Virgin America Rocks

I just got back from the X-Ray Kid Google Lively ship party in Los Angeles, which was frankly awesome and merits a post of its own as soon as I can get photos to go with it. But for now, I just have to write about Virgin America.

Virgin America is a relatively new airline, and frankly, it's the best one I've ever flown on in the continental United States. Period. There is no better.

Not only are the flights comparable in price to other airlines (eg. Alaskan - hithertofore my favorite airline), but they somehow have managed to do something no other airline has in a very long time.

They're classy.

No, seriously. They care about the traveling experience, and it shows.

The view from the seat. Look at the pretty mood lighting. It's positively forcing you to relax

Not only are they running a fleet of brand new Airbuses, but they do lots of little things to take the edge of. Little, psychological things that you might think wouldn't really make a difference, but do.

Like putting flowers at the check-in desks and at the gate. Which isn't a big thing... but it's nice. And it makes you feel more comfortable.

All their staff are probably the friendliest people I've ever seen in an airport. Ever.

They have mood lighting on the plane, which makes for a more interesting experience than the usual horrible white fluorescent lights.

Free headphones that they hand out from bins in the gantry as you get on the plane.

Free soft drinks - the first round of which is delivered to your seat standard style. After that, you can use the in-seat entertainment system (which you can use to play Doom, or watch a movie you can buy... or watch free TV and TED Talks - which kept me busy for over an hour because they're always worth watching) to order more drinks, which they'll bring to you personally when they have a moment.

Which is freakin' awesome.

It's also the first airline where the pilot (Lloyd, on flight 715 from LAX to Seatac, 6:35pm, 8/24/2008 in case anyone wants to pass this on to him) made a personal point to come over to me & Darci (who were waiting to see if we could upgrade to exit-row seats because the check-in systems were down), and to thank us for flying Virgin America, and for our business, and to tell us that he was going to be flying us to Seattle today, and he hoped we'd have a good flight and that the gate people would be there shortly.

Darci and I stared at each other. We were sure he had been drinking - or something. And then a little while later, he got up again and left the crew who were waiting for their flight to come in, and introduced himself to another passenger.

No, he hadn't been drinking. This is old-school airline hospitality, the like of which hasn't been seen since the days of Zeppelins. And you know what? It's so sad that this is so out of the ordinary these days that we thought he was on something. Because you know... that shows class. I have more appreciation for Lloyd and the Virgin America crew because of that small gesture than I would have ever thought possible, and I had a much more enjoyable flight because of it.

Virgin America guys, and Lloyd in particular - in fact, all of the crew of that flight (and the prior one I took on Friday) - you totally and utterly rock. You have literally made my flying experience better than I could have imagined would ever be possible in today's world of cutbacks and penny-pinching. And it didn't cost you a dime.

BTW: Exit row seats? They're counted as premium, and will cost you somewhere between $50 and $15 to guarantee that you get one. Frankly, I'm more than willing to pay it to guarantee the seat. Their upgrade to 1st class is cheap too - $200 on the flights we were on. We didn't take advantage of it, but maybe next time. (Darci hates to fly, so this is a good tradeoff).

In seat entertainment system...

 
... running Linux. Unfortunately, it had totally crashed and would not boot up at all on our flight down to LA. Fortunately, we got free drinks and food for the entire flight because of this...

It's not all roses though...

Written on the flight from Seattle to LA:

Unfortunately, the Linux-based in-seat entertainment systems keep crashing. They've tried resetting them, but to no avail. They just hang on startup at the initial login screen.

Yay. Linux. Thank you, you wonderful Open Source operating system, for all the free drinks and food I'm getting on this flight. Knew you were good for something!

Although to be honest, I'd rather have seen the movies. Either way, next time someone tells you that Linux never crashes, never blue-screens, never dies... just let them know: yes, it does. Except it doesn't blue-screen. It just hangs and sits there. Which is worse, because now I've spent over 30 minutes of this flight just waiting, hoping, pleading with the cute red screen in front of me... praying that it will turn into entertainmenty goodness.

Also, on the flight back from LA to Seattle, the self check-in desk systems were all down. So far as I can tell, those ones run Apache Tomcat on Windows. The desk people were incredibly nice and helpful though, and we got past it all without a hitch.

For some reason, Virgin has a LOT of computer issues (issues with its web-based train booking system caused problems for me & Darci earlier this year - but the Virgin Trains team went above and beyond to fix the problem for us as well). Small glitches aside though, their overall level of quality service just puts them head and shoulders above everyone else in the industry. They really rock. Am I saying that too much?

So far as I can tell, this is because they actually care about service. They care about making sure you have the best experience possible. They really do. And that's as rare as hen's teeth these days.

Give them your money. They deserve it far more than Continental, US Airways, Delta, or pretty much any other airline out there. They deserve to succeed, because they're making travel an experience that hasn't been around in this country for at least 20 years. And frankly, given how much of a pain traveling in coach is, it's worth it.

Photos taken from Dave Zatz's collection

Amazon's Fall Textbook Promotion ... promotes pseudoscience

Go to any of these wonderful pseudoscience text books on Amazon:

Quest for Zero Point Energy Engineering Principles for Free Energy

The Final Theory: Rethinking Our Scientific Legacy

Occult Ether Physics: Tesla's Hidden Space Propulsion System and the Conspiracy to Conceal It

... and you get this:

Special Offers and Product Promotions

• This title is eligible for Amazon Fall Textbook promotions. Get unlimited free Two-Day Shipping for three months with a free trial of Amazon Prime. Add $100 worth of eligible textbooks to your cart to qualify. Sign up at checkout. New members only.

Sorry, Amazon, but I hope this is automated, because if not... oh boy.

What makes games fun?

It's an interesting question. A better one, though, might be... what makes play fun?

Bet you've not made one of these since you were a kid...

There's a lot of psychology being worked on right now on why games are fun, but some of it is common sense. Here's a quick laundry list I put together of what's fun and why.

• Are you emotionally engaged?
  That's fun... or at least, it's engaging. It makes you feel something.
• Are you narratively engaged?
  (Do you want to see what happens, or how the story ends?)
• Are you physically engaged?
  Are you pressing buttons and getting feedback? Are the buttons consistent? Is there room to learn a new motor skill?
• Are you learning?
  Learning is fun, provided that there is feedback and reward.
• Are you projecting?
  Do you feel attached to the character you're interacting with? (eg. move your mouse to the top of the screen, and smack it there. You'll feel a little psychomotor feedback, as if the mouse is "sticking" on something. That's projection. It's what lets you feel the tip of a screw when you're using a screwdriver).
• Are you learning new projection-related skills that are unlike things you do in everyday mundane life?
  eg. Rolling things up in Katamari Damacy, jumping 3 stories in Crackdown, dreaming about tetris blocks, creating Portals. You can tell if you're doing this right, because you'll look around your mundane everyday world, and think about how to do those things within it...
• Is there direct feedback in the system? Are your actions connected directly to the actions you see on screen? Are the consequences mostly immediate (ties to physicality) or long term (ties to narrative).
• Are you competing with another player, human or otherwise?
  Humans are competitive animals, and a lot of play in animals is to lay down the rules for territory and battle.
• Are you collaborating with another player, human or otherwise?
  Humans are societal animals, and a lot of play in animals is to lay down the rules for cooperation and collaboration.
• Does it provide a change in state for the player, preferably into a "flow" state? (eg. Rez/Geometry Wars/Zuma = Trance/Flow state) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Ultimately, a fun game requires:

• Feedback - actions have consequences, preferably immediate (unless narrative)
• Progressive induction - that is, start easy, get progressively harder. Challenge the player - but at a rate appropriate to them so that it causes frustration, but not too much.
• Rewards - doing something cool must provide a reward.

Fun may or may not require:

• Narrative engagement
• Physical engagement
• Emotional engagement
• General learning
• Competition
• Collaboration
• Projective learning
• Induction into "flow" state

... but usually a fun game will require at least one or more of these ancillary categories to provide depth and engagement. The most powerful of these are Flow, Projective Learning, Competition and Emotional/Narrative engagement, in roughly that order. And they're also that difficult to attain, in that order.

That's my take on it anyway.

Examples

Note that I'm only listing the dominant traits of these games. For example, Crackdown has a small narrative element, but it's really really small - certainly nothing compared to GTA4's storyline.

Panzer Dragoon Orta - a game which involves a lot of General Learning (to get the patterns right), Physical engagement, a smidge of Narrative engagement, and some gorgeous graphics

Rez
Physical engagement, General Learning, Induction into "flow" state

Crackdown
Physical engagement, General Learning, Competition & Collaboration, Projective Learning

Indigo Prophecy
Narrative engagement, Physical Engagement, Emotional engagement, General Learning

Portal
Narrative engagement, Emotional Engagement, Physical Engagement, General Learning, Projective Learning

Project Gotham Racing
Physical Engagement, General Learning, Projective Learning, Competition

The Suffering
Narrative Engagement, Physical Engagement, Emotional Engagement, General Learning

Schizoid
Physical Engagement, General Learning, Competition, Collaboration

PacMan
Physical Engagment, Projective Learning (hugging the walls), Induction into "flow" state, General Learning

Rock Band
Physical Engagement, General Learning, Projective Learning, Collaboration

So what's the Upshot?

If you're designing a game, see if you're missing any of these elements, and try to figure out how to get them in. You don't need all of them, but most games will involve some kind of General Learning (ie. they're not totally random because that's unfair - even Minesweeper won't let you click on a bomb on your first move) by default. Identifying which elements of your game correspond to each of these categories can also help you to refine those experiences.

Schizoid!

You might not have seen this new XBOX Live Arcade game, and if you haven't, you should definitely check it out.

This is my ship... you can have the Red one. No, I don't care that blue is your favorite color. It's mine! Mine!!!

Schizoid (by Torpex Games) is a two player co-op game that you can play over the network or on the couch, and it has a really simple game mechanic - the Blue player can kill Blue things, and the Red player can kill Red things. The opposite color to your ship is deadly. And that's it. No controls other than a single stick to worry about, it's pure distilled simplicity, and rather addictive.

Never mind the tortuous Uberschizoid mode which has you as a single player try in vain to split your brain in half and control two ships at once - one with the left stick, and one with the right.

Obscure Schizoid Reference involving flapjacks, brainwashing, left vs right handedness, and black Russian cigarettes

I met creator Jamie Fristrom at Gamefest last week, and he can't complete it on Uberschizoid mode, although he's come pretty close. Other people at Torpex have done it, which probably means that they're drummers.

Check it out and download the demo for free - what do you have to lose but your sanity?

The Disturbance in the Force was...

For those of you who I've not told in person what's going on yet... there was a huge disturbance in the force on July 11th for me. A shift sideways, if you will.

The planet Alderaan. This is obviously an "after" pic.

I left Surreal Software.

That's a big huge enormous step for me... I'd been there for 3 and a half years, and because of that have worked with some of the most amazing people I've ever worked with. And I mean ever. These guys were awesome - almost like family. They honestly care about the people who work for them, and even though the company is getting quite large these days (its doubled in size since I started there), everyone there is a rockstar. That's rare.

Before you start wondering... no, I didn't leave because of the project I was working on, or problems with co-workers or anything else you might be imagining which is untoward. In fact, I'd have loved to have stayed and seen This Is Vegas all the way through to completion, because it's one of those projects which has the potential to just completely rock the gaming world. I've got faith that those guys will come out with an excellent game.

This Is Vegas: It's like someone took GTA 4 and gave it several large dirty martinis and a backstage pass to a Frank Sinatra concert

Nah, I left because working with your fiancee blows goats for both you and your fiancee. It removes that safety valve that everyone needs to vent about what's going on at work, because if you work together, often times you'll both be venting about the same thing - and from two different sides. Not good. That, and absence (even for a few hours each day) makes the heart grow fonder.

So where did I end up going? (And please, if your name is Andrew K, Pete I or Sean Ph, forgive me - I'm totally slammed right now, and this whole thing has been a bit of a roller-coaster. Emails are about to fly your way explaining what's going on).

The New Hotness...

XRK: You only think you've not heard of us because you've not been paying enough attention... yet

I've just started a new gig with the incredibly talented bunch X-Ray Kid Studios. Did you heard of Google Lively which hit beta about 3 weeks ago? Well, notice all that art and animation goodness? That's us.

I've come on board as Director of Engineering, which is a position I've been itching to sink my teeth into for a few years now.

We're working on our own IP right now. I can't tell you any more details, just please, rest assured that I've never seen a group of people so... well... synchronized. Everyone is on the same page as to what we want to create, and that's making the early stages mindblowingly smooth.

(BTW: I will be looking for at least 3 senior guys to join me on the team in the areas of general engine/tools tech, graphics and gameplay, and probably 2 or 3 mid to junior ones before the end of the year... although the details right now aren't fully figured out. If you know anyone in the games industry who's looking, let me know).

My Job So Far...

So far, over the past two weeks, I've been down to our Newport Beach offices in Orange County, California, and met the rest of the team in person. (All of whom are great... I spent a good part of my first week in complete and total utter fanboyish shell shock regarding the caliber and credentials some of the people I work with).

We get our offices up in Seattle on August 1st (X-Ray Kid North is the Video Game hub; X-Ray Kid South is the 2D/Animation/Cartoon/Comic Book/TV/Movie hub). The offices are right across the street from Surreal Software which is great (and means that I can still carpool to work), and literally right across the corridor from FXville - a group of mostly ex-Surreal Video Game FX and Character artists, whom I consider to be the absolute best in the business. (And if this all sounds rather incestuous and sparks your conspiracy theory neurons... that office complex is probably the best creative space for the price available right now).

I went to Gamefest 2008 last week and met up with some old friends, and made some new ones, did some networking, attended a number of talks, and discovered that - weirdly - about 75% of the attendees this year appeared to be Microsoft employees.

O Rly?

Meanwhile, the rest of my co-workers ended up at the San Diego Comicon. Unlike most people who go to the Comicon, they're the kind of people who actually go there and sign autographs and stuff, instead of lining up to get them. (Going to Comicon as superstars vs. listening to talks about how to compress data for streaming on the XBOX 360 at the exceptionally nerdy Gamefest 2008? I think they got the better end of the deal).

The embarassing thing tho? Last comic books I read was ... ok, well, strictly it was Absolute Watchmen. But before that? Er... that'd be my friend Aron Dittbrenner's one that he was working on. OK, so, anything commercial that anyone else would have read or heard of? Ummmm.. yeah... that'd be the Spiderman/Venom arc way back when. Like, 1985 or so. Before that, I did read my Uncle's entire Marvel comicbook collection which comprised of nearly everything Marvel published from about 1968 to about 1978. That was, I read it before my cousins decided they were coloring books and my aunt unfortunately didn't disavow them of this knowledge. God knows how much those would be worth today.

Which means that ... um... it's quite embarrassing to realize that nearly everyone I work with is a comic-book legend to those who follow them.

Jeff Matsuda gets his Batman on

Best thing about this job so far? Everyone's huge on collaboration, so I get to dabble with my more creative side instead of just pushing da onez and zeroez.

This week, I'm back down in the Irvine area, meeting up with potential Engine partners for a console game. *cracks knuckles* Time to get stuck in! (Although getting up at 4am for a flight... meh... goes with the territory).

Big leagues. Small massively agile company. This is going to be fun.

I'm planning on interviewing the guys I work with for either my blog or the X-Ray Kid website soon, so you can get a taste of what we're all about (the usual disclaimer: if I have time). More news as it happens. Keep 'em peeled.