Rohrer is a genius and a visionary – but if you know his name, you are well aware of this already. A screen from one of his games alone evokes memories of past games he’s made. They’re strange, they’re not what you are used to, but they pus boundaries of gaming you didn’t know existed. Take, for example, Passage.
The premise is simple – you move through a symbolic path that represents your life. You choose one thing – whether you do it alone or with a woman you meet early on. If you choose to go it alone, you move to the right, then die. The game ends. If you choose to go with her by your side, you move to the right with some difficulty followed by her death, then yours. The game ends.
It’s been quite the trip today – packing, setting up, and getting ready to report on all sorts of goings-on in the world of Star Wars. The Old Republic has a panel that my friend Jake is apparently on. I’ll be there, recording, taking photos and video, and then I’ll be moving on to Twittering to my hearts content for LucasArts.
The good news is that I‘ll be able to Twitter as I stand in line for toys. Yup – it’s a helluva job.
It’s been too long since I really got my feet wet inside of a level editor. I tend to have made tons of levels, only keeping them quite private on a central server which only myself and my friends had access to. No longer. My first major undertaking int he way of community maps is going to be my work – the Letterman Digital Arts Center (LDAC), home of LucasArts, LucasFilm, and ILM amongst other businesses.
I’ll admit that I have a great deal of laughter I’ve spent at the expense of others. Not my best quality, but when someone is acting like a total jackass, I can’t help myself when their world crashes down on them. But – once in a while, there is the case of someone who I don’t know how to react. It may be because they aren’t very smart, or due to their upbringing, or surrounding…or something.
But I can’t bring myself to fully laugh at them. Something about ‘There but for the grace of something something‘ or something.
One of those cases is the Dancin’ Outlaw, a documentary about a gentleman named Jesse White who lives in Boone County and damn well loves to tap dance. He’s not great. He’s barely adequate. But he really does love to do it. What makes the video is his sheer bluntness about his life – openly admitting threatening his wife with death, or huffing lighter fluid, or his jailtime – he just doesn’t care.
It’s actually hilarious, poignant, as well as sad all wrapped into one. I would love to hear your input and opinions, because this damn video is almost hypnotic, just like his (and his fathers) dancing. Just click on the video below to watch Jesse, Jesco, and Elvis occupy a single body.
EDIT: I’ve changed the video from the lame .flv that simply would NOT encode the audio properly to the now DIVX awesomeness. It’s simply better, so get a Divx codec, k?
No video? Get the DivX Web Player for Windows or Mac
Boy, how long since I’ve posted? I’ve been tearing myself apart with work and finishing up my final bits of freelance work. It’s been keeping me incredibly busy – and I’ve got more then a few things to show off for it. Primarily, I want to show off my most impressive bit of creativity that I was involved with. (more…)
What have I been doing every day for two weeks? What has kept me from my regular online life, annoying people, 4channing and playing my Team Fortress 2? I’ve been working for George Lucas in little company called Lucasfilm. (more…)
