The last few years I have spent the month of July tent-camping in Michigan. Parts of the family will join me for much of this but I usually spend a week or two alone. Every morning of this month begins with a 3-4 hour reading and writing session on the beach. As for what I’m reading, each year I choose a different topic to research and I will have a few books on that subject and will spend my mo...
i have mentioned him twice before (way back in
2013 and again in
2014).
for the last few years, st. louis has spooled up a bit of an indie game thing. enough so that folks around the country were noticing it. enough so that a film studio in california sent a crew out here to make a documentary about it. as the film team began their work interviewing the known studios they ended each interview by asking the dev shops if there is anyone in particular they should talk with. all of them unanimously said "the coster boys over at butterscotch". after repeated recommendations, the movie men reached out and scheduled a twenty minute informational session. that meeting lasted three hours.
the next day the film crew re-contacted the coster boys and (1) thanked them for their time and (2) asked if they might be interested in having a feature length film done about their story. they said yes. well, technically they said, "heck yes" turning the typically two syllable phrase, somehow, into a five syllable verbal roller coaster because that is just what they do in life.
the documentary just came out. here are some related matters:
today i'm going to talk about someone else's list: famous year-end list pusher TIME Magazine. this year i have the honor of knowing one of the people on one of their lists. a dear friend of mine produced a game that made TIMEs list of TOP 10 GAMES OF 2016 (#7). the game is called crashlands.
for those who know my friend's story know that this is an extra-poignant victory on numerous levels. in short, my friend got sent through life's wringer being told at the mature age of 24 that the odds of him being alive in a year's time were quite bleak. hell, i think there was a time they said if he was alive in a month, it would be rather miraculous. if you've ever seen first-hand a greater example of tragedy, devastation, spirit, strength, resilience and perseverance i would deem you a most-fortunate individual as witnessing this young man's ordeal changed me in no small way.
for those of you who don't know my friend's story, here's an abbreviated version of the crashlands saga (in list form):
sam graduated college and started making kooky ios games with his brother, seth (e.g. piloting a rocket ship with occasionally working controls through an asteroid belt)
sam and seth, working as butterscotcth shenanigans, saw modest but growing success with their early games.
out of nowhere the crazily-healthy sam was told he had stage 4 cancer. the day before he thought he was coming down with a cold. three days before he beat his also crazily-healthy brother seth in a three-mile footrace.
it was bad. all very bad.
modern medicine met super-human samuel coster and a chance, albeit a meager one, was found.
in the middle of the multi-month, in-hospital treatment sam said to seth, "i don't want the last game i make before i die to be about a sloth riding a motorcycle through the jungle."
the next day the first crashlands neuron was fired.
months later sam rang the bell and walked out of the cancer treatment ward, a free and cured man.
crashlands development began in earnest and began to take for-real shape over the next year.
the cancer returned. bigger and bolder.
a half-year medical battle was waged, again.
sam rang that bell, reserved for few, a second time.
crashland's work resumed.
after more than two years of effort, and two cancer treatments, including a bone-marrow transplant, the game was released.
as for how crashlands did, its first week out it sat right below minecraft as the most popular iPad game, ready to be the first to knock Minecraft off the #1 perch it held for more than a year. while they never succeeded in taking the pole position, assuming the second spot in today's flood of games is a remarkable feat in itself.
and it also did well enough for time magazine to name it a top ten game of 2016 which is representative of the popular and commercial success it saw.
and lastly, if you're wondering what a kooky ios game looks and sounds like, get a taste of the coster boys work and style below. the voice you hear is sam's.
oh, and there's also a documentary coming out about all of this. the last i heard it is scheduled for release on january 21st, 2017
one last thing. regarding the second round of treatment sam went through. to erradicate the cancer, they, the doctors, had to, essentially, kill him, sam, to kill the cancer that re-invaded his body. when both were dead or in sam's case, walked right to the door of death, the doctors would attempt to nurse him, and just him and not the cancer, back to a healthy state, which they were astonishly able to do. since watching sam shoulder that hell-wrought wildcard from life's deck, i've never looked at another of my "trials" the same.
aleo and i have been playing some video games together. much of this time, especially in the early going involves him getting me functional. occasionally his use of language is the greatest. two examples that stand out are:
1. i was complaining about my joystick. he asked to see it. he moved around a bit and then said, "yeah, your joystick seems to be a little cockier than mine. we can trade if you'd like." i said i'd rather not, because i for sure thought the cockier controller would pay off in the long run (this has not yet come to pass).
2. then we were playing something else on the computer and i was complaining about the mouse being extra twitchy. again, he asked to see it, opened up a control panel or two, moved some dials and then told me to try again. in explanation, he said his friend maria was over playing with him and he had to turn the "sensibility" up for her. knowing maria as i do, i'd second aleo's suggested course.
and let's get past the point where i come off as a over-delicate fool that just complains when things aren't exactly to my liking. it's not like this is getting exponentially worse with each year that passes. i can't help if i'm a touch cocky and high on sensibility.
for the last few years marty has organized a large regional girl scout retreat. she first took it on during bella's short-lived stint in a troop. but even after bella stopped going, marty had formed a fondness for the mission so stayed involved. if i'm remembering correctly, alex attended more of these weekend adventures than bella has—it surely never hurt that all the girls found him wildly...
the recent news that microsoft was looking to buy mojang's minecraft had the elementary playground in a frenzy. at one point a kid ran up to anthony, shouted the news in his face and when anthony didn't really respond the boy grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him and screamed that he was totally under-reacting to the news. alex and i had a timely dad-lunch scheduled later that day. our entire hour was filled with talk of the sale.
after going over the perils of tinkering with something at its peak (never mess with a winning game) i asked alex what he thought Notch, the rumored hold-out owner should do. without much of a pause alex said, "well, he seems to love what he does and given how many people play minecraft i guess he has enough money to pay for his house and live, he should probably not give up the thing that makes him most happy."
to my emphatic retort of, but alex, it's a billion dollars.
his reply.
but what if he can't find another thing that he enjoys as much as this. then he traded something he loved for something that he doesn't.
i'm often struck at how quickly kids can boil down adult decisions.
after a little more digging into the story we learned that while Notch loved the creative and creating side of his minecraft project, he very much did not love the business side of things, so the release of the project made more sense than initially thought.
when the news of the sale finally hit, every minecrafter i knew, young and old alike, were visibly pensive at what was in store for their beloved technology in the hands of an organization known for fumbling easier slam-dunks than this.
if you don't recall the start of my minecraft career, it might be prudent to refresh yourself before continuing.
i'm continuing to log minecraft hours with the boys. playing with the boys reminds me why adults often talk about how quick kids are to pick up new technology things and how young people view us as slow and addled. after ...
a young friend of mine was recently diagnosed with cancer. it arrived with a suddeness and ferocity that is hard to comprehend, let alone understand. the manner in which this young man, sam, has shouldered this dark card in his deck is as hard to comprehend as the event itself. i have twenty years of life experience over this fellow and even had the privilege of once calling myself his teacher, and he has faced this moment with a maturity and courage i don't think i've ever witnessed first-hand, like ever. suffice it to say i often feel as though i'm the one in the auditorium looking up at him standing tall and confident at the lecturn. to give you a taste of this young man, i share his latest broadcast from his company web-site:
When I got my cancer diagnosis in November I was completely blindsided. I went in on a Friday afternoon to get a lumpy piece of my chest checked out and the doc, calm as a hurricane eye, stepped back from the table and crossed his hands.
"You're...how old?"
"I'm 23."
"This is going to... sound strange. I'm nearly certain that this is cancer. You'll need to get it cut out as soon as possible."
I went out to my car and had an earthshattering bawlfest that lasted a brief 4 minutes. Then I called my brother Seth, the programming half of our studio.
We are a two-man team, doing everything from inception to launch on the games we make. In telling him about the diagnosis I admitted I was terrified that this cancer would take our fledgling indie studio and throw it under the ground, as it may throw me. Seth reassured me and became my chauffeur for the next week as we went up to Iowa from St. Louis to do surgery, get the diagnosis complete, and figure out treatment.
It was Stage 4 lymphoma. It was on my spleen, my liver, my pelvis, my entire lymph system. The docs at the time said it might even be in my spinal fluid. A PET scan showed that my insides, rather than consisting of nice fleshy pinkness, were a coating of tumor. Despite how aggressive the cancer was, I was given a 65%-ish cure rate. Chemo was to begin the next week before I decided to up and die from tumor load.
The two weeks between diagnosis and treatment was a true whirlwind of activity and emotion. It wasn't until after I received my first chemo infusion that my anxiety settled and Seth and I sat down to begin again on our project at the time, Extreme Slothcycling.
As we began to plan a wry feeling started bubbling up from my chest. Something about this was wrong. Hysterically wrong. I interrupted Seth as he was in mid marker-swing across the whiteboard.
"Seth. I don't want Extreme Slothcycling to be the last game I make before I die."
you can follow the adventure, and get plugged into their next game which my alex is feverishly awaiting, at their website butterscotch shenanigans.
one last minecraft note related to last week's story. to the obvious question of why, if alex was so excited about this herobrine mansion map, did he not play it before. the reason alex had never played the map before is he had heard that installing such add-ons (e.g. maps, mods, and skins), while a great enhancement to the regualr game play, could sometimes cause computers to crash and since his mom was letting him use her computer to play the game, he didn't want to do anything to mess it up. so even though he ravenously wanted to install the map, this young boy never did so because he did not want to cause problems for his mother who was generous enough to share her computer with him. he instead settled for hearing about it, watching videos of other people playing it, and hoping that one day he might get access to a computer, more his own, that he could install such things onto and not worry about inconveniencing someone.
it's safe to say this boy is slightly more conscientious than i was at ten ... or maybe even forty.
a quick recap. yesterday i talked about making a change in my approach with alex. in short, i made the decision to allow alex's interest to direct our time together instead of me pushing things i deemed more worthwhile for alex and his development (yeah, i know, what a big-time ass). presently, one of alex's premiere interest is a game called minecraft. as a rule, i'm reasonably derisive towards video games believing them to be an unfortunate use of young minds primed and ready to learn real things with a never-to-be-had-again ability or rapacity. in putting aside my agenda and deciding to support my son in his interest, i called one of my best friends, bookguy, who i knew played the game and asked his advice. bookguy defended this particular game saying it was better than most and iterated through the reasons why, a key one being the intensely creative nature of the game which craftily blends lego-like building with dungeons and dragons-like adventure. bookguy also pointed me to a few things to accelerate and amplify our experience.
so monday night, the first night of the new troy, alex helped me install the game on my computer. he then schooled me on the basics and helped me to build, or craft rather, my first house, complete with a roof and bed. i backed away from the computer after night one feeling good about our progress.
on tuesday night i suggested to alex we try to load one of these maps my friend told me about AND to try to get the local network gaming figured out, another bookguy tip. alex inquired about the map and i said i had one in mind. i pulled up the webpage bookguy directed me to and the second it appeared on the screen, alex lost it, and i mean completely.
ALEO
herobrine's mansion! herobrine's mansion! that's the map we're getting?
TROY
i think so. if we can get it figured out.
ALEO
oh my gawd dad! that is like the most amazing map ever made for minecraft.
TROY
that's what i hear.
ALEO
oh my gawd! oh my gawd! i can't believe this is happening. this is amazing!
and happen it did. we got the map installed, the texture add-on in place, and the networking figured out. alex and i, with anthony enthusiastically watching, ran around a mightily impressive world made by some mightily impressive dude. there were lots of excited explanations by alex and re-spawnings by dad (namely because i kept hitting the bad guys with a piece of steak instead of my sword). let's just say a certain corner of our house was much more lively than it has historically been for a routine tuesday evening.
when i later put alex down for bed he thanked me for playing minecraft with him and getting the maps and figuring out how we could play together. he then said, "dad, this was the best day of my life" and from the dreamy seriousness in his voice i felt that he was not embellishing his mood, not one iota.
had you told me on sunday afternoon that i would be experiencing this moment forty-eight hours later, i would have wondered what major life event had occurred. it just turns out the major life event was a quiet ten minutes of thought. i knew i wanted something more from a very important part of my life, i just didn't know it was so close at hand.
but, there is a bad side to this story. the unfortunate side effect to injecting an ok life with a plunger-full of awesomeness is it can make ten year olds curse like a target stock boy. it peaked as my minecraft character dropped into the newly installed herobrine world when alex, awe in his wide eyes, shouted in my ear, "ohhhh! this is awesome!! this is so fricken' awesome!!!"
if personality equalled stock portfolio, these two would be in the fortune 500
i have a friend (and former student) who makes iphone games. he works with his brother and they are a most colorful duo. every week they send a mailer out to their followers about what they've been up to. there's always loads of kookiness in their sendings but then again, who'd expect anything less from a group that calls themselves butterschotch shenanigans. at the base of a recent update mailer was the following.
and before you start, and if you're like me, i'll save you the trouble of looking up the fact the TL;DR stands for "too long, didn't read".
TL;DR
We're delaying the iOS launch until we get some engine-sourced bugs DESTROYED.
Our Android users are lovely people who are putting up with our crashing bugfest quite splendidly.
If an Android QR player and an iOS QR player meet on the street in some distant utopian future, the iOS user should say "Hey, thanks for making this game better for the first time I booted it up, even though I hate you for having it way earlier." And then they should high-five and bro-fist pound.
Towelfight 2 is still free on iOS!
TTLDRWTLSIDRI ("The tl:dr was too long so I didn?t read it")
sam, we fear your work is a little dark for us. i'm sorry.
a former student of mine, super-sam, recently dropped in for dinner with us. as the adult conversation hit its stride the kids tuned out of the boring side of the table and chatted and goofed among themselves. this time though, my guest, caught the kids ears when he said he was interviewing for a job with a game development company. surprising everyone at the table, after this comment was made, alex spoke up interrupting sam and asked what he just said. sam repeated his hope and intention to get a job making video games. to this alex started asking sam if he's heard of many of the games alex has been playing. it was a hit and miss list. in time the conversation moved on.
a few days later alex handed me a letter. i thanked him and started opening it thinking it was another one for me. sensing my mistake alex said, "it's not for you dad. it's for that boy, that boy that is going to make games. it is some ideas morgan and i had of games he can make." sam, who went on to get the job, hasn't even been assigned a desk yet and already has a creative team doing his bidding. truth told, i expected no less.
firstly, alex is not good with names. he just calls most people who visit our house "that boy" or "that girl" so that he put a male name in that spot at all is a bit surprising. marty caught the mistake and had him fix it, but he only corrected the name on the outside of the envelope where it said "opin". additionally, you can't expect the creatives to have to bother with unimportant things like their boss or client's name. they have more pressing neurons to tend to. and speaking of creativity, i'm not sure if the world is ready for exploding babies yet but if it is, with the insight shared in this napkin pitch, sam may get the jump on the market. the letter transcribed and corrected follows:
hi david. i want to tell you me and my friend morgan made up two funny games. bablyliss war and babies vs parents. in bablyliss war there are buildings and baby guns and baby swords or nothing (meaning they would punch) will fight against ninjas, armies, aliens, wizards and people with swords. and babies vs parents is just like plants versus zombies.
on the second game idea, i'd guess they either ran out of creative steam or morgan's mom called and said it was dinnertime.
i cannot tell you how much i wish i took this picture.
i know not one but two of the fellas in this picture which makes me one acquaintance shy of knowing all three people in one of the best-ever photos chronicling american society.
at last friday night's bachelor party (congrats mikey d) one of our stops included a video arcade place. for the most part i hate the modern day video house, what with all these newfangled hi-fi games. like many i'm a classic vids man. today's fare is nothing more than a bunch of space ace's lining the wall. big frills, no skills.
and as a purist in an unappreciative world i was relegated to the back corner of the room, as too often happens, where they had a stand up game capable of playing all the lost jewels from yesteryear; galaga, joust, robotron. sadly there was no excite bike. or marble madness now that i think about it. but i did get to momentarily return to my adolescent years as well as smugly inform some square 40-something how missile command was truly supposed to be played. tourist.
if i were an animal i would not be a lion. there are a number of reasons for this. for one i could never contort my face into such a fierce countenance. i am also not the king of anything. i came close once. i was jake at tetris for the gameboy, but then e-love showed up and made me his lioness (i.e. bitch). i think i recall that lions like to run around and piss or spray on things as to say "hey,...
