Okay Samurai Multimedia

Balloons

2008-07-11T10:42:00.003-07:00

Via Ads of the World. Beautiful animation and storyline.

Lake Tahoe (4th of July Weekend)

2008-07-08T08:23:00.005-07:00

Video coming soon.

Mind Defrost

2008-07-03T13:28:00.003-07:00

I'm doing the music and sound fx for Atmosphir right now, using GarageBand with help from an M-Audio Keystation 88es, Garritan Personal Orchestra, and handful of Jam Packs. One cool thing is that a couple of old Okay Samurai songs are getting transitioned into instrumental video game versions. So far there's a steel drum Hawaiian Treehouse and a futuristic Mind Defrost. To the very few people who are familiar with the originals, I think you'll enjoy the updated tracks when the game comes out.

Minor Studios Wrapup - June

2008-06-30T08:46:00.003-07:00

This month in Minor Studios news...

★ Martin and I talk about new developments, bug tracking, PC vs. consoles, Wii Fit, and Dr. Mario on Podcast #4.
★ We post a few stills from an upcoming cinematic piece.
★ Cameron runs towards a sand castle and away from some huge statue in a couple of new screenshots.
★ A temporary Atmosphir.com page is up.

Wanted

2008-06-24T08:04:00.004-07:00

I saw a screening of Wanted last night, and although it had its fair share of similarities to The Matrix or even Equilibrium, it's definitely an entertaining popcorn flick. The action is punctuated with slow motion blood splatters and bullet traces, and there are quite a few inventive, over-the-top sequences that felt fresh to me. It was also funnier than I expected, a fact that was complimented by the particularly rowdy audience last night. Overall, if you like your action more in the vein of Robert Rodriguez than Michael Mann, and the concept of exploding animals sounds funny to you, I think you'll be entertained.

Emerging Burritophile

2008-06-19T11:54:00.003-07:00

Here in San Francisco you can count on a few things: panhandlers, avocados, hills, and burritos. I love the wonderfully descriptive La Taqueria in the Mission if I'm in the area, but for work it's all about Los Compadres (aka the Taco Truck). David U turned me onto the carnitas burritos there about a month ago, and I've been hooked ever since. Now you might think burritos from a truck sounds sketchy, but these guys proudly display their 100% inspection agency rating in the window and have one of the highest ratings on Burritophile. I'm no stranger to street meat - the "chicken" and rice cart was a staple during my time with Frog in NYC - but this is something special. Best $5 burrito downtown, no question.

Podcastic

2008-06-17T10:32:00.005-07:00

This is what I listen to / watch on my daily N Judah MUNI commute:

★ 1up Yours: The single best video game podcast out there, hands down. I feel like you could listen to this weekly and be caught up on all the current industry news without ever visiting any other resources. The best part is the long format - shows usually clock in around 2 hours - so it lasts through several walks/rides. The production value is among the highest I've heard as well, and the commentators are all entertaining and knowledgeable.

★ The Digg Reel: The one video podcast I watch religiously. It's basically a collection of the week's best clips, and host Andrew Bancroft is hilarious.

★ This American Life: These episodes can be hit or miss for me, but the good ones are well worth listening to.

If I'm out of new episodes there, I'll check out Nintendo Voice Chat, X-Play's Daily Video Podcasts, Diggnation, and CHTV. Oh, and Minor Studios.

Quick Notes

2008-06-13T09:13:00.003-07:00

★ Just got back from a great 10-day trip down to Buenos Aires and Rosario in Argentina. Video recap coming soon. I definitely need to learn Spanish. Craziest moment? When the hotel room service attendant asked if I was "that guy from YouTube playing Madonna on guitar." Small world...

★ Wii Fit is pretty fun. Like most Wii minigame collections, I think I'll be playing this one in 10-15-minute spurts. Downhill skiing is still my favorite. Now I'd love to see a game that uses the Balance Board, Guitar Hero guitar, Zapper, Mario Kart Wheel, Remote and Nunchuck. Something with snowboarding drive-by shootings I'd imagine.

★ Heading over to the Pirate Festival tomorrow. Not too sure about the scurvy nachos though.

★ Wrote a little piece about career stuff for Minus Five.

Minor Studios Wrapup - May

2008-05-29T22:27:00.002-07:00

This month in Minor Studios news...

★ We take a look back at my first video game project from college, Second Nature World, in a retrospective video.
★ Atmosphir's updated graphical look is seen in 3 new screenshots.
★ I look at some of the innovative interactive storytelling elements found in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Bay To Breakers 2008

2008-05-20T00:39:00.010-07:00

Mario Kart, human foosball, flabongos, and more scenes from this year's Bay to Breakers. HD and downloadable versions available on Vimeo.

HD

2008-05-19T02:14:00.002-07:00

Just made the leap to HD with the Canon Vixia HV30. New stuff coming soon...

Cabo & Ensenada

2008-05-14T07:47:00.002-07:00

Footage from our recent cruise to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada; just fooling around with Flickr's 90-second video limitations.

Magenta

2008-05-13T08:17:00.002-07:00

Minor Studios Wrapup - April

2008-05-04T19:31:00.003-07:00

This month in Minor Studios news...

★ Episode 3 of the Atmosphir Developer Podcast has us discussing creating Cameron and Ashley, reaching the pre-alpha stage, composing the game music (with a preview of the main menu theme), playing Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart Wii, and answering listener questions.
★ I talk about how my gaming habits have changed since entering the real world.
★ A few new level screenshots are posted.

Okay Vail

2008-04-10T17:40:00.002-07:00

Scenes from our February 2008 trip to Vail, Colorado. Via Vimeo. Also on YouTube.

Okay Hawaii

2008-03-31T22:09:00.010-07:00

Home movies from my family's January 2008 cruise to Hawaii. We visited Oahu, Hilo, Maui, Kona and Kauai. Via Vimeo. Also up on YouTube.

Minor Studios Wrapup: March

2008-03-30T19:14:00.004-07:00

This month in Minor Studios news...

★ Cameron and Ashley (who you might recognize from here) are revealed as new characters.
★ Episode 2 of The Atmosphir Developer Podcast covers new game features and effects, recent user testing sessions, Rock Band and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and listener questions.
★ 3 new screenshots explore some colorful new worlds.

Okay in OK

2008-03-26T10:01:00.003-07:00

Hey. I'm heading over to Oklahoma City today for an AIGA event...so if you're around the area, please stop on by and say hi.

I've been chipping away at some Hawaii and Vail home movies, which should be up here soon...For Hawaii I have 637 clips to go through and edit, so that's taking a little time. I need to finish soon though, since April and I are going to Disneyland in a couple of weeks, and then Ensenada & Cabo San Lucas a couple of weeks later. Maybe I should just take photos...

Rock, Smash, Repeat

2008-03-12T07:43:00.003-07:00

Two recent additions to the Okay Samurai video game library are Rock Band for the 360 and Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Wii. That, my friends, is a deadly combination. The one thing they have in common (other than their tyrannical death grip on my weekday evenings) is that both are much better experiences with multiple players.

April and I really enjoyed Guitar Hero III for the Wii, but we weren't able to play together (an extra guitar would have set us back an additional $90 - essentially buying the game twice since they don't sell the Wii guitar separately yet). So while Rock Band is the most expensive game I've ever bought, it's worth it for being able to play with friends right away, and it's a fantastic experience. April's getting great at the drums, I'm gradually making my way up to hard on guitar, and our San Francisco-based band "Sideburn Road" is hopefully on its way to superstardom. I'm interested to see where the game continues to evolve from here (how about user-generated content and keyboard controllers)?

Smash Brothers brings back great memories of chaotic after-school battles with my Baltimore roommates. I tried some of the single player games, and they're fun, but nothing compared to the 4-player mayhem. Thanks to this latest installment's online mode, I can look forward to playing against the Okay Samurai guys back east - which we're planning to do tonight. Without any voice chat functionality, we're going to have to find another way to do some coast-to-coast trash talking (I'm thinking Skype). Anyway, if you've got the game and want to add me to your friend roster, my code is 5112-3130-6547 - just send me yours too.

Who Are You Online?

2008-03-07T08:48:00.014-08:00

My first website was a digital junkyard of text, links, and a little animated mailbox that opened and closed for my email (so awesome). This was back in 1999, when I was starting to draw a comic strip in college. It seemed like a good idea to have a place to archive all the old comics, so I dumped everything into a free webhost. It wasn't much, but it was my first stake in having an online presence.

An online presence is not just one website, but rather a complicated web of elements that help define who you are to the rest of the world. It's your blog, your online photo album, the comment you left on that cooking website about the brie fondue, the home video on YouTube, your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, the emails and instant messages you send, and everything that might be out of your control but somehow links back to you.

So there are two approaches to this. One, of course, is to be totally freaked out and go hide in an underground bunker. The second, and hopefully more reasonable alternative, is to take an active role in crafting an online presence. With every strand of the web that you can leave your mark on, more and more opportunities will naturally present themselves.

Now I can only speak from my own limited experiences, but let's start with the area of careers. What would have happened if I had never made that animated mailbox open and close so awkwardly back in 99? What if I had just stayed away from the web entirely and decided to pursue stuff on my own? If that had been the case, when finishing up grad school, my network would have probably looked like this:

One central hub: my portfolio, most likely a hefty printed book of projects that I could lug around between prospective employers' offices, and my resume, a piece of paper showing if I'm experienced and qualified for the job. Neither of these are bad; in fact, we're lucky in the creative industry to have a portfolio in addition to the standard resume. But even so, this network is limited. I tend to think of it like this:

Red is whatever you throw out there to the rest of the world to represent yourself, blue is a potential opportunity, and the dotted line is the connection that tethers them together. The same model could be applied to a lot of stuff...like friendship, for example. You're in the middle, your friends are all connected around you, and the opportunities to connect with them are represented as parties, dinners, phone calls, and so on (subconsciously, of course...that would be one ridiculous flow chart).

All right, so I tried to map out what really happened. This was the result (sorry it's not all designer-ish and organized):

(click for bigger version)

That right there is absolutely insane. The Okaydave portfolio was the central hub, but it was also connected to a personal site, videos, Flickr photos, and even that first comic strip from almost 10 years ago. But what's really insane is how many things were out of my control, and how many things connected. I got my current job because someone randomly found Okaydave through the social search tool StumbleUpon. That opportunity couldn't have possibly existed outside of the interactive world.

Whether I like it or not, that image is who I am online. I've tried to control several central touch points: the portfolio, blog, videos, photos, profile pages, and so on. Still, most of that stuff just happened organically. While there are definitely negative aspects to that too - you should see some of the comments I delete from YouTube - the unavoidable (usually anonymous) negative comment is a speck of dust in an overall online presence.

You can probably imagine what your own online presence would look like mapped out this way, and the areas where you do and don't have control. Your presence definitely doesn't need to be a portfolio, blog, or anything that requires any sort of web design knowledge - there are thousands of tools and sites out there to easily express and define yourself online. But whatever those places are, think about how they represent you. Think about if you can expand that presence without compromising the image you want to project, because the opportunities for all these random dots to connect are definitely out there. And you never know who's going to stumble upon you.

Sorry 'Bout That

2008-03-06T15:50:00.004-08:00

Sorry if you tried to visit Okaysamurai, Okaydave or Minor Studios today...I just switched to a new hosting service, and am in the process of getting things back up and running. Everything should be back to normal by tomorrow.

28

2008-03-04T08:57:00.003-08:00

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes last week. We had a little party at the Swanson House, and I think my friend Dimitry captured the night perfectly. See the photo set here.

February Minor Studios Wrapup

2008-03-04T08:37:00.006-08:00

Instead of double-posting everything from Minor Studios here, I'm going to start doing monthly recaps of what you may have missed. Here's what happened in February:

★ Martin and I recorded a podcast about Atmopshir development and GDC. You can subscribe to future installments right in iTunes.
★ The GDC video highlights some of our adventures in the Moscone Center a couple of weeks ago. I also put together a written recap.
★ We revealed a few more Atmosphir screenshots and concept art.

Minor Studios: GDC '08

2008-02-25T11:50:00.001-08:00

HD and downloadable versions available on Vimeo. Full written recap on Minor Studios.

Oh Heck Yeah.

2008-02-14T08:47:00.006-08:00

From Yahoo Movies. Looks pretty freakin' awesome. To anyone who complaining about Harrison Ford being too old...what, do you think Indiana Jones would just retire? Play checkers at the nursing home over tapioca pudding? Come on.