www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0kZK_WEOTQ

Just a few days before moving to Vietnam I gave a presentation about Multi-Directional Top-Down Shooters at the San Francisco chapter of the IGDA in our first “Pecha Kucha” style event.

Today I feel fantastic.

I used to be quite the socialite and quite the networker however, with the demands of work increasing and with the extra demands in my personal life due to being a father, I found myself meeting friends and networking less and less. And despite the growing presence of online social networks in my life I think it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that I’ve been living in a social desert.

My family spent Christmas and New Years in Manhattan and while there we made efforts to reconnect with friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in 10 years! This experience inspired me to take a more proactive role in keeping my personal connections alive by meeting face to face with friends. The great thing is that it is actually working! I’m inspired, motivated, and most of all socially fulfilled. We’ve had dinner parties at friends’ apartments, gone on trips to wine country, and I’ve even been able to sneak away to guys nights out and game industry networking events for the first time in what feels like a very long time.

This all came to a climax yesterday when I met a former Sega coworker for breakfast, a former Unity coworker for Lunch, an afternoon working session at the Retronyms, and then a networking event for game industry entrepreneurs in the evening where I bumped into a ton of old friends, some of whom I haven’t seen since 2007! It is a kind of high that just doesn’t happen for me through online interactions.

So, the moral of the story is: just like you need to carve out time in your life for physical exercise and meditation, you also need to MAKE the time to be with friends, family, and peers — it is part of the equation that makes life worth living. The other moral is: your friends’ lives have also become more demanding and — like you — they’re waiting for an invitation to do something. When both parties take a passive approach there will be no motion, so don’t wait; it is up to YOU to be the catalyst.

Dear writers who call attention to their intentional or unintentional puns; please stop. When you end a statement with “(no pun intended)” you are either being lazy or dishonest.

If your pun was truly unintentional, instead of saying “(no pun intended)”, please re-word it so that there is no pun.

If your pun was intended, instead of saying “(pun intended)”, simply let it be—allowing the astute reader the satisfaction of their discovery.

Garbled video,  ”You need to restart your computer”, what does this mean?
I tried many searches but no appropriate result could be seen.

Good thing I had backed up almost all my data;
To a recently purchased external SATA. 

After a day of rebooting, it finally logs in; 
RSync the documents folder, for the win!

Now off to the Genius Bar for diagnostics and repair;
Though, my warranty expired, I had some despair. 

After some tests, a known problem, the same; 
Twas Nvidia and not Apple who was to blame!

So, no Mac during Christmas–which is a bit dreary;
But at least the repairs will be complimentary!

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. First, Yuki and I flew to Vienna, Austria where we visited our friends Lev, Christoph, Claudia, and Babsi. While there we attended the Game City event and visited the swank offices of Avaloop. While sleeping in Vienna we took advantage of its location to make day trips to Salzburg, Budapest, and Bratislava. We’re in agreement that Budapest was an awesome surprise.

Next we went to Copenhagen to attend the Unite 2008 conference. I covered the event for Gamasutra; here are some stories that I submitted:

• http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20773
• http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20779
• http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20813

While there I had the chance to participate in a round table interview with Unity execs, Atari President Phil Harrison, and former Criterion CEO David Lau-kee. If Gamasutra doesn’t post the entire interview I’ll eventually post it here on my site.

Other highlights from Copenhagen included the Danish Design Center (a museum of product design) and a brand new restaurant in the trendy Norrebro neighborhood. It was very reasonable, the service was friendly, the latte was outstanding, and the atmosphere was cozy. It is called Café N, except there is an Arabic-like tilde above the N. You can find it here.

And finally, I’ll be leaving Copenhagen tomorrow morning and heading to Toronto to represent Core Talent Games at GameON: Finance 2.0. Core Talent Games was announced earlier this week and is a new venture that I’ve been working on with the other co-founders since April. I love it when a plan comes together.

Yuki and I went for a walk around San Francisco last weekend and came upon a bunch of public art, most of which was done by Shepard Fairey, famous for the André the Giant “Obey” art.

I really like the treatment on these pieces—with the ripped layers revealing gorgeous pattern work.

He is also know for the Obama “Hope” posters.

Two other displays that we came across: an abstract advertisement for SPORE and the Apple Store’s window display which prominently featured our friends at the Retronyms’s Recorder App. Recorder has been in the top 10 paid apps and the #1 business app since launch. Congrats guys!

Yesterday was pretty eventful. First of all, the Game Career Guide was released, you can get it here for free as a web viewable magazine, or as a downloadable PDF. It includes a top ten list for aspiring producers, written by my good pal Michael Boccieri (page 58). It also includes a quiz written by me (page 103), with a few questions by my friend Brandon Sheffield. Some of my more sarcastic questions which didn’t make the cut are viewable in this post’s comments.

Next up, Kongai, Kongregate’s Online Collectible Card Game was finally released. My friend Sirlin lead the design on this project and has really done a great job with it! Early in the project I helped Sirlin with some of the usability and mechanics design. I got my first chance to play it today and was really happy to see that many of my contributions made it into the final game.

And Finally, my friends Charlie and Max at Unknown Worlds announced that they are rolling their own engine for their forthcoming game Natural Selection 2.

No wait! This just in, my friends Dan and Zach at The Retronyms released their first iPhone app. Yestesterday was truely a day of releases! The app is called, simply, Recorder. You can see a video of it in action by following that link, or a funier one here. Both videos were made in another Retronym application called InOneTake.

What is The Question? You have probably asked it many times before. It takes different forms such as: What is the purpose of life, What is “it” all about, Who am I, or any other existential question.

Many people have questions like these and there are no shortages of people selling answers or cheap solutions.

Some examples of “answers” are cosmologies such as one where God loves you and when you die you will be with Him in Heaven, The Secret Law of Attraction, or even Buddhism, science, or drug induced peak experiences.

While some of these might provide solace, ways to improve your life or your intellect, or insight into The Answer, none of these provide The Answer itself.

Unfortunately, The Answer to The Question isn’t easily transmitted. It is as if—despite the sages that have come before us, with their teachings and their writings and their methods—we must each reenact the journey for ourselves; to perpetually rediscover all the depths that have already been explored. You can’t look it up on Wikipedia and you certainly won’t find it in this blog post; if you could, The Answer wouldn’t be referred to as The Unknowable.

The Answer is ever elusive because
The Question is ever evolving.

Why is the answer to questions like “What is it all about” and “Who am I” so elusive? It is because as answers are discovered by the question asker, the question asker evolves and thus so does the question. As one’s understanding deepens, “it” and “am” and “I” deepen even further, just past one’s grasp. In this way, answers to The Question are always temporary—satisfactory only to the old you. As in the Tao Te Ching: “The name that can be named is not the constant name”.

Don’t despair

As you progress in life you often times feel like you’re losing ground, less certain about your abilities or your wisdom, than when you were younger. With The Question coming up time and time again, and with some of the answers that come up, it is understandable that one might come to a nihilistic view, an existential crisis, or depression.

However, this infinite treadmill can be a source of comfort too; no matter how much you “get it” there is always room to “get it” more. Whatever span of life you have left, you can use it to grow the depth and span of your relationships, to strive towards liberating all sentient beings, to improve your artistic abilities, to reaching ever higher levels of awareness, etc. You may never achieve The Answer, but you’ll be more impressive than if you had never attempted.

So, What is “it” all about?

I invite you to leave a comment with what you think it is all about.

I’m inclined to say that it is all about growth via asking The Question in pursuit of The Answer. Though this answer might get me hit on the head by a Zen Master’s stick!

Foot notes:

• From a Zen standpoint you can get The Answer in an instant. It’s not that “you” “get” The Answer, it is that you are The Question and there is no Answer, or you are The Answer and there is no Question, or both. This will get me hit too
• If you only ask The Question, but have no actions in life you’ll probably become suicidal. Better to live an integral life where you ground The Question in a meditative practice, keep physically active, socialize, and eat a healthy diet.

Dancing is a series of videos on wherethehellismatt.com. I found out about this on my friend Dan’s blog. These videos, which have gotten progressively better, are really amazing. If you have time I suggest watching them in this order: Dancing 2005, Dancing 2006, Dancing 2008; if you’re short on time then you can just watch Dancing 2008. I was very moved by these videos and have watched each of them at least three times! Matt, who is dancing, used to be a game designer!

The Passage is an Art Game that has gotten the attention of many designers. You can download it here. Play through it a few times (5 minutes per session) and then read the Creator’s Statement. I think this is a game that Matt would appreciate!

I wish that there was a greater amount of moving media. I’m really happy when short form, somewhat avant guard stuff—like the above—ends up being genuinely moving. When you compare this to the amount of stuff that tends to be just a distraction, or art for art sake, it becomes an unexpected treasure!

This past Saturday was perhaps the last time that there would be training at my Zen Master’s house. He’s fixin’ to sell the place and immigrate to France. While I was serving tea, he corrected my form, and I was struck that there would not be many of these opportunities left. After sitting, while we drank coffee, he said that I would need to find ways to continue training on my own on a daily basis, that it would be a necessary self discipline to go further, not only in my Zen training, but also in my professional life, and I knew he was right. So here is my resolve! To rise early every day to engage in 15-30 minutes of calisthenics, followed by 45 minutes of zazen. I also intend to supplement this with martial arts training in the evenings. I’m going to do this every day for a year, even if I’m traveling.

The importance of everyday training

In Japanese, the term for “everyday mind/body training” is “Mainichi Shugyo”. The importance of this cannot be overstated; the difference between training 7 days a week and 3 days a week is “night and day”. Traditionally it has been difficult for me to do much training outside of a formal structure, but as such this is something that must be done; doing something that isn’t easy to satisfy an internal will, versus an external will (like going to work because you don’t want your boss to yell at you), is also “night and day”. Announcing this aloud on my blog will hopefully encourage me to follow through on this resolution. If you see me, ask if I’ve been keeping up with my routine. If I haven’t, give me shit—and if I have, say “What do you want, a pat on the back? What you’re doing is only a matter of course.”