Links and things from August
Sommer is coming to an end, the autumn equinox is just over eleven days away as I write this. At that point I'll be in Italy on a family trip, right now I'm waist deep in prototyping and studies.
The game design studies are going good. We're still in the startup phase, so a few of the projects have a lot of overlap with hobby projects I've made already. But now in Unity and C#. In our first weeks we made the classic space shooter clones. Now we are making paper prototypes for three different games over two weeks. Its quite an intense creative challenge, but very interesting. Some of the things we've made deserve more work in the future I think. We'll see if that actually happens.
Last weekend I was at Hell Blues, a full weekend of (mostly) blues music in the very tiny place in Norway literally called Hell. A lot of great music there. Found a few new (to me) artists worth having a listen to:
- Adama Janlo; wow, what a voice and range!
- Tora Trio; great stage presence and a really intimate show. Might not be shocking that I like music where the bass has this much space.
- Blue Benders; me and my dad listened to them for the trip up to the festival. They had a lot of energy on stage and a good show that was ruined by their sound tech pushing the volume up to 116 dB... We survived three songs before leaving. But the music sounds good though. Would love to hear them play with better sound.
I am reading too many books at once right now. Some for school, some for fun. Rebecca Thorne released a new book a few weeks ago, so I am of course reading that. *Moss'd in Space* is great so far, love a semi-organic computer with abandonment issues.
I am also reading Slow Productivity by Cal Newport and Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky. The two are a fascinating read together and might deserve a post on their own once I finish them and my thoughts settle.
Other things from the interwebs:
- Polaris Game Design Retreat - a lot of interesting reports in here about game design. Have not read a single one yet, but they jumped to the top of my reading list.
- Wages of Sin Gave Me a Midlife Crisis - a great review of Wages of Sin. Would love to pick up the book and run it, but time might not be on my side at the moment.
That is all for now. Have a good September!