Visual Storytelling - T. Benjamin Larsen's Blog

"A Theory of Fun"


TheoryOfFun

Don't judge a book by its cover...


As some of you know games are one of my many interests. Now, I really don't play that much anymore (it's true honey!) but I still enjoy playing every now and then. My interest in games as a media far exceeds the time I spend actually playing them though. I was therefore quick to order Raph Koster's "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" when I came across it at Amazon.

Mr. Koster is a game designer and has worked on both Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online. His credentials, as well as the title of the book, hinted towards an interesting read. Luckily the hints were right as the book is well paced and a offered a pleasant journey. The author's emotional anecdotes from his family made it easy to connect with the text.

Unfortunately the book is somewhat let down by the presentation. Mr. Koster have decided to illustrate the book himself and while drawings are functional they border on helpless from an aestethic point-of-view. Furthermore the whole layout of the book feels more like an advanced hobby-project than something a publisher should let slip out the door. You might argue that it's content, not presentation, that matters but the content looses a lot of credibility when presented like this. The credibility is further harmed when the author far too quickly brushes over research and studies that's supposed to support his ideas. As Mr. Koster seems reluctant to give away much detail about these studies the sceptic in me is awaken. The result is that even a layman like myself is not entirely convinced despite the obvious intellect displayed through the text. It's a sad irony that a man that insists that his own craft has the potential become "art" has not bothered to hire a decent illustrator. Fortunately this does not make this is a bad book by any means. Despite my reservations, Mr. Koster's sense of humor even manages to transcend the poorly executed visuals occasionally.

Theory2b

...or by its illustrations.

So, should you buy it? Well, I would not recommend it to everyone. It is at it's best a fascinating journey into one man's ideas about games as a medium and where it is/should be going. The book contains a lot of food for thought and I already feel a blog-post about some of these thoughts trying to break free. I am personally pleased to have it in my collection. So, not a must-buy then. But, if you have a more than fleeting interest in games and the night-stand is currently a book short you could do a lot worse than getting a copy of "A Theory of Fun"...
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Curse of the Aggressive Metaphysical Entities

Brainstuff
At the moment of writing my computer contains no less than three film-/video-projects that are all well out of the starting block. It also contains one lousy second draft film-script and two script-treatments. Furthermore one short children's-story that need some refinement and about half a children's-novel in a non-readable state. This all comes in addition to a gazzilion photoshop-projects, the start of a shoot-em-up-game and half a fantazillion Garageband-tunes that are nowhere near the finishing-line.

Now, this might look like a wow-look-at-me-I'm-incredibly-creative-post, but that's not where I'm heading. Yes, I pride myself with being a creative person, but I am fully aware that I have very little to show for when it comes to finished projects. Neither is this a poor-me-I-have-to-spend-too-much-time-at-my-day-job-please-send-money-post. (Allthough it could have been so please send some money). No, I would like to talk about those entities from the headline, better known as new ideas. From talking to friends I've found that my experience with these seductive destroyers is not unique. This is how it normally happens:

I'm happily working away on a project based on what used to be a new idea. This, by now mature, idea and I are happily co-operating to make it into a fully-fledged film/script/whatever. We know each-other by heart and our common goal, while some time away, is clear to us both. This is when it happens. The appearance of the new kid on the block. The new idea. Somewhere in my brain zynapses are forwarding this flashy supermodel of an idea to the front of the consciousness. It's just so… new! The mind overflows with thoughts about how to bring it towards a glorious fruition. This is the one that will put my name on the lips of people everywhere and lead to world-domination.

So I begin to move time away from the old idea to the new one. Just a little bit to begin with as it clearly deserves the attention. Before I know it, the old idea has been relegated to the darkest backwaters of my hard disk. But it doesn't matter, cause I'm over-joyous with where the new idea is taking me.

For a while...

Because after a while the new idea is no longer new, and before I know it that blasted brain of mine has conjured up a new new idea. The old new idea has now become another, mature but, boring one ready to be forgotten.

So is there no way out of this conundrum? Well, I guess there is, but I'm not sure it's a happy one. I should probably just clench my teeth and struggle through the old idea before jumping onto a new one. But that struggling bit sounds an awfull lot like work...
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LSD - part I


As we approach the end of the first month of 2008 I figured it's about time setting some personal goals for the new year. One of MY goals for the year MMVIII is to complete to short-movies, the first one an animation called "L.S.D.".

Now, I'm not a trained animator. I have however always been extremely fond of animation and the magic behind it and I've dabbled a little in these black arts since childhood with my father's super-8 camera. I also have several books on the subject and am not a stranger to running animations frame by frame just to get a clearer picture of the techniques used.

My current project really came about as I was expermenting with my new computer. I was curious to see how well it could cope with HD-video so I made a few rough sketches, a couple of frames of animation and made a composite. It all worked out very nicely and these humble beginings soon developed into a full-fledged idea for a chaotic, but hopefully entertaining, short-animation. I am also using the project as a learning tool to see where I can find short-cuts that doesn't ruin the experience as a whole. I must constantly remind myself not to spend too much time perfecting every piece and rather go for a raw but charming quality that I'm fairly pleased with so far.

If I were to describe the style/theme of the animation I think Tex Avery-meets-Terry Gilliam-meets-Scandinavian children animation is about right. Perhaps in the future this could simply be known as the T. Benjamin Larsen - style…

I'll return with more posts on the projects later, where I'll discuss techniques, tools etc. For now I'll leave you with the first public image from the film. See you later!

LSD1
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Genesis of the MacBook Air

OK, this one is probably akin to "Lennon lives, McCartney is dead" but hey, this is my blog and I can write what I want. And as it happens I'm still not quite done with Apple's new portable, the Macbook Air.

As I wrote in my last post I have a hard time seeing the potential market for this product, but perhaps this is just the way Apple planned it? The ultra-thin enclosure and solid-state drive is new stuff for Apple and maybe, just maybe, they're not 100% confident that everything will run smoothly with this first generation product.

So, to avoid risking extreme expenditeur and an outright scandal, it would make sense to roll out a product that only sold in relatively modest numbers. This would give them a lot of valuable feedback about how this stuff works in the real world.

Perhaps it all started something like this:

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Macbook Air - a well dressed Dodo?


MacBookDodo
Yesterday Steve Jobs, Mr. Black Turtleneck himself, took the podium to reveal Apple's latest Macintosh computer. Their new baby, an ultra-thin portable named Macbook Air looks dead gorgeous. Immediately my geek-heart started throbbing for this newest and most precious piece of industrial-design.

But just one day later I have a hard time seeing the point of Apple's latest creation. Who is it for? Where are the benefits? The "Air" is incredibly thin but it still has the exact same footprint as the cheaper and better equipped Macbook. And the Air is actually 100% unusable for stuff life wide-editing as it does not sport a firewire-port. This means there's no direct way to get footage onto the machine, no practical way to edit, as the included HD is too small and too slow. In other words 1/3 of the iLife-suite is next to useless on this thing.

What's really worrying is that this resembles the G4-cube so much it's almost hard to believe. For those of you who don't remember the G4 Cube was one of Apple's very few clear misses since Steve Jobs returned to the company. When released it was in many ways the pinnacle of industrial design. It looked gorgeous it was completely quiet (no fans) and was put together in a manner that still impress. There was only one problem: It was more expensive than the better specified PowerMacs of the time. So, why most people agreed the Cube was a brilliant piece of hardware-enginering "no-one" bought one. Now I'm not putting all my money on the bet that this thing is going to flop, but I think it's a distinct possibility.

It's useless for video-editing. For journalists the inability to switch battery-packs is probably a deal-breaker. For photographers the glossy-screen is no good. For the average punter it is too expensive for what i does. It's probably the most brilliant surf-the-web-write-an-essay-do-small-stuff-machine(tm) ever released. But here's the thing: I want one, but I don't think I'd buy one...
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Backing the winning horse...


Following the US primary elections on the news is at the moment surprisingly entertaining. Polls seem to be based on coin-tosses and any predictions might as well be created by a random-prediction-generator(tm). Still, this doesn't stop the "experts" from weighing in with their opinion about the prospects of the different candidates. Upon closer inspection there seems to be a fairly clear-cut pattern to their analyses and it looks something like this:
comic001
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Underdog attack!

OK, first a small confession. I'm something of a Mac-head and yes I do love a lot of their products. Apple have always used the fact that they're "different" for what it's worth. As "standard" Windows-PC's, at least traditionally, have been about as exciting as.. ...as cricket (sorry cricket-fans) this makes a lot of sense. Apple's current campaign "I'm a mac" continues the trend and I believe this is a strategy that makes a lot of sense for a smaller company. People instinctively root for the underdog and there is something to be said about having a product that differs from the masses as well.

So why doesn't Microsoft do the same thing with their Zune-player? Now, I haven't seen one of these yet, but reckon they must be OK. Having Microsoft's deep-pockets, media-interest and advertisement-budgets could well help it to become something of a hit. It's not an iPod and for some people it seems that's the most important specification any MP3-player could have...

zunejoke
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Up and running!


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Ah. At long last I got my new [and first] blog up and running. Finally there's another blog on the web! :-p Anyway, I'm planning to use this to share my wisdom as well as showing of creative work. Brilliant findings will of course also be shared and hopefully someone might find some enjoyment from stopping by every now and then.

Cheers!
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