The Pensive Gamer

Posted 12/12/2008 @ 12:00:00 PM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Site News , Xbox 360

I’ve always made sure I enjoy my work whether it is at a company I start or a company I join. Loving what you do is even better and since Q3 2004 I’ve loved what I’ve been doing. Managing scanR’s engineering team and being the chief architect has been an absolute pleasure.

Why? Well, we have solved some amazing technical challenges, I’ve learnt a ton about the mobile space, my team is talented and great to work with, and everyone in the company is intelligent, hard working and a pleasure to be around.

But there is one thing beyond a job you love ... the dream job. My dream job is to work in the gaming industry where the work I do on a daily basis has the possibility of influencing the industry as a whole.

There are very few companies that can support such a position. Microsoft is one of them and through a series of serendipitous events I’ll be starting my dream job at Microsoft on Monday.

I cannot give many details of the position except to say it is an architectural role (called a Partner Architect) where I’ll be playing with various technologies and platforms, working with a variety of groups, and I’ll be working for Chris Satchell, the Chief Technical Officer of the Interactive Entertainment Business (aka ‘Gaming Group’ ... makers of Xbox 360, Games for Windows, XNA Game Studio tools, etc).

The decision to leave scanR and move to the Seattle area to join Microsoft wasn’t taken lightly, but when your dream job comes across your plate it is hard not to dig in. I know scanR is in good hands and I offer my sincerest wishes for great success.

Posted 12/04/2008 @ 12:40:10 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Community Games , Games , Indie , Xbox 360 , XNA

In recent years I haven’t played much in the way of Indie games other than what is on Xbox Live Arcade. I’m essentially a console gamer yet a large portion of Indie games are Windows applications.

I’ve stayed away from running/installing games on a PC because I’ve had issues:

• Dealing with hardware/drivers that caused problems in games
• Trusting .EXE’s found on the ‘Net

So now that Xbox 360 Community Games are available to the public I’ve found myself once again revisiting the Indie scene.

I’ve mentioned my fondness for Blow, Bloc and Colosseum, but there are plenty of other great titles including Weapon of Choice, Biology Battle and Word Soup. Microsoft is also continually expanding the countries that are able to submit into the Community Games. As they do, many additional games, including those that were part of the Dream Build Play and Imagine Cup competitions, should be coming our way.

On top of that there are plenty of developers making games using XNA on Windows. I would love to see these on the 360. Have a look at the two examples below and then contact the developers and see if you can help me convince them to get the games onto Community Games.

Ultimately what I’m saying is that I’m super excited to see that Indie Game developers can tout their wares from a venue that is not only dedicated to their cause but also trustworthy for those wishing to play the games.

And if you can, support these developers with not only words of encouragement but the purchase of their games.

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Blueberry Garden

Game Details: http://eriksvedang.wordpress.com/blueberrygarden/
Developer: Erik Svedäng

 

Carrion Re-animating

Game Details: http://www.zombie-cow.com/?page_id=375
Developer: Zombie Cow Studios and Lemmy&Binky

Posted 12/01/2008 @ 04:00:00 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: Community Games , Games , Xbox 360 , XNA

So the American Thanksgiving weekend has come and past. It was an enjoyable time where thirteen people consumed too much food, had too much merriment and are now well positioned, after some rest, to dive deep into the Holiday season.

Of course, for a group consisting of many video game enthusiasts, consoles played an active role entertaining the crowd. When the boys separated from the girls, gaming included Aegis Wing and the investigation of Community Games such as Blow, Bloc and Colosseum  (all of which I highly recommend). Unfortunately, Paulo’s motion sickness kept games like Gears of War 2 out of the equation. When the boys mixed with the girls gaming included Lips, Scene It! Box Office Smash, and a non-video game called Banagrams.

One of the weekend highlights was the mid-Friday visit to downtown Palo Alto’s audio-visual store. While the store was fairly busy, no one was playing the Rock Band setup. We fixed that. My pre-school daughter wailed on drums, Paulo tore through guitar and I screeched out vocals. We attracted a crowd, gained an additional participant and eventually even store employees swapped in to entertain the crowd.

Oh, and I finally understand why people want a browser on their consoles. There was a desire to social-browse, particularly through YouTube. Laptop screens and iPod Touchs are not ideal for group settings and sat in sharp contrast to the ease of watching The Guild through the 360.

I want to thank Dan, linda, Paulo, Gill, Pete, Todd and the Corbett crew for coming by. Without you it would have been just an ordinary, albeit turkey-saturated, long weekend.