who is the salty droid?

I occasionally come across things that make no sense to me. Okay, let me revisit that statement...change occasionally to constantly. But this one is perplexing to me. It stems from the following question, "who is the salty droid?"

One of the most important skills required for a game designer is "listening" which in my view requires constant observation and critical analysis of all of human experience, including my own. This is a big, impossible task, but something we strive to do as game developers to inform our activities. It comes in handy when making games that are "problem-solving activities which bring people pleasure" and creating the right ingredients to be effective in this process.

Coming back to the title of this blog entry...I came across this phrase "who is the salty droid?" from a tweet a friend of mine made. I did not ask them what it meant (which I will shortly correct). I wanted to figure it out myself. Google revealed no immediate answers from what I could tell, although some "Salty Droid" references are out there on Google. Then I decided, spontaneously, to essentially retweet the phrase. I posted a facebook status update with the phrase. Impulsive is the best word to describe this action. My skills as a game designer, in listening to my inner monologue, seemed to come to the following conclusion. I am transmitting an idea virus. There is nothing new to this in human communication, and in particular in today's age. An electronically transmitted idea virus can be gold to the right entrepreneur. But never have I so swiftly been involved in forwarding something that I didn't understand AT ALL to perpetuate this unanswered question. I want to know who the salty droid is. I want to know who made it up. I want to know why this sequence of words seems to be suddenly appearing to me.

As a game designer, I've spent a lot of time studying the human compulsion to explore and resolve unknowns in the world. Place a big button in the middle of the screen. Write text that says, "DO NOT PRESS BUTTON" and see what happens to the majority of people involved in that interactive experience. Right now, my personal button reads "WHO IS THE SALTY DROID?"

As I am writing about this, one thing has just occurred to me. I have embedded myself into the perpetual online timeline of this idea by posting information about my reflection on this thing I know nothing about within my blog. My blog is frequently indexed by search engines. It will be a part of this craziness...or perhaps even help launch this phrase even further out in the intertube ether.

Who is the salty droid? I have become the salty droid. And so will you. And doing your best to shake those five words will lead to only one thing...perpetuating it yourself.

I have a way to resolve it for you however if you are of a certain age. Read the following lyrics...

"...As cold as ice..."

"...love is a battlefield..."

or, perhaps nearly the worst of all...Hanson...

"Mmmbop....mmmbop"

Did that help? It helped me.

Bad music saves the day. Always. Trust me.

Take care Salty Droids out there!

Graduates of Flashpoint Academy's game development program launch featured iPhone game, bitFLIP

From the president of Metamoorephosis games...

"So it finally happened. The big dream that started at Flashpoint Academy launches its first game as a featured app on the worlds fastest growing video game platform.

Critics have been amazing as well and with 29 consecutive 5 star scores from players we expect the game to catch like wildfire:

App Store Link: http://bit.ly/4r1yoA

IGN - 8.0 - "bitFLIP is a great surprise. At first, it looked like a basic match-three game with a great soundtrack. But flipping the tiles as well as swapping them adds a needed wrinkle to the genre."

1up.com - "Is it worth $2.99? Unequivocally yes. Hell, the soundtrack is practically worth that much by itself! bitFLIP is a game with a great premise and a great aestetic, and is yet another one of those apps that leaves you wondering where the time went."

Aeropause.com - 4/5 - "The soundtrack, gameplay visuals and iComplishments prove that bitFLIP is far from a no-frills iPhone puzzle game."

Joystiq.com - Justin McElroy - "[bitFLIP] is a puzzle game thats really well suited to the iPhone .. it's a trip. Nice one to sorta zone out and not think for a while."

On behalf of Justin, the team and myself we would like to give you our warmest thanks for believing in Metamoorephosis Games.

--
Joshua Hernandez
CEO & Founder
Metamoorephosis.Games!"

Flashpoint students win Game Design Challenge

I’m thrilled to share with you that two students from the Game Development program at Flashpoint are featured as winners in a recent Game Design Challenge held by one of the industry’s most important websites. First year student Emily Greenquist won as Best Entry, and Terumi Tamaki won an honorable mention. Follow the links to check out the full details!

http://gamecareerguide.com/features/792/results_from_game_design_.php

From the article:

“Results from Game Design Challenge: Literary Inspirations

We have hundreds, even thousands, of years of literature to draw from -- yet so little of it has been used for source material for games. Early next year, Electronic Arts will release Dante's Inferno, a very loose adaptation of part of Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy, written in the 14th century.

While it's debatable how respectful the game's content is to the original source material, it's true that the works of the past are a resource that could be tapped much more effectively in the creation of gameworlds.

Game Career Guide challenged its readers to adapt a piece of literature -- contemporary, medieval, or somewhere in between -- into a game. It could be in any genre of literature or gaming -- the core concept is how compellingly you turn it into a game idea. How will you adapt from one medium to the other? What will you cut? What will you keep? What will you change, and what will stay the same?

Winning entries effectively translated literary works into game narratives, while also keeping in mind the medium's inherent tropes and limitations.

What follows are the best and most original entries we received. Here are our top picks: “


Best Entries:

Emily Greenquist, Student, Flashpoint Academy (Year One Student)

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Greenquist takes a complex story and weaves it into a solid game concept. The Picture of Dorian Gray, as a horror-themed RPG, puts players in the role of an amoral protagonist who must eventually face the consequences of his actions. Though the experience would be a largely passive one for the player, the depth in narrative promises a rich payoff. “

http://gamecareerguide.com/features/792/results_from_game_design_.php?page=4


Honorable Mention:

Terumi Tamaki, Romeo and Juliet: Happily Ever After (Year Two Student)

http://gamecareerguide.com/features/792/results_from_game_design_.php?page=9

No longer patent pending!

After many years under review, one of my recent inventions, the Time Market Grid Interface, has recently been granted approval by the U.S. patent office!

You can look up patent 7,574,388 on uspto.gov, or check out this quick third-party web link:

http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/7574388.html

I invented this interface and technology for a Chicago company called Trading Technologies...and I have more trading technology inventions up my sleeve. As a game developer, I am keenly interested in optimizing the user experience in real-time interactive media -- so the challenges of developing, producing, and programming games is strongly connected to issues in making great software used by electronic traders in exchanges around the world.

Day in the life of a game programmer, artist and designer

In describing "what it's really like out there" I find that students just starting out in our program at Flashpoint Academy are frequently skeptical of everything faculty conveys to them about the realities of working as a game developer today (even with our accumulated 70 years of working in the field).

Industry visitors from nearby studios definitely help us out in this regard, but this article provides some really great examples of experiences by a few developers: a programmer, an artist, and a designer really do a nice job of fleshing out a typical day.

Here's the article from CareerGameGuide.com you should check out!

Here's the start of the article:

"Programmer

8:45 AM I arrive at work and head to my office. At High Moon Studios, most programmers don't actually work in their offices. We work in open space areas, sitting next to designers, artists, and animators. My office is where I drop my stuff, check my email, and make phone calls. I share a large office with five other people, but only spend about 30 minutes a day in there so we are rarely there at the same time."