montyoum

Well well well, here I am again sitting in a Starbucks quite soon before I once again move to another life. I managed to stay longer this time though, being here in Northern California for almost a year and a half. These changes always seem to come at me while I’m not expecting it. You can tell I’m in silicon valley, I’m sitting in a lounge chair surrounded by a good variance of eastern enthinicities all using enormous laptops. It took bloody forever to even manage getting a seat with a plug nearby. I’ve come to like it here, as little as I venture out to the world, I like that the people here feel somewhat modernized, interested in moving forward, and the common interest in bettering oneself. It’s something to admire being able to find such in a large group of people.

I’m quite excited to start my next career though. One that’ll yeild itself to a more productive lifestyle. As much as I love designing games, I find that the industry on it’s own does not share my interes in productiveness. though I’ve been here for 16 months, looking back, I’d gone 7 months too long of not being productive and should’ve made this decision sooner. The games industry is much too comfortable sitting around on the promise of creating something great, all it’s possiblity and talent burning itself towards the possiblity of nothing. So hereby I had recently decided that I need to step out of game development, it just didn’t make sense, to think about jumping onto another project and in two years having “my name on something.” The hesitance was in that I love to design games, and I think I have a lot to offer. Something that many people whom worked with me saw. But unfortunately there’s much more to the equation and therefore fighting this uphill battle was ultimately futile.

Thus soon enough tomorow I make leave for Austin Texas. I’d never imagined I’d end up there, having no concept really of what to expect, other than it being hot. Otherwise, my moving there has definite promise. The team I’m joining in fact has much in common to my backwards sense of things, and this marriage of technique will benefit us both in some many ways I’m not to speak of. I can tell you on the other hand that you can expect some big things, and they whom I am join are doing everything I am not… and vice versa. Only good things can come from this.

Nothin big, just a new pic I did over my break

Transient Princess by *montyoum on deviantART

This is back when I first showed this years new Dead Fantasies in Anime Boston 2009. I was surprised that as many people had shown up as did. I’m told I speak rather cryptically apparently.

Doing these panels are good fun. There were some pretty absorbed people here, I’m glad to always share. I hope to do more panels in the future. It was great. I wish I could have the screen running here on the vid more, but.. ya know. Work work work.

“A pencil, is kinda like a muffin…”

Again it manages to be 6:00 am and I fail to sleep, it’s usual for my mind to be rushing at 3:00 am, though oddly out of usual circumstance, I’m not thinking about my work. I should’ve kept at working 5 hours ago when I decided that I should go to sleep. At least it’ll be 6:00 am now and I’d have gotten something done. I’m pretty sure it’ll another 2 hours from now before I even manage to slow it down. And then finally there’ll be minutes where the unconsciousness slowly starts to creep in and I’ll realize “YESSS! I’m starting to fall asleep!” Which in turn will be enough thought to snap me awake again. And the sleeping pills didn’t work either, maybe I need to take more.

What is it that’s on my mind that has it moving so quickly? For the life of me I cannot recall even the last 5 minutes what I was thinking.

I’m trying to sleep cause I can’t seem to manage to fit the mold of all those other good employees who get to work at 10:00, dick around for a good few hours, start mentally preparing for lunch, take a 2 hour lunch, and then dick around some more… I hate wasting time.

I’m generalizing obviously, but for some reason. People want to make the obvious comparison.

That’s it with people isn’t it? Obvious comparisons. I’m quite the hypocrite when it comes to those myself. Preaching the shades of grey in this world when I myself am constantly pushing for those to fit into that box of black or white. Admittedly I really like to see people try hard, I like to see people succeed. But for that to happen, it has to involve other people. And when you deal with others, due to the nature of humans, everything needs to translate to shorter sentences.

GAhhh there’s not much to do about it I guess.

I forgot about something I enjoyed quite a bit growing up. A good conversation. I guess it’s something that I kinda lost when I dove so deeply into my work that I forgot about the part of me that really enjoyed just exchanging thoughts. In all honesty I used to be good at talking, and though all my intended interaction were always with a purpose. There was always a joy of the meeting of minds. In the rare event of being able to trade words with someone I’ve made a connection with, I’d forgotten the exhiliration.

Ah, I suppose life is too different now isn’t it? Not only have I become socially bereft, it seems really that the only conversations I am capable of having these days is about work. Well, or maybe that’s what comes with age, I should feel lucky that everything I want or can speak of is only in stuff I’m interested in. If only I could get some fair company to speak with, perhaps it would ease my existence.

Ya know I was supposedly a prodigy growing up? People were always saying things to me like how I was going to be great, that I was meant for big things. That came with much failure throughout my life. Ultimately with me dropping out of school, being a bum for a good amount afterwards as well. The whole of the time I’d assumed that greatness would come about on it’s own. It wasn’t only til after I’d grabbed it with my own two hands did anything happen. Word to parents out there, don’t tell your child they’re special, and most important. Don’t give them the message that they should live their life to the fullest. This will only result in them running out the door that very moment, assuming there’s something out there they need to be experiencing.

And no I’m not successfull. If I were I wouldn’t be writing this, nor would my knuckles be burning this hard.

I kinda get it now. Why we write characters who we don’t understand. Burden, it’s not something very easy to explain or understand, you just accept it.
I’d never realized what my burden was til I saw the lack of my reflection in others.

Last night or rather this morning I had quite an interesting dream. I dreamt of an episode of ROAD wherein myself and some of my friends were back in highschool (when Road itself will be set.)

There’s this really pretty girl I know, Lena Guo. She’s like fictional character pretty, someone you’d see in an anime or video game. She was there, and so was my other friend Dara, even though our ages are five years apart, we were somehow were in high school together. There were many others, but the faces are a haze.

Road is a series I’d been planning on rebooting for the longest time now. Previous episodes despite the efforts, were really stupid. A silly stupid, but nonetheless they don’t hold up to standard.

I think the dream was invoked by a thought I had earlier that night. I remembered earlier this month when I was leaving Anime Expo, as the event winded itself down and people were thus scattering about back to their lives, I passed by this pretty girl whom was crying. I found myself wondering what could it be, asking her if everything was alright.

“I’m ok”

Of course would be the response. And respectfully I walked away, looking back every so often, wondering if there was more I could do.

I curse myself when I think about what I could’ve done, checked back later, found her some tissues, ran off and buy her flowers. Anything but simply walk away. Even at least be a little more forward. I hate being somewhat slow witted when it comes to interacting with people. I’ll never be that guy I guess.

In my dream there was some event in which everyone was gathered, a pep rally perhaps? Maybe it was some sort of Party. Otherwise Lena and I stole away to some room where she sought my council.

Now mind you Lena and I don’t know each other that well. It’s kinda a passing friendship so I imagine she was there to represent something more than her actual self. The heartache I get when I think of the underlying turmoil that I suspect from beautiful girls perhaps? It’s that despite the world assuming they must be happy that invokes this empathy.

Anyhow fuzzy recalls of trying to sneak out food with some buddies as the principal hunted us down in good fun. Or me and Dara sneaking into apparently the school arcade to steal in some games of Tekken 6. The one part that had me glad I slept in was right before I awoke.

Cut back to Lena and I talking, myself trying to pry what sort of turmoil exactly it was that had us talking. I don’t recall if she was crying, but I do know that she became more and more offended. Eventually offended enough to the point that she would turn my words around and in turn was counseling me. As conversation shifted and she plied my open thoughts as to why I even cared, her council had us then figure out it was I who was the one that was crying.

Let’s try this again shall we?

As you can see (or maybe not) I changed my page to be a wordpress blog. It’s just best considering this makes it much easier to update etc. I suppose simpler is better.

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

Still being buisy as all fuck, I just came off of a huge work week, so I’ll take this moment to collect some thoughts as my mind is running in all sorts of directions.

These are the general thoughts I have when speaking to colleagues about game design as well as me myself pondering solemly about the state of games itself as a media.

Why are action games known for having a bad camera? The common and easy complaint that most people make is that there are many moments where you end up not being able to see your character, enemy or where you’re going. Ninja Gaiden is the premiere example of this. Most people dismiss the game initially because of the complaint about it’s camera. Despite it’s ultra repsonsive and deep combat system. There are many people who absolutely refuse to experience it because of that initial barrier.

The problem though isn’t the camera as much as it is the user. The truth is there will never be combat game with a good camera unless you take camera control away from the player. So often at work whenever someone makes that complaint, I tell them that Ninja Gaiden has the BEST camera. Not because it actually has a good camera, but that it has a combat system reliable enough that I never have to use it. The problem with the game itself is the point of entry into that system in which you’re capable enough to navigate enemies and environment that you don’t ever have to worry about the camera. When I’m playing Ninja Gaiden and said enemy/boss character goes off screen, it’s not even issue because I’ve past that point as a player where the combat system feels as natural to me as any capable FPS player is where their two thumbsticks.

So I’ve come to discover that that very barrier of entry is a cultural thing. Most western gamers at this point know how to navigate a FPS. The barrier of entry for me when I first played a FPS was how to not running around while only looking at the ground or ceiling. Learning the movement system is just as important as learning how to not shoot at the sky in Halo.

Saying you want an action game to have a good camera is inately flawed. It’s the same as me saying that I won’t play a FPS because it’ll never have a good looking spin kick. (No Mirror’s Edge doesn’t count, I like to see the cool stuf I’m doing thank you.)

When HALO came to console it solidified what the control scheme for FPS here on out and spawned a million Halo copies thereafter. The same has yet to happen for action games. Ninja Gaiden could be the one if it weren’t for it’s intentional barriers making the game less accessible. Generally it’s the game’s difficulty, as well as just the general Stigma that surrounds the game (I can just feel people scoffing whenever I mention this game) because of the game’s creator or the way the game is “dressed.”

Someone who worked on the Spiderman Web of Shadows Team played Ninja Gaiden and knew there was potential there if placed in the right context. Unfortunately the rest of the game wrapped around the combat was pure garbage. But the parts I played I could tell there were really good intentions there.

Watch when May comes and Wolverine Origins comes out (i’ve been watching this game closely.) People will feel like action games have finally come to point. The Lunge feature which has been mentioned several times can be comparable to Ninja Gaiden’s Wind Run. A tracking Jump that pre-emtively sets the player up to DO COOL SHIT. The only difference is that Ninja Gaiden Hardly mentions it.

And there’s your accesiblility right there folks. Ninja Gaiden comes from an era of fighters where it’s up to the user to figure out what’s useful or not and how to use it. How many players who play Ninja Gaiden actually know about the Wind Run or the Landing Charge? Watch any speed run or Master Ninja Playthrough and you’ll notice the interchange of things like the Jump to Roll and how important it is to place you’re standard movement as well as your tracking movement. Whereas Wolverine is already discussing the mechanics of the game and how it’ll impress you.

I’m looking forward to Wolverine Origins in that it may do what Gears of War did to Kill Switch, and all with a single feature. But at least it’ll put action games back on the map, something that should’ve happened 6 years ago if not for people thinking that God Of War was the prime example of what an action game should be. (We all know how great these God Of War clones are.)

But also because I honestly feel like my involvement in games is proportional to how prominent action and combat is in the future of games themselves. Two years now there’s been little to play due to the nature of how games are evolving. (You’ve heard my complaints already about FPS’s)

Even last year GTAIV game of the year… yea I’ll take that. But in the list of reason’s why, it’s said GTAIV set out to do many things, and did them all well. Not true, the combat was horrible.

Here’s to hoping that’ll be different this year. I’m personally effecting this change as we speak. 10 Years ago I said to myself why aren’t there more people making movies? The tools are out there, yet there aren’t any single animators making short films. 6 Years ago I said action games are going to be great. Looks like I’ll have to step up and make them myself. I just can’t tell you what I’m making… yet

Personally to me Game of the Year 2008? Tekken 6… IN THE ARCADE!!!! DUN DUN DUNNNN!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, Sept 18th, 2008

Well, I’ve certainly been neglecting this page.

Ok where to begin.

Working at Namco has kept me seriously buisy. So seriously in fact that it has been over 5 months since my last movie and I have nothing to show. I feel as if I’m suffering from cinematic withdrawl as the scenes that have populated my head seem to slip further and further into time.

All’s not such much dispair but moreso impatience. As I work everyday I grow in ways I couldn’t have otherwise. Once this game is shipped I will be an uncaged beast as far as my visions go.

Although much of what goes on in the world has me wondering what’s the next direction I should take my work. What steps I need to take to be able to grow as an artist. One can’t help but reconsider their path, as well as wonder if they were really right about their actual value.

I feel I have something to contribute to the world, something no one else has. But being that person means I’m quite far from the kind of person who know how to “sell” themself. Thus making life suite itself to my purpose. Now my natural instinct would be to learn how to become that person, because it has been a theme of my life, that nothing good ever came out of waiting to be noticed. There are few I’d trust to help me with this, and yet I am simply not built in a way that understands how to market myself as a person.

It is a predicament that has me on days of ups and downs. Will it ever be like simpler times when there was only me and my work? Perhaps I am overthinking, spending too much time on the internet, checking messages and googling my name. Afterall, there’s still no one else who does what I do.

And so begins a new chapter.

So I just recently arrived in Santa Clara to start at my new job at Namco Bandai Games America. It’s totally different from any other experience I’ve had. It’ll certainly take some getting used to.

I regret to report that getting anything done has been tremendously difficult. Most of my movie work has slowed to a crawl as I scrape for time to get anything done. It is very buisy here as the game we are working on is due to ship this winter.

In situations like this the only thing I can really do is study study study. And if I have the mind for anything else at the end of the day, hopefully get some work done as well.

Slowly but surely building this mofo.

News news news…
My Chicago Apt is now empty. I am writing this sitting in the Starbuck’s ’round the corner waiting to fall alseep to wake up to catch my plane. I’ll be going home for a short break before heading out to Santa Clara CA where my new job at Namco Bandai awaits me. I’m kinda looking forward to being on the west coast again. A new area, hopefully make some new friends. I am not looking forward to on the other hand being an 8hr flight away and a 3hr time difference behind from my girlfriend. It’s gonna be hard, that’s as much as I know.

And despite being uprooted and totally flying by the handle, I’m still gunning it at makign my next movie. It doesn’t matter where I am or what condition I’m in, so long as I have my laptop and a power outlet I’ll be working.

If coffee were water, I’d be a duck.

Quack Quack

P.S. This site is still under heavy construction

P.S. P.S. - Goodbye Chicago