Despite the fact that video games, online communities, sound design, theater, and the classical arts are what I spent four years studying at Parsons School of Design, rarely do I touch the subject on Megalongcat.  But having a best friend who is a “game critic” I’ve decided to make an end of the year gaming post encompassing everything about video gaming in my life this year.  I’ve grown up on video games.  From the NES to my Playstation 3, I’ve never spend any part of my life without a gaming system.  In 2008, despite the so called great games that came out, I barely felt the inclination to play any games at all unless I was completely bored.  This year however, I couldn’t resist the gaming fire in my soul that burned for a challenge, amazing plot, great dialogue, and all around good fun.  So in chronological order I present to you the list of video games I actually took the time to play in 2009.

Final Fantasy IX

-The game didn’t come out this year, a lot on my list didn’t.  But of all of the Final Fantasy games, starting from Final Fantasy 1, it’s the only one I find with replay value worth my time.  Great dialogue, character’s aren’t based on snippets of emotions pieced together in 8, 10, 12, and 13 (my issues with them will come at a later time).  All in all, it was a solid RPG worth the replay and I loved every minute of it.

Wipeout HD

-Ever played Jet Motto? If not you shouldn’t have ever deserved to own the original playstation.  Wipeout HD was a graphic rush that required just the right amount of reflexive skill that high paced racing video games should have.  It was a sweet blend of Kinetica, Bumper cars, and Grand Turismo all rolled up nicely into a 250mph blur.  The game also offered a great feature of taking HD screenshots at any point during a match. A feature I wish was offered in every game now.  It’s a simple game, but fun at it’s core and twenty bucks it was a steal.

Crimson Gem Saga

-Best dialogue I’ve seen in a JRPG in ages.  It’s funny, full of witty humour and amazing characters.  I wish more of my friends had listened to me when I talked about how great the game was.

Resident Evil 5

As an African American, I was told the game was racist.  As an African American, I’m also privy to the knowledge that most of the world is racist so why would I expect anything better from a video game.  Completely ignoring the racism comments from my friends about the game, I played it and loved it.  Co-Op games are hard to do.  So hard that every seems to be retarded when making them on PS3 and Xbox360.  RE5 was the first co-op of the year where me and my best friend could truly enjoy an experience where we had to help each other.  I pick some games solely for Co-op play, and this was one of them and well worth the money.

Uncharted 2

The hype about the game being the best thing since sliced bread this year was a complete lie, but that didn’t stop me from enjoy the gameplay.  Yes, the gameplay. The dialogue was alright, the graphics were great if you never took a lighting animation class and want to nitpick at the exposure levels on each character’s eyes.  But once you get past all the little mistakes, the game is completely solid as well as it’s multiplayer platform. The story makes sense, the gameplay matches the story as it unfolds, and it’s fun.

Tekken 6

Fighting games anyone?  Tekken 6, easily the worst Tekken since 4, is still a fun game no matter how you cut it.  The new characters actually have different move sets instead of simply being based off older character models and the fact that they incoporated air combos into the command list is a big step up from old Tekken games where you had to figure it out on your own

Borderlands

Best gaming intro if the year, as well as the best co-op experience (moreso than Resident evil 5).  The characters are hilarious, dialogue is great. Bad guy’s actually run when you shoot them because they don’t want to die.  The game is completely wonky in both gameplay and story which meshes well and doesn’t ever make you feel like there’s an awkward disconnect between playing the game and understanding the story.  It was, and still is a fun game with plenty of content.

Demon’s Souls

“It’s just God of War with different tactics” Is easily the worst way to describe the best gaming experience of the year.  Demon’s Souls is the only PS3 game this year that took gamers out of their Devil May Cry comfort zone and dragged them to the chopping block.   Its difficulty level forces a gamer to explore every possibility and playstyle imaginable to survive.  The game is not for the light of heart or mediocre gamers and that’s why I couldn’t resist playing it.

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Disclaimer: This is a paper I wrote two years ago when I first heard about vista.  I was interested in online communities and was fiddling around with different platforms to create one which is where this idea came from.

VSPACE

Introduction:

Virtual words have become one of the largest growing and most profitable franchises not only in regards to the gaming industry, but also social networking.  These digital worlds are becoming a common part of our daily lives and could soon very well replace our “cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and hangouts”[1].  Though these digital worlds cannot yet be considered to be one of the Great Places as Raymond Oldenburg suggests, it is safe to assume that virtual worlds have made a significant impact on a large enough population around the world that they should always be considered as alternate forms of communication and congregation.  These virtual worlds become part of a larger mediascape[2] which allows a flow of information and ideas across a wide variety of people and places which does not happen as easily in the real world where we still have to travel and meet in person occasionally to discuss ideas.  Virtual worlds tend to have two modes of distribution; either the content for the world is downloaded as a stand-alone program (FLYFF, Lineage, World of Warcraft) or they are browser based engines which you can run while being online (Puzzle Pirates, Pogo Games).   In order to make a game that is widely available, with little effort to acquire the game, I propose a virtual world in the form of a Microsoft Windows Vista Gadget; a virtual world created within the restraints of a gadget could automatically and easily be integrated into a large system of computers.  The world would be called VSpace.

Background:

I would like to start with the current state of virtual worlds, and MMOG’s; though very similar I’m going to use the former to describe communities based around social networking, and the latter to describe the videogame oriented online worlds.  Currently the largest virtual world based around social networking is Facebook with “has more than 69 million active users worldwide.”[3] Facebook is a web based social community which allows to create public or private profiles to connect within college, job, and town networks.  Other major virtual worlds for social networking are communities like MySpace and Friendster (also web based communities where users create profiles to connect with other people), and then social communities based around animated avatars within a self contained graphical world such as Habbo Hotel and IMVU (both of which allow you to create graphical representations of the user’s liking to interact with other avatars).  All of these examples have been targeted at various social groups.  MySpace was originally intended to attract young adults just as Facebook originally targeted only college audiences.

All of these virtual worlds and MMO communities are only available to a person if they log onto their respective websites, or are referred to by a friend as an incentive to join these networks.   My proposal however, would be a part of the many features that Windows Vista already offers thus immediately eliminating the effort it takes to find these social communities and it has an already established niche; those that own computers running Vista (all Dell and HP computers have Vista as their standard OS before shipping).  This would allow a mass distribution of the virtual world (the product) with less of a need for startup advertising, thus allowing money to be saved for other enterprises.  The virtual world I am proposing will incorporate the creation of both profiles/avatars with not only an avatar based interaction system, but also a web based community for when users aren’t logged onto their avatars.

Description:

VSpace would be a virtual world based within the context of a Windows Vista Gadget application.  When a person buys a computer with Vista as the OS, they go through a series of setup options where you register your product, name your computer, and establish what sort of internet connection.  After the establishment of an internet connection, a person would immediately be prompted to create an avatar to represent themselves.  Before being fully able to create their avatar, a person would have to agree to the usual terms of service which apply to most all online communities; afterwards a user would be able to create an avatar that physically resembles them or their imagined personalities.

(Picture from google images, no source to image)

To run Windows Vista properly, 2gigs of ram are needed which should theoretically cover the amount of computer power that it takes to run a widget such as this.  The purpose of this concept is so that Windows Vista users can interact with each other the moment they log onto their new computers for the first time.  If they’re not used to the new Vista system, they can find other users through the virtual world to ask about these questions if they’re not sure about the information offered in an online FAQ.  Though ‘googling’ for answers has become widely popular, many people still prefer asking other people the answers for questions.  Gameplay would be focused around the avatar that you create; the avatar would be able to walk into the environments of other people using the gadget and challenge them to games or make an attempt at conversation.   Each Character would have its own customizable environment within the gadget where users would have to pay for items if they wanted unique rooms for their avatars.

(Picture from http://www.viviannesart.us/Images/vivgallery/waLL4.jpg)

Key Features:

-Easy installation and character creation: The installation of the virtual world would be part of the setup when you first launch your computer with easy and simple instructions.

-Large community to interact with: considering the large volume of computers which automatically come with Vista, with millions of computers sold each day it would make it easy for this virtual world to get off the ground with a large community.

-No Monthly Subscription: you only need to pay for the items you want!: The gadget would be free to download and install, however to customize your personal environment you would need to page a specified amount of money for credit.  With credit you could then buy the items you like.

-Ability to take interactive experience to the next level by challenging your VSPACE friends to games on the Microsoft Gaming Network: Users would be able to move into other environments of VSPACE users where they could either chat or challenge them to games offered by the Microsoft Gaming Network

-Continue talking to your friends on our web based network using Windows Live Space:  Windows Live Space would allow integration with your regular profile and the avatar that you create.

-Virtually no lag with recommended Vista system requirements: To run properly, computers that come with Windows Vista more often than naught have at least 2 gigs of ram and a decent processer, graphics card, and motherboard to support the extensive 3D options that Vista uses.

Community Features:

Windows Vista sidebar gadgets tend to automatically obtain your area code so VSPACE would be able to determine a list of ten users within a certain radius of your zip code.  Your avatar would then be able to either abruptly walk onto the screen of another VSPACE user, or send for an invite to join them within their environment for conversation, gaming, or whatever the user wishes to interact for.  The community would allow a buddy list system where you can automatically ‘warp’ to rooms that you have been in previously.  I would also propose text based chat with the option of VOIP.  The actual gadget size would more than likely not be able to support a system where large amounts of text are visible, so voice chat would be the best alternative for a means of communication.

VSPACE would be intergraded with the Windows Live Spaces where you would not only have your own profile, but a picture of yourself and your avatar.  There would be a series of privacy options which would determine how much information you would allow to be visible to other users of VSPACE or Windows Live Spaces at any given time.  The framework that I have proposed for this game to operate in “provides the foundation to explore different sections of the demographic [of VSPACE users] that are motivated differently, and whether certain motivations are more highly correlated with”[4] different types of users.  VSPACE features such as the ability to integrate with not only immersive environments, but also a large gaming community to appeal to a large demographic.

Genre:

The genre that this virtual world would fall under would be that of a Metaverse; “a fictional virtual world, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional space that uses the metaphor of the real world.”[5] A Metaverse would be useful for my earlier description of VSPACE because this simulated world would allow a system that would make users feel connected in a world that closely resembles their own.  Avatars would be simple 3D polygon models with humanistic features and environment options which closely resemble modern day cities, suburbs, and countries.  VSPACE would also follow the “Open World” mode of a game where users would be allowed to do as they pleased within the boundaries of the actual virtual world.

[2] “Modernity at Large” Arjun Appadurai

[3] ^{a b c} Statistics. Facebook.

[4] “The Psychology of Massively Multi-User OnlineRole-Playing Games: Motivations, Emotional Investment, Relationships and Problematic Usage” Nick Yee.  PG 12.

[5] “Metaverse”   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse

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As those of you know, I’ve been meaning to get a new phone for about five months now, but with all of these new smart touch screen phones hitting the market, I was confused, dazed, and jaded as to which phone to buy. The trendy and ubiquitous iphone was out for me, as well as the Samsung Omnio, LG Xeon, and the Palm Pre; all of which had akward quirks about their touch screen layouts that just couldn’t keep my interested for more than five minutes.

Of course, I should say that I started my search with providers NOT with the phones themselves.  I didn’t want to end up like those who bought the iphone and expected ATnT’s call quality to miraculously improve.  Playing it safe, I went with Verizon and after treking through store after store, and one authorized retail after another, I found out why I was having so much trouble picking a phone.  I hate touch screen phones.

When I saw the sleek Nokia 725 Intrigue I knew it was the phone for me.  It’s surface has touch responsive LED’s that show you the time, charge life of your battery, music controls. and your text messages, but it still isn’t a full color touch screen and it isn’t a necessary component of the phone (which means if it beaks I can still use it).  The buttons, even though they’re flat, still have dividers between them so I can close my eyes and still dial a number without looking or having to press and hold some slide bar to use it.  Though the phone is small and sleek, it retains a level of maniless (the phone comes in two trims: male and female) giving the cell phone a level of personality that others lack.  The call quality and camera quality are superb in the NJ/NY area and the video recorder is decent, but that’s why I have a real video camera.   Over all,this is one of the most so lid flip-phones I’ve ever had the chance to own and I plan on enjoying it till it dies (or my contact is up).

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It’s a rare event that I create anything, and today is no exception. Amidst urgent projects, phone calls and hungry cats, I got the sudden urge to make a t-shirt and submit it to Design By Humans, my first design in fact. Check out the design:

If you like it feel free to toss me a vote, I’d totally love to see this on a t-shirt and if it gets printed I’ll hold a contest giving away free t-shirts.

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It’s no hidden fact that paper newspapers are declining exponentially. The people who read them are now looking for their news sources online and the most innovative of news sources have taken their speaking platform to the digital. Here is a list of 7 influential newspapers with Twitter visibility. Take a look, follow, unfollow, and enjoy. Maybe you’ll find a different news source to add to your Twitter list.

**Also see: @huffbusiness  &  @huffpolitics **

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I understand when you’re in design school, or you’re just coming out (school just let out for the summer not too long ago) you want to work but you find most positions at design studios, corporate firms, and other venues filled with hard working (theoretically) designers. So what do you do? You freelance. After a while of making a break here or there freelancing you start talking to other freelancers to help your self-started business get off the ground. A couple of jobs later you’ve completely forgotten that your original goal and you’re perfectly content working your own hours. I know a lot of great designers who are freelancers, but I know even more horrible freelance designers who ruin the market for real ones. I’ve freelanced and worked for businesses along with studios and firms and still find that freelancing is not it for me and here’s why:

1. Medical Benefits
I’m not sure about freelancers out there, but in the US, Health Insurance and Dental Insurance are pretty expensive and hard to come by at an affordable rate. To be a freelancer, you have to be organized; sadly most people aren’t and taking care of their health insurance properly is something most freelancers probably forget here in the states. Sticking with a business or firm allows you the alleviation of this by having it simply as part of your benefits package for working with them. There’s nothing worse than paying for a broken ankle right out of your pocket.

2. Learning from Peers
Freelancers learn from other freelancers; they rarely learn from people in the industry who are attached to a firm because people like that tend to keep the secrets of their trade to themselves out of fear of losing their position to someone else. However, when you’re a designer working at a firm with other designers, they teach you quickly and efficiently to make sure that you’re a valuable member of the team. Teamwork is important, one of the most fundamental skills of being a human being, but it becomes hard to develop when you work alone and never stay attached to a business for too long.

3. Growth/Advancement
The best thing about being a freelancer is that you’re the boss. The worst thing about being a freelancer is that you’re only the boss of yourself. Ever wanted to run a corporation or have a higher position than just “the guy that designed this”? Attaching yourself to a business allows for growth and advancement. I started off with one firm as a logo designer and ended up as their assistant director for marketing. What’s nice is that people in and outside of the business start to know your name, and the harder you work, because you’re part of a company you’ll be noticed and have the ability to rise in rank. Freelancing means once you’re done with the project you’re done. They might contact you again for more work, but it will always be the same thing for the most part.

4. Stock
Most freelancers don’t care about it, and they probably don’t understand it. With the economic recession still in force here in the states and around the world most people wouldn’t think having stock at this time is even a good idea. Wrong. Now is a great time to have stock as well to buy up other stock while it’s dirt cheap. Having stock in a company that’s doing well, and keeping track of your stock will not only be great for when you leave the company (sell the stock and get rich anyone?) but it teachers you how to manage it.

5. Resources
As a freelancer, there’s no doubt you’ve accrued a large amount of contacts through your years of working for various businesses. But as valuable as these contacts are, the likelihood of them sending you work from other businesses are close to none. Businesses provide great resources such as laptops, desktops, art supplies, and printing costs for you as long as you’re doing your job well. These resources are great perks when you realize you can go to your boss and say: “I need a new Mac Intel Laptop to do this work right”, and they give it to you to keep.

Working from home is great, but working in an office on strict hours trains you to be diligent and efficient with your time instead of thinking: “Oh I can just do this at night and sleep in”. It’s common knowledge that if you don’t get anything thing done by 12pm in the afternoon, nothing’s going to get done at all.

So what are your thoughts on freelancing as opposed to working directly for a firm or business? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

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I’m really glad I found this shortly after finding the preview. I was tempted to buy it before, but now I’m sold. Genki Ito has provided awesome, abstract, and astounding motion graphics paced perfectly with hard hitting industrial synth tracks. I’m impressed with his ability to sync the visual and the audio, which is a talent plenty of motion graphics artists lack. Take a look at the video and be sure to check him out on Vimeo to see the rest of his stuff.
Jemapur | Clarte from Genki Ito on Vimeo.

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Image from: flickr.com/photos/jonrev/2746231846/

Now, the old logo isn’t the best designed piece in the world by any means, the “red dots” are hard to interpret as actual “o’s” and the font choice is reminiscent of a time where having the biggest logo meant the most sales (at least it did in theory.) Yet, despite this logos visual shortcomings, it is highly debatable as to whether or not the new logo does the Payless shoes brand justice. See the picture below:

I have not had the change to walk into a Payless shoes store to see if the shoes have gone up in price, the new logo makes payless look like “Paymore” (Sorry for the terrible pun). The logo is a huge visual improvement. The sans-serif font is aligned perfectly so that the “shoe source” fits optically well inside of the “Payless”. The circular “P” which connects with the “L” forms a sort of yin-yang relationship between the two letters, but the actual image it forms could and will be unrecognizable to consumers are familiar with the Payless brand. I’m curious to find out how sales do for the new branding redesign. I’m sure prices are up after store makeovers around the country and it is likely that show prices will reflect it.

So let me know what you guys think of the logo.

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I haven’t posted anything related to Motion Graphics in a long time and figured that 3am on a Thursday morning was the best time to post anything at all.  Considering I’m hyped up on coffee and starting to feel the effects of two consecutive all-nighters, I thought it was best to find a motion graphics piece that best represented the mental state that I’m in.  Luckily the search was short and I came across the mind-numbing and awkwardly intense music video preview: Clarte by Jemapur.  The motion graphics piece is “the latest film by W+K Tokyo Lab creator, Genki Ito. The concept is nuclear fusion in the micro world, matching poetic animation to a heavy-hitting track.”  The intense soundtrack, coupled with simple and powerful visual elements creates a wonderful menagerie of images that keep you at the edge of your seat while you watch the microscopic process of nuclear fusion unfold before your very eyes.  If you’re interested in Jemapur, make sure to check out the blog here.

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The only difference between the two screenshots is the color scheme, but that can have a major impact on whether or not prospective clients remain on portfolio or click over to someone else’s. Below is the feedback that I got from all of the people I sent it out to.

Samin Patel:

I like the first one – the orange looks nice. Although the second one isn’t bad either – but I’m biased since my new layout uses a black/grey/blue color scheme and I tend to prefer those schemes for things.

One thing that I’m not fond of is the bar in between the menu and the page, the gradation between black/white seems too smushed, it should be more subtle in my opinion.

Also the menu, try changing the font, maybe something a bit more vertically compact. When I was making my site I tried various fonts and just found smaller ones look better.

Also the hover (I assume hover) state – the drop shadow around – think about tweaking it to be more precise. Or maybe not making it so obvious.

I’m a fan of subtly sometimes when it comes to layout. And since yours is a clean/simple one I figure that more subtle accents/things will make it look better.

The bottom part with your contact info, you might consider making that a colored bar. That link to top 10 portfolio things from smashing magazine i gave you – many sites had those bottom bars with solid colors.

Hope this helped.
 

Ewan Grantham

I personally like the updated orange, but based on what I have heard in other places, I suspect you’ll get better results using the updated copy since “cooler” colors tend to encourage hanging around where brighter colors feel a bit more like someone is yelling at you.

Whole point of RSS buttons being orange is that your eye is drawn to see what it’s about.

That said, I would like to think that while the design will have some impact on the users, I suspect for a site where you’re looking for a lot of repeat traffic, the content will matter more.

As an extreme example, check out Jerry Pournelle’s page at:
www.jerrypournelle.com

Trust me, the content is the ONLY reason someone would go there day after day. Of course as he’s been steering more into politics and less into technology I’m finding it a little harder to visit myself.

Anyway, hope this all helps!

Mark Hauge

Yo Fred! It’s feedback time. I’ll try my best to go from top to bottom.

• I’m digging the layout. Will the “I offer creative solutions…” phrase change per section? How does it look directly under the “hi, i’m fred…” ? Are “create brands” “build loyalty” and “brow your business” links? Where do they link to?

• Is the jquery slideshow going to be on every page or just the homepage? If just the homepage, i think a slideshow that moves on it’s own without buttons is better for the viewer. Also, “previous” and “new” doesn’t really make sense to me, if the user clicks one, doesn’t that change the meaning of the buttons? “Previous” and “Next” is simple and logical, especially if the work is going to cycle back to the beginning.

• It might be because it matches the placeholder photo, but I feel like the orange color scheme is more solid than the blue, it just feels more grounded.

• “You can find me on” needs to be aligned with the 3rd column. (I’m sure you already know that) Just an idea, maybe those icons can be monochromatic, and then colored on hover. They also seem a bit large next to the other footer elements, and also competing with your icons in the section above.

Thats all… FOR NOW

I like giving feedback on work, being stuck in a room by myself designing, I do miss the conversation with other designers. You can hit me up anytime.

Peace,
Mark

Aaron Irizarry

Hey,
Sorry it took so long to get some feedback for ya.
I like the orange color scheme.. If you haven’t picked icons yet… you should talk to @kylesteed the kid has brutal icon skills (unless you were going to make them).
keep me posted… once it is done I will make sure to put it up in the onecss.com gallery

Aaron I

After taking note of their changes, suggestions, and comments, I began to fix the design aesthetic into a complete and solid piece. Below are small screenshots of the new Pixelcandy website. I’m not going to post entire screencaps because when it launches I want it to be a surprise to everyone.

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