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4 Years Jamming
Last month marked the end of my 4-year journey at Jam City. What a length of time to reflect on and be grateful for! When I started on the Panda Pop team in August of 2020, I didn't know what to expect -- given lockdowns, I had to take interviews calls in the backyard, under the shade of our fig tree, and take preparatory walks along the neighborhood creek. There was a hint of fresh uncertainty to the world. It was a time of constant transition, really.
Work was different, with the fully remote setup, the cross-continent collaboration, and the new responsibility of a popular game. Each in-person team conference was an exciting event with a trek to San Francisco or a drive to HQ in Culver City. Life was also different: I gradually lost some personal labels and found new ones. No longer was I wearing the title of a student, no longer was I based out of California, no longer was I in my 20s.
And so it goes! With the recent industry layoffs, I'm onto the next game.
In my 4 years jamming, I got to PM, operate Live-Ops, run tests, create features with everyone past and present on the talented Panda team and JC teams and much much more! It was fantastic and unimaginably so.
The next 4 years are certainly going to look very different from the last. Yet there is an air of familiarity to it, too. Of uncertainty, transition, and opportunity. I'm not sure what the next big project for me will be (open to suggestions!). But I've a few, tiny, personal ones in progress or in consideration that will be quite fun.
Anime Impulse OC 2022
We set up a booth in the Artist Alley at Anime Impulse OC this year, featuring a meowinverse t-shirt, stickers, and some anime/game prints. The Meowinverse website is under test launch here as well: meowinverse.com, with a Shopify service.
The Donut cat design is representative of a cat leaping through a hole connecting universes together. The hole carries a deeper purpose in the full perspective of the world, as a tunnel, path, and focusing point of an oculus. Without the donut, there would be no sweetness to life.
Of the prints my most popular were the ones of Miku and Orange Girl. The highlight of this year's trip was getting to meet Suzie Yeung! I loved the genshin cosplayers as well, was able to snap a few pics, but missed a memorable Hu Tao and Eula.
I've highlighted a few of my favourite booths below as well.
Sicaella
A new character addition for my game concept Cold Chamber. I'm revisiting some story ideas around magical industrial weaponry. Sicaella is here with a spike charge that's set-and-run. So hopefully the light uniform is suitable for moving fast. What would be cool next is to see her in full regalia!
I've also started using the G-Pen in CSP to ink this. Strangely the handling feels better than when I first tried years ago.
Caught up on JRPGs FFVIIR and P5
Wrapped up playing Final Fantasy VII Remake last month and Persona 5 over the last week. I think what I'm left with is the imprint of the character designers at the pinnacle of their work.
25 years on, Cloud and crew are iconic as ever. Kept in the zeitgeist by Square Enix's dedicated investment into spin-offs and media. I'd actually mostly familiarized myself this cast without playing the original FF7 (only made it a few hours in). I read the lore, script, and watched the animated OVA and movies. The characters somehow hit the sweet spot of being a fresh archetype for gamers in that generation. In the remake, they aren't as wordy as they would be in a text-based classic RPG, but I think it works to the advantage of letting the characters express themselves through motion and just showing themselves as visual marvels on screen. They 100% brought these characters to life again. Though Yuffie wasn't in the main campaign, she's naturally my favourite character here.
Persona 5's another story altogether. I started playing this one about 4 or 5 years ago, and was immediately enthralled except for the challenge of its length. After nearly finishing the second Palace, I put it on the shelf until 2021 when I picked it up again on the PS5, easily accessible in the Plus Collection. This is another game oozing with cool, filled with unique, recognizable characters that slowly opens up the more time you spend with them. It wasn't until continuing the game that there was a wave of introduction of confidants and I found the motivation to build relationships with them. And it was rewarding, too, to follow each of the character's struggles as they tried to better the world, and as they tried to overcome their own self-doubt and weaknesses. The game was a heartfelt reminder that change is achievable with support and resolve. My favourite addition to the party was Makoto.
HEAD PHONES #1
Minted an NFT It lives on the blockchain here: https://etherscan.io/token/0x06c9d75eefb8cbdbee25be27646b9270605a4b5e?a=1
And if you want to see the art you go here:
https://foundation.app/@shuandang/headphones/1
2021 A Year in Games
Quick list of games played in 2021:
Genshin Impact, Cyberpunk 2077, Artifact, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Seek Etyliv, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Dyson Sphere Program, Final Fantasy XV, Valorant, Concrete Genie, Control, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, God of War, Knockout City, Virtua Fighter 5, Wild Rift, Industries of Titan, Naraka: Bladepoint, Hunter's Arena, Florence, Superliminal, DotA 2, League of Legends, Battlerite, Runeterra, Hitman 3, Bright Memory: Infinite, Legion TD 2, Titanfall 2, MageQuit
In progress:
Pathless, Persona 5, Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Sampled:
Timelie, Shadwen, Loop Hero, Rhythm Fighter, A Plague Tale: Innocence
Thoughts:
This year, I've had more interest in classic JRPGs and shooters. Both in the style of high fidelity experiences, action cutscenes and a clear throughline story with memorable set-pieces. The music in FFXV set the tone of a grand epic. That followed with a lot of focused, fun time in FFVII Remake and Persona 5 Voice acting went a long way to make the character drama come to life.
The weakest genre as of late has been stealth. I did play Cyberpunk 2077 with a stealth build, so perhaps that covered my needs there. Maybe the military backdrops of that and Metal Gear / Splinter Cell franchises are more compelling to me. As for the other, more traditional hard stealth games, I found that there was a tradeoff where the designs had a lot of tutorializing of stealth mechanics that I did not have the patience to get past. The puzzle-like elements of early stealth games felt restrictive and bland, as I'd have seen these before from past experience.
Competitive games were fun (as always) but a bit of a struggle this year. Without dedicated time to study and master the strategies, it was harder to keep up across multiple multiplayers games. These are still very fun, I thoroughly enjoyed Hunter's Arena, Virtua Fighter 5, Knockout City, MageQuit, and Naraka a lot, especially in the early learning curves just after each game's launch. I'm happy to play out a season in each one and see how I rank compared to other players. But there's no chase to be the top 1% for me here. Mastery is a bit out of reach without focus.
Biggest surprise and enjoyment was Superliminal. It spoke directly to me as a game developer, by showing the backstage elements of creative work.
Ultimately, I'm reminiscing on Nier: Automata. This is the masterpiece that come back to me a lot, especially through the soundtrack. I've picked up the prequel remake Nier: Replicant ver 1.22474487139... and it's going to be my focus for 2022.
Anticipated games of 2022/23:
God of War: Ragnarok, Elden Ring, Sifu, Final Fantasy XVI, Astrea: Six Sided Oracles, Endless Dungeon, Citizen Sleeper
The Exponential Age
From my reading of The Exponential Age, by Azeem Azhan
My favourite parts of this book are the history of exponential growth of technologies (computerization, computing power, shipping, among others), and the contemplation of how ongoing innovations that are already happening will reorganize societies.
Exponential growth does not stop when the limits of one technology is reached. Innovation in the transistor, which had grown exponentially over the last many decades, led the early exponential growth of computing. Once the speed at which we improved transistors started to slow, the exponential growth moved elsewhere. In this case, to the availability of computing power. Exponential forces stack and follow one another.
Exponential effects also came about with standardization. Once a universally accepted guideline for shipping containers was put into place, the global shipping capacity continued to grow with every added port, ship, and truck. It unleashes an uninhibited spread of the core design. The pieces fit no matter who or where they are created.
The core technologies underlined in the book are: Genetic Science, 3D Printing, and two others i cannot remember.
But the point of the book is not that things change fast, but that they change faster than we can adapt at first. So at the onset of all introductions of new technologies a shock to societal norms and existing institutions will occur. It is not until time passes, (in the slower cases a generation or two) later that the people are able to address the systemic inequities that emerge. We'll need to work a lot to improve the exponential gaps that have been expanding.
Super Raft Boat
It just gets at one of the cores of the human condition, the will to build and to survive against chaos. The two actions are at odds: left click to destroy (enemies) and right click to create (a raft). But in a balance between I found some meaning.
little j in little room - Global Game Jam 2021
This year's game jam was online, hosted on Discord and all! I mostly handled this one solo in Unity, and made a game about cats.
The Final Hours of Half Life: Alyx
In a series of 15 chapters, Geoff Keighley covers the ambitious and tumultuous journey of creating the flagship VR Half-Life game. It's a tale about continuing to fan the flames of creativity in the next generation, the complex necessities of game development, and the dedication to craft at Valve.
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