Listening to the Canto General and programming like hell.
Will hopefully make the deadline with awesome game.
Man, this music is impressive.
Monthly Archive for March, 2009
I had been planning to spend all of yesterday working on Phenomenon 32. Instead, I was so incredibly ill that I spent the whole day in bed, incapable of eating or driking. I swear I haven’t felt this bad in years, if not decades. It was awful. Even when my body decided that it was time to throw up (which usually helps with this kind of situation), there was nothing to throw up. I’m better now, but I still feel rather messed up, and my back hurts.
The cat, interestingly enough, spent more than half the day lying in bed with me, only getting up when I did. It was most cute.
Work continues on Phenomenon 32.
As soon as Verena wakes up, we’ll be watching the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I’m looking forward to it, as the wrap-up will really tell me what I finally think of this show. I may write a retrospective-type thing.
I just spent an hour building a “How to Help” page for this website, with a PayPal donation button and some suggestions about spreading the word a little… and now the god-damn button doesn’t work. And I don’t even know why. This used to be simple.
Sigh.
Makes it really tempting to give up on this idea. I’m uncomfortable with it anyway, and in all the years that I had a button up I got a total of three donations. But I keep thinking that if I could get the people who enjoy my games to help out a little – by donating, by writing to some of the websites that don’t even respond to my emails… I don’t know. I’m proud of some of this stuff – especially Museum and Desert Bridge. It’s frustrating to write to 15 websites that all write regularly about independent games and adventure games and to get something like 3 replies. After eight years of making games that are really quite different, that’s not very encouraging.
Anyway. Back to Phenomenon 32. (With my luck, this one will get all the players. And sure, it’s going to be cool, but it’s not going to touch people like Desert Bridge or Museum. Freak them out maybe, and touch them a little, but not like the others. I doubt it. This is a different experience. I think. We’ll see.)
That update I talked about, that will fix the DPI issues? A couple more days. With the way I managed to cut my finger, and a bit of “normal” work that I had to do, in addition to being rather tired, I’ve had to postpone it a little.
Meanwhile, the breakdown of capitalism continues with the disgusting mess at AIG:
Millions of working people face the prospect of unemployment, foreclosure, poverty and homelessness. For them there will be no bailout, and no million-dollar bonuses like those paid out to 73 executives at the bankrupt financial conglomerate AIG, with the consent of the Obama administration and Congress.
There is deep-seated and rising popular anger over the AIG bonuses, which have become a potent symbol for the criminality of the Wall Street elite and the gross inequality that pervades American society. The Obama administration’s hand-wringing apologies for failing to stop the bonuses are likewise symbolic: demonstrating the subservience of the Democratic Party to the financial aristocracy that really rules America.
As public anger erupted over AIG, both the Obama administration and Democrats and Republicans in Congress have postured as opponents of the blatant looting of public resources. Yet they have all failed to answer a simple question: given the US government owns 80 percent of AIG, and has funneled $180 billion into the company over the past six months, why has it proven impossible to stop the payment of the bonuses, the bulk of them to traders in derivatives, credit default swaps and other exotic financial instruments?
You know, sometimes all of this reminds me so much of the time before World War II that it’s scary. We’re standing so close to the abyss, and it could go either way… the majority of the human population are against this system, but the system is fighting back desperately.
Let’s hope it all goes better this time.
This is the real face of war.
This is what every pro-war person thinks is justified; this is what every pro-war politician, be it George W. Bush or Barack Obama, is responsible for. This is what is happening right now in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan; what has happened in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and may well happen in Iran. It is happening all over the world today, where the mighty few are trying to expand their power and wealth over the corpses of those who have nothing.
And it will continue to happen until we collectively do something about it.
This isn’t some kind of utopian tree-hugging idealism.
These are the facts.
If you only see one film this year, see Battle for Terra. We saw it ages ago at the Fantasy Film Fest, and I can easily say it is one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen, as well as one of the best films in general. It’s a lot more than what it looks like. It’s deep, funny, thoughtful, terrifying, beautiful, complex, moving, exciting and exceedingly well-done. More than a few people in the cinema were wiping away tears, including us.
If you like anything I’ve ever done, you should really enjoy it. If you hate everything I’ve ever done, see it anyway.
You can follow my progress on Phenomenon 32 here. More screenshots will be added soon.
Early testing shows that the next Desert Bridge update will work on monitors with higher DPI settings. Yay!
