School Is Cool, Sonic Free Riders Is For Fools

Oh boy. So it's been two weeks at FIEA. I still don't have a lot of work yet. However, I've been assigned to work on a Flash game with four other people. Obviously when you throw five people in the same room and force them to make a game, they all can't agree on everything, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I was told to do: make a 2-D pizza delivery game. I s*** you not. It wasn't even my idea too. So I'm designing 2-D car physics! I'm stoked, this is looking good. I even implemented drift handling! It will be done in two weeks.

Also, I got my cubicle set up. Got pictures up of Daytona USA 1/2, Scud Race, OutRun, Sega Rally, Yu Suzuki, everything, including lamps and all that garbage. Looks good. No one really said anything about the games in particular, but some of my teammates upon seeing all these cars, they said, "We got the right guy for the project," which is sweet.

And also, I get to shop at Target for all the foods I want to eat like Milky Way bars, frozen chicken nuggets, chocolate chip waffles, strawberry toaster strudels, Dr. Pepper, green beans, YooHoo drinks, turkey sandwiches, Spongebob macaroni & cheese, I mean everything. And I got my new Xbox 360 and Rock Band 3 (had to queue up & redownload all 1000+ DLC songs off XBL, a royal pain in the ASS) so I'm living the dream! In my own little Bachelor's pad here folks.  TOTAL FREEDOM.  Seriously, don't get married and have kids--stay at home and eat your own damn food.  Really, nothing worse than opening the fridge/pantry to see everything gone.  Nice to have such few obligations...yeah.


Thanks hamada2700!!!!!

Oh yeah, the money where I get these things...don't ask.  I have an unknown source of income.  I'm saviing money the best I can (bargain brands, baby!!!)

As for what else we learned at FIEA, not much...one class is specifically dedicated to talking about intricate details of the game industry. We're even watching game footage (already saw Dragon Age 2 and Bastion, two games that make me go "ehhh") and discussing things from a technical perspective. Sweet, I love easy grades like this.

Another thing we talked about was different platforms to make your games for. You got Flash, i-Phone, Xbox, Panda, UDK, all these game engines. One options was the Kinect. What the Kinect does is condense some 60+ gestures into a simple keystroke. For instance, during game development, you assign an action to a simple keystroke, such as A. Then when you're done, you swap A with a gesture that the Kinect reads for you, such as "jump" or "wave arms like idiot."

And then a *ding* went off in my head. I already talked about Sonic Free Riders, that Sega racer for Kinect that really bombed because the controls sucked so hard. Well, if it was just as easy to swap Kinect gestures with buttons, then WHY DIDN'T THEY ALTERNATELY PROGRAM THE GAME FOR STANDARD XBOX CONTROLLERS??? I mean, really, judging from what I assume, it could've taken them a very VERY short amount of time to convert the game to standard controls and thus made it available to a wider audience (you shouldn't buy a Kinect game without the Kinect, mirite???)

I'll tell you why. Because it's a gimmick to get people to buy Kinect. If they could play it with a controller, why would they need the Kinect. So there you go--Sega taken hostage by the Kinect and that whole entire game, Sonic Free Riders, could've actually been excellent without the Kinect, but no, it's ruined.  EDIT: Yes, I actually do think Sonic Free Riders could be a good game.  Thanks Microsoft!