Category: commentary

  • Quagmire

    I’m stuck here. I’m looking exhaustively at school programs for next year, specifically game design program. I have a little .txt file I keep full of all of them, and one has really caught my eye. It’s the Vancouver Film School Game Design Program. It’s a twelve-month intensive program, where I drop $29,000 to have…

  • Wii!!!!!

    I just got back home from my glorious friend Ryan’s house, where he introduced me to the Wii. Thus, I shall expound on it. We played Wii Sports, as he didn’t have any other two-player games, so keep in mind this is only reflective of Wii Sports on the Wii, not any other title. After…

  • Movie Sets and the World

    I read very quickly. In fact, I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the last two days. I really like these books. They are nice and imaginative, but I find myself getting frustrated with the details. Like how the book seems like a movie set, and not a world. A movie…

  • What I'm reading right now

    In light of yesterday’s post on the newest book I’ve got, I’m going to reveal what Dustin’s reading on a regular basis. I’m actually a ways off from breaking into Second Person – I have several books to go through before that. Usually, for books, I have one fiction and one non-fiction going at the…

  • Hot Fuzz versus Adaptation

    I just watched Hot Fuzz again last night in a theatre for the second time in a week. What a great movie on so many different levels. [SPOILERS] Halfway through the movie the first time, I suddenly dawned on me the similarities between this movie and Adaptation, another film I’m very much in love with.…

  • How to Direct Good Improv

    I’ve been the Artistic Director of The Improv Show for nearly a year now, a year fully of very weird, stressful and entertaining experiences. On a regular basis I catch myself wondering what the hell I’m doing, or supposed to do. Directing an improvisation group, especially one as talented and creative as the one I…

  • How can games be Art?

    Whether or not games can be considered art causes a lot of contention.Article on GamasutraGames Are ArtRoger Ebert’s article My opinion, obviously, is that they ARE, for the following reasons:1. They can be judged as good or bad.2. They can indirectly express to the user’s what is not expressible through direct explanation.3. They can effect…

  • Is there a pedagogical value to being confusing?

    When a teacher makes a lot of mistakes, and you notice them and shoot up your hand to correct them, are you learning more or less than if the teacher was right all the time? What if it isn’t you shooting up your hand, but someone in the same class as you? Since my degree…

  • Theory of Forms what? what?

    I love the ancient idea of Theory of Forms by Plato. I try to reference it as much as possible in conversation. The idea that there are two worlds, the real one, and than a higher one of perfect ideas is a very old-fashioned belief. The Theory is summed up as this: The Theory of…

  • The Statistics of Awesomeness

    I have a very deep faith. Faith, that in the large but not infinite set of possible events on this planet, awesome things happen. There are, after all, six billion conscious beings on earth. That is a really big number. Now that may not be a good objective indicator of all the different things that…