10 Things I’m Not Famous For

I've had some very personal blogs. So a lot of the things I could have put on this list are all gone. You guys already know a lot about me. I lost one of my brothers in a tragic accident when I was 21. You never get over something like that, but I assure you I’m okay. I just can’t do things like watch Grave of the Fireflies without breaking down into a flood of tears, and I just end up in this mess of snot.

Anyways, here we go! (While dropping PAX photos.)


This is not PAX. It is our halloween Vampire: The Masquerade dress up game!

1. I have a weekly Vampire: The Masquerade game that has gone on for over a year. The amazing thing is that the game will probably last a lot longer than that. The story teller has talked about the game lasting for another year and a half. The dedication from every player there is nothing short of amazing. We’ve seen people come and go, get torpored, and reach Golconda. It is what I always wanted from Dungeons and Dragons, but never achieved: more story, politics, intrigue, and less attention to combat and dungeon crawling alone.

To be clear: we are not LARPing, so no fake drinking blood for real. (But sometimes we dress up.) Also, I currently play an Assamite warrior. The whole group wants to know what is in store for the new World of Darkness MMO.

This is not to say I have never LARPed. We used to call it boffing, after the term boffer a.k.a. foam weapon. Boffing is supposedly a term for having sexual intercourse now, which is quite the opposite of what I was doing.



2. I believe somewhat that life is literally a game. This may be because of my career as a programmer. Religious teachings never really stuck with me. One of my cardinal rules was that whether I was religious or not, I would be a good person. The golden rule really helps for that mind set. The only thing that has really stuck for me is that our universe, at some level, could have been created by a team of programmers, artists, and designers. This makes sense to me because I think our world has all the beauty and flaws that we see in our games. I don’t go around preaching this stuff because it is mostly just an idea. But it is an idea that fits for me and that has stuck around over the years. It’s the same reason why I love movies like The Matrix and Vanilla Sky.



3. I love Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I’ve been talking with Knutaf about live streaming some video of Castlevania and possibly Mega Man, so I started practicing again. I didn’t know how far I would go with it because I had never tried to do speed runs before. In the past I was just fine with getting 200.6% of the map covered. I think that’s because I just like playing the game more than anything else. The animations and timing of the game have a flow to it that really is unmatched in my opinion.

I told Knutaf that I could beat the game in 6 hours. I thought that would be sufficient for one day of streaming. But Knut seemed to think we couldn’t do that all in one day. So I told myself I would pick up the pace. I researched the Castlevania: SOTN speed runs and found out some neat tricks and exploits. You wouldn’t think it, but the wolf powers are actually the most valuable powers for speed runs. You can dart past lots of different obstacles and jump higher than you would normally be able to. I can now beat the game in less than 2 hours. I love this game. Maybe someday I’ll get it under a half hour. I have to practice my backwards (annoying) slide. You have to slide backwards and stop the animation by flipping your shield and then slide again. It moves you about twice as fast as the normal running animation.



4. I had a blog on here a long time ago that had like 60+ faps that got deleted, and I’ve never reposted it. If it seems like I’m bragging, I am - a bit. But I also feel a little guilty because the blog was a bit of a tribute to my brother who I mentioned had passed away. (By the way, I do have another younger brother and we’re close.) It was a one time thing, you guys all had beautiful responses to it, and I wish it was still in my list of blogs. But I don’t want to repost it mostly because I am trying to be personal with my blogs without having to mention that tragic incident. And I should mention that the Destructoid staff (Hamza in this case) was very good about getting me a cached copy of the blog to me before it was gone forever.



5. My girlfriend is way better than me at Halo. And she’s probably better than most of you. Some of you might know her as Wolf Girl. I’m actually not sure what rank she is now. It looks like one of those suns or an eclipse or something. She’s the kind of rank you’d rather not see on the other team. I’m not horrible at Halo, but I will never be as good as her. I have solidified myself in the RPG camp and will probably only play FPS’s when they are single player so I won’t have to endure the accusing stares of a talented player. She hates it when I play on her gamertag too because I mess with her K/D spread.

This could be seen as sad or emasculating, but I love my gamer girl. We’re to be married later this year.



6. I worked with and had conversations about Shadowrun with Jordan Weisman the creator of Shadowrun. I know, not everyone knows about Shadowrun, but my friends and I played a lot of this game back in the day. Growing up, I ran games where I gave people too much Karma, too many Panther Cannons, and too many hovercrafts. And every one of my friends played the Super Nintendo and Genesis games. In a certain section of our lives we were brought up on Shadowrun and every time we saw the Space Needle in Seattle we were reminded of the awakening.

Meeting Jordan let me know how hard it was going to be to create another Shadowrun game. It also taught me a lot about business in the game industry. There is a free to play MMO Shadowrun in development, but as far as I can tell it is not the next best RPG that I wish it was. Still, it was an honor to work for someone who took part in how I grew up in the world of gaming. I hadn’t even written this whole thing before I found out that Jordan just started a kickstarter event for Shadowrun Returns. They are going to make it. Just like the Double Fine thing. 400,000 dollars, and will probably get more than that. Damn… I was very close to being able to work on that project. One of my close friends will be able to. Wow…



7. I’m fat. And I know some people would say I’m not. But I know I am and I keep my skinny faced avatar on Destructoid to remind me that I have issues. I could just put a more recent picture on here, but I can’t come to grips with it. Even though I was completely fine to be in my own skin when I met a lot of you, I still fantasize about working out and being fit next time we meet.



8. Mountain Dew: Amp is either the best soft drink ever constructed or the most addictive. When I’m working, co-workers always see me with a tall can of this stuff. I’ll often drink one a day, but have been known to drink two or three. I drink two in a night regularly on gaming nights with the Vampire Masquerade group. It is the unhealthiest thing I do (besides not exercising) and is not helping me with my number 7 (I’m fat). I think, when I was younger, Mountain Dew was the gateway drug. Then it was Surge. Then it was Mellow Yellow. Then, somewhere around the time Mellow Yellow came out, the energy drink craze started and Mountain Dew: Amp hit the shelves soon after. Then it was Vault. Then it was Mountain Dew: Voltage. Then it was Mountain Dew and their gamer fuels. Then we had Mellow Yellow again. But, since Mountain Dew: Amp – there was no other choice for me. Now that I’m trying to be healthier I am trying to step down from the Amp and try Mellow Yellow again. After a while, maybe I will stop drinking soda altogether. Haha… Fat Chance…



9. A friend of mine from Jr. High worked on Portal and Portal 2. Right now he’s working for Valve and his name is Dave Kircher. He always used to be one of those geniuses that didn’t know exactly what he was doing with his life. I talked to him in Jr. High about making some video games, but he said he didn’t know how. He graduated in 2005 from Digipen and I think his team’s final project was Portal. If it wasn’t, it was the project that later became Portal. I believe he worked on Portal 2, but I’m actually not sure. I hope he is working on Half-Life 3. He is a good man and he comes from a long line of geniuses that all retired when they were young. I remember the days where we would all camp out with a 2 liter bottle of Coke and extend wires out from our house so we could still play video games and watch movies. Nerds. Those were good times. I miss that group.



10. I will eventually make a Star Trek fan film. I don’t care how long it takes as long as it is before I die. I often tell my friends the same thing when talking about making an RPG. And I admit that the Star Trek fan film takes second fiddle to making an RPG of my very own, but it’s still up there at the top of my list.

I always thought it was strange that humans could contend in battle with Klingons in hand to hand fighting. So one of my ideas was to have battle scenes that noted the ways the federation would make use of technology rather than just brawling or even just standing there and using a phaser. Then the Klingons could show even more brutality in their fighting rather than resorting to human tactics. And I could see Vulcans using more technology and martial arts. Since they were always stronger, it would make sense for them to sometimes use martial arts to use in contrast with a Klingon which might have a more barbaric fighting style.

All that, and I just love science fiction. You all should check out Philip K. Dick.



Thanks for reading guys.