I sometimes play Boggle at work. I usually lose to the resident Boggle players who are more experienced (at least lately) and have the 4-and-5-letter-words in L1 cache. But sometimes I get to pull out a good word. Often a Britishism which sometimes passes muster with Merriam-Webster, our official arbiter….
Category: Games
IFComp ’09
The 15th annual Interactive Fiction Competition is underway. This year there are 24 games to get to grips with, which gives me a chance of completing a fair percentage.
School
Today was mini-Elbeno’s first day at school! He actually went in yesterday for an hour with Mrs Elbeno to get a feel for the place, but today was the first real day being dropped off and spending the whole morning there. He had a great time! In other news, Mrs…
Blizzcon 2009
Blizzcon was awesome. Last year was cool, but this year as a Blizzard employee it was amazing to be buoyed by all that positive fan energy. It was sensory overload in the coolest way possible. During the opening announcements and trailers the hall was literally shaking with sound at times;…
How a Bug Made Me a Better Programmer
This is the tale of a bug. A challenging bug I encountered some time ago, and which changed my career for the better. It was late 2004. I was lead multiplayer engineer on Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, a title which could charitably be described as mediocre, but I like to think…
Blizzcon 08
I kept this on the down low for a while because of my job situation, but better late than never. I went to Blizzcon with my brother-in-law, and we got the VIP treatment: front-of-line skips to play the games, free swag (and how!) from the store without waiting in the…
IFComp so far…
SPOILERS AHEAD (But for games that are pretty bad, so you might not be bothered…) Somewhat perversely, I like to try play the worst games first, and get them out of the way. I score not according to a strict system, but vaguely according to puzzle fun, plot, and implementation…
Cancelled
My project got cancelled today. I don’t have too much to add to the official memo; I am one of the lucky ones who now has his pick of which project to go to next. Many good people I worked with have been let go; others have been shifted to…
(Part of) what I do all day
Lately I’ve been asked what I do at work. What I really do. Well, if Great Biggary can frequently expound on his latest Maya scripts and python excursions, here goes with my explanations… Most of what I do all day is read code. Just like an author or poet will…
I finally played Portal
It was actually among my professional objectives this year to play Portal. So last night I sat down with it for a few hours. It was enjoyable, and short (which was good); and original, which was also good. Well, the portal mechanic is certainly original (counting Portal as the true…