Plan for Jeremy Alessi
by Jeremy Alessi · 10/11/2005 (7:54 am) · 2 comments
So tonight's my last night in Oregon (for now). It was a whirlwind trip but a very fun one. IGC lived up and surpassed my greatest expectations. It was informative and fun. All the people involved were nice and eager to help the whole movement however they could. The Garage Games crew in particular were all amazing and felt like a group of long lost brothers or something. I got to spend a decent amount of time talking to most everyone (although I think I missed a few people) and it was really cool to fill in the blanks that exist when you only know people through forums, blogs, and emails.
There's so much that happened during this trip that I think most of it will filter out and become part of some future plans but I need to highlight a few things:
- Xbox 360, Live Arcade, and MS are cooler than I thought! The Xbox 360 has the most comfortable controller I've had the pleasure of wrapping my hands around. I now can't wait to get mine ... even if it's mostly for ...
- Marble Blast Ultra ... which rocks especially in multiplayer. I think that of all the titles coming out for the 360 I'm more excited about Marble Blast Ultra than any others!
- Oust ... formerly King of the Mountain. I'm sorry now that I didn't announce pre-IGC that I was changing the name. I wanted it to be a surprise at IGC and I thought that the LAN party was going to be more organized so that each MP game got it's fair shot at play time with lots of players. I know that it was actually the plan to organize it and it's just too bad it didn't happen. I know a few people (like maybe 10) got to experience Oust in MP and they had fun which was rad. Next year will be that much better though. People will know what Oust is and we should have it polished up quite a bit if not finished.
- Aerial Antics Reboost ... another surprise I wanted to unleash at IGC was our little multiplayer addition to Aerial Antics. Next time I'll know not to try and unleash surprises physically at IGC and instead will announce them in the weeks leading up to IGC so people know what to look for!
I'm glad that some people really dug Oust and we got a little honorable mention for MP game. It's going to be a really fun title that essentially just requires a lot of graphic and interaction polish to bring the whole experience together. It's quite rough at the moment but even still people get a kick out of it and knowing that the basic principle is already fun and sound is a great relief. Knowing that makes it much easier to invest time and money in the project.
It's kind of funny ... in one session Tom Buscaglia (www.gameattorney.com) was talking about an upcoming big budget title which is being developed for Xbox 360. The focus of the discussion was flexible milestones and it was relevant because the title is this great looking game with tons of amazing content ... but it has to be torn back down because the gameplay isn't fun ... even though they've got all this great polish and content in order. It's nice to know that what I'm dealing with is completely the other way around. Fun title that has no polish and doesn't even have a complete art pipeline yet ... but like at least we know it's fun and we just have to add the polish and the content.
I'm so excited at the possability of getting our titles on Xbox 360. It was amazing that Microsoft was represented there at IGC. It was even cooler that Katie Stone took the time to play Aerial Antics ;) Hopefully with any luck we'll be bringing the title to the console and where it belongs ... on an analog controller! Of course I'd like to see any of our titles (like Oust) on the console as well and I think that this still will all happen in due time.
Things have just begun opening up for me on a personal level and I think that I have even more energy now than ever so over the next few years a lot of things are going to happen and it's going to be a wild ride.
One other thing I have to mention is how funny IGC can be ... especially meeting people for the first time. The funniest introduction I think I had was with John Baez from The Behemoth ... producers of Alien Hominid. I'm sitting down showing Joe Lieberman (cool marketing guy www.matrixgames.com) some stuff and I hear someone say something to the effect of:
"Isn't it funny how all these games use gravity for gameplay and we don't even know how gravity works"
So I turn around and butt into the conversation ...
"I've got a theory about that"
to which I'm asked ... uh oh ... do you need a beer first?
"No, no ... no worries ... here's how ...."
so I start explaining and drawing pictures with MS paint on the PC I'm sitting at.
We end up talking about this for a bit and then I notice this guy's shirt ...
"Hey, The Behemoth ... I just read something about that ... what game did you do?"
"Alien Hominid"
"OH YEAH ... holy"
So like wow ... that was pretty funny. Got cool when John takes a look at Aerial Antics, really digs it, and starts asking me what I'd do to it if I had a million dollars ;)
Anyway ... I'm chilling out in the hotel room with about 5.5 hours left until my plane takes off. Stay tuned for more ... and I hope everyone else's IGC was as good as mine ;)
There's so much that happened during this trip that I think most of it will filter out and become part of some future plans but I need to highlight a few things:
- Xbox 360, Live Arcade, and MS are cooler than I thought! The Xbox 360 has the most comfortable controller I've had the pleasure of wrapping my hands around. I now can't wait to get mine ... even if it's mostly for ...
- Marble Blast Ultra ... which rocks especially in multiplayer. I think that of all the titles coming out for the 360 I'm more excited about Marble Blast Ultra than any others!
- Oust ... formerly King of the Mountain. I'm sorry now that I didn't announce pre-IGC that I was changing the name. I wanted it to be a surprise at IGC and I thought that the LAN party was going to be more organized so that each MP game got it's fair shot at play time with lots of players. I know that it was actually the plan to organize it and it's just too bad it didn't happen. I know a few people (like maybe 10) got to experience Oust in MP and they had fun which was rad. Next year will be that much better though. People will know what Oust is and we should have it polished up quite a bit if not finished.
- Aerial Antics Reboost ... another surprise I wanted to unleash at IGC was our little multiplayer addition to Aerial Antics. Next time I'll know not to try and unleash surprises physically at IGC and instead will announce them in the weeks leading up to IGC so people know what to look for!
I'm glad that some people really dug Oust and we got a little honorable mention for MP game. It's going to be a really fun title that essentially just requires a lot of graphic and interaction polish to bring the whole experience together. It's quite rough at the moment but even still people get a kick out of it and knowing that the basic principle is already fun and sound is a great relief. Knowing that makes it much easier to invest time and money in the project.
It's kind of funny ... in one session Tom Buscaglia (www.gameattorney.com) was talking about an upcoming big budget title which is being developed for Xbox 360. The focus of the discussion was flexible milestones and it was relevant because the title is this great looking game with tons of amazing content ... but it has to be torn back down because the gameplay isn't fun ... even though they've got all this great polish and content in order. It's nice to know that what I'm dealing with is completely the other way around. Fun title that has no polish and doesn't even have a complete art pipeline yet ... but like at least we know it's fun and we just have to add the polish and the content.
I'm so excited at the possability of getting our titles on Xbox 360. It was amazing that Microsoft was represented there at IGC. It was even cooler that Katie Stone took the time to play Aerial Antics ;) Hopefully with any luck we'll be bringing the title to the console and where it belongs ... on an analog controller! Of course I'd like to see any of our titles (like Oust) on the console as well and I think that this still will all happen in due time.
Things have just begun opening up for me on a personal level and I think that I have even more energy now than ever so over the next few years a lot of things are going to happen and it's going to be a wild ride.
One other thing I have to mention is how funny IGC can be ... especially meeting people for the first time. The funniest introduction I think I had was with John Baez from The Behemoth ... producers of Alien Hominid. I'm sitting down showing Joe Lieberman (cool marketing guy www.matrixgames.com) some stuff and I hear someone say something to the effect of:
"Isn't it funny how all these games use gravity for gameplay and we don't even know how gravity works"
So I turn around and butt into the conversation ...
"I've got a theory about that"
to which I'm asked ... uh oh ... do you need a beer first?
"No, no ... no worries ... here's how ...."
so I start explaining and drawing pictures with MS paint on the PC I'm sitting at.
We end up talking about this for a bit and then I notice this guy's shirt ...
"Hey, The Behemoth ... I just read something about that ... what game did you do?"
"Alien Hominid"
"OH YEAH ... holy"
So like wow ... that was pretty funny. Got cool when John takes a look at Aerial Antics, really digs it, and starts asking me what I'd do to it if I had a million dollars ;)
Anyway ... I'm chilling out in the hotel room with about 5.5 hours left until my plane takes off. Stay tuned for more ... and I hope everyone else's IGC was as good as mine ;)
About the author
Associate Justin Mette