Well, I haven’t been posting here because I’ve been putting all of my free time and energy into my marriage, my house, and my grad school.  My, my my… Seems a little self-centered when I put it that way (and maybe it is).

My wife is helping me clean up my office.  I might be a bit of a pack-rat especially when it comes to things that might be useful in the future (like my friend Kevin who has a collection of disassembled printer gears, rods, and other things).  Basically this means that I keep all papers (never know when you might need to refer back to that information!), all outdated technology (why throw away a perfectly good coax cable?), and anything else that might cost something to replace (I know I have 50 different stacks of half-used post-it’s… but they’re useful).  However, with my beautiful wife’s loving encouragement, I’m throwing away old papers, parting with old technology, and organizing everything I’m going to keep.  I will admit, my office is getting neater.  And that’s a good thing.  It’s more functional this way, though I’m sure (if I wanted to – not that I have) I could argue that my office was functional before the cleaning as well.

On the grad school side of things, I’m updating the blog regularly now that I’ve started to build my actual project.  My project is building a game using a certain exploratory methodology.  You can read more about it if you want to.  But basically, I have to document every day I work on the project so I have it all archived when I write my thesis paper (if you have to spend 50 pages writing about a single focused topic, it had better be something you like and you had better document all of your sources).  Some people might question why I chose to create a game for my thesis when all my background and focus is in interactive media design and development.  The short answer to that question is basically that I see an important language emerging from this current / the next generation which is heavily based on gaming.  I think there are some important issues around gaming (doing good, reward systems, critical thinking) and I think gaming and education relate to each other on multiple levels (beyond the obvious).  I am one of those who believe all games teach (thank you Raph Koster) and as a teacher, I need to study this form of teaching.  Additionally, I’m using my interactive skills (project management, Flash / AS3 Coding, design, art) in producing this game, so in that way it’s directly applicable.  My hope is that this process will make me a better, more relevant teacher in years to come.  All that said, I also enjoy games immensely and I see game design as an artform.

So that’s my update for this quarter… ha!

On a side note, Josephine Leong and SuAnne Fu (both at SCAD) are really excellent teachers.  I’ve had a couple teachers in grad school that I haven’t really understood (which makes me more empathetic to my own students) but those two are really amazing.  I respect them very much.

Theo Jansen rocks.  I bought his book The Great Pretender to read partly for pleasure and partly for a class I’m in.  I’m writing a paper on Jansen and 2 other sculpture artists.  It’s very interesting reading.  He has used genetic algorithms, among other things, in developing his “beach animals“.  I love it.  I’ve done some experimentation with genetic algorithms myself, though I have yet to use them as effectively as he has.

On a reading break today I checked Facebook (sigh) and AID alumni Chris Griffith posted a note about “one of the best Flash games he’s ever played,” which caught my attention.  It’s Record Tripping by the Bell Brothers.  Go check it out.  Very interesting stuff.

I’m still banging away in grad school.  I’ll be taking 15 hours next semester.  Fortunately two of those classes are programming classes and *should* be a cake walk.  We shall see.

I created the rules and some diagrams of a game I’m calling the Trenches.  Feel free to check out the full write up here (pdf).  I like the idea, though I’m not sure I’ll ever create the game.  We’ll have to see.  Just wanted to share it though!

This semester I had to create a project for one of my classes.  It had to be non-digital in nature so I chose to create a board game.  The board game is based on a digital game I created last year – Begins With… Here’s a link to the final project proposal (pdf) which explains the game, the rules, why I designed things the way I did, etc.

On a side note, you can keep up with my weekly postings on my grad school blog for the 705 class (for which my project was made) here:  Formula ITGM 705