Bootstraps

Apologies for the hiccup in weekly Smatterings--that'll be fixed right away.  

This isn't much for you to smatter, perhaps, but I've been thinking a lot about what it means to make the next step in a professional arts career.  I've been thinking about promotion, and what to work on, and how to present one's self and products, and how to do it while maintaining a regular life and job, and how hard it seems, and how I know that so many other people have done it successfully.  

And how many have not.  

I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and his theory that it takes 10,000 hours of true, focused practice to become a master.  And I just read this article http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/issue/featuredstory.cfm?story=3 about being an entrepreneur for yourself, because you are your product.  What struck me most was this little quote: "If your skin crawls at the idea of trying to sell anything, let alone yourself, try approaching the challenge as you would approach a role. As former talent agent Phil Carlson suggested to me, think about it as 'the acting you have to do in order to get to do any acting.'"

Oh, the article is about being a professional actor.  But I decided it may as well be about game design, which then meant I should view all of this as the game I have to design (and play) in order to get to do any game design.  That makes it a bit more... undaunting.  Right?  

A bit of fun, at least.  

Before I ramble too much more, I suppose it comes down to this: how much do you enjoy the activities you truly love?  And how much do you let get in the way of those activities?  

I can't imagine feeling more accomplished over anything than I would over completing a large video game project.  Hell, even a small one.  Nothing else appeals to quite the same extent that designing a unique, compelling, funny and interactive world filled with interesting choice does.  

But I'm fat.  And there sure is a lot of me to get in my own way.  

Time to shed some of that weight so I'm easier to lift by my own foot accessory ropes.  

Exactly.  

Play-by-post Pals: where everybody knows your shame

In an effort to make our games more accessible, we'll be rolling out play-by-post versions for a couple titles in the coming weeks.  

Playing-by-post (PBP) means utilizing an online forum to take turns in a game.  For example, anyone will be able to start a game of Pals by opening a new thread and posting their first question.  The second player (be it a friend you invite, or any random awesome person) will respond by answering your question and posting their own.  Play continues at your pace, you can play multiple games at once, and you can even receive email notifications so you don't have to check incessantly for a response.  It's free-to-play made freely by us!  

And of course, in order to play Pals, you'll need 24 faces.  That's why I drew those other faces... and these faces, too!  Take a gander and let me know which ones you like, and they may just end up in the final version.  Sad, Sad Stories will also receive the PBP treatment, although Vampires, Vampire Slayers, and Whores unfortunately doesn't work in this form.  We don't currently have plans for creating a PBP version of Them's Fightin' Words!,  but if anyone out there is itching to play, definitely let us know and we'll reconsider.  

If you've got any other questions about how this will work (or are sitting mouth agape at how awesome it will be), let us know in the comments.  

And again, go ahead and see if I drew you (intentionally?  Unintentionally?  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm)!

 

 

Not so Guiltifesto, buddy. Time to change (but never stop punning)!

A year ago, I wrote a little something called my Guiltifesto.  It couldn't be more straightforward: guilt + manifesto = Guiltifesto, capitalized for stature.  It outlined a number of goals I hoped to accomplish in the following year, and I posted it online so that it would be public knowledge.  The public part mattered, not because I was arrogant and thought everyone should know what I was doing, but because I expected the guilt I would feel over not doing the work to motivate me. 

And uh, I didn't achieve all those goals.  I put in a fair amount of work toward them, especially in the general sense that I wanted to focus my creativity on games.  I definitely did that, and I'm glad I did. 

But my plan was to feel awful so that I would work better. 

Threatening misery as motivation--that makes some sense, sure.  When you suspect you'll be miserable if you don't do something, you weigh the risks and rewards and realize you should buckle down now so that you'll be happier later.  But my strategy was that I would first become miserable, then work on something, then hopefully be happy once the work was done.   The problem, of course, is that that's crazy.  Any enjoyment I would gain from writing would have to make up for the misery--which would only mean I'd broken even--and to get ahead, I'd need to be really happy with the work.  Turns out, feeling forced to work on projects doesn't energize me.  Or make me work on them.  Or, when I do finally work on them, mean I'll do good work. 

It's just draining. 

On top of that, I wasn't getting the boost in energy I feel from writing.  Yep, it's work, but feeling good about what I've done is the eventual reward--and I haven't gotten that for a while.  It's been a bit too grind-y to really enjoy it. 

Which doesn't mean I'm done with writing.  Rather, I'm going to try to get over guilt.  And being guarded.  And I'll chuck as much baggage as possible. 

I'm a risk-averse person from a risk-averse family.  We're emotionally guarded, even with each other.  Guarded about saying things that might make other people feel guarded. 

It's smooth.  All perfect, unmarred, free of all jags. 

I think I'd better stop doing that.  It's probably why I'm tired all the time. 

I'm tired from second-guessing what people want, rather than just saying what I want.  I'm tired from not talking about what I want to talk about, and just sort of hoping someone says something I might be able to make interesting.  I'm tired from having to perform, from having to optimize, from having to always put my opinions second. 

Hopefully this isn't all ranty and not worth reading.  Maybe someone else will get something out of it, or at the very least, you'll think about what behaviors you have that aren't helping you and you'll cut them out.  It's not really about gamification of my life, either, as I'm not going to give myself jellybeans for speaking my mind (although that sounds awesome).  It's really just about being more confident.  Valuing my shit.  Thinking I deserve to speak my mind. 

So, maybe you didn't enjoy this post.  After all, we're only Probably Entertainment. 

But, in the interest of sharing something I find fascinating, here's a TED talk about how posture affects brain chemistry.  Unsurprisingly, I do just about everything wrong--but when I've consciously changed my posture and the way I walk for a couple hours, I feel better.  In fact, I'm hunched and scrunched up while writing this... which could explain the tone a bit.  Time to power pose and take over the world. 

http://blog.ted.com/2012/10/01/10-examples-of-how-power-posing-can-work-to-boost-your-confidence/

Before Christmas, I tried the jellybeans.

Conservative estimates place the increase in my thoughts about jellybeans during exercise by at least 255,000%. 

(Conservatives assume I think about jellybeans all the time (instead of never), but who can blame them?)

All other conclusions are still awaiting further evidence, as I've only jellycized once.  That's hardly a comprehensive study.  It's nothing more than the fattest science I've rationalized before going home and eating every crystal of sugar humanity could throw at me. 

In other words, I need to exercise.  Badly.  I'm going to try those magical exercise beans again soon, but not today, for it is my birthday. 

And the cake is not a lie. 

(Oh, and eating 2x every die roll worth of jellybeans?  Overkill even for fatties.  I'll stick to 1x, especially since I ate jellybeans every time I rolled.) 

(Subtle fat joke there, with the "rolled".) 

Also, I now own my first Xbox ever thanks to my girlfriend, who is the best girlfriend.  I couldn't play PC games while biking, but perhaps I could play console games.  Leaning over the handlebars to reach a keyboard and mouse is much harder than holding a controller--and I have a few RPGs, too, which don't exactly require laser accuracy while playing.  Perhaps this is actually how I'll lose weight--no Xbox without first working out. 

While playing Xbox. 

I'm correct in thinking everyone agrees with me on this, aren't I?  "You can bridge the gap between fat Peter and fit Peter by using jellybeans and RPGs" is how the soon-to-be-written adage goes, right?

Gamble-cise? Exergambling? Whatever. Let's get less fat with games.

I get addicted to games all the time.  

Also, I'm fat.  I thought about writing about what it's like to be fat (for example, how working in a theatre over the summer with no AC is like having the heat of a thousand balls on your forehead while you lift things made out of metal and pure gravity), but instead started thinking about something else.  

Could I become addicted to NOT being fat?  Or, could I get addicted to exercise?  

Yeah.  It doesn't seem fucking promising.  People become addicted to things because their brain teaches them that a stimulus (food) is good (keeps you alive), which works (makes you fat) until it doesn't (you're still fat).  

Actually, the part where it stops working is when you die, or a better behavior comes along.  It requires your brain to stop sending the juice when you're behaving a certain way.  Exercise is all about expending valuable energy and literally tearing your muscles, which are two things your body wants to avoid at all costs.  Your brain needs your body, so it tells you to cut that shit out.  

So, can I trick my brain into giving me juice when I exercise... by using games?  

Can I maybe rewire my brain into thinking that exercise leads to video games?  Or can I turn exercising into a video game?  

I think this is what I'm going to try to do.  It conveniently lines up with the new year and may resemble a resolution, but that's coincidental.  I've been working out for a while, but I'm hoping for a bit more of a boost.  Plus, a resolution about tricking myself into exercising?  That sounds neurotic.  

So here's how I'm going to do it (hopefully):

I already do "interval" workouts on an exercise bike--you break your workout into chunks of time, and you coast for 80% of each chunk... but go as fast as you possibly can the other 20%.  Bike your goddamn mind out for one minute, take it easy for four.  It's hard, but by breaking the time up, it goes faster.  Also, humans are endurance animals, so biking kinda hard for 25 minutes doesn't burn fat the same way that biking like hell for 5 minutes does.  Interval workouts trick the body into thinking you're in a high-stress situation and you need to burn reserve energy in order to stay alive.  Your body can recognize single-pace exercise and your metabolism coasts.  

That's what I read, like, five years ago anyway.  And I still like it.  By changing what I'm doing every few minutes, the time passes much more quickly.  That's perhaps an extremely minor version of gamification right there, but I'm looking for something even more enticing.  

What if I introduced a random reward schedule into the mix?  For those that don't learn how to control other beings' behavior, random reward schedules are the best way to make a creature do what you want.  (Disclosure: I would never use this on other humans without specifically not telling them.) Training a dog, for example--when you're trying to teach it to sit, you give it a treat when it sits.  Do it again the second, third, fourth times... but not the fifth.  But do it the sixth and the seventh, then not the eighth, then yes the ninth, then no, no, yes, no no no, yes yes, no no no no.... yes... because the dog won't know whether or not he'll get a treat (but he knows that sometimes he does), the dog will continue to sit for you when you ask him to.  

It's no coincidence I've become addicted to games that treat me like a dog.  The Diablo series is a pretty straight-forward hack-n-slash game where you kill millions of demons because once in a lifetime one of them will drop Frostburn gauntlets.  And throughout, you're picking up countless rings and amulets and fucking sweet swords from the corpses of mummies and midget demons.  That's the entire game... and I definitely got a pair of Frostburns once.  

If you haven't noticed, this is basically gambling.  These types of game designers use terms like "compulsion loops" because it's all about making people play their games against their will.  Getting players addicted is the game--and then taking their money with purchases that let players progress more quickly (hello, Zynga!) is how they make money.  

But I can't get gauntlets from riding an exercise bike.  What will I do instead?  

I'm going to roll some dice whenever I change intervals (4-5 times per workout).  Those dice will determine... something... good.  One die will probably determine if I get a reward, and the second will determine how big the reward is.  First, I need to decide just how important it is that the rewards be physical, and whether they're instant or delayed.  I'm pretty sure instant will work better--the longer between a stimulus and a reward, the weaker the association--so I'm not sure that rewarding myself with extra minutes of video game time later or a dessert that night will work very well.  I'd also considered rolling dice to determine whether or increase or decrease tension on the bike, but removing a punishment doesn't feel all that rewarding (and keeps me from working out as hard, so is possibly counter-productive).  

I'll probably use jellybeans.  

They're instant, they're cheap, and they're Starburst fucking jellybeans--yeah, citrus candy makes me sweat weirdly, but I'll already be working out, so I couldn't give fewer fucks about that issue.  

I'm thinking I'll start out by treating myself whenever I roll lower than 6, and then give myself as many jellybeans as I roll with the second die (possibly 2x, y'know--to amp the association).  Every week, I'll lower the likelihood I'll get a reward, although I probably won't decrease the reward.  Y'know--association ampage!  

And of course, feel free to share anything you think might help this strategy work, as well as any addictive behaviors you have!  Or have gotten rid of!  And you'll probably know whether this worked by how skinny I get.  

(or don't get)

Cheers!