Categories
Created

2006 Year In Review

In January, I wrote my third Quicksilver tutorial, had a painful coincidence, made a cupcake-frosted ass Of myself, observed some Lynchian flyers, freaked out about Ableton Live, went to the Top Of The Rock in zero-visibility, and mocked both Blackberry users and Cornell.

In February, I emigrated to the Colbert Nation, upgraded my IIDX rig, fired a warning shot about the “true video iPod”, got my hands on DJ Max, observed the passing of a great TV show, discovered I was a warmonger, went to a pillow fight, had another round of coincidences, and tried (and failed) to guess when WWDC would be.

In March, I audited the Oscars, mourned Peter Tomarken, went to the best! pizza party! ever!, tried to track down a fellow Bemani fan, and saw Ted Leo yet again.

In April, I went to London. The trip included transportation problems, awesome sweets, and sport on telly, among other things. Also, I detailed one of my favorite obscure Konami titles, hit up Coney Island on opening day, lamented over Bemani community drama, announced my love for The Amazing Race, and freaked out over Inform 7.

In May, I “visited” David Blaine, helped Eugene Mirman protest himself, celebrated Mother’s Day, went to TARcon 9 as well as my dad’s birthday, and got deep about advertising and porn.

In June, I was impressed by Apple technical support, observed a flood at the office, turned 26 on what might’ve been the most numerically interesting day of the year, mourned the loss of Michael Bartosh, saw the last game I ever worked on released, ran into a team on the last leg of TAR10, ran into the International Parade, made a Flickr hypothesis, and reviewed the Sidekick 3.

In July, I got a promotion, went to a friend’s wedding, weighed in on Apple security issues, watched the Headbutt Heard Round The World, got my hands on Live, and lectured about empathy. I set up a Vox account, got nailed by the Astoria Blackout, flipped out at the mayor, reveled in Shyamalan Schadenfreude, flipped out at my commenters, rated candy, and spent 14 hours at Del Close 8, where we had a bizarre accident. In hindsight, July was pretty goddamn busy.

In August, I previewed VJ Army 4.0, put WWDC on notice, had some fun on a plane in the middle of security hysteria, saw Gnarls Barkley, warned about shitty DVDs, took my favorite photo of the year, and rejoiced as Lamprey Systems returned.

In September, I unloaded on Mac rumor nerds, dissected iPod games, rallied against single save games, performed data magic, and relected on 9/11.

In October, I saw Tideland and Terry Gilliam, joined the Big Pig Gig, turned my childhood trauma into prizes, got caught up in the Cory Lidle plane crash, went to Rochester for a conference, and pulled apart the Sony/Lik Sang brewhaha. I also had a chance to see Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor shortly before Mr. Altman passed away.

In November, my iMac blew up, acquired a Wii (despite the wiitards)and Singstar US, learned an important lesson from Jim Cramer, picked up two more Bemani series, and worried I might be aging backwards.

In December, I had my Macworld article printed, simultaneously slammed and lauded Konami, went to TARcon X, mocked Time Magazine, had my meal of the year, happily found the return of one of my favorite games, and got outnerded by my coworkers.

Categories
Reflected

Friends Rosters Are The Reason For The Season

I hope everyone is having a happy (insert holiday of your choosing/belief system here).

Since it’s one of the few times of year that people are likely to get consoles, I thought that now would be an appropriate time to reitterate my social gaming information. This will help you from hunting and pecking for the appropriate posts.

If you have an Xbox 360, my XBL username is RemyVJA.
If you have a Playstation 3, my PSN username is also RemyVJA.
If you have a Wii, my friends code is 5457 9039 2738 5973.

If you’re adding me this holiday season, please leave me a comment or an email to let me know who you are and your appropriate return user information.

Categories
Enjoyed Recommended

Jack’s Back, Baby

One of my greatest game loves of my late teens/early twenties was [Jellyvision](http://www.jellyvision.com/)’s *You Don’t Know Jack*. I owned the original, played the ever-living hell out of it – it was the perfect merge of game show and video game.

After the YDKJ line fizzled out (the only really notable release other than the original was YDKJ 4: The Ride, which was extremely twisted in every sense of the word), Jellyvision fell off the map a bit. They became an *occasional search* – one of the many things that pop into my head once or twice a year and I go “Oh yeah, I should see if there’s anything about them online.” (Other occasional searches included [Lamprey Systems](https://vjarmy.com/archives/2006/08/the_fifth_horseman_returns.php) and a song called ‘Blue Illusion’ that was tagged as being an Orbital song but was, in fact, not.)

When I started at Freeverse, Jellyvision did provide me a bit of game design knowledge through their [Jack Principles](http://jellyvision.com/go.php?p=/ici/jp/index.php), which I still think should be required reading for most game designers.

My quiz game hankering was only recently quenched by picking up [Buzz: The Big Quiz](http://www.buzzthegame.com/en_GB/index.html?lanSoundOn=) while over in London. While Buzz is great – and tough, given the European roots – it was missing something. Something Jack-like.

In any case: Joystiq reported today that, at long last, [You Don’t Know Jack has returned](http://www.youdontknowjack.com/), online, in daily Flash bits. Sort of like a game podcast, without the syndication or enclosures or automation.

My world is one step closer to completion. Now to just order this copy of The Ride…