Digital vs. Physical

I sure wish full color was an option for the Player's Guide, but the printing cost is huge. The only way to bring the cost per unit down is to do larger print runs, which requires even more money upfront. I have considered a Kickstarter Campaign, but unless my gamble with IGA works out and demand for printed books increases across the country, investing in putting together a Kickstarter (and updating the Player's Guide with tons of full-color art) is going to end up as a loss. I still think digital books is the way to go, and more and more people seem to be running tabletop games from their laptops—that's what I do at all the conventions, too. Otherwise, I'd be hauling tons of books around to run all the different missions that I GM during convention weekends. What's your take on digital vs. physical books? Do you find less value in having a digital book over a physical one?

Updates

Now that the long weekend is past, I'm planning to start another Comic Short for Solar Echoes on my Youtube Channel. If you haven't yet watched the other 4 shorts, or the 15 minute Video Comic, please consider subscribing to my channel so you won't miss future updates.

In other news, I've printed up booklets of the learn-by-play demo, Operation: Flash Strike, which you can download for free online at www.SolarEchoes.com or at RPGnow.com. I'll be working with Indie Game Alliance and sending these printed demos out to their “minions,” which are people working for IGA that will run the demos at different conventions across the country. The booklets turned out great and look really nice, but because they are full color, they cost as much to print as the Player's Guides, which are over 4 times as many pages. I don't plan to print many of these demos in the future, but they did turn out to be pretty cool. 

Thank you Balticon friends!

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day yesterday. A quick note: Yesterday I sent out some complimentary gifts from RPGnow.com to everyone who left their name and email address with me. If you didn't receive it, it's either because I couldn't read your writing (and the email bounced back) or you didn't leave your info with me. The convention at Balticon was extremely busy, and I ran games for a total of 29 hours over 2 and a half days. Both Saturday and Sunday I ran games for a full 12 hours straight, and I must say, I was fried by the end. I took Memorial Day off and recovered at home—you may not know it, but I'm actually an introvert, which means that I get very drained by interacting with more than one person at a time. Running Solar Echoes games with anywhere from 4 to 8 players can be really exciting, but was also very mentally exhausting and is contrary to my reclusive nature. I was very fortunate that there were so many great people that chose to play Solar Echoes this weekend, and everyone made it a fun and exciting experience. Despite my exhaustion, I was extremely happy to see that Solar Echoes was popular with so many people, and it's extremely rewarding for me to see everyone enjoying the game. There were even some returning players from previous years that brought their old characters with them to play again. After everything was over Sunday night (which finished with an 8-player group and a big, 5-hour mission on the Krissethi planet, Sa'mesh), I was sad to leave and I will miss everyone a lot. Thanks so much for making Balticon such a memorable experience for me! The rest of this week, I'll be talking about updates and future developments for Solar Echoes, so stay tuned...

Balticon 52 Weekend

It was a great weekend at Balticon 52, and I ran Solar Echoes games on Friday from 3-8, Saturday from 9am to 9pm, and Sunday from 10am to 10pm, plus, I ran a panel discussion on Game Design and Publishing Friday night. It's been a busy weekend, and my mind is still swimming from all the memorable game experiences with everyone--I met some really great people and am going to miss them a lot! Below are a few photos from this weekend featuring some of the people that joined the game, though I only have a few because we were all so involved in the games! Thanks again to everyone who attended and spent some (or all?) of their convention time playing Solar Echoes!

Solar Echoes at Balticon 52 this weekend!

I'll be running Solar Echoes demos all weekend, and Friday night at 9pm, I'll be presenting at a panel discussion about Game Design and Publishing.

Hope to see you there!

Programming AI to Program...Us? (part 4)

Nick Foster (head of design at Google “X”) envisions the ledger as much more than a tool for self-improvement, however. He believes that the system could “plug gaps in its knowledge and refine its model of human behavior” beyond the individual, but for the entire human species. “By thinking of user data as multigenerational, it becomes possible for emerging users to benefit from the preceding generation’s behaviors and decisions.” Foster would like to mine this database of human behavior for patterns in order to make “increasingly accurate predictions about decisions and future behaviours.” He believes that when enough data has been collected, “it may be possible to develop a species-level understanding of complex issues such as depression, health, and poverty.” While this sounds like a noble intent, the dark side of the equation involves the reactions and determinations that will be made from the collected data. Who is deciding and prescribing how to treat society's ills, Google? And what if you personally don't ascribe to Google's “values as an organization?” What if decisions are made to remove from society things that Google has decided are a risk towards depression, health, or poverty? Have you ever seen the movie, “Equilibrium?” I highly recommend it.

Programming AI to Program...Us? (part 3)

In the Selfish Ledger video, Google prompts users to select a life goal, and then guides the user towards this goal in every interaction with the phone. Some examples in the video, which “reflect Google’s values as an organization,” show the device suggesting to an online shopping user that more environmentally friendly options should be considered or locally grown produce should be purchased instead, listing these options first and highlighting them. The ledger will be hungry for every bit of information about you that it can gather to form its conclusions and “guidance.” Part of the vision for the ledger is that it may become so aware of your needs that it will go beyond proposing solutions, but potentially take actions itself, such ordering or 3D-printing something for you that it thinks you need or want. Anticipating our desires is problematic enough, but acting on predictive data opens up a much more disturbing capacity of devices driven by Google AI. With so much data and influence, an AI may very well be steering user behavior, all in accordance with “Google's values as an organization.”

Programming AI to Program...Us? (part 2)

In Google's defense, they stated that the internally circulated Selfish Ledger video was only a “thought experiment” by their Design Team using “a technique known as 'speculative design' to explore uncomfortable ideas and concepts to provoke discussion and debate.” Supposedly, according to Google, “It's not related to any future products.” Yet one of the ideas in the video suggests that your data doesn't belong to you—an idea that is already becoming more mainstream in our society today. The data on our actions, decisions, preferences, movement, and relationships is collected through our phones and used by Google to form our data profile. Perhaps our only recourse for privacy is turning our phones off, because the mindset that our data doesn't belong to us fuels the concept that our phone is a user data-collection device for Google and other interested parties. Google knows that very few of us will choose to turn off our phones or do without them, so we are tacitly ushering in a new age of monitoring and manipulation. But how does Google plan to manipulate us with this data?

Programming AI to Program...Us? (part 1)

An internal video from Google in 2016 revealed how Google is already working on using data collection to reshape the future of society. The video, called “The Selfish Ledger,” was filmed by Nick Foster, the head of design at Google's “X” division. This video was shared internally to demonstrate how data collection from users could be used to nudge or “guide” those users towards Google's goals. The main idea is focused on what Google terms a “ledger,” which is what they use to describe all the data that they collect about you—it's a data profile of you. They state that the way we use our phones is a “constantly evolving representation of who you are,” and Google is interested in using that data to modify our behaviors. Google goes even further, though, suggesting that this data can be passed on to others just as genetic data is passed on to our offspring, generation after generation. The concept is to sequence a data genome of sorts into a huge social engineering effort. An effort to reshape humanity.

New Solar Echoes Comic Short #3 on Youtube!

I hope you enjoy the new comic short on Youtube called, "Rage Paint." If you're unfamiliar, Chiraktis warrior drones often paint themselves with Rage Paint, a chemical laced with pheromones that drive them into a heightened battle frenzy.

Comic Short #3 on Youtube

The Future of Single-Player Games (part 4)

Open-world games are often extremely successful when compared with more static, linear experiences. When I've played through a linear singleplayer story campaign in a game and finished the story, there is seldom any reason for me to go back and play the game again. Gamers often sell their games back to the store after solving them. The video game retailer, Gamestop, buys used games and a large portion of their returned inventory are singleplayer, linear, story-driven games. Developers have been figuring out how to keep players engaged long after the story is over by investing more in the open-world environments and side-quests, but how is this affecting the stories being told through the game? Pacing changes a great deal if players are allowed to pursue the story arc at their leisure—a distracting side-quest here, a few item collection runs there, and suddenly the urgency of the story fades from memory. It's interesting how the story can eventually become a reason to keep playing the game after a player has gotten the wanderlust out of his system in the open-world. At least, until a new environment is unlocked through the story—then the story is often put on hold as the player is off to explore again. Story is crucial to a game, but locking players into the story without giving them the freedom to experience the game world on their own terms is starting to look like a bad game-design choice. What do you think?

The Future of Single-Player Games (part 3)

It's interesting that story-driven singleplayer games once dominated the market. Massive role-playing games like the Final Fantasy series or action-adventure/survival-horror games like Resident Evil were the rage in the mid-nineties. Over the years, these franchises still remain, but they have undergone some interesting changes that reflect the general trend in singleplayer gaming. No longer are most games designed in a linear event-driven fashion. Instead, the story is told at a more relaxed pace while paired with open-world exploration, optional side quests, and random events. Massive open-world environments that allow for a “sandbox” style of gameplay encourage players to explore and play the game the way they want, rather than to follow a linear series of rail-roaded events. Gone are the days of static environments and camera angles. Instead, free-movement and open-roaming options allow players to wander and play the game entirely apart from the story if they choose. Games like The Witcher 3, the Farcry series, MadMax, Skyrim, and Fallout are singleplayer games that all involve open-world exploration with a variety of sidequests to choose from. Why is this form of singleplayer so successful?

The Future of Single-Player Games (part 2)

With so much focus on multiplayer video games, a lot of developers are adding sub-par singleplayer modes to at least seem like they care about the gamers who want to play alone. Developers have learned from EA, a giant in video game development that owns the license to the Star Wars universe. The infamous Star Wars Battlefront online multiplayer game received a very negative backlash from gamers when EA didn't include a singleplayer mode at all. Yet despite this incident, singleplayer games are clearly not the focus of most large developers. Few remain dedicated to making singleplayer only games, though some developers such as Bethesda Softworks (Skyrim, Fallout), Santa Monica Studios (God of War), and Naughty Dog (Uncharted, The Last of Us) excel at it. However, many critically acclaimed singleplayer games such as Dishonored 2, Prey, and inXile's Torment: Tides of Numenera all saw extremely disappointing sales. There are interesting trends emerging for these types of solo experiences, and traditional styles of singleplayer games from past decades are disappearing fast. What is changing?

The Future of Single-Player Games (part 1)

When video games first began, it was all about single player. For at least two decades, video games thrived on singleplayer, and multiplayer--if it was included--involved couch co-op (sitting together with friends or family.) Once online gaming became possible with the internet, though, the landscape slowly began to shift. No longer was multiplayer tacked-on, but instead, it was often the focus. Some games are now only playable through multiplayer with online communities driving the game. Once players tire of a game, though, some competitive online games can no longer be played, which is possibly one reason gamers get upset when a game does not include a single player mode. But what is the future of the single-player game? Will it survive?

New Comic Short on Youtube today!

I've put a new comic short video on Youtube today--get to know the benefit of having high persuasion skills, like Reln often do. Sometimes there's more than one way to deal with the guards!
I hope you enjoy the video, and please consider subscribing to my channel. Any likes, comments, and shares are welcome, too!

Solar Echoes Comic Short #4 on Youtube

Envisioning the Future (part 4)

It's hard to see past our paradigms—the way we are accustomed to viewing reality based on our assumptions and experience. As a small example, when writing scifi RPG Solar Echoes, it was easy to assume that in the future, something light night-vision goggles would be used by the military, but it would probably be more efficient, lightweight, and smaller than the current military apparatus used today. However, this assumption was based on what I know of today's technology. Several years later, I read an article about research that is being done on eye-drops that can allow a person to see in the dark for several hours before it wears off. This shocked me, because it was such a shift away from the concept I was accustomed to, but it made total sense. Bio-technology is something that probably receives less attention and consideration when we try to envision the future, but it might be a huge part of what we will see someday. What if we no longer had to wear a set of VR goggles to see into the virtual world? What if our eyes could be altered to receive signals through a remote device, so we could see into the AR/VR “spectrum” without having to use a clunky piece of hardware? With voice recognition technology rapidly improving, the means of interface might someday simply be your voice. However, I suspect it will even be beyond that—there are already neural technologies being developed that can scan and pick up words you think to say but haven't yet spoken. It's quite possible that a digital “telepathy” isn't too far away for us, where we will be sending and receiving messages with our thoughts rather than texting with our smartphone keyboards.

Envisioning the Future (part 3)

VR and AR are some of the most recent and fastest growing technologies today. Countless companies are jumping into the marketplace with their own devices, and these devices are increasingly more efficient, powerful, comfortable, and portable. If you thought VR was going to be a passing fad, look again, because it is very likely here to stay. Someday soon, we may simply need to put on a pair of glasses to enjoy this technology, which can overlay images with the real world out plunge us into an entirely alternate world. The entertainment industry obviously stands to benefit the most from this technology at the moment, but it is also being used and developed by the military and in medical science. Even real estate companies and travel agencies are making use of immersive virtual tours, where you can walk around and "visit" other locations from your couch at home. Yet with all these technologies, I've only talked about what we can infer from current developments. What leaps and changes might we be missing from this future forecast? It's time to shift our paradigm a little, and theorize about larger shifts...

Envisioning the Future (part 2)

We can make a few educated guesses about how technology will change our future based on what we know now. Robots and artificial intelligence are being developed today like never before, so though we might imagine a society where a large part of the work-force has become dominated by robots. We might also see self-driving cars and other AI-driven automation as commonplace. More hands-free technology may also be standard, as voice-recognition technology is becoming increasingly capable, such as with devices like the Echo and Alexa. 3D-printing is a fairly new technology that had been developing at a very fast pace yet has received less focus than other new technologies. Yet 3D-Printing isn't just being used to make small 3-dimensional objects; it's also being used on a very large and a very small scale. Giant 3D-printers have already been used to quickly print entire finished houses, with one Chinese construction company printing 10 houses in a single day, for a price of $5,000 each! In the medical field, 3D Bio-printers are already able to print human tissue, such as a layer of skin, muscles, or cartilage, and advances in this technology are being aimed towards the capability of printing entire organs. The potential of this technology may change the medical field forever, and it could possibly extend lives well beyond normal life expectancies.

Envisioning the Future (part 1)

When we look at some of the technological advances in recent years, they might not seem as groundbreaking as they really are. We've quickly grown accustomed to smartphones, for example, and an entire younger generation is growing up with them assuming society has always been this way. Kids born only a decade earlier may remember a time without smartphones, but can't imagine what it was like before the internet. And a couple decades before that, the availability of home video game consoles and home computers was just beginning to develop. Technology is moving fast, yet it is difficult for us to look a decade or two forward and really have a good idea about what is coming. Many technological developments--such as the smart phone or home computer--involved entire paradigm shifts by visionaries like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (who made home computers more accessible with Windows). It's doubtful that even they saw the huge changes our society would undergo with their innovations and the developments of others. Looking ahead ten or twenty years, can we accurately foresee what our society will be like, with all the fast-moving technological developments we've been seeing hints of today?

May the 4th Be With You!

Happy Friday from Solar Echoes! Lots of stuff going on as I'm preparing the next video comic short, working on a new flyer for the upcoming convention I'm attending (Balticon!), putting things together to get a few physical copies of the free Solar Echoes demo printed in full color, preparing/condensing notes for a talk I'm giving on Game Design, organizing and toying with ideas for a new scifi novel I may or may not write, and...all the other stuff I have to do in daily life such as working at my music job, manage all the drama associated with my teenage daughter, help my wife out with as much as possible, and...deal with my little dog, who made a mess this morning and is acting very, very guilty. He knows he was bad. And 1 day after I gave him a shower! Ugggh. Have a great Friday, and...

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!

(don't those trailers for Solo look awesome?!?!)

Solar Echoes Comic Short #2 online!

The Solar Echoes Comic Short #2, “Unpleasant Weather,” is up on Youtube today! Please remember to like (if you do like it ;) and maybe subscribe to my youtube channel. Comments are always welcome, and the more sharing, the better! If you saw #1 earlier this week, you might have noticed these are not named characters—I'm just labeling each by their alien race name to help familiarize people new to Solar Echoes with each alien. This is probably the only week that will see two releases, but you should see #3 up next week sometime, because I'm nearly finished with it. I've been learning some new tricks with editing as I've been putting these together. One trick is using frame overlays with the speech text so that I don't have to re-design entire frames if the animation and text needs to sync differently. Another trick I discovered is that I can use the “pan and zoom” feature across animated frames. Previously, I'd thought I could only us it for a single frame, but by linking together animated frames, saving them as a separate file, and then bringing THAT file into the editor, it's treated as a single frame at that point and I can then apply the pan and zoom feature to it to create a little more “camera” movement across animation. 

Solar Echoes Comic Short #2 on Youtube

Share Your Video Comic Short Ideas!

If you missed yesterday's post about the new Solar Echoes comic short on youtube, check it out, it's a 1 minute video. I already have a couple more that I'm going to release over the next few weeks, but I also wanted to let you know that I'm looking for more ideas. If you've played Solar Echoes and remember a funny moment in your game, please share it with me--I might be able to make it into a video comic short, too! These are designed to introduce the alien characters of Solar Echoes and the fun nature of the game itself. Many of the comics I'm planning are based on actual gameplay events, so don't hesitate to share yours!

New Solar Echoes Comic Short on Youtube!

A new Solar Echoes video is up on Youtube! This one is a little different than the full video comic I released a couple weeks ago--I'm calling this new video a "Comic Short," because it is 1 minute long and is intended to introduce the personalities and cultures of the Solar Echoes alien characters. I'll be putting more of these up over the next few weeks (I already have 2 more finished). I hope you enjoy it, and if you wouldn't mind, please subscribe to my Youtube channel

 Solar Echoes Comic Short #1