Leaving Adult Swim

(Largely copied from the Adult Swim Message Board)

It makes me very sad to say this, but as of August 22, I will no longer be working at Adult Swim. It was a very difficult decision for me to make, but starting next month I will be the new Creative Director of Games for Kongregate.com.

This is likely to be insanely long, as I’m a writer and can never get enough of hearing myself type, but please bear with me.

I remember four years ago, waiting in the lobby at Williams Street for the interview that would determine whether or not I got an internship with Adult Swim. There was a set of nice glass double doors with the logo for Cartoon Network printed on them. I sat there in awe, not quite believing where I was. I had been a fan of Cartoon Network for years and had watched Adult Swim from the very first night it aired, so to me just being in the building was an overwhelming experience, whether I got the internship or not.

The doors opened and I was greeted by Karen and Matt. (Karen is now a producer at CourtTV and Matt is the Narrative Director of FusionFall.) They led me past the double doors and into the Rosie Room. (Now demolished; the new tape library sits in its place.) There were some comfortable couches, a plasma TV, glass display cases with Cartoon Network toys in them, and a life-sized wooden replica of Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons with a computer monitor in her chest. It was totally awesome. Kind of a Willie Wonka feeling, you know?

Well, obviously the interview went well and even before I got back home I had an email offering me the internship. Before I knew it I had a cubicle, two computers and a job to do. I think I did it well; they seemed most surprised to learn that I did indeed have some writing chops and my internship abruptly changed. During that time I was really just a junior junior writer. I never had to do any of the crap intern work many interns are forced to do, which is a great thing about how Cartoon handles its interns. After my internship was over I got a call from Chip (Who now works for the kids side of Cartoon), the creative director of AdultSwim.com, and he offered me a contract job as a writer. That eventually turned into a full-time position.

It was crazy. But in the years that followed I never really lost that feeling of waking up and thinking “Oh my God. I work for Adult Swim.” I’ll miss that.

The people here have been wonderful. Many of the people who were here when I first started have moved on to other things (Hockey Chicken is the only remaining staff member from that era) but they were all just wonderful while they were here. As I leave, I feel confident that the site is in capable hands. Jeff is a fantastic creative director who isn’t afraid to dive headfirst into new things. Casper has a great creative sense and his contributions to the games have been and will be invaluable. Liz is a consummate producer and has whipped us all into shape far better than I could have hoped. Merrill is Merrill, take him or leave him. (I’m kidding, he’s a great creative mind who’s done a lot for show support on the site.) Vanessa seems to have boundless energy. Brandon is just inherently a funny person, I think. Terry is a fantastic animator. Win is exactly what the site needed in a head technical person and in general just a really cool guy. Drew is a great developer who brings with him an amazing sense of fannish enthusiasm. I’ve worked with Dave C. the longest now, and he’s always blown me away with his great design sense and outspoken approach to sitebuilding. Jordan has a unique appreciation for the weird and the strange and manages to design things that are both while still making everything useable (at times, he also sports a huge mountain-man beard which you can’t help but have respect for.) Dave B. has been a great editor and is always fair game for a nice, random nonsensical conversation. I’ve hardly had a chance to get to know Justin or Ken, but they both struck me as both skilled and invaluable. And of course, Mike L., who I have actually found in many ways to be inspiring. I used to think he was this terrifying, rampaging madman (and he still sort of is) but once I got a chance to work with him I quickly realized that he was a brilliant anti-executive. I learned a lot about pushing boundaries from him and I can honestly say I enjoyed the last year of working under him immensely.

Kongregate's really cool. It’s a kind of “YouTube for games” where anyone can upload a Flash game and wrap it in community functionality like chat, high scores, badges and gamer points while taking in a share of the ad revenue. I’m very excited to be directing their premium/sponsored game effort. I think Kongregate has the right idea by creating a community-driven and community-centric site that will hopefully be a showcase for the best in Flash games on the net.

So here goes. Off to San Francisco!

The Darkness

I'd seen several trailers for The Darkness a while back and it was never something I found interesting. Mobsters with demon powers? Meh. But then I saw some gameplay footage on Monday that showed something we're thinking about doing for a game at AdultSwim.com, so I ran out and picked it up the next day to see how they handled it.

I haven't finished it yet, so this isn't a formal review or anything, but this game is badass. The opening car chase scene was incredibly grabbing and did some amazing immersive things that as a writer had me literally on the edge of my couch. The realism to many of the conversations is great; in the car chase scene the two mafiosos in the front seat carry on full conversations that you really can't hear for all the shooting and crashing, but that's what so cool about it. They're not saying these things just for your benefit, which is a great step towards realistic characters and situations.

Later I watched in writerly glee as Jackie (the protagonist) visited his girlfriend. You could actually sit on the couch and watch TV with her (which earns you the Romantic Achievement) until she falls asleep on you. There is such common ground there, such human sympathy, that I actually felt guilty for finally getting up and leaving.

Even subway train riders have their own personality. You can see them walking around, throwing away trash, picking their noses...all ways in which they're in their own world, not simply existing for you to talk to them. Unfortunately that illusion is broken if you try to talk to most of them, when they say some inexplicable variation of "Are we good?" but it's impressive nonetheless.

Add to that two badass demon eels coming out of your back that do your bidding and I found the game incredibly satisfying.

It's not perfect and there are some clear holes (like why Jackie isn't the least bit surprised to find that he has demonic eels growing out of his back.) but all in all this is one of the best surprise plays of the year for me. I'm sitting here at work just wishing I was home playing it, which doesn't happen to me all that often.

Now if only the multiplayer weren't so damn laggy.

A $24.95 Value!

I got this email the other day. It was to let me know that I, as a BellSouth customer, am very important to BellSouth. They appreciate my business. And in light of said appreciation they, BellSouth, would like to offer me, valued customer and all-around great guy, a free gift! Amazing! Since I am such the aforementioned great guy and swell customer they're prepared to give me a free personality test! A $24.95 value!

Wait, what?

Since when is a personality test a twenty five dollar value? Since when are they not, like...free? Did I miss some sort of revolution in internet personality quizzes? The next time I want to know what kind of Power Ranger I am, am I going to need to pony up five bucks? Whenever I desperately need to know what Firefly character I'm most like am I going to need to swipe my card for a buck fifty? A type personalities get charged ten bucks but B types get charged more cause you know they'll do whatever you want them to?

Clearly I'm now out of my depth on the internet. Next, I'll be getting Flickr galleries of LOLcats as a reward for using Verizon. A $30 value.

Xbox Live Account Restored!

My faith in huge multinational corporations has been restored! My Gamertag has been returned to me!

Also, thanks to my wife, who spent a day bitching the huge multinational corporation out. ;)

Bible Fight

At AdultSwim.com we just launched our second original game, Bible Fight. So far it's gotten a lot of attention, though the buildup of traffic has been slower than it was for Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself).

The road to this game was actually very long. When we decided to do original games, we put out a call for original pitches from some of our more trusted game developers. One of our best developers, Pop&Co., came back with a number of pitches for original games. One of the standout ideas was Bible Fight. Lazzo liked it and it seemed like it was a go. But then there was some internal disagreement and some personnel reshuffling and all in all the game was almost a year from conception to launch...which is incredibly long for most Flash games.

I've been googling the game and reading some of the comments people have about it, most of which are very positive. A lot of the very Christian replies were the most interesting, as some take it in stride and actually find it funny, while some are mortally offended. I won't try to convince anyone about it, but I found it funny and thought it was a worthwhile game to pursue. There were actually some very vocal internal disagreements about it, though, so we didn't make it lightly. We discussed it for hours on end, but I think we made the right choice to go ahead with it.

Anyway. I'm proud of the final result. I think it's one of the better fighting games on the internet. I just hope everyone who plays it can just have some fun with it and not take everything so seriously. ;)

Xbox Live Account Lost

So about a month ago my Xbox 360 started getting the infamous Red Ring of Death. It wasn't completely surprising -- mine was one of the earlier 360s and more prone to malfunctions than the later ones, though up to now I'd had no problems -- but dismaying, since I'd just gotten back into playing Gears of War online. I'd remembered that Costco had a fantastic return policy that I figured would be easier than sending the console away (thanks, Costco!) so I switched it out for a new one. The problem was that they wouldn't let me keep my hard drive. Something about serial numbers needing to match. Okay, whatever. I didn't care about old game saves and any Live Arcade stuff I'd gotten I could just re-download, right?

Yeah. I get the new box home, set it up and start inputting my Xbox Live info. Wait...what password did I use again? Jeez, it was like a year and a half ago that I set this up... ah ha! It was my old Comcast email account I used back when I had Comcast! Crap! What's the password? I tried all the passwords I could ever remember using, and nothing. Then I get locked out. I've tried logging in too many times and now I'll have to reset my password. Which would be fine...except I no longer have access to that email! It was a Comcast-provided email address and I'd switched to BellSouth about seven months ago.

Okay. So I call Xbox. They can't help me, it's all run through their Windows Live ID service. Alright, I go to the website they direct me to, fill out all the forms and wait for them to get back to me. The answer I get is a very obviously cut-and-pasted "To reset your password...blah blah blah." I write back that I can't reset my password, which is the real problem here. I get someone new as a response and I explain the situation again. I get another -- yes ANOTHER new person and by now I'm getting exasperated. I plead with them to verify any other information they want, credit card, phone number, whatever, just please, switch my account to my current email! They respond -- I should call the XBox people. They could verify my credit card number.

And of course they can't. I spend half an hour speaking to a very nice Customer Service supervisor, begging to be connected to anyone who works at the Windows Live ID service, but she has no phone number for them. It's like they're this ghost department that no one can really contact except by email. I demand to speak to someone further up but it becomes clear that they're just an outsourced company with no real ties to Microsoft. They don't know anything.

So I send a long, impassioned plea back to the Windows Live ID people. And apparently they've stopped replying to me. I decide to bite the bullet and even subscribed to Comcast internet for a month to get access to that email account back. Turns out that somehow during the time that I've no longer had Comcast, someone's come along and taken that email out from under me. SO that's a bust.

After I got back from my vacation today I called the direct Microsoft number and got directed to literally seven different people. Please, I said. Just connect me with anyone who happens to have a phone at their desk in the Windows Live ID department. The last guy I speak to tries to lay on me that the Windows Live ID service doesn't have phone support because it's a free service. I have to ask if so little support is going to be made available for it, why tie it into services that are NOT free? I'm out a year's subscription to XBox Live and several games and TV shows. So he offers to put me on the line to Microsoft Corporate. I say great! Let me talk to the suits. So I hear "Please wait while I transfer you to 1-800-Micrsoft!" and I almost squeeze the phone apart. That was the number I called to begin with.

I mean, jeez, am I being unreasonable here? What's worse, is that it's actually part of my job to play these games. I run the games department for AdultSwim.com and it's actually fairly imperative that I stay on top of what's going on in gaming. I just don't know what else to do here!

GDC '07

So the Game Developer's Conference for 2007 is over. Oh my God, that was a long week.

Day 0

Sunday. I fly out at ten...which meant that I missed my neice's first birthday party. Wow, did I feel like a tool for not having gotten a later flight. I still feel bad about that. But the flight itself was pretty uneventful. The seats each had built-in TVs you could order movies and watch TV on, which was a welcome entertainment addition, though most of the flight I just watched Mike Judge's Idiocracy on my iPod. (Which I'd give a six out of ten. Kind of funny, but not entirely original and not really up to the Office Space legacy.) I struck up a brief conversation with a nice French lady who was flying straight from a vacation in Africa to meet her copatriots in San Fransisco. Apparantly she worked for eBay France.

I landed, took a really expensive taxi to the hotel, thought I saw the Golden Gate bridge but didn't, and settled in to my week in San Fransisco.

San Fransisco is a beautiful city. It's antique and modern all at the same time. I remember thinking how much I wished I could stay and extra week just on vacation. Just a very unique place, and I thought immediately that this was one of my favorite cities I had ever been to.

I bought some pizza, had a fantastic rasperry gelato and ate dinner at a place called Max's. Then back to the hotel for sleeping.

Day 1

Monday. I followed a large group of dorky-looking people (believe me, I blended right in) to the Moscone Center, registered, grabbed a rice crispy treat and a pear from the cafe and went to my assigned room.

The first two days of the GDC are for "Tutorials." These can be classes, mini-conferences, whatever. Most people don't go and just fly in for the big Wednesday show. I wanted to catch the tutorials because I wanted to learn more about game design. So I took the Game Design Tutorial. It was a blast, really. I had no idea redesigning board games could be so entertaining. (I created the absolute best four-player version of "Three Musketeers" that has ever been made. It balanced perfectly, was perfectly symmetrical and I actually had a great time playing it. Maybe I'll post instructions later.)

I met a game designer from Longtail Studios named AJ, and we hung out a little afterwards. He's a nice guy, but has a total naive view on whether or not first-person shooters will be a good fit for the Wii. ;)

Walking back from the bar where I'd met AJ and one of his co-workers, I got lost in the Tenderloin.

I get lost everywhere I go. It's like a trip hasn't started until I get lost, and I started this one early. It was pretty seedy, with more massage parlors than homeless people (which there were also plenty of.) It took me twenty minutes before I realized I had turned the wrong way on Geary and turned around, trying to look as mean and intimidating as I possibly could, until the mild Tenderloin squalor abruptly dead-ended into the polished, tourist sheen of Union Square. Really a very odd thing, both those places being pretty much back-to back. But I made it back and fell asleep with no real trouble.

Day 2

Tuesday. More Game design tutorial. Starting to get brain-dead and grumpy. The last exercise of the day, I almost chewed this woman's head off because she made us spend half an hour making lists about what we could do for the assignment rather than just picking something and iterating on it.

I also met with Nik from Tiny Mantis, the game company that did "Go Right!" for us. Hopefully they'll be making some games that don't suck with us. ;)

On an odd note, I ran into Michael Sinterniklaas standing in the lunch line. Mike is the voice of Dean Venture from the Venture Bros. and a million other voices. He owns his own recording studio in New York called "New York Post," which I had visited on my trip to New York last year. He was there on an Audio Pass, trying to network and gather business from the game industry. Later that night I met him at the East meets West party, which he helped me crash. I played pool with a college student, chatted with Mike for a bit, talked with Stephanie Sheh of Eureka Seven and Bleach fame, then called it a night. It should be clear by now, I'm not a big partier.

Day 3

Wednesday. The first day of the conference proper. Chris Kelly flew in the night before and I hung with him most of the day. Highlights: Susan O'Connor's talk on writing for Gears of War, and the Sony Presentation.

Here's my opinion on Playstation Home. I don't see the point. It's a Second-Life knockoff that will be limited to the few people who actually have PS3s. It takes things literally to an awkward extreme: why should I have to walk into a room and sort, closet-like, to view my achievements when I could just pull up a list, which lends itself to comparisons with friends and other simple data display techniques. It just seems like a stupidly obvious thing to do, so I don't know why everyone's raving about it so much.

LittleBigPlanet, however, looks nothing short of amazing. Almost worth my six hundred bucks. Almost.

During the day we met with some new game vendors who wanted ask us questions about our games strategy. That night I went to the Minna Mingle party for Casual Game developers and met with the guys from Pop, who are doing the upcoming game Bible Fight for us. I was so exhausted by this point, though, I only stayed for about half an hour.

Day 4

Thursday. Oh my god, was I tired. I was sore all over from all the walking. Went to a few roundtables, a few writer sessions, trolled the Expo. Met with some more game vendors. If you can tell, toward the end of the week it all started to blur together, so I'm having difficulty recalling what exactly happened when. Miyamoto's speach at the Nintendo keynote was interesting, but kind of lacked much more than a reiteration of Nintendo's party line of "Taking risks." Refused an invitation to hang out with AJ again and crashed to an instant sleep at 8pm.

Day 5

Friday. I'm having a hard time remembering what happened Friday, to be honest. I went to a roundtable about web games and community, which reaffirmed my belief that no one was thinking about doing the sort of things I'm thinking about doing in that space. Which is either good news for me, or just shows that I'm thinking the wrong way. We'll have to see which. I went to a very memorable lecture/roundtable on emotion in gaming, which coincidentally enough came to a few emotionally-charged shouting matches on whether gameplay and story were equally important. Very informative and entertaining.

That night we went to the Zuni Cafe and had dinner. It was good, I just wished there had been more of it. Took the subway back to the hotel. Fell asleep.

Day 6

Saturday. Over. Came home. Feels good. Rented Casino Royale on the plane and wished I hadn't. I like the movie alright, but I hated that I paid five bucks for something I'd already seen. Watched an episode of the fairly mediocre Robin Hood on BBC America.

Now it's back to work to apply everything I've learned. Which I hope will eventually all come back to me. All in all I had a great time, but what a draining week.