Game Volunteer Portfolio Release

gamevolunteerportfolio.com is now open to the public!

Game Volunteer Portfolio

I am exhausted. After 2 month's of working at my day job and coming home to work on the website gamevolunteerportfolio.com, Wednesday night I will be releasing it for beta testing! Quite a bit of excitement in the air. I am thrilled to see how the testers will use the site and terrified to see what kind of bugs are going to surface during its use. Here's for the best, and another week of 4 hours of sleep a night.

Don't you hate it when you are tired in the morning but doing okay, then your driving and the sun is in your eyes, so you have to squint and your eyes just want to stay shut?

PC Tech Rules To Live By

Upon my time as a PC Tech, I have learned several rules over the past year to keep in mind when dealing with a user's problem.
1.Listen to what the problem is and verify for yourself that the problem exists.
2.Find out what they are TRYING to do. They may ask for something that they think they need, but actually would benefit from an alternate method.
3.You can never have too many facts, but finding the facts from users through testimony's can be difficult. Be able to discern factual evidence to support a problem from a user’s story.
4.Ties in with number 3. Users may tend to say what they think is the problem and actually be way off.
5.Although a simple notion, always troubleshoot from the most basic first, to the most advanced. An example being is it plugged in :D.
6.Never underestimate the power of a reboot.
7.Don't lose your head, if a user sees the IT guy flipping out, it will make them nervous.
8.Don't be afraid to reschedule a meeting if you have doubts about what you are doing. It is better to do your research and tackle the problem with knowledge of the matter than to waste the user’s time.
9.Ties in with number 7. Google is your best friend!

One of Those Moods

Oh my goodness, I am slap happy today :D. I don't care how old I get, a well timed fart will forever be hilarious.

FF13 Save File Missing?!?!

Has anyone ever had a missing save file for the Xbox 360? If so was it fixable? I tried to load my FF13 save file that I just played YESTERDAY, saving in MULTIPLE places, and today it shows as if I didn't play it at all! I am in rage mode right now... Can't even troubleshoot.

My Finacial Life as a Game

Kei = 1
Kei uses steel guard
Work casts pay-check
Life charges monthly payments 3
Kei = 201
Kei uses steel guard
Work casts pay-check
Life charges monthly payments 2
Kei = 401
Kei uses steel guard
Work casts pay-check
Life charges monthly payments 1
Kei = 601
Kei uses steel guard
Work casts pay-check
Life fires monthly payment!
Kei = 1
Repeat...

Game Day

Tomorrow I am just going to play games all day. Arkham Asylum, FF 13, LOL, Forsaken World, BlazBlue, and Borderlands are on my list. Hit me up if you want in :).

Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition for $7.50 on Steam. BOUGHT.

New fav. Rice Krispies Treats dipped in Coffee.

I am a Man

Every time I get off the phone from Verizon, they say "Have a nice day Ma'am". ;_;

Dead Island

I want to play Dead Island. But, I am a wuss so I can't play it alone. Who wants to play? What I am asking is, when it finally comes out, what system am I buying it for?

Writing Two Books

So I decided during my jobs shut-down to start a new book and write as many pages as I could during the week. I topped that week with 60 pages. My initial goal was to do 20 pages a day, but that proved harder than it seemed. I had stuck with the 20 pages a day routine for 2 days before I burnt out. Wednesday I did nothing and picked back up writing at my leisure on Thursday. The new book I am starting is different from my first. This one will be a Young Adult Fiction novel where as my first was a children's book. I am excited about it because I have a very in depth understanding of what's going to happen in it. I dreamed the whole thing as if it were a movie. When I had awoken from said dream, the ending was so sad I cried for 30 minutes. That probably was also because I was still half asleep (That's my excuse). It took me a long time to actually come up with a summary that wouldn't give anything away, but I finally decided upon this:

Title: A Heroes Time (Working Title)

Landon is cursed. Ever since he was unable to return the feelings of a girl in the 3rd grade, he has had amazing bad luck bestowed upon whoever spoke to him. Living in a world run by The League of Heroes, when events are leading to disaster, his curse becomes his greatest power.

During the beginning of the week before I started this challenge, I finished up a book that I had been putting off for so long. "The Inventor Fish". I felt bad about not completing it for years because it was a joint project with my friend. I have been finally completing projects that have been building and building, taking up all of my time. I feel a lot better about myself now that I have finished 2 Willow Lantern Website projects and now the Children's book. I hope my friend doesn't read this because I have a copy being sent to her house without her knowing. It's only the proof copy though, so for all I know, it might look yucky. That's why whenever I receive my proof copy as well, I will be able to check the book for quality. Then if my friend sees fit, we will publish the book.

Tumblr, Twitter, and Live Journal

This is a latest test in linking my Tumblr, Twitter, and Live Journal account to update according to my Blogger account. So if everything works the way it is supposed to, when I add an update to Blogger, it will email the post to Live Journal, where Live Journal will post it as such. Blogger will also email it to Tumblr, where it will post it as well. From Tumblr, a summarized version will be sent to Twitter. Also the RSS feeds from tumblr are being used in a widget on my website willowlantern.net through widgetbox.

Relaxing Weekend

This past weekend was one of the most relaxing weekends I have ever had. Friday, after an extra day of work at Keihin, I had my meeting with my latest client. I felt the overall presentation went really well and I felt very professional with my graphs and contract. I had a nice euphoric ego boost to ride on the rest of the weekend. Saturday Melanie and I woke up to a beautiful day and decided to go to the farmers market and Eagle Creek for a hike. We got there about 1:00pm with Luna (our puppy) and walked all over the park. It was very peaceful. Then we decided to go out on the lake with a canoe. Melanie even dunked Luna in the lake to see if she could swim :). We were exhausted by the time we got home. I was so tired and hungry I felt sick. Waiting while the New York strips cooked on the grill was torture. While we ate we watched Anchorman and made pina coladas. On Sunday we cleaned up the apartment in preparations for guests Lena and Derrick, then we went to the Freedom Festival in Holland park. There I ate a huge turkey leg. It was quite scrumptious. After that we played some wholesome video games with Tyler, had ice cream, and then it was time to say goodbye. After we said our fare-the-wells, Melanie and I went back for a second turkey leg ;).

Miscellaneous Adventures

Not much has happened recently. Lost 10 lb, still working part time, completed "The Optimistic Couple", looking for more Willow Lantern work, Melanie is seriously making plushies, and I am terribly in need of a new phone.

I watched Hangover Part II last Friday with Melanie. I thought it was hilarious. It may have been the same concept as the first one, but I felt they explored new areas of the black out drunk. I would probably not recommend watching them back to back for this reason. Even still, I thought it was very enjoyable.

I was on Google today and Google recommended something interesting

who types in "is it normal to be sexually attracted to numbers"? :D That's just funny. This is me being ignorant. I can't say I have ever looked at a number and thought it was hawt. Maybe it's just me.

I Must Have Been Born Under n Unlucky Star

Seriously... if it wasn't enough for an earthquake to hit right before I get hired full time, now the tax refund money I am depending on to live, might be delayed. You see, the arrival date of that said deposit was to be Friday, where now the government is talking about shutting down to meet budgets. Come on dude, its cool if you want to do something like that, but give us a heads up first. Don't just freaking do it one week...

Graphics Card

So I was indeed able to buy another graphics card, thanks to my state refund. It was a bit of a downgrade, but a steal for the price. I got a Geforce gts 450 for 129.99 at Fry's. I really want to buy a SSD hard drive to bump up my "windows base score". My computer has 7s across the board except for my hard drive. I just cannot justify buying one though. However I am back in business and my projects are snailing along. I have decided to put Reverie Blade on hold to create some smaller games, just to get my name out there.

I also found it interesting today, that I was in an exceptionally good mood. I think it might be a direct correlation to the fact that I bought 2 albums of music the previous day. I felt revitalized that same day I bought the music and listened to it. It has also been a long time since I have had ANY new music. It feels as though I have opened up a new chapter of my life to associate memories with the new tracks. I googled a few things and this article pretty much sums up what I felt.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/03/seven-ways-music-influences-mood.php

Also if you are curious what two albums I bought, they were by the artist Phoenix. Give a listen to one of their songs "1901" They had me feeling euphoric all day.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DkiQppszlXrg&v=kiQppszlXrg&gl=US

Shortage in Assets

I just can't seem to get a break can I? Just next week is budget reviews at work where my topic of employment hours are to be discussed. I had a very high chance of being moved up to 3 maybe even 4 days a week. However due to the current tragedies in Japan, I may instead be moving down to 1 day a week. Where everyone else is being moved down to 3 days a week. If it were not for my tax returns, I would not be able to pay my bills, let alone eat. I am so tired of being poor! Because of my cut backs, the money I was getting back from my taxes that were to be used toward breathing some life into my company, will now be used to keep me alive. To make things even worse, I am now having technical difficulties with my PC. The monior keeps switching on and off at random intervals. I updated the graphics card, flashed my BIOS, swapped the wires and the monitor, to no avail. I just tried switching out my graphics card with another pci card to find out that the only spare one I have is dead. But the case gets curiouser and curiouser. The monitor, without being plugged into my PC, the one I just bought, is continuing to switch on and off on its own now! Did my PC somehow damage my monitor!? Or is it just by absolute fluke that the monitor I just bought is doing the same thing as my previous monitor!?! This is distressing indeed. Even if I were to switch out my graphics card now, how can I tell if the monitor is acting up, or its the card? I guess I will return the monitor for now, get an exchange, and swap out the card at the same time. If after a period it works smoothly try out my old card. I don't have time for all this testing :( I have clients waiting! Graaaah. Till the next saga.

On a humorous note I have to recall a funny story that happened to me on Monday. I was at the racquet ball court when I ran into an elderly man.
"You look like that guy off of the news!" Said the old man.
"How do you mean?" I asked with a puzzled expression.
"You know, the one with all those failing atomic plants!"
0_0

What I think was interesting about his phrasing though, is that he mentioned "atomic" not "nuclear". I was impressed he was able to tell I was Japanese though!

Back in Blogging Action

Some of you may have noticed that my last few entries were gobbeldy goo. Well I still am not quite to sure why my moile blogs were appearing as such, but thanks to the xoom that was given to me at the game developers conference, I should be back in blogging action! The game developers conference was truly amazing. I was there for the past week in beautiful San Fransisco. The weather was wonderful, the conference associates were amazing people, and the game developers conference talks were insightful. I attended a talk about android development, where I received my tablet, saw Satoru Iwata give a talk about the history of video games, and so much more! I spoke with a lot of aspiring and professional CAs and realized how badly my company needs a loan so that I can hire these wonderful people. I cannot wait until next year!

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Instant Action Closed Down!?

Dude, I just stumbled across some terrible news... But first, a little recap. Along time ago, I used to play some wonderfully fun games online on a website called "Instant Action". It was a ground breaking website with browser based multi-player games using Torque 3D. They were graphically pleasing and interesting. Fallen Empire: Legions was a great example of this. After a while, they paused their operations to upgrade the site. I was thourally excited to play on the upgraded site. Day after day, I would go to the site to no availe, and it slipped to the back of my mind. Pretty soon I had forgotten all about them, then today, out of pure curiousity I decided to check to see what happened to them. I ran across a post dating 11/11/2010, that the site had closed down (See Blog here). D: What is this nonsense!?!?! I am shocked. I really thought they had a fighting chance. The games are still available for download here. Sleep tight sweet prince, you deserve a well deserved rest. *Salute*

Live Journal + Blogger Post Test

So I found a nifty tutorial on hooking up your blogger account with your live-journal account, so it updates them both at the same time http://www.lexislounge.net/2007/09/publish-your-blogger-blog-to.html. It might just work! This post is mostly a test in itself

Social Medias

I am now a member of digg, float it, delicious, and more! Come friend me!

Halo Reach Forge

Halo Reach Forge truly is a wonder. Great place for young budding level designers to start! Create, save, and make sure you keep them! It is gloriously endearing to look at a library of game levels you have collected over the years, and to see your progress as well! Who knows, it might land you a job some day ;).

Halo Reach Forge ViDocHalo: Reach, Covenant

Adobe 3D API Based Off of Flash?

Just found out that Adobe (you know, the guys that took over Macromedia way back in the day?) is creating a 3D API built off of Flash Player. Apparently it is really efficient so it doesn't use to much cpu. More info here.




Video courtesy of mindfunctions

Will The Angry Birds Be Less Angry?

I am sure all of us have heard of the popular game for the Droid and iphone, and if not, it is a game based around birds being shot across a distance to hit pig targets worth respective points. This is a video by a comedy show in Israel "A Wonderful Country" or "Eretz Nehederet". More information here.






Video courtesy of "A Wonderful Country" or "Eretz Nehederet"

Sega Urinal Game?

So, I was talking with Melanie today, and she told me she came across a most interesting game... Yes that's right, Sega made a urinal game! Now as weird and as awkward it might be to be wielding your wiener as a controller, I think it's an amazing concept! Think of the possibilities this creates! The boundaries that are broken to create more dynamic and creative games! Just saying, I would play this game, I would purposely drink gallons of water to use that restroom. Stretch the limits Sega!



Video courtesy of gastacaotv

Website Membership

You can now "like" the website via the button on the left hand side of the screen. Also, there you will find a membership box. For right now the only thing it is used for is for adding comments to the bottom my my staff page. If that is something you would like to do, it uses your Google account as your username. All it is really doing is just joining a group. In the future I may add some other functionalities to entice others to join as well.

Website Upgrade!

I have finally started to come to terms with using social media to entwine my internet existence. Although eventually I want to completely overhaul my web site, for now the interconnectivity of different social media's will hopefully boost my name recognition. I started embedding my blogger (obviously), started using slideshows from my photobucket account, and plopped a twitter feed in there as well! My website is starting to feel alive! Although maybe a bit informal, I was never much of a tight wad anyway :D.

http://willowlantern.net/Staff/keiYanagida/keiYanagida.php

Game Archiving

Today, I decided that I am going to start archiving the games I own by taking pictures of them! This way, if something were to happen to them, I could always look back at these pictures with a fond smile.

http://willowlantern.net/Staff/keiYanagida/keiYanagida.php

and select Game Archive! You know you will want to start one too! Send me a link!

Game Developers Conference!

I can't believe Melanie & my good luck! Thanks to Melanie's friend's recommendation, we have been selected as volunteer's for the Game Developer's Conference in San Fransisco! I am so excited I can't even breathe. I will have the opportunity of a life time to network with people building games gathered together from all over the world! Now I just need to save some money...

Finishing Things Up

Original Post Date: 12/13/2010

Today was extremely tiring. On Saturday we went and retrieved our puppy we have had claimed since even before her birth. Happen to run across a cute kitten while we were there as well. We named our puppy Luna, and our cat Spooky Nero. I was so tired Sunday night after moving all day, but heaven forbid we get a little sleep, Spooky decided to bat our faces all night. It's cute when thinking about it now, but it was quite irritating then. Went to work, went to my last class ever, and did another load for moving, I am bushed. Waking up early for an interview and to stop brighthouse services.

Capstones

Original Post Date: 12/10/2010


Capstones actually went alright, people were actually interested in my project even though it wasn't graphically pleasing. I had focused on only getting a basic game engine down and deploying it to a 360, but it seemed to impress people. I am glad Capstones is over, now I can work on my project in peace. Look for a 2013 release of Reverie Blade!

Return Madness

Original Post Date: 12/06/2010

UGH. So last night I get back from our Chicago trip around 10:30 P.M. beat tired. I have to show my professor that my XNA game runs on my Xbox today in order to make sure everything works fine for Friday's capstone presentation. As most of you know, XNA Studio connect will not depoly a build without being connected to Xbox Live. My internet service provider decided to have technical difficulties. I HAVE to get my latest build onto my Xbox hard drive before tomorrow's class! I have work early in the morning, work all day, have to go pick up my suits, and be dropped off at class by Melanie so she can go pick up our bird. When am I going to find the time to deploy it to my hard drive??? Latest build has cure, an infinite tent item, and enemy trading blows.

Edit: Found out that my builds were actually not deploying to the Xbox... It was just using the last successful build. I was wondering why none of my changes were displaying. The reason for this I discovered was that my upgrade to 4.0 was the culprit. 4.0 I think is for the latest Kinect compatible Xbox, while the older Xbox 360's are still using v3.0 and v3.1. So now after all that trouble of converting the solution into 4.0 I have to downgrade.

Chicago Trip

Original Post Date: 12/05/2010

Another busy weekend. I am working on my project in Chicago this time. My girlfriend is taking the JLPT test, and needed to be in Chicago to take it. We are staying in a hostel which is really cheap! It’s like a dorm room basically, except with young exchange kids running around. Anyway, the place is old, but being updated so it’s a mix between old and nice. We have been moving around so much, been uprooted from our apartment in Riley Towers moving to our new apartment. No where feels like home. It’s a weird icky feeling, almost like home sickness. I experienced this once before when moving from Evansville to Indianapolis freshman year of college. I am just glad I have Melanie with me, without her I would feel lost. Last night on the drive down, we listened to Dir En Grey in the car. It was interesting to have so many of her memories boil up regarding her trips to Japan and whatnot. I think it was an excellent time for its revival considering her test is today. Go Melanie go!

The upgrade to 4.0 went a lot smoother then I anticipated. There were a few spritebatch changes here and there, but all together went without a hitch. I did end up having to upgrade the XACT audio file though. I have 4 versions of Microsoft Cross Platform Audio Creation Tools floating around and it's quite irritating. I will need to remedy this situation at a later date.

Monte, this is last call for game music, please send what you have!!! I have only one week left, and I am feeling the pressure. I hope people understand that my capstone is focusing on the CODING not the graphics. I guess what happens will happen.

End Of November Stress

Original Post Date: 11/30/2010

The end of November... Draws in stress beyond belief. My projects due dates are a week away, going to Chicago this weekend for Melanie’s Japanese Test, next weekend I have to go down to Evansville to pick up our new puppy, Capstone is due next week, work is still on the fence whether or not they will hire me full time and may get rid of me all together, beginning my company and I already have to pay extra taxes, and somewhere during all of this, I have to find the strength to move to our new apartment DURING the most ridiculous driving conditions. I will definitely be glad when December is over.

Willow Core the ticketing system is coming along. I can create, view, and edit tickets now. Also, it has several accounts for other users.

XNA 4.0 Upgrade

Original Post Date: 11/26/2010

I still exist.
I have been working on getting as much done as possible for the capstone demo on December 10th 2010. It will consist of stick figures and a working game engine. You can level up, get stronger, enter battle's, heal and what not. However it will not look pretty. The workload was of course a lot more than I imagined. Thus preventing a release of the game. I estimate approximately another 3 years to get this game to completion. I tried Upgrading Reverie Blade from its Xna 3.1 predecessor to 4.0 to no avail. After removing all 3.1 to 4.0 discrepancies from the build, I found that an error for HD compatibility existed. My poor Laptop drooped his head in shame. It's okay laptop, we will get through this.

Quite excited of how things are turning out though. I have created my company Willow Lantern Game & Web Design, created a logo, Also I am trying to volunteer for a Game Conference in California. Networking out the wazoo! I have exciting things in the works to get things moving. We have clients approaching me here and there and I have business cards being delivered! Quite exciting turn of events. Check out my new business card!

 

Unfortunately the release date for the project is going to have to be pushed back a couple years to get it to the level that I want it to be. I have learned a lot in my first excavation into XNA, and have learned a great deal about Game Components. I need to revamp my code from scratch to get it to peak efficiency. The new release date has been set to December 20th 2013.