The Seattle Indie Game Scene was on Display at iFEST

I recently had the pleasure of venturing out to the Seattle Center--home of the iconic Space Needle--to join the festivities at the Seattle edition of iFEST, a festival celebrating indie game developers. Here are my quick thoughts on some of the games that I had a chance to demo.

VRCade

The VRcade was on display in a room directly behind the registration booth and was probably the most unique experience available at iFEST.

The idea behind VRcade is to provide a high quality arcade experience. The demo that I tried was a basic shooting gallery game. The point of the game was to shoot as many targets as you can within a certain time limit. The targets would pop up within one of three corridors (one directly ahead of you, one to your left, and one to your right) and make a sound that would direct you as to which side to the target appeared. Perhaps the most impressive part of the experience, in my opinion, is how accurate and natural the gun targeting felt. I've demoed similar VR experiences before, and quite often the tracking wasn't quite up to snuff. With VRcade, however, it felt as though I was using a real gun to shoot at actual targets. When I missed a target, it was because I missed the target, not because the tracking tech failed to keep up with my movements. Kudos to the team behind this technology.

Buddy & Me

Perhaps the most polished game was Buddy & Me, by the folks at Sunbreak Games.

This game is wonderful to play. The concept is quite simple, really: an 'endless' runner starring a boy who is joined by his imaginary flying friend as he runs through a forest/treehouse environment. However, it's not the concept that is the most interesting part of the game, it's the execution. The art is quite beautiful and the game controls very well. It feels a lot like taking part in an animated film, especially when you cross from one of the more restrictive forest environments to the visually expansive field environments, all the while followed by Buddy and any 'flying bunnies' that you have saved.

Note of interest: I found that the Buddy character's design and animation evoked feelings of nostalgia, and reminded me a lot of Falcor from The Neverending Story, Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro, and Flammie from Secret of Mana. I talked to the developers about my impression, and they confirmed that those were all influences on the character's design.

The Bridge

I enjoyed playing the Xbox Live Arcade version of The Bridge.

It's somewhat difficult to talk about this game without spoiling some of the experience (and this is why I chose not to post a picture of the gameplay). It has a distinctive, somewhat unsettling art style and has an 'old timey' feel to it. The idea behind the game is to solve puzzles using changes in gravity and logic. I felt that the environments seemed as though they had been designed by a feverish M.C. Escher, and that's exactly how they developers want you to feel. It's quite a unique game that's worth checking out.

Eucloid

This game is very simple, and it is because of that simplicity that the game absolutely works as a competitive game.

I had a chance to play the creator in a Vs match using Xbox 360 controllers. The left stick controlled the movement of our Tempest -style cube avatars, and the right stick controlled the spheres we used in battle. In the game format we played, the purpose of the match was to hit the other player's cube by launching our attack sphere. The spheres, once launched, are tethered to our cube and will return so that we can attack once again. There are some more advanced techniques too, such as teleporting to the sphere's location or using your sphere to disable your opponent's sphere.

This is the type of game that is simple to learn, yet difficult to master. I could see spending many late nights playing this game with friends.

Chess Heroes

Have you ever played Chess? Have you ever played Final Fantasy Tactics? If so, then Chess Heroes is for you.

The basic idea is that you play a 'Tactics'-style strategy game using chess pieces. The pieces start with their traditional moves, but it is possible to level up and get additional moves like the ability to launch a pawn at the opponent. I was a fan of Battle Chess in my youth, and the attack animations in Chess Heroes made me smile in much the same way that Battle Chess did.

Wrap-Up

I was quite happy with my experience at iFEST. The people were fantastic, the games were fun, and the sense of innovation was impressive. I highly recommend checking out the next iFEST.

Folks, keep a watch on the Seattle indie game development scene.

Nintendo Apparently Likes Confusing Consumers

From Business Wire:

Wii is the best-selling system of this generation with more than 100 million units sold globally. Wii mini is for those who don’t own a Wii console and want to enjoy a ton of great Wii games on a stylish system at an affordable price. It is also for families who want an additional console in another room, allowing siblings and friends to play while the rest of the family enjoys other entertainment and games on the main living room TV screen. While Wii mini is not compatible with the Internet and will not allow online functionality when playing games, select multiplayer games can still be played locally with friends and families, which is the ideal way to enjoy such entertaining games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii.

This is an odd duck. As you may recall, the Wii U is selling poorly (though admittedly better these days), and part of the blame can be placed on the poor marketing choices made by Nintendo. When consumers have to be reminded that the Wii and Wii U are not the same thing, you've got a marketing problem. Adding a 'Wii mini' to the mix is not going to help matters. Nintendo should be focused on getting the Wii U on gamers' minds for the upcoming holiday season, especially with the impending arrivals of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Your Performance Gains Probably Had Nothing to Do With Switching Technologies

Carlos Becker, on the topic of Twitter dropping Ruby for Java:

Yeah, in the original post Twitter says that they get 3x more performance using Lucene and Java. The post is OK. The arguments are right. Your interpretation may be wrong. People like to generalize things. Like "Twitter says they get more performance with Java, so, Ruby sucks", which is not correct. If it was, maybe you could also use PHP, since Facebook uses it and it works for them.

Every now and then, it seems as though some hot new technology sweeps through the tech crowd. Praise is bestowed upon the new technology, and scorn is focused on the old technology. Less commonly, the old technology is revived on the basis of backlash against the new technology. That's pretty much the case here. Java was the old and busted technology replaced by the sexier Ruby, then people noticed that Java had its upside and we're back where we started.

It shouldn't have to be this way. There are pros and cons to every bit of technology out there. Every tool has its use, right?

As mentioned by Becker, this is somewhat encouraged by the way these platform-switch stories are presented and reported. Groupon, for example, recently transitioned part of its platform from Ruby on Rails to Node.js. If you read the blog post or some of the reporting on the subject, it would be easy to miss the fact that they resolved architectural problems (unrelated to the underlying technology) during the transition. 'Company X fixes a bunch of technical debt' is a lot less juicy of a headline than 'Company X sees huge performance gain after switching to new technology'.

Folks, don't get caught up in the hype. Think critically about your technology choices.

Don't Do Retrospectives Unless You're Going to Do Them Right

The odds are good that you've been involved in some sort of retrospective meeting. It may have been called something else such as the popular 'post-mortem', but the purpose is generally the same for any given software release/sprint/iteration: figure out what went well and what didn't go well. Why, then, do so many retrospectives go awry? In my experience, there are three very common reasons: there are too many items in the 'must improve' list, there is no follow-up on the items in that list, and the list isn't very good to begin with.

Too Many Items

One common problem I've seen is for a team to put too many items on the list of things to be improved for the next iteration. Ever had one thing to do? How was that? Even if it was a difficult task, at least you could wrap your head around it. Ever had a thousand things to do? How was that? Overwhelming, right? Having too many items on a 'must improve' list is arguably as bad as not having a list at all. While it is often important to document all the ideas on what could be improved, it is best to focus on a handful of items (ideally, one or two) that could be improved for the next iteration. If your team improves one or two things every iteration, then that is continuous improvement.

Overwhelming.

Lack of Follow-Up

Even if you manage to decide on a small number of improvements to be made, you can still run into trouble by failing to follow up on the tasks that will implement the improvement. If no one has the responsibility of ensuring that the tasks get done, then it's quite likely that the tasks will not get done. It doesn't really matter if you have your manager, scrum master, team lead, or intern as the responsible party for keeping an eye on the improvement, what matters is that someone is making sure that the tasks get completed. By the way, the person responsible for ensuring that the tasks get done doesn't necessarily have to be the same person to actually implement the improvement. They just need to make sure that the tasks don't fall through the cracks during the heat of battle.

Nothing But Whining

Okay, so you have a small list of improvement items and someone is assigned to make sure that those items are completed. Everything is great, right? No. You can still have problems if your list isn't very good to start with. While it is common to focus on things that went wrong during an iteration, it is important to remember the things that went well too. It's too easy to get caught up in having 'improvements' that revolve around negative things (e.g. "must make sure that we get the specifications from the customer") and lose sight of the positive things that have been done that could be further improved (e.g. "integrating our source control with our bug tracking system was great, maybe we can integrate that with our help desk"). Improving on your improvements is allowed.

Folks, I'm not going to claim that this is an exhaustive list of things that can be done to make sure that your retrospectives are fruitful. What I will claim, however, is that committing to a small list of well-thought-out improvements will make your software development life better.

The Joy of Android Tablets Made by Polaroid

Autumn is a special time of the year, especially around Halloween. On a foggy Saturday, I ventured out to the local Big Lots discount store to acquire some items for the spooky evening to come. I was prepared for many things--ghouls, ghosts, goblins--but I was not prepared for this .

Folks, I don't have monstrous Hulk hands. That is a device with a 4.3" screen that Polaroid is trying to pass off as a "tablet". This puppy can be had for the low, low price of $55. What, pray tell, does a person get for their money?

This tablet apparently comes loaded with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), a fact that it proudly proclaims. Granted, this version of Android is two years old, but what else can you expect for such a low price?

It comes with a camera, specifically a front-facing camera. Funny enough, this little tablet could arguably use a rear-facing camera. I've seen many people using their iPads as cameras, which always looks ridiculous. In contrast, this Polaroid tablet is closer in size to a smartphone and wouldn't look out of place snapping a pic. Of course, we can only imagine what the quality of the images taken by this tablet's camera would be. (Probably as terrible as one of those Hello Kitty cameras that are sold at drug stores.)

The RAM is a bit scant, especially considering that the Android wasn't particularly snappy in versions prior to Google's Project Butter initiative. Users will have to make sure that they don't use too many apps at once, apparently.

Speaking of apps, the meager 4 GB of storage afforded by this device won't allow for users to have many of those installed. On the plus side, the storage is apparently expandable to 32 GB via a card sold separately.

Folks, this is a terrible device. It's laughable to call this a tablet. I'm saddened by the thought of some poor soul out there having this as their first tablet experience. Now that is a scary thought.

More Hullabaloo About Nike's Lack of an Android App for the FuelBand

From a recent article by Roger Cheng over at CNet:

Nike is only shooting itself in the foot with its stubborn reluctance to work with Android. The athletic apparel company on Tuesday introduced its second-generation fitness tracker, the FuelBand SE, which worked beautifully on Apple's iOS devices and computers. Missing from the presentation, however, was any mention of Android.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the possible reasons why Nike's FuelBand won't have an Android app. Funny enough, those reasons that I analyzed are still as true today as they were eight months ago.

By the way, John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) wrote a short but excellent post on why Cheng's premise is flawed.

Microsoft is Somewhat Less Terrible at Branding and Marketing Than It Used to Be

Microsoft is a company that doesn't seem to understand how to handle the branding and marketing of its products. Poor branding has been part of its corporate culture for a long time now. This might be somewhat understandable for the enterprise side of the house since IT managers aren't typically interested in how cool a product name sounds, but even the consumer side of Microsoft has fallen victim to misguided branding. Recently, the folks in Redmond admitted "...that there was some confusion in the market last year on the difference between Surface RT and Surface Pro". Microsoft certainly didn't help matters by releasing terrible commercials for the Surface product lines.

However, it appears as though Microsoft has learned a lesson or two from its disastrous year for the Surface. This year, the Windows RT-based tablet will be dubbed the 'Surface 2' while the Windows 8.1-based tablet will be dubbed the 'Surface Pro 2'. This naming scheme doesn't really help reduce consumer confusion surrounding the incompatibilities between Windows RT and Windows 8.1, but at least it does a better job of helping consumers figure out which tablet is meant for their needs. As a bonus, this new naming scheme does away with the 'RT' moniker that was meaningless to consumers.

The new branding is highlighted in a series of new commercials. Unlike the previous terrible commercials, these new commercials do a good job of of describing what the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 can do and why I should care as a consumer.

Surface 2 commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCpOvTHmtU

Surface Pro 2 commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lr1WbNz7g0

Folks, Microsoft might finally have figured out that it needs to be better at branding and marketing its products if it wants to compete with the likes of Apple, Google, and Amazon.

The Creator of "Leisure Suit Larry" Spoke at IGDA Seattle

I recently had the pleasure of joining the folks of IGDA Seattle (the local chapter of the International Game Developers Association) to listen to Al Lowe, creator of the hit game Leisure Suit Larry , talk about his experiences and thoughts on the industry.

Lowe is an interesting character. He is quite well known in the video game industry, and yet you wouldn't know it by listening to him speak. He is sagely and eminently approachable with a touch of humility and a dash of mischief. Listening to him talk about his experience working for Sierra and developing his games was akin to sitting by the fireplace and listening to one of my uncles describing some past youthful hijinks. The comfortable environment for the session (in this case, the lounge at Amazon's Van Vorst building) helped reinforce this feeling with its casual couches and bookshelves.

A good portion of the evening was spent as Q&A, with Lowe answering questions that covered the gamut from his early days as a game developer/designer to the recent successful Kickstarter project to do a remake of the original Leisure Suit Larry game. The Kickstarter project, according to Lowe, required much more planning and logistics than he had anticipated in order to handle all the variations of rewards for the project's backers.

I asked Lowe about his thoughts on freemium and its impact on modern games (a topic that is near and dear to my heart). To summarize and paraphrase his thoughts...he doesn't really like it. In fact, he prefers to pay upfront for games. He particularly doesn't like the 'spaminess' of some games that continually ask for money. While he does play some freemium games, he often will stop playing a game after getting hit with too many requests (or sometimes, the first request) for additional payment.

Interesting bit of trivia: some of the Sierra employees became the intellectual property of Sierra as a result of appearing as characters within the games. (Presumably, this only extends to the in-game likeness of the employees!)

Folks, this was a great opportunity to interact with an industry legend. If you happen to see Al Lowe around town, thank him for his contributions and buy him a cup of coffee.

Selling Copies of Windows and Office is not Microsoft's Future

Tim Culpan, Dina Bass, & Peter Burrows over at Bloomberg:

Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s operating systems unit, asked HTC last month to load Windows Phone as a second option on handsets with Google Inc. (GOOG)’s rival software, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Myerson discussed cutting or eliminating the license fee to make the idea more attractive, the people said. The talks are preliminary and no decision has been made, two people said.

This would be a bold move for Microsoft. Over much of its life, Microsoft has been accustomed to having people (or companies) pay for licensed copies of its Windows operating system and the Office suite. That, however, is Microsoft's past. Microsoft isn't a software company; it is a devices and services company.

It is fitting that Microsoft has finally gotten around to releasing Office for the iPad (after previously releasing Office for the iPhone). The timing couldn't be better, especially if the news about eliminating or reducing license fees for Windows Phone is true.

The old Microsoft could not have made the decision to eliminate or reduce license fees for one of its operating systems. Granted, Windows Phone is not the crown jewel that is Windows (desktop), but the OS has been a source of revenue for Microsoft. The new Microsoft, perhaps, has realized that the future for the company is not selling licensed copies of Windows and Office, but instead earning revenue from its cloud-based services.

Folks, Windows and Office were the past. Azure and its offspring are the future of Microsoft.

The Chromecast is Great and Terrible

The Google Chromecast is an interesting beast. It isn't quite a Roku and it isn't quite an Apple TV. Instead, it is something more. And something less.

The Chromecast is a nifty little device. It is roughly the size of a key fob for a rental car and fits snugly into an HDMI port (and if your TV supports USB power then you don't have to worry about using the power adapter). The unboxing experience is elegant. The setup experience, however, was not.

Hypothetically, you should just be able to plug in the Chromecast, switch the TV input, and configure the device using your laptop/tablet/phone. Unfortunately, that didn't work quite so well for me. I was ready to start configuring my Chromecast, but the Chromecast was unable to see my Wi-Fi network.

Silly me, I thought to myself, I forgot to add the Chromecast to the router's access list. No problem, I'll just add the MAC address to the list and retry the setup.

Nope, that didn't work.

Okay, I thought, maybe I'll look up some common problems with my router and the Chromecast. Nothing unusual listed. Might as well reboot the router in case it was stuck in some finicky state.

Okay, I'll try the setup again. Maybe I just got unlucky and there was some sort of interference.

Nope, that didn't work.

This time, the Chromecast gave me an error message that suggested that perhaps I had Access Point Isolation turned on for my router. A quick check of the router's settings verified that this was not the case.

At this point, I was red with fury. Why wouldn't this stupid thing work?!?!

Then, I had a moment of clarity: what if the Chromecast wasn't able to handle connecting to a Wi-Fi network that did not broadcast its name? With my last ounce of patience, I configured my router to broadcast its SSID.

Bingo. Major Tom to Ground Control; I'm feeling much better now, thank you.

Well then. Let's get started streaming. The Chromecast doesn't really do screen sharing the way that Apple's AirPlay lets users share content from their iPhone or iPad. It also doesn't have the 'plop down on the couch with a remote' simplicity that the Roku offers. No, the Chromecast offers less in order to offer more.

The Chromecast has a companion app available for the Chrome browser. With it, users can display any content on their TV that they can display in a Chrome browser tab. For my trials, I used YouTube and Hulu to see how the Chromecast would perform. Those sites are the main reason I decided to get the Chromecast, in order to fill the TV viewing gap that I was missing with having just the Roku.

In general, the streaming worked okay. There was a noticeable lag between the time I tapped on the video controls in my browser tab and when those controls made the same changes on the TV. The video quality was just about what I would expect with this kind of solution...okay, not great.

What do I think of the Chromecast? It fits my needs just fine. It is not as seamless an experience as the Roku or Apple TV, but it is far more flexible than those devices. It only costs $35. Can't beat that price.

I should also mention that I encountered some problems with interference when using a microwave oven at the same time I was streaming video. Get your popcorn ready, indeed. Just do it before you sit down to watch something, apparently.