GGBS Head Character Animator Good Bye

Today I had lunch with Eric Montero before he heads to Mexico. He is one amazing artist. He designed all our characters and headed the animation. See his VFS student film, Cuauxicalli here. The crazy thing about Eric is that not only is he a gifted artist and animation instructor, but is also a dentist. Yes a dentist, I could not believe it either when I first found out. Note to self - if you ever want to do game with lots of traditional animation (ie hand drawn), make sure you have a damn good artist (like Eric) skilled in classical animation and budget lots and lots of time. When you play GGBS, every frame in the dance moves that the characters perform was individually drawn, please appreciate it!

GDC 08 / Go! Go! Break Steady Announced

Flew down (north to south) to San Francisco to GDC 2008, the lone representative of LBG. Taking the BART from airport to downtown was so fast and easy...way better than Vancouver...until the Sky Train Canada Line is completed. Out of the BART into WestField Mall for lunch. Really good food for a mall.

GDC..it was crazy big, I was really amazed at the size of the convention. I knew Microsoft was going to announce GGBS there so that was one of the reasons I wanted to go. Even though I am not involved in the announcement, it really is just a press release I thought it would be cool to be there as well I wanted to attend the XBLA social gatherings and see the IGF games.

First person I bump into is Nick Wanders of Slick Entertainment, a fellow Vancouverite who was speaking at GDC and was launching their XBLA title that week..."N+" check it out it's awesome. He quickly plied me with drink tickets to an indie game developers party happening that night. Thanks again Nick.

One of coolest things was walking into Moscone North (I was carrying my carry on luggage cause I hadn't go to my hotel yet) and seeing GGBS playing on one of the Xbox 360 kiosk in the Microsoft XNA lounge. I couldn't believe it. I had no idea my game was going to be open to the public. It wasn't even our latest build on the machine. It was exciting as a secretly stood and watched people play GGBS. I definitely could see it was a pick up and play game because people didn't seem to have any problems playing the game right off the bat. One thing that kinda sucked was the music was completely drowned out by the sounds of other games and the general noise of convention goer's. Obviously a music game requires you to play to the beat of the music...duh...so I wondered how people might react to playing the game...would they think, "Am I playing to the music?".

A friend took a picture of some people playing Go! Go! Break Steady Multi-Player Coop (In Coop both players play the beat, if both players get it right they alternate turns at playing the puzzle.)at the XNA lounge.


Got a tour of the 1.up offices with Albert (check out his 1up blog) and co. The folks there were super nice...maybe cause they get free Red Bull so they are always in the happy place. Went to the Associated Production Music (APM) dinner party at Annabelles on 4th Street. Sat with two music composers, one guy was/is doing the music for the Penny Arcade game. The other fellow was crazy about Tolkien, I thought I was a Tolkien fan, but this guy was reciting the full Middle Earth history. I'm not talking the movies here but the complete history prior. Pretty neat...I guess...you got to have passion in life. Food was great, thanks Rob C. for the invite.

So I was wondering around the expo displays and walked past the GameSpot booth where they conduct interviews, etc. with their cameras and lights all set up. Suddenly my heart skipped a beat! On their big screen "Go! Go! Break Steady" was displayed!!!! I couldn't believe it, I enthusiastically marched up to Brian Ekberg of GameSpot and the person he was talking to (they were standing in front of the big screen) and shouted, "Hey! Go! Go! Break Steady is my game!". In the process almost kicking over one of their lights. I must have looked liked a crazed lunatic...so embarrassing. Anyways I watched them tape a segment which was the first GameSpot GDC 2008 Live video segment ...super thanks to GameSpot and Microsoft for doing the coverage.

I attended a little social gathering Microsoft puts on for XBLA developers at the Francis Drake hotel at Union Square. It was really awesome to meet a whole bunch of people who have or are in the process of developing XBLA titles. It was also great to see the MS folks who have been working with us on our game (shout out to Kevin and Justin). After the XBLA social I went to get a bite to eat (a steak at Tad's on Powell St., I always wanted to eat a steak at a fast food diner place like this)...

...I then headed back to the Drake to take a shuttle bus to the big Microsoft party at some club. The party was crazy...club was huge, and still packed, tons of food (i wasn't hungry to eat, I should have skipped dinner), and a really cool band with nice dancers.


All in all I would say it was a pretty memorable GDC. I would like to go back to S.F. with my wife and kids and do some tourist stuff...take the tram, go to Golden Gate Park, etc. One thing that was disappointing was the area around the convention center/Union square didn't have anything really unique, mostly dominated by all large brand name stores.

Capturing HD Video

I picked up a Black Magic Intensity Pro HD video capture card. Every wanted to capture a HD video source to your PC, well here is just about the only economical way currently to do so as far as I know. We need to make a Go! Go! Break Steady game preview video and need a way to capture the Xbox 360 HD output. The card can take input from both HDMI or HD component. Now I have to get a PC powerful enough to use the card. Need to spend more money - booo! - Did I tell you, "Developing a self funded game is only for masochist, financially that is". I would love to hear how other devs have captured HD from consoles.

Lab with Leo Laporte Segment

Today I went down to the G4 TV studio to do a tv segment with Leo Laporte to promote GGBS. They had a makeup artist put makeup on me. I was nervous and I think I flubbed the segment...don't what to think about it. Thanks to Jacob T. for getting me on the show. The show will air sometime in April. Not sure if I want people to see it, see the game - Yes!, see me - No!