an updated last-gen Riddick game that is supposed to be awesome, and the new one has 80 on metacritic so I figured it was a good value.  But it didn’t matter what the game was as long as it was on PS3, so when the guy would ring it up, he would suggest I preorder some other PS3 games like inFAMOUS, and I could make a sly remark and subtly make reference to my Uncharted 2 shirt.  And if that didn’t work, I would pull my credit card out of my wallet in such a way that shows off my Naughty Dog ID, again in an attempt to make this guy’s day by saying “yes, a DEVELOPER shops at your store! Isn’t that awesome!” …wow my life is sad. 

So as I go to the counter I am already upset that the store is busy (well, it’s a good sign that the industry is thriving at least) because that means the cashiers have less time to make chit chat with the customers.  They had a demo of Batman: Arkham Asylum in store and it looked cool so in an attempt to prolong my time at the register,  I inquired about its release date.  June 23rd.  I finally got to asking for Riddick on PS3 and the guy went shuffling through some drawers looking for one before finally saying “I think it’s on display” as he left from behind the counter.  My mind instantly flipped from slightly disappointed developer to slightly pissed off customer.  I’ve heard the stories about Gamestop selling used copies of games as new, and lending out their “display” copies to employees to manhandle at home before resealing them with the sticker offloading them to some chump for $60 with a whack ass price sticker irreversibly glued to the unwrapped box. Fuck that. Not today. Not me.

I politely but assertively asked the gentleman, “you know what, how about you just give me the 360 version instead as long as it’s, you know, WRAPPED.” He shamefully says “ok” and grabs a 360 copy off the shelf behind the register and throws in a bag for me.  I was proud for two reasons: one, that I’m showing off my multiple-console ownership by so flippantly switching platforms, and two because I called him out on some bullshit, and he seemed to show visible remorse for his actions, and perhaps for Gamestop’s policy as a whole.  I’d like to think he seriously questioned his employment at such an evil empire at that very moment. I left with my riddick feeling accomplished, and I was off to my matinee.

Then I got home and took the game out of the bag.

Fucking. Kidding me. 

Unwrapped and manually re-stickered showing dirt and shit under the sticker.  

The spine is all fucked up, like a cat was chewing on it or something.  

Of course, paid in full. 

Now I have to drive back tomorrow to return this game for a refund, and NOT an exchange, because I am done with gamestop. Forever.  And if they give me any of this “only unopened games can be returned” bullshit, I will laugh at the irony, then something WILL burn.

 And no one noticed my shirt. Fuckers. 

I know facebook has some pretty clever ways to get targeted ads to its users. I’ve heard they catalog your browsing behavior on the site and target things based on your interests and whatnot listed in your profile.  More devious things I’ve heard of are tracking your browsing off-site, and attempts at image recognition.

Facebook’s orwellian ad-targeting technology may be more advanced than we know.  I came to this realization when I saw this:

my reaction:

wtf facebook, stop spying on my ass.

I am in a weird mood, so I decided to start browsing the website of my high school, and came across a current syllabus page for a creative writing class taught by one of my old teachers Mrs. Miller.  I guess I got carried away because I ended up doing the assignment for descriptive essay #3 just for the hell of it. Then I emailed it to her. Here’s the assignment:

You have recently read several tutorials on figurative language: metaphor, simile, personification. Now you are to write an essay of at least two typed pages in length in which you use figurative language on at least twelve occasions.
You may choose from the following choices:
A. Describe your dream house of the future.
B. Describe a place that is special to you.
C. Describe what life would be like in a past time, such as the medieval world or colonial times.
D. Describe a perfect wedding, birthday celebration, or other special celebration.
E. Pick a topic of your choice that will meet the requirements.

And my essay I wrote tonight(JTHS stands for Jim Thorpe High School)

Descriptive Essay #3 (slightly late)
——————————

I pause.  A blinking cursor signals an s.o.s. beacon in blinding white sands.  A vast desert of emptiness spans my vision.  I try to think of my special place.  I attempt to warp my mind into a past time. A time so endlessly long ago I have trouble comprehending it. My mind isn’t quite working.

I try to forget what it is like now, with my apartment in the city.  I must forget that where I am is in my own dream house of the future. I glance over my shoulder.  A bright college degree hangs, elegantly framed on pristine white walls.  A dark plasma screen TV sits on slick black glass.  A row of game controllers neatly set across a crystal coffee table. A smile comes to my lips.  I slide my hand into my jeans and my fingertips read the business card that carries my name. Game Designer. Now is the future from back then. Now is happiness.

It is starting to work now, my mind.  As I type I am beginning to remember more about my special place, stripping away my possessions. I must forget my happiness to get there.  I start with reciting those letters, ‘JTHS’ and my world stretches apart.  It reminds me of the awkward way my jaw had to expand to utter the syllables: Jim Thorpe. Thourpe. Thooouurpe.  Such a bizarre sound.  The sound echoes in my ears and ricochets inside the walls of my skull, transforming into inaudible voices. It begins to rattle me back to that time. So long ago.

I am afraid. Perhaps I don’t want to remember.

I pause again.  I scan the paragraphs I have just written.  It looks like a message now.  A message scrawled in the white sand: an alert for others in case a don’t make it back.  I am a mad scientist lost in the desert, just scribbling notes on whatever is nearby. I am trying to unlock some mystery.  The mystery of time travel.  I know I am close.

My heart rate is increasing. I measure it in my head like this is some kind of experiment.  My fingers quiver because of the unknown.  I begin to sweat.  I know that with every keystroke I dig deeper into my memories. I am a surgeon digging through blood and flesh.  I know not what lies beneath it.  Suddenly a flash.

I am in a public restroom, bright florescent lights illuminate the sterile scene.  All is white, aside from bold thick stripes of red and blue on the smooth walls.  I hear the voices of hundreds outside the door.

A cafeteria.

I reach my pale, bony hand under the sink faucet and turn the knob.  A perfect pillar of white water rushes from the pristine spicket on to my waiting fingers, sounding like a barely audible static.  I notice the pillar breaks its symmetry as it impacts my palm. The water feels cold and clean.  I get a strange feeling as I rotate my hand in the now chaotic rushing water, watching the tiny bubbles form and then pop on my skin, fizzing like seltzer. I feel some impending doom in my chest, like an inevitable unavoidable terror is about to overtake me.  I lift my head to see my own reflection in the mirror.

I quickly look away.

A shot of adrenaline floods my veins and I tense my muscles.  I take a deep breath and glance to make sure all the stalls are empty.  I slowly crane my head back up and stare into my own eyes.  It is brutal.  My cheeks are ravaged with pimples. The florescent light amplifies my greasy skin.  I blink to try to unsee my face, but it only makes my view crisper.  Every inch of my forehead is red with bumps, some are bright white, glistening in sweat.  I furrow my brow but it only causes physical pain.  My face feels like it has an extra layer caked onto it, and any expression I make will cause it to crack and bleed. I want to cup my hands in the foaming white water and splash it on my face, but I fear any pressure could cause a rupture. My head feels like a balloon, like a delicate artifact. My breathing is irregular, and I am sweating more.  I feel it coming out of my pores, under my chin and behind my ears. It streams in the crevices of my nose. It feels like all my internal fluids are seeping out of me to be deposited on the outside. I turn my head and notice a dab of blood on my earlobe.  Instantly, I want to grab it and squeeze it,  to force it all out in one violent motion, to bring everything in me out all at once. But that is foolish. I know such physical exertion would only flush my face with more redness, so I must stay calm.  I slowly tear a paper towel from the dispenser and pat my hands dry with it.  I lightly press it against my ear to absorb the blood.  My eyes begin to water.  They are the only part of me that is clean and normal.  I see in them the secret sadness that I see in others eyes when I am faced with them.  When I am as close to someone as I am now to this mirror, they see what I see. This is the elephant in the room that no one speaks of.  They will have a pained look, if only for a split second, that shows me their mind is thinking only of my acne.  I see teachers thinking of their children, praying they do not end up like this. Students breathe a sign of relief, only for an instant, thankful they are not in my skin. These moments of pity are forever. Even as I am laughing, the  weight of 1000 elephants reminds me of it. One for every zit on my face. They burn me every second of every day that passes here, in this bathroom.  It is my special place.  It is where I must stare at the truth.  It is where I am cut to the core of my being.  It is where I must realize my flaws.  It is what I try to forget.

I snap my hand from the keys and bring it to my cheek.  It is smooth.  I am in the future again.  No, the present.  I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling, mind reeling. I split the window blinds with my fingertips and stare into a dark sky, its horizon sprinkled with flecks of light.  Skyscrapers.  People. Perspective.

Relief.

I am in the opposite of my special place now. My mind relaxes.  Another flash.

I see nothing.  I only feel a frigid autumn breeze on my cheek. I hear it menacing through nearby trees, trying to drown out chirping crickets. My hands are encased in a slimy fleece lining inside my jacket pockets. I rub my fingers together to feel sweat sliding over them.  Again I feel a sense of anticipation.  The wind becomes louder, building. More dread in my chest. Suddenly, there is a warmth on my lips.  A soft wetness presses on me, and I no longer feel the fleece lining, or my fingertips.  I feel only my heartbeat, competing with the pulse of another that is surging through me.  The grass falls out from under my feet and I am floating. My imagination is jumbled.  My bearings are lost. My ears are ringing.  The cold air dries my hands instantly as I expose them.  I am blind and grasping.  I plant my palm on a neck that is smooth and firm. I try to stabilize myself. I tilt my head forward in dizziness with my lips glued to this feeling.  A feeling of numbness.  I taste nothing as a foreign tongue begins to slide gently against mine. I yearn for a texture but my senses are overloaded. I lift my eyelids but only see the trees and the stars being pulled into infinity.  I am in a vacuum. In this dimensionless place, an eyelash flutters against mine. My entirety is jolted.  This intersection with another destroys my mind. My soul is violently and irreparably severed, spilling out raw emotion. The heat I feel through my jacket boils the air between us, sucking us together with inhuman force. In a panic, I attempt to freeze this moment; set a place for it in the dusty part of my brain and I try to live there forever.

Floating.

But slowly, my grip loosens. The wind and crickets rush back in a break our seal. Quickly, stretched images reform in front of my eyes. The soles of my feet compress as the grass returns to them. My head falls back and our lips part, bringing a smiling face in to view.  The setting has now returned, but my feeling is different. I feel everything. I am transported. Here, the air is no longer chilly, it is relaxing and cool. In this place, my jacket lining is soft and comforting.  Here I look into the eyes of someone else and see truth.  A first kiss. It is my special place.  It is what I try to remember.

My eyes scour the text above, fingers quivering, face bathed in the steady white glow of the monitor. I have done it.  My experiment is complete. My heart rate slows.

Wait.

The black text starts to bleed into the white background.  The whole thing, my scientific record is turning to gray. The wind is blowing over my message in the sand. Am I forgetting already? The light on my face dims slightly. I look over my shoulder.  My walls are specked with dirt, and my framed degree is gray.  The controllers are strewn about on the table haphazardly. I am seeing the smudges on my plasma screen for the first time.  I stand up and walk to a mirror, I examine my face and see faint scars.  I am feeling everything again.  This experiment has changed me.

Flustered, I yank a string and my window blinds zip open. I stare into the dark sky again, city lights faintly outlining the array of buildings.  I look above them and there are no flecks of light. I see only bright streaks expanding diagonally in all directions.

It’s the stars.  They’re still stretched out to infinity.
I sit down and begin to type.

———————————————————
Kurt Margenau
11/23/2008
Period 3.14, creative writing
JTHS class of 2003

Just got a new PS3 and MGS4, which completes my Next Gen lineup of systems. There’s little room under my TV now:

I’m pretty much the biggest GTA fanboy you can imagine, but Metal Gear Solid 4 is simply a better game.  Thats all I have to say about that.

Good God, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted on my own blog. I guess I’ve been busy moving to Austin and starting my new job. Also buying big expensive things like couches, xbox 360s, and big screen 1080p tvs. Life is good.

After settling in to the “real” game industry, I’m finding that I’m quite enjoying it. But since I live alone now and my xbox is broken (dirty disc errors be DAMNED!!!), I started thinking about starting a little side project to keep me busy in my down time. What I decided to do was start to plan and design a sequel to my game Diggkiller. I made that game originally under heavy pressure of unemployment, in the hopes that it could help leverage me into a job (guess it worked) and was only designed with the bare minimum of what I foresaw in my grand vision, and made sure I could develop it in a short period of time.

Now I have the luxury of having a day job and a codebase to work from, I can fully flesh out the game further and add new things that are just plain pimp. I want the game to rely less on the “Digg” gimmick and actually be awesome and fun and original as a shooter all its own. I can also refactor the shit out of my code to make it run smoother, and be able to add all kinds of modular stuff, and sick visual effects.

It would be cool to have input from people that might actually read this post about some cool custom attacks that people would like to see, based on the keywords in comments. Like “Ron Paul” could trigger some sort of “Money Bomb” attack. Stuff like that. If you’ve got ideas, post a comment.

Some things I am planning for DiggKiller 2:

- a way to adjust the game speed, to go in slo-mo or speed up, for crazy matrix-like explosions

- WAY better enemy AI, instead of just randomly shooting and moving, have cool patterns and behaviors for the different “classes” of enemies.

- deeper digg integration, and more dynamic topic categories (in case digg changes them)

- a lot more customization in terms of weapons. I’d like to create a completely customizable and upgradeable attack authoring tool, so people can design the speed and angle of their various attacks built from weapons they unlock.

- a much better scoring system. No longer simply the amount of “diggs” killed, but more based on how fast, and how Badass you dispatch your enemies.

- accounts that save all of your game data, weapons, custom attacks, and custom ship skins. And of course, high scores

- a shitload of cooler visual effects: missile trails, crazy colorful explosions, and whatever I can think of/implement

- better control scheme (no more caps-lock, shift, and control)

- music of some kind

- make everything very modular so weapons and custom attacks can be added with ease, even after the game is out.

- different themed backgrounds instead of the one “space” one

- a bunch more shit that I will think of later

The first diggkiller game got such an overwhelmingly positive response, I know that If I can do what I set forth here, it will be legendary. I really like the idea of having accounts and tracking everyone’s stats and having leaderboards for all sorts of different things. Hopefully I can do that with all the crazy php I now know.

Anyway, I’m gonna take my time with this one, and one day, it will be the MOST epic flash game/mashup out there.

First off, let me apologize to anyone who is reading this on kurtmargenau.com. This post is just personal stuff you don’t care about and is mainly meant for the the 6 or so people who will read this when it’s imported to facebook via rss feed. And for my parents, who will one day probably many months from now curiously google my name, and check up on this blog amidst search results of pedophilia games.

It’s my birthday, which will no doubt bring unprecedented traffic to my facebook page, so I figure I might as well fill in those “friends” who only check a fb page when it’s someone’s birthday, only because the link is there on their homepage, and wonder “oh yeah.. I wonder they’re up to”. They then browse around the profile page until they are sufficiently filled in on what this person’s life is like now, only to NOT leave a birthday wish wall post because you met once at a party and don’t think you know them well enough and leaving a post would seem awkward and stalker-ish. It’s cool, I’ve been there. I know all kinds of things about you people that I shouldn’t.

This post is going to be mad epic, so I’ll break it down with some sick bold headers. Btw, what the fuck? “mad epic”? Who talks like that? I’d like to thank my friend Jon Mingola, originally from New York, for re-introducing me to “mad”, which haven’t used since like, jr. high. And to Alex Albrecht, a god of podcasting, for hooking me on “epic”. You guys are assholes.

Backstory

I graduated from Georgia Tech in May, I wanted to work in the video game industry. Who doesn’t right? I had an EA internship under my belt, and I thought I was invincible. Except I forgot one thing: the game industry is an unrelenting bitch, and your ass will get chewed up and spit out while attempting to get a job in it. It doesn’t help when you’re a smug punk out of school that thinks he can write his own ticket because.. “Dude, I worked at the same studio they make Madden!”. Needless to say in my initial job search, I skipped entire parts of the country that are major hubs of the game industry just because I thought I didn’t want to live there. “Texas?.. fuck that the real shit’s in Cali!”. Many months and exasperated blog posts later, my game job search had resulted in a whole bunch of jack shit. It was about time to broaden my search when I got a call from SMS.ac, a “web 2.0″ startup in San Diego. Long story short, they flew me to SD and I had an impressive offer at my feet within a week. I had 24hrs to accept, and with my game job opportunities on life support, I convinced myself it was the right choice.

Good fuck. I was wrong.

Within I month and a half of working (”working” of course meant 14 hour days, every day, which I was cool with) at this social networking company, my position was terminated without notice. The official reason was “it’s not a fit” and when probing further into the specifics, the conversation shifted to “Don’t worry about it Kurt. You’re a great coder, you’ll get a pimp ass job in town somewhere in no time.” I suppose my “surprise” termination isn’t that much of a surprise given the company’s history and turnover rate, which can be researched further with a quick googling of the company’s name.

So I was out of work, and living with a $1000 rent bill every month. Being poor sucks. Sure when you’re in college you’re poor, it’s trendy because everyone is poor, and you hang out with your friends. That is a totally different experience than having zero income in one of the richest cities in the country. Luckily in my case, I had many ex-sms friends who suffered similar fates. I must say I have become very close with these people as we were all new to San Diego, and were all at a crossroads in life. You probably couldn’t put together a more random and ass-backwards cast of characters if you tried. My life is like a bad war movie:

There’s the aforementioned Jon Mingola aka “JMing”, straight outta Buffalo, driving his Nissan 240, who won’t shut up about cars and his Japanese girlfriend (like, who actually lives in freakin’ Japan.. top that anime n00bs), and will convince you that “you don’t know shit about shit”. And he’ll fuck you up in Gran Turismo.

Then there’s Sean Campbell, a laid back dude you’d swear was a local Cali mofo until you learn he spent his whole life in Nebraska. When he’s not breaking stereotypes, he allows you to pronounce his name “Seen”, which brings me more joy than many things in my life. In his time with me, he has learned the ways of the Albrecht, and all things epic.

Of course there’s Dwight Chen aka “D-Wight”, my randomly assigned apartment mate. At first glance, you’d be fooled into thinking this biology-studying, dual degree achieving, online PC gamer would fit squarely into that “quiet Asian roommate with no social skills” stereotype. Upon closer inspection (aka becoming friends with him), you see that you’re initial assessment was flawed, and you are now pwned as hard as you get from Dwight’s TFC teleport traps. His fps pwnage is only topped by his love of football, and hatred of OU (or “Blow U” or “Joklahoma” as I now know). Apparently this is required knowledge to graduate from UT.

Hanh Vu, the cute Vietnamese girl from Virginia Tech (who promptly crushed everyone when we found out she was married) is actually a cool chick. In between making fun of us guys for being losers, she picked up some guitar hero and cooked us authentic Vietnamese food. But I was happy my circle of friends wasn’t a total sausage fest. JMing and Dwight had someone to talk about Asian stuff with, and to make fun of me for my ignorance on all things of the Eastern world. I swear, you say that Thai and Taiwanese are the same thing ONE TIME, and you never forget it. Especially from John Lai, a NorCal bro who is.. um, one of those two things. I think. Sorry John.

I could never forget Mark Miller, the heavyset jolly Canuck who would tell us tales of sub zero temperatures (in Celsius) and how he attended “university” in the great white north. He never grew accustomed to the gorgeous women in SoCal, and how they “aren’t wearing sweaters”. Probably the funnest guy to be around that prefers to use recursion to solve any programming dilemma.

There were many other friends I’ve met in my time here in San Diego, and sadly most have moved back to their parts of origin most likely never to be seen again. As of this writing, only JMing, Sean, Dwight and I remain. And I’m on my way out.

New Job

I had only been off the market 2 months, and already I was back on it. I saw my termination as a very abrupt sign that I had been doing the wrong thing all along. I was meant to be in the game industry damnit! I vigorously pursued every possible option, and it wasn’t easy. When things were getting slow, I focused on making my own flash game. It turned out well. For cash during my search, I did some freelance web contract work, a Facebook app that just launched. It’s like Lite Brite.

The next thing I know, I have a new job as a gameplay scripter for Red Fly Studio in Austin, TX. The guys there are great, and they have a very indie vibe, and it just seems like an amazing place that I was meant to be at. For those game nerds out there, these guys are making the Wii title Mushroom Men, which you may have heard about depending on your level of game nerdiness and/or Nintendo fanboyism.

I’m starting in a few weeks, currently preparing to move to Austin, and I couldn’t be more excited to be back with old friends. My old roommate John Kelly works at the same studio, and some of my Tech friends have roots in Austin. The New Years party in ATX this is going to be SICK, as many are flying in from ATL. And I must say, as a person who originally shunned Texas, when I flew to Austin for my interview, I don’t think I’ve fallen in love with a city so quickly! (ok, maybe San Francisco..) I just have this feeling that I’m going to love it there. And maybe “the live music capital of the world” will jump start my musical interests. I currently use itunes to listen to podcasts more than I use it to listen to music. On last.fm, I’m the top listener to Leo Laporte! A sad state of affairs really.

DiggKiller in Prague

I figure I’ll use the rest of the post to talk about other random things. That game that I made, DiggKiller, is being featured in some art show in Prague. It’s called Mutamorphosis and my name is printed in the program under the “Web 2.0 Generation” exhibition. Cool stuff.

Micro-Reviews of Media I have Consumed Recently:

All these things have been reviewed more in-depth, and better, by more reputable people. But here’s my take:

Guitar Hero 3 (for PS2)

Pros: You can play as Tom Morello. Pretty cool song list. They added these little accents to notes that can be hammered on that’s kind of hard to describe. Plus, YOU CAN PLAY AS TOM MORELLO! This game is more challenging than Guitar Hero 2, it’s not even the last set of songs, and I’m getting owned, as are my fingers:

Very specific cons: You can tell this game wasn’t made by Harmonix. Little things like, choosing the difficulty AFTER you pick the song in Quick Play mode, and the High scores being shared between career and quick play, are all absent in this Activision-ized version. Plus the new battle mode is pretty lame, and you could tell the guys in the design room were like.. “we need to add a new mode.. lets have sick battle powerups!” This isn’t mario kart, it’s a rhythm game. Harmonix would be ashamed, you corporate shmucks.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2

Pros: Dude, it’s Half-Life. The story is epic, the gameplay is spot on, and you get to drive the car again! I think this one’s a little longer than Episode one as well, took me over 7 hours to complete.

Cons: There are no new weapons at all. There are only 2 new enemies. WHY WON’T ALYX AND GORDON JUST HAVE SEX ALREADY!! You could cut the tension with a crowbar.

Portal

Pros: Easily the most innovative game of the year, hell, of MANY years. If this doesn’t top some game of the year lists, the world has lost it’s way. I mean, the game is hilarious as well, the freakin’ companion cube already has a cult following. The cake is a lie!!

Cons (but not really): Too short. Even n00bs could beat in like 4 hours. But I have a feeling Portal 2 is going to be off-the-charts EPIC. I might even bet there’ll be a portal gun in HL Episode 3.

I am America (and so can you!) by Stephen Colbert

That’s right. I read a book. You can change your underwear now. I’ll wait.

Pros: A hilarious read for anyone that watches his show. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the ridiculous one-liners. He makes you realize the true genius of his craft. He makes fun of Bill O’Reilly’s show with the Colbert Report, but he parodies O’Reilly’s books with this one. The intricacy of this comedy is truly genius. He completely dismantles the neo-con view using nothing but itself. Colbert is a God.

Cons: The book is of the same flavor as the show, and sometimes blatantly outlandish just for the sake of it, and because he knows he’ll get away with it. Part of me wants a serious autobiography written by the real Colbert, as that is the side no one ever sees, it would make for a more interesting read.

This is officially the longest post I’ve ever written, and if you read it all the way through, then damn. Props to you. I’ll make sure to post on your wall when it’s your birthday.

Apparently out there on the internet, unbeknownst to me, there are entire sites dedicated to mashups. “Mashup” of course is one of those words people love to hate, but for better or worse it is attached to anything on the internet that uses an api and is remotely cool. I guess DiggKiller qualifies. In the past few days, I’ve been selected as a “Mashup of the Day” on two different sites. The first is programmableweb.com. I found out about this by checking the referrer traffic for my site and noticing the domain, and checking it out. The site must not have that much traffic, because I never heard of it before and they only forwarded me about 60 hits. Also, there are currently no “comments” on the page, a good indicator of anemic traffic.

The second site looked a little more credible. It’s mashupawards.com and I was notified of my award through an email (which means they actually had to visit the site, read my little blurb at the bottom and find my email address). They even urged me to choose a cool badge to display on my site, like this one:

At first I thought this was a lame excuse to get more traffic to a second-rate site, by picking a cool thing everyday and then linking back to their site with these awards. It’s a classic technique to increase traffic and google ranking. But then I noticed that the site actually looks pretty badass, and they don’t have a single advertisement on it. How to they make money? Who knows.

I guess the thing that’s truly amazing is that in the land of web 2.0, sites exist that give out awards every day that are HAND PICKED by the site’s creators, instead of being automagically chosen by user voting and complex promotion algorithms. It’s refreshing to see some people kickin’ it old school, and to me, kind of gives these awards more value. I just remembered fuzzwich does that too. Maybe it’s a new wave of retro-humanized editorial voting systems?  Maybe I just spend too much time on digg.

This is kinda cool. My game DiggKiller is now considered a “hot new game” on Kongregate, and thusly appears on their front page. See if you can find it:

Good shit, if you haven’t played it yet do it!

Man, I feel stupid. Turns out those security errors from Kongregate were being thrown thanks to my lack of a crossdomain.xml file that allows access to data from off-domain swfs. kurtmargenau.com didn’t have one, so any calls to my hiscore phps were being rejected by flash, because the default is if it doesn’t find this magic xml file on the root of the domain, it doesn’t allow it to access any info from that domain. This xml file btw, is a list of domains that are allowed to access. For example, I would put “www.kongregate.com” on the list so my high scores worked, but to make it simple, I just allowed all domains, like so:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<!– http://www.kurtmargenau.com/crossdomain.xml –>
<cross-domain-policy>
<allow-access-from domain=”*” />
</cross-domain-policy>

Now all the folks at Kongregate can battle for high scores!