Ah, keeping a blog active… never a strong suit of mine. \u00a0But, I thought I’d take a few moments to update anyone who stops by my corner of the Internet.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on a busy summer, gone too soon…<\/strong><\/p>\n Mostly heavy-hearted, I returned from Japan at the very end of May, having spent the whole first half of the year\u00a0living there with Hanna (my girlfriend), who’s on a contract working for an English school, and NHK, the huge BBC-style public\u00a0broadcasting organization\u00a0of that country. \u00a0If you’re wondering, there’s\u00a0no hidden bad news here; I couldn’t stay any longer without getting a work visa (which I considered). \u00a0Living there (again and for real this time)\u00a0was an incredible experience that I still haven’t taken the time to really document and share, partially out of busy-ness, and partially out of attempted modesty: I’m very grateful to have the crazy opportunity to jaunt off to Japan for significant chunks of time, and do my best not to rub it in peoples’ faces. \u00a0But at some point when I’m feeling calm and have no big deadlines looming (hah!) I’ll get some of my favorite photos and moments together for anyone interested.<\/p>\n Anyway, I got back to the States and went literally straight from the airport to the Boston VR Bender<\/a>, a VR game jam put on by Owlchemy Labs<\/a>, Boston VR, Valve, and Unity. \u00a0It was nuts, and I’m very proud of my jetlag-conquering abilities (stay up all night, get on a noon flight, sleep for 12 hours, arrive at\u00a0exactly the same time the plane took off<\/span> (time (zone) travel is weeeird), wake up in East Coast Time!). \u00a0I worked with\u00a0Danger Donaghey<\/a> (of Defective Studios), Iain Barrett-Byrnes<\/a>, and Michael Schenck<\/a> on a little flocking AI \/ time-freezing project, and had a great (if not a little stressful) time doing that, and experiencing Valve’s VR hardware<\/a>.<\/p>\n The biggest chunk of the summer went to teaching Unity (my curriculum<\/a>) and Maya classes at Digital Media Academy<\/a>, in Los Angeles and Cambridge, which was\u00a0a total blast. \u00a0One of the Unity classes in particular was a real joy to teach, full of bright and hungry young people. \u00a0I continue to wonder how teaching fits into the life plan. \u00a0On one hand, it takes a lot of time and energy away from my Defective work. \u00a0On the other hand, when it’s good, it’s great, and has been increasingly fulfilling. \u00a0I’ve been talking with DMA about designing some very interesting classes this year, so we’ll see where that goes.<\/p>\n There’s also been a new website contract project on Defective’s plate, giving me the opportunity to brush up again on my CSS and JQuery skills. \u00a0Good to keep those somewhat updated, even if that’s not my bread and butter.<\/p>\n And somewhere in the midst of all this stuff, despite the long quiet on the Defective devblog, I’m happy to say that I’ve been working on two new games, one\u00a0for VR (ie Oculus Rift) code-acronymed\u00a0“VRMT,” and the other for touchscreens (watch \/ phone \/ tablet), codenamed “SSSC.” \u00a0 Which bring me to….<\/p>\n Jumping into an even busier fall<\/b><\/p>\n In less than a week, I’ll be debuting VRMT\u00a0at the Boston Festival of Indie Games<\/a>. \u00a0 Only a few days after that show, the demo\u00a0and I are off to Los Angeles for Oculus Connect<\/a>, their first developer conference, for which I’m obviously quaking with excitement. \u00a0I’m not gonna say too much about VRMT\u00a0for now, other than that anybody who knows me and what I’m into making won’t be too shocked — it feels in a lot of ways like the culmination and distillation of a lot of the ideas I’ve been working on since founding Defective (and holy crap that’s been five years…). It’s very early right now, and it’ll be a sneak-peak that I show at FIG and Connect, but I’m extremely excited about this project, and think that it’s the container in which many of my long-time goals will come to fruition. \u00a0Not to hype it too hard or anything \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n And whenever there’s downtime on VRMT, or an abundance of help, I’ll be finishing up the touchscreen project, SSSC, and getting that out to the world. \u00a0Again, I won’t say much for now, but I love playing it, and most people who’ve tested the early iterations have been between mildly\u00a0and fully\u00a0obsessed with it, so I’m feeling very optimistic about its eventual (sooner than later) release. \u00a0Especially on smartwatches, which I’ve been holding my breath for, for I don’t even know how long, and am really ready to start\u00a0working with.<\/p>\n And just to be clear, CosmoKnots hasn’t seen an update in a while, but that’s set to change soon. \u00a0VRMT is actually, in my scheme, a huge component of the next steps of CosmoKnots.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I feel that “it”, the elusive goal-cloud to which I’ve dedicated myself for as long as I can remember, is extremely fucking nigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ah, keeping a blog active… never a strong suit of mine. \u00a0But, I thought I’d take a few moments to update anyone who stops by my corner of the Internet. Reflecting on a busy summer, gone too soon… Mostly heavy-hearted, I returned from Japan at the very end of May, having spent the whole first … Continue reading Reflecting on summer; big things extremely effing nigh.<\/span>