Humble Paleontology

Yeah, yeah. A few months later I crawl back here, to drop a few unceremonious words.

PAX was fun. One gentleman took this picture with his Google Glass.

Apparently there was also Much Video. That particularly unimpressed look is probably me telling him to, like, kindly quit with the ninjalike lifecapture.

Then I got to wear his specs. He activated this easter egg whereby I could turn 360, and everywhere around me were the developers for Glass. Here's one brusquely-grabbed shot to illustrate, courtesy google images.

The point was that I felt like I was right there, and all it took was a tiny screen next to one eye. If they ever release this, it's going to multiply everything we've been saying about games by 100x. Maybe that's exaggerating. It's also probably untrue, in that Google Glass will add altogether new elements to those conversations.

I also spoke at PAX, for the first time. Once with the delightful, brilliant Anna DiNoto, on how to keep play in balance with everything else in life. And then again, with James Portnow, about how games are art, and why that matters. I loved both, but have to admit that the art one felt a lot more powerful and impassioned (probably a fair comparison when the other is a finely tuned one on "balance"). There were also roughly 10 times as many people at the art talk (many there to catch James, before he rode off into the pixelated sunset). Still, on day three, I saw the line building up and said aloud,

"We're gonna need a bigger latte."

When the talks were said and done, it was good to see the friends I mostly only catch up with at things like PAX and GDC. They're good folk.


So, only one more thing to announce. A few weeks ago I wrapped up the first draft of a book I've been plugging away at. It mixes my collected games research from the last decade or so, with all the weird stories I have from growing up around games. I think it could make for a good context to help non-gamers get what we're doing, but more I wrote it for the miscreants I've played with all these years. One in particular, a guy who's been my friend for years, who we all call Squatch.

And maybe also myself. It feels good to have a chunk of words that I'm happier with than anything else I've done.

While it's good to have something to show for all that work, the finding-agents and selling-books phase has never been my favorite thing. But then again, I like what I've done. I think that should help. It's exciting.