"Head First Java" 2nd Edition
by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates
The 'Head First' in this book has a double meaning. You are diving into Java head first, but you are also considering how the mind works. The authors know how best to teach people about a topic which can be occasionally less than interesting... By leveraging the way our brains process information.
Applying knowledge of human behavior to any topic is interesting to me. Combining two geeky topics is always a winner. With the background information, the pictures, and lots of 'why' as well as what this is a great book to learn Java from. The exercises never feel like a burden, many of them had me running to my computer to test them out. They also switch things up with puzzles, crosswords, and matching games to keep anything from getting repetitive and boring.
This book is definitely not written like a text book. Although it would make a great text book for any Java class. To supplement the information in this book head over to thenewboston and watch a few of Bucky Robert's tutorials. Overall I am very pleased with "Head First Java" as a first book on the topic.
Next week's post is a great write up of wire framing a game design! Stick around, its a great post. On the fourteenth we're going to have a guest poster. If you would like to guest post contact me.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
RTS eSports Opinion
Most RTS titles from the big game companies are attempting to move in a direction of eSports. This is somewhat similar to the arch of Magic: the Gathering. If you are not familiar with M:tG it's the classic CCG that came out in the early 1990's. When first released most players were hardcore table top RPG nerds playing classic Dungeons and Dragons. The draw of the game was being able to cast spells and magic away from the D&D table. Eventually it became about competitive winning at the pro tour. Creating the DCI (Bonus points if you know what DCI stands for) was an amazingly smart and forward thinking move on the part of Wizards of the Coast. However the tournament scene caused the innovation and the refinement of winning deck design to take over the community. There were really two different games running simultaneously. The people playing 'just for fun' and the people playing in the Pro Tour.
The RTS genre is going through a similar change. Warcraft was originally about fun and storytelling. Dark Reign was also a very entertaining, although buggy, RTS game. Blizzard has, however, moved the genre towards entertainment by way of competition. Whether you claim they are learning from real sports, or M:TG or getting their ideas from somewhere else, proponents of esports are definitely aiming to keep players attention by making them compete with each other. It's an interesting solution to the problem of longevity in AAA title design.
On the other end of the gaming spectrum we have the absolutely amazing success of Minecraft. Some people may say they have gotten a 'lucky' hand dealt to them at just about every turn. I think they have tapped something altogether lacking in most game titles. There is no real sport to MC. Not at the moment at least. I personally doubt that Spleef or any other Minecraft activity will ever dwarf the amount of time people spend simply expressing their creativity. At least I hope that is the case. The game is about expressing one's creativity and has tapped a deep seated desire to create and control a world. The replay value of the game comes not from competition with others, but rather through expression.
Competition is not inherently worse than creative play. It's just not what everyone is into. The major game labels are missing out on an audience that is looking for creative sandbox play. There are plenty of eSport RTS games out there (Starcraft II, Firefall), but it would be nice to have some more titles out there like Dwarven Fortress, Minecraft, Dungeon Keeper, where yes it is real time, and yes it is strategy, but it also provides the opportunity for creative play.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Taking the blog Ad Free...
You may have noticed some of my last few posts have been 'filler'; not stellar resources. Well an unfortunate thing has happened recently. I have maxed out the time that I can spend searching for the 'dream job' in game design. I have had to spend time getting 'a job'. Fortunately a great career came along at just the right time. I have accepted a job with New York Life as a Financial Adviser.
Most of my professional experience has been in financial services. First as a Credit Analyst, and later working in the Transfer Agent at a mutual fund company (for those not in the know, a transfer agent is the department that processes buy and sell orders for brokers, dealers, and shareholders). Being a financial adviser would be a great opportunity to talk about money with people who need advice... And these days everyone seems really willing to talk about finance in ways they were not in the past. The recession has opened the culture to want to discuss personal finance.
Additionally I found a volunteer program at Action for Boston Community Development, where I would be taught how to file taxes and volunteer to help low to low middle income families file their tax returns. Both positions would add value to the other and are really great opportunities. So much great stuff to learn with much potential to be lucrative in the long run.
What does this mean for game design? Well for the next five years or so I really will not be able to focus on the industry that I am passionate about. I do intend to keep going to the conventions, the un-conventions (GameLoop), the community events, and keep making games... Just a lot slower then before. I still want to be a part of the community of game development. Networking with folks in the game design industry and just generally being helpful is fun in and of itself. I do not intend to stop doing that.
The Contracts signed by my new employer state that I shall focus on learning their trade. I should have no other job (it's going to be at least a 40 hour a week job, maybe more). None of my contracts say that I have to stop blogging. I feel that it's within the letter of the contract and the spirit of the contract to keep the blog open and keep writing, but to turn off adsense and to stop the affiliate program. In other words this blog is going ad free! You might also notice less frequent posts, and some changes in content. For example it might become more about game reviews. Or more about reports from the various events in the Boston Scene. I want to keep bringing information that helps developers, but talking about game design when you aren't actually experiencing it is not truthful.
For now this blog is going to change to better suit my current career. Who knows, five or seven years down the line I might make a really great Chief Financial Officer at a start up game company. So you all better get cracking making a kick ass company to entice me away from Financial Planning. ;) In the short term it also means that my day to day activity be involve advising small business about financial concerns. I would rather build my business helping this industry... because I love it, but also because quite frankly game designers need a lot of help when it comes to long term financial decisions.
I'm clearing out a couple blog posts that have been sitting around for a while. A piece on RTS eSports, then a book review on "Headfirst Java". After those two posts comes one that I'm really proud of. I had a chance to sit down with Dave and Ralph at The Tap Lab and talk with them about the wire frame version of their game TapCity. Paper Prototyping of games was on my mind a lot before my interviews with New York Life and I put together a great post on wire frames and paper prototypes.
Most of my professional experience has been in financial services. First as a Credit Analyst, and later working in the Transfer Agent at a mutual fund company (for those not in the know, a transfer agent is the department that processes buy and sell orders for brokers, dealers, and shareholders). Being a financial adviser would be a great opportunity to talk about money with people who need advice... And these days everyone seems really willing to talk about finance in ways they were not in the past. The recession has opened the culture to want to discuss personal finance.
Additionally I found a volunteer program at Action for Boston Community Development, where I would be taught how to file taxes and volunteer to help low to low middle income families file their tax returns. Both positions would add value to the other and are really great opportunities. So much great stuff to learn with much potential to be lucrative in the long run.
What does this mean for game design? Well for the next five years or so I really will not be able to focus on the industry that I am passionate about. I do intend to keep going to the conventions, the un-conventions (GameLoop), the community events, and keep making games... Just a lot slower then before. I still want to be a part of the community of game development. Networking with folks in the game design industry and just generally being helpful is fun in and of itself. I do not intend to stop doing that.
The Contracts signed by my new employer state that I shall focus on learning their trade. I should have no other job (it's going to be at least a 40 hour a week job, maybe more). None of my contracts say that I have to stop blogging. I feel that it's within the letter of the contract and the spirit of the contract to keep the blog open and keep writing, but to turn off adsense and to stop the affiliate program. In other words this blog is going ad free! You might also notice less frequent posts, and some changes in content. For example it might become more about game reviews. Or more about reports from the various events in the Boston Scene. I want to keep bringing information that helps developers, but talking about game design when you aren't actually experiencing it is not truthful.
For now this blog is going to change to better suit my current career. Who knows, five or seven years down the line I might make a really great Chief Financial Officer at a start up game company. So you all better get cracking making a kick ass company to entice me away from Financial Planning. ;) In the short term it also means that my day to day activity be involve advising small business about financial concerns. I would rather build my business helping this industry... because I love it, but also because quite frankly game designers need a lot of help when it comes to long term financial decisions.
I'm clearing out a couple blog posts that have been sitting around for a while. A piece on RTS eSports, then a book review on "Headfirst Java". After those two posts comes one that I'm really proud of. I had a chance to sit down with Dave and Ralph at The Tap Lab and talk with them about the wire frame version of their game TapCity. Paper Prototyping of games was on my mind a lot before my interviews with New York Life and I put together a great post on wire frames and paper prototypes.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Tips for being useful on Reddit.
Reddit is a great tool for driving traffic and interest to a game project, blog, or website. There is a thriving community there. You can also earn Karma for posts and comments, making Reddit a kind of a game. Don't get distracted by Karma though, remember this is about connecting redditors to useful information. Then every so often driving it to you. The title on this post is 'Tips for being useful on Reddit' because that is the best strategy to 'winning' on the site. Be useful to others.
Being helpful to the Reddit Community can drive traffic to your site, and give you practice in dealing with some of the roughest comments on the web. Feedback can be brutal, as well as snarky and you'll get a down vote before a helpful suggestion. But learning how to deal with the community and how to provide Redditors with information that is useful to them can bring you rewards. For example traffic spikes of 500 to 1000 hits for a single post with 50 up votes placed in a strategic subreddits like r/game, r/indiegame, /r gamedev. Some posts on reddit get as high as 2000 up votes. That's some serious traffic.
Too much Imgur.
Far too many people take screen shots of things and link to that image on Imgur. For example a screen shot of a tweet, instead of a link to a tweet. This is lazy redditing... But also oddly enough it takes more time set up then to link to the thing you took a picture of. For example if someone announces that Desktop Dungeons is about to go Beta, links to a screen shot of the tweet, they are missing out on driving traffic from Reddit to the twitter feed in question. That's a lot of people who could be retweeting this great news. Also smart Redditors get upset at dumb ones and leave nasty comments.
Bonus points if you notice who made that mistake.
Dealing with the emotional damage.
So you made a mistake. And people were nasty to you. They leave mean comments. How do you prevent a flame war? When you legitimately make a mistake, fess up. Explain why you were dumb and how you plan on correcting it in the future. Then actually change your behavior in the future.
Don't do what I did and link to screen shots of tweets, link to the tweets themselves. That way Redditors can follow the people who made the tweets and get the information in the tweet as well.
TL;DR
1.) Find you community on Reddit and learn what it needs to know, and how fast it finds out.
2.) Be helpful to everyone, even the trolls. Even the down voters.
3.) Ignore Karma, measure Hits.
4.) Link directly to things.
5.) Post your only your best blog posts to the appropriate subreddit.
Being helpful to the Reddit Community can drive traffic to your site, and give you practice in dealing with some of the roughest comments on the web. Feedback can be brutal, as well as snarky and you'll get a down vote before a helpful suggestion. But learning how to deal with the community and how to provide Redditors with information that is useful to them can bring you rewards. For example traffic spikes of 500 to 1000 hits for a single post with 50 up votes placed in a strategic subreddits like r/game, r/indiegame, /r gamedev. Some posts on reddit get as high as 2000 up votes. That's some serious traffic.
Too much Imgur.
Far too many people take screen shots of things and link to that image on Imgur. For example a screen shot of a tweet, instead of a link to a tweet. This is lazy redditing... But also oddly enough it takes more time set up then to link to the thing you took a picture of. For example if someone announces that Desktop Dungeons is about to go Beta, links to a screen shot of the tweet, they are missing out on driving traffic from Reddit to the twitter feed in question. That's a lot of people who could be retweeting this great news. Also smart Redditors get upset at dumb ones and leave nasty comments.
Bonus points if you notice who made that mistake.
Dealing with the emotional damage.
So you made a mistake. And people were nasty to you. They leave mean comments. How do you prevent a flame war? When you legitimately make a mistake, fess up. Explain why you were dumb and how you plan on correcting it in the future. Then actually change your behavior in the future.
Don't do what I did and link to screen shots of tweets, link to the tweets themselves. That way Redditors can follow the people who made the tweets and get the information in the tweet as well.
TL;DR
1.) Find you community on Reddit and learn what it needs to know, and how fast it finds out.
2.) Be helpful to everyone, even the trolls. Even the down voters.
3.) Ignore Karma, measure Hits.
4.) Link directly to things.
5.) Post your only your best blog posts to the appropriate subreddit.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Tips to drive traffic to your game with Reddit.
Reddit is a cool way to get information about just about anything on the web. It can also drive a lot of traffic for your blog, website or product. It's especially good for driving traffic in game related markets. How much upside is there? Well let's use blog.zorts.net as an example. My first post on Reddit increase my new visits by 96.31%. My second post on Reddit returned 92.80% new visits on top of the first post. Those posts scored 14 up votes, and 51 up votes respectively. Very few people voted my posts up, but tons of people clicked on them. Other peoples posts on Reddit can get 2000+ up votes. That is a lot of possible traffic. So how do you actually capture some of that traffic?
First you need a Reddit account. Very easy to set up. Much like guest posting on other sites take a moment to set up a good reference to your own blog. You can't link your profile to your site directly, but make your profile work with what you have already built. Make sure that when you leave a positive comment it ties to your content. Unfortunately on Reddit backlinks are not quite as important or acknowledged as the all important 'timely post'.
Next we need to think strategically. It might be really tempting to start putting all kinds of links up on Reddit right away. Instead spend your first week or more figuring out where everything is. Actually read Reddit! Do some searches for content that is relevant to your blog. Figure out where the subreddits are that contain what you are interested in. Some good places for a game designer to start are:
/r/gaming 622,787 readers
/r/gamedev 11,461 readers
/r/Indiegaming 9,645 readers
/r/GamingNews 6,179 readers
Third, Reddit can be a double edged sword and you should treat the sites readers with respect. By posting your own game there you are asking for their patronage. Respect the readers time, and have something new to say. Not every blog post should be linked to on Reddit. Be an actual and authentic participant on Reddit. If you have blogs that you follow, promote them as well. Give them a +1 if they are already Redditors. Much like on blog posts leave a positive comment which adds value to their posts.
When Markus "Notch" Persson first created Minecraft he used Reddit to get the word out. And the game exploded. There is even a /r/Minecraft with 65,408 readers (as of writing this post). Over the course of development Mojang has spent next to nothing on marketing their products, but continue to leverage social media to get the message out. They did this not by going out and targeting the site specifically or by doing research. Makrus used Reddit because he was on Reddit already. It was an organic thing. That's the best strategy for viewing your presence there as well. Not only does Mojang make really fun games, but they also are extremely savy at promoting those games online because they are really savvy about being online.
To get the most out of Reddit what you really need to do is provide value to others. You have to be useful. Do you have any other popular methods of using Reddit? How do you deal with down voting? How do you deal with others posting the same links? Is your game the next Reddit Success? Share any tips for discussing things on Reddit in the comments.
First you need a Reddit account. Very easy to set up. Much like guest posting on other sites take a moment to set up a good reference to your own blog. You can't link your profile to your site directly, but make your profile work with what you have already built. Make sure that when you leave a positive comment it ties to your content. Unfortunately on Reddit backlinks are not quite as important or acknowledged as the all important 'timely post'.
Next we need to think strategically. It might be really tempting to start putting all kinds of links up on Reddit right away. Instead spend your first week or more figuring out where everything is. Actually read Reddit! Do some searches for content that is relevant to your blog. Figure out where the subreddits are that contain what you are interested in. Some good places for a game designer to start are:
/r/gaming 622,787 readers
/r/gamedev 11,461 readers
/r/Indiegaming 9,645 readers
/r/GamingNews 6,179 readers
Third, Reddit can be a double edged sword and you should treat the sites readers with respect. By posting your own game there you are asking for their patronage. Respect the readers time, and have something new to say. Not every blog post should be linked to on Reddit. Be an actual and authentic participant on Reddit. If you have blogs that you follow, promote them as well. Give them a +1 if they are already Redditors. Much like on blog posts leave a positive comment which adds value to their posts.
When Markus "Notch" Persson first created Minecraft he used Reddit to get the word out. And the game exploded. There is even a /r/Minecraft with 65,408 readers (as of writing this post). Over the course of development Mojang has spent next to nothing on marketing their products, but continue to leverage social media to get the message out. They did this not by going out and targeting the site specifically or by doing research. Makrus used Reddit because he was on Reddit already. It was an organic thing. That's the best strategy for viewing your presence there as well. Not only does Mojang make really fun games, but they also are extremely savy at promoting those games online because they are really savvy about being online.
To get the most out of Reddit what you really need to do is provide value to others. You have to be useful. Do you have any other popular methods of using Reddit? How do you deal with down voting? How do you deal with others posting the same links? Is your game the next Reddit Success? Share any tips for discussing things on Reddit in the comments.
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