ulo.tricho.us

People who weren't kids in the 80s may have heard of Nintendo, but they usually don't fully understand how ubiquitous the NES was, and what a fundamental component of our childhood the system and its software became.  I think that part of the reason that so many of today's thirty-somethings are such avid gamers is that Nintendo showed us as kids how great videogames could be, and its universality cemented gaming as part of our generational identity.

With my kids and Wii, I can see it happening again.  It's quickly becoming a cultural framework for their generation, and once we get to the point where every household that wants a Wii has one (and how long might that still be?) I think Nintendo may again achieve the universality they enjoyed in the 80s, when you didn't play videogames, you played Nintendo.

Case in point: there's a new building in our neighborhood that has a somewhat ostentatious vertical blue stripe that glows at night.  (Geeks already know where this is going).  Ever since the stripe was added, every time we walk by the building at night, 5-year-old Nemo says, "Look papa, that building has an update!"   The other night he added, "or maybe it got a message from one of its friends."

The coolest thing about this is that because the best software franchises of my generation are still here thrilling his generation, that cultural framework is something that I can share with my son, instead of scratching my head at his interests in bewilderment as parents are often stuck doing.  For example, Nemo's preschool is housed in a church that has recently finished a significant organ transplant (isn't that what they call that?).  As I was taking him into school a few weeks ago, we could hear some seriously forté, slightly ominous, slow-paced organ music coming from behind a large double door at the top of some stairs.  This immediately triggered a game memory for both of us, and I said, "Hey Nemo, I wonder if that's Ganondorf playing the organ behind that door."

Now, while some may consider it inadvisable for a parent to intentionally blur that critical fantasy/reality line in a young boy's mind, the fact is that when kids are pretending, they know what they're doing, and they can have very firm ideas about what's real and what's not.  As if to prove my point, Nemo laughed and said, "Naw, it's probably just an old lady." 

It appears that mysterious and arcane forces (like the impending end of Q3 and the subsequent shopping frenzy) have allied themselves to give Geeks an confluence of events that may not happen again in our lifetimes.  Here, in the same week, we are expecting major product announcements from Apple and Nintendo.  If my great-grandchildren can still speak to we fleshly beings, I'm sure I'll tell them tales of this exciting moment.

While Apple is expected to announce a 'true' video iPod and movies in the iTunes store, some rumors fly as far as the tivo-killing set-top boxes or iPhones that are almost certain to seize their respective markets, almost anything could happen once Steve gets to the 'one more thing' slide.  Given the number of people involved, it's quite impressive that Apple retains the ability to not only announce, but also instantly launch a product that people weren't expecting.  If Apple's rumored PVR Mac is ready, this would certainly be a logical event (It's Showtime!) at which to announce it. 

The information that Nintendo is expected to announce answers far more specific questions.  When will Wii launch, how much will it cost, what will be in the box?  That's all we want to know.  The launch is almost certainly sometime in October, although it looks like Nintendo still has to hire people to stuff the boxes.  The cost has been rumored to be as low as $150, although Nintendo has launched its 4 previous consoles at $199 and that's worked out pretty well for them.  Plus, with the competition squarely in the $300-$600 range, they've got plenty of price advantage at $199.  While $150 would be extremely aggressive and sure to make a splash heading into the holidays, it's a solid and frequently-made point that Nintendo is unlikely to price the Wii at only $20 more than the DS lite handheld.  Of course, if they really wanted to make some waves, they'd drop the DS lite to $99, launch the Wii at $150 with a solid Wii-DS link title, and advertise that you can get a Wii, a DS lite, and that new game for the cost of an XBox 360… and you could get TWO such kits for the cost of a PS3!  However, while Nintendo clearly wants to make waves with the Wii, they'd rather make money.

Which brings us to the most hotly debated issue.  What will we get in the box?  My money's on the prevailing thought of the console, 2 controllers with nunchaku attachments, and Wii Sports.  At $199, that is an unheard-of value, and really harkens back to the megahit NES of the 80's, which sold 60 million units over its lifetime into a market with far fewer gamers than there are around today.  If Wii Sports really is bundled with the console, and the Wii is the smash hit is seems poised to be, Wii Sports could be positioned to finally eclipse Super Mario Bros. as the best selling (although bundled) video game yet.  If I recall correctly, it will also be the first console to launch with a bundled game since the Super Nintendo in 1991.

The other option is that we could get a 2-controller, Wii Sports-bundled $199 set at launch for the early adopters, and see a $149 bundle with a single controller and no game for next Christmas, when the ball is really rolling and manufacturing costs are dropping like a stone.  In any case, Nintendo has all the hype and is positioned to be making a killing on the Wii when Microsoft and Sony are still struggling to get a handle on manufacturing costs and collect their first dimes of profit.  Nintendo excels at making money in this business, and I am so ready to help them achieve that goal.  Only a few days until all our questions will be answered… 

So, Last weekend at the Sandbox Symposium, I had the good fortune to find myself running a Guitar Hero 2 Co-op Mode Tournament with Elena Seigman of Harmonix, Lead Designer on Karaoke Revolution Party, and Producer on Guitar Hero 2.  While the E3 build she brought offered little new information about the hotly anticipated sequel, I did get to hear lots of cool little tidbits about the game and life at Harmonix.

Guitar Hero 2 is scheduled to hit the shelves in time for Black Friday, and while they're not in crunch yet, they've done a lot of work in making substantial refinements to the gameplay and the visuals.  Of course, we'll get all new songs, venues, character models and mocap for returning characters (including a much improved ripper), and at least two new characters.  First is Dax DeVille, the Rockabilly Guy seen in the E3 demo, where he was named 'King Kendall', after Harmonix Artist Jason Kendall, who also did the awesome tutorial voice-overs in Guitar Hero, and is the singer of Harmonix House Band Monkey Steals the Peach.  Elena also has a girl rock trio of Harmonix staff who hope to get a bonus song in Guitar Hero 2; however, the name of their band is 'Vagiant', which complicates things just a little.  Harmonix Management even built a practice room in the basement of their Boston office in order to encourage this type of extracirricular behavior.

Elena didn't tell me the name of another new character, a Norwegian Death Rocker, who, as she mentioned (with an Achewood-class level of detail), hates big dogs.  It's very clear that Harmonix takes these characters very seriously; their personalities are as lovingly rendered as the Guitar Hero venues, and I'm sure they have larger lives in the hive mind at Harmonix that we can only glimpse.

One of the most obvious enchancements is a new venue lighting system that allow the audio guys who lay out the gems to send commands to the lighting system to matchup with big changes in the music, just like a real rock show.  The lighting is really improved, and and behaves just how you'd expect to see the lights run at a rock show, except for one thing: some of the 'audio guys' have real rock show experience, and set the lights to blackout during breaks in the music.  However, this doesn't work in Guitar Hero, when the only time that the player looks at the world is during breaks in the music.  They came up with an elegant solution that preserves the blackout feeling without reducing the view.

The art continues to stand out in Guitar Hero 2; all the menu screens are again fantastic, especially the coop level select screen, which features a 2-headed, 3-legged, 2-axed mutant rocker.  One interesting fact is that the saving screen from GH1, with the man holding his ears, was done by Shepard Fairey, creator of the Andre the Giant has a Posse sticker, and spawner of the subsequent meme.  Most of the posters were done by Rock Poster artists from outside Harmonix, and they've really delivered the same high-quality fit and finish that Guitar Hero displays.  Also, the success of Guitar Hero has led to demand for in-game endorsements, and while the band will now feature Orange amplifiers (and a sponsored drum kit too), Harmonix takes this super-seriously and will only put the right stuff in the game.  One of the venues is the Vans Warped Tour, and the stage is a medieval dungeon, with awesome success effects.  

Co-op mode is truly fantastic, especially since each player can choose their own difficulty.  I'm forseeing playing a lot of that with Nemo.  We'll also get an improved multiplayer mode, Pro Faceoff mode where each player plays exactly the same notes, and a practice mode with speed adjustable by section.  It sounds like there will be several more original masters in addition to Primus' John the Fisherman, which had to be completely remastered for use in the game (recording technology has changed a lot since 1989).  Core gameplay remains mostly unchanged, although Hammer-ons and Pull-offs will be tweaked without the need to hold down the lower frets, and the window of success for hammer-ons is moving back a bit.  While three-note chords have been added, it sounds like they've decided to eliminate chords that bridge from fret 1-5.  Even though people love these because they feel so, well, so guitarry, Harmonix feels strongly that even people with small hands should be able to finish the expert mode.  That's a good point, but maybe we could get a small hand switch option… I'd hate to lose that particular challenge!

Elena confirmed that the window for hitting a note successfully in the same at all difficulties (although they've argued about that) and that wiggling the whammy bar as fast as possible when applicable is the path to maximum star power (although they've argued about that).  She also said that Star Power was originally intended to be turned on by raising the neck, and turned off by lowering it, but the tilt switches were just not reliable enough for it to work that way.  It would be awesome to have pressure sensitivity in the controller, but she thought it unlikely due to cost issues (I'd rather have a foot pedal to stomp on).  She also said that Harmonix would love to do a sequel to Amplitude, but it's become a lot harder to sell a music game without a peripheral.  And while there is a loading card in the GH2 Demo that promises Accordion Hero in Summer 2008, it remains just a joke and frequent focus of my own feverish dreams.

For the tournament, we let teams qualify at the difficulty level of their choice throughout the day, and then brought back the top 8 teams to play the song of their choice on hard difficulty for the highest score.  Because scores are not normalized from song to song, the advantage laid with the longer songs, so we heard War Pigs over and over again.  However, a team from UNC-Charlotte took the top prize.  It was really great to get to play Guitar Hero 2 so much (YYZ is HARD!  What's next, King Crimson?), and it was fantastic to get to talk to Elena and Tracy Rosenthal-Newsom.  It's clear that Guitar Hero 2 is being crafted with as much love and serious thought as the original, and that Harmonix is about to put another Smash Hit into Red Octane's (and now, Activision's) hands.

Library Camp is coming up at AADL on Friday, April 14th. This event is an unconference using the open space format, which throws several much-needed wrenches into the typical conventions of, well, conventions. First, instead of suffering through a dull or irrelevant session, looking for a polite chance to ditch, you are encouraged — even required — to walk out of any session you find unproductive or uninteresting. Also, no pre-arranged agenda. One of the first things we’ll do at the event is propose some sessions and put together the schedule for the day based on who’s there and what they’re looking for.

In the meantime, I’ve thought of a few things that might be interesting sessions for the event. There is a great group of people coming, and I think it’s a great opportunity to actually produce some things. So, here are my ideas for sessions:

• Library 2.0: Threat or MENACE? (What does it mean, what’s to come?)
• Tags in the OPAC: the roles and balance of taxonomies and folksonomies
• IM applications in Libraries, current and potential
• Reclaiming Serendipity: Lost Features of the card catalog that OPACs should offer
• DRM and the future of library downloads
• Gaming in the library: thinking big
• Library Podcasting: Projects and Possibilities
• Netflix and other alternate circulation schemes
• Stats and metrics: new ways to collect and analyze use data
• Online community building: starting points and brainstorming
• hackfest?
• collaborative authoring of a document, maybe a guide to library 2.0 tools?

The idea is that sessions are interactive, more of a collaborative effort than a presentation, and I think we’ll try to make sure that there are bloggers in each session, and that posts are tagged accordingly. I’ve posted these ideas on the Library2 wiki, so please add to and modify this list.

Also at AADL on the 14th is the first-ever AADL-GT Retro Octathalon, an olympic-style event for all ages where all competitors will compete for overall and single-event high scores on 8 vintage (pre-1990) video games, with a championship for the highest scorers at the end of the night. Adult qualifiers start at 6, so you can attend Library Camp all day, and then give your thumbs some much-needed exercise.

These are going to be two very cool events, and a very busy day!

What better evidence could there possibly be of the natural compatibility of videogames and libraries than this short video of a couple of college kids dressed up as videogame characters, running through a library, screaming? Even better, it takes place at the University of Michigan UgLi and Fishbowl, just down the street. I wish they tried this at AADL, although the security staff would probably not be amused.

[Via Kotaku, previously at Boingboing]

You may remember Nemo as the winner of Kotaku's Halloween Costume Contest. Well, as his birthday rolled around, and we started discussing what he wanted for his party, the very first thing he said was that he wanted a King Bob-omb cake. As his party got closer, we kept having fun ideas, and by the time the day arrived, things had gotten a little out of hand, and turned into a full-on Mario Party, complete with koopa-shell invitations. The cake was a bit of a structural challenge: Twinkies, as it turns out, are not intended to be load-bearing.

Of course, Nemo wanted to wear his Luigi costume, sans mustache and Poltergust 3000. Everybody got to try DDR Mario Mix. We only put out 1 pad to halve the occupied floorspace, as well as the mayhem. One of the best things about Mario Mix is that its easy mode only uses right and left, which is a much easier place for a 4-year old to learn to play DDR. Nemo has since moved on to Normal mode, and loves to play real DDR, too. His favorite song is 'Speed Over Beethoven' on DDR Extreme 2.

We wanted to have a pinata, but with 4-year-olds, nobody's got the strength to breach the um, containment unit, so some grown-up usually has to rip it open surreptitiously while pretending to 'examine' the darn thing. Instead, we took a square cardboard box (I can't believe we had a perfectly sized and proportioned one in the basement), cut off the lid, and decorated it with construction paper to look like a classic Mario Question Block. We attached it to a string tied to the bannister, and let the kids jump and bop the bottom of the box.

When they hit the bottom of the box hard enough (or if we yanked the string for a little extra oomph), out popped their treat bag, which contained some turtle stickers (not koopa troopas, but close enough), a dumdum and a fruit leather (we figure they cancelled each other out), a real noise-making noise maker (sorry parents), and a Japanese Mario figure, the kind where you don't know which one you got until you open it, and that includes a tiny packet of 6 tasteless white candies. We got them at Wizzywig, where they also have a tissue cozy shaped like a Famicom. I covet it. Anyway, this worked beautifully, and turned out to be a great alternative to a pinata, with the extra advantage of avoiding the mad scramble, which can be a mess, particularly when kids of several different sizes are involved.

A good time was had by all, especially by Nemo, who got a new Mario Kart DS bundle from my parents. And Nemo's papa, who doesn't have to share his DS anymore.

John’s brilliant post skipped over a critical gulf-spanning technique, one that I would have thought he would have included, as he has personal experience with the approach:

Make a movie.

One of the challenges IT departments can face as they grow, especially in the library world, is muggle staff not understanding what all those geeks actually do. Often, the borders of IT responsibility could make a gerrymanderer blush, and since most IT work is done in our dank recesses, far below the hustle and bustle of the patron-filled surface world, delivering a clear understanding of who does what can be complicated by the fact that some staff may not know who these people are that, summoned by a submit button, emerge, blinking, only to immediately disappear under the table. That leads to unfamiliarity, and you know what they say about unfamiliarity: it breeds discontent. Wait, that’s not right. But it sounds good.

So, to address this unfamiliarity, we produced the IAS Television Showcase (quicktime) in the Fall of 2002, to be shown at our annual staff day. While it was intended to give a little information about what we do, I really hoped that it would help the rest of the staff feel more personally familiar with all of us. We shot it on a Friday, and I edited it over the weekend, getting a precious copy rendered and printed to tape just in time for the opening bagels Monday morning. I remember that we were missing a cable we needed when it was time for the premiere (first thing after lunch), so we had to tie a dv camera to the pole above the projector. We couldn’t find the remote for the camera, so I introduced the movie, and then stood on a chair to push play and roll the tape. Sort of a live juryrigging demonstration, if you will.

The audience loved it, and I think it really did help them know us a little bit better. That was a long time ago already, and it’s amazing how much things have changed since then. Just seeing the server room during Joe Harris’ System Spec, or some of the hot new acronyms showcased in Modern Major Geekerel, makes me slightly damp with nostalgia. The gadget rundown, somewhat obscure then, looks positively archaic now. We should do Television Showcase 2.0. I should also find the DV tape that has the finished version and capture a better copy, as Premiere eating the source file for this project was one of my last straws with Windows.

While something like this will take a little time to produce, the potential return on your time is probably far better than even the most productive bilateral committee meeting. Plus, it’s fun. Libraries should be fun. Enjoy!

John went and tagged me with the silly-yet-clever 4 things meme. I learned some things I didn’t know about him from his, we’ll see how well he knows his boss…

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Retail Store Designer (VideoWatch, now Hollywood Video)
2. Do-naut, John’s Space Age Donut Shop
3. Puppeteer, Kansas City Toy and Miniature Museum
4. Bubble Expert, Kay-Bee Toys

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Baron Munchausen
2. Spirited Away
3. The Muppet Movie
4. Hudsucker Proxy

(the only) Three places I’ve lived:

1. Indianapolis, Indiana
2. Leawood, Kansas
3. Ann Arbor, Michigan

Four TV shows I love:

1. Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends
2. Fairly Oddparents
3. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
4. Daily Show

Four places I’ve vacationed:

1. Disney World
2. Alaska
3. Amelia Island, Florida
4. Chicagoland

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Eggs Benedict (or Deep Fried French Toast) at Angelo’s
2. Vermicelli with Beef and Spring Rolls (#15 at Dalat)
3. New York-style Pepperoni Pizza (NYPD!)
4. A Northside (the Northside Grill’s signature breakfast sandwich)

Four sites I visit daily:

1. metafilter
2. boingboing
3. kotaku
4. axis.aadl.org

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Kosmo (closed for remodeling!)
2. Northside (closes at 3)
3. Angelo’s (closes at 3)
4. Cafe Marie (closes at 2)

Man, I didn’t realize I was so obsessed with Breakfast.

Four bloggers I am tagging:

1. Clam Chowder
2. Hidden Peanuts
3. Notational Slurry
4. matth

One thing remarkable about this very webby 2.0-ish exercise is something that is missing, something you would expect to find in lists of people’s favorite things… most versions of this meme do not include 4 favorite books! As someone pretending to be german used to say, very interesting. However, that will never do, especially as this meme winds its way through the library world, so, let’s put it back in this strain.

Four books (or series) I love:

1. Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
2. The Galactic Milieu Saga, Julian May
3. The Culture Novels, Ian M. Banks
4. Anything by Vernor Vinge

Four Videogames I can (and do) play over and over again:

1. Mario Kart (Doubledash or DS)
2. Pikmin (1 or 2)
3. Dance Dance Revolution (Max2 or higher)
4. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Off you go, silly little meme. Write when you infect a brain!

Now that John’s gone and leaked some departmental jargon, I reserve the right to use the term ‘muggles’ in reference to users. It’s really not so much jargon, as it is a familiar framework for analogies in discussions at the office.

Our geekly powers aren’t really magical, but in accordance with Clarke’s Third Law, magic is in the eye of the beholder. They are muggles because we seem like wizards to them; the muggleness is all in the head. Seriously, which is easier to explain: Wingardium Leviosa, or AJAX?

There have been a few spots in heavy rotation during [adult swim] for a emulated game subscription service, and leaving aside the message that the existence of this sort of a business model sends to libraries, these spots feature a lovingly selected set of games, even showcasing some highly underrated titles.

Two in particular really got my attention, both from Genesis games that seem so obscure that I almost feel as something private has just been aired nationally. One is Dynamite Headdy, and the other is Kid Chameleon. In Dynamite Headdy, you are a birdish puppet who can change his default, throwable head for one of 15 others, while in Kid Chameleon, you are a super cool, sunglasses-and-leather-jacket-wearing kid who can wear one of 15 different helmets. Interestingly enough, the final boss in Kid Chameleon is ‘Heady Metal’.

Also remarkable about Kid Chameleon is that the game takes place inside a virtual reality arcade game (’Wild Side‘), of which the eponymous Kid Chameleon is the best player in town. How meta is that?

I find myself pining for the long-gone apex of the Fifteen Interchangeable Head genre. I know I have Dynamite Headdy around here somewhere, but I’m afraid I may have sold Kid Chameleon on eBay.