Dipity
DarrenTorpey: @gtjuggler My pleasure. I think SpringFling is a great little iPhone game (the kind I'd buy if I had one), so I hope we can get the word out
There are a few reasons why my attention to AngelXNA has picked back up lately: Jeff has been actively developing AngelXNA The Global Game Jam is coming up in just a few months! (more on t...
Sarron posted a photo: Mandy and Scott on the pony together
Sarron posted a photo: Mandy having her second pony ride at her wedding
Sarron posted a photo: Mandy having her second pony ride at her wedding
GameLoop 2009: looping it up like it's 2009 First, some thoughts and observations about GameLoop...Traveler's guide to GameLoop. You can recognize GameLoop by its:Game developers and similar with w...
DarrenTorpey: @stealthbaz Nice shirt! http://twitpic.com/fd3sa
DarrenTorpey: We need to seriously traffic #bostongameloop this year. Should be some good stuff up there by the end of the day. Who's coming?
Sarron posted a photo: Ryan. WIth Beer. And a blow-up guitar.
DarrenTorpey: @geoffreylong Heh, good one. How about: "Yippie kay-yay men who I've bested in action yet whom I still respect!" #firstdraftmovielines
DarrenTorpey: @gwcase It was an in-person review with my supervisor/boss/guru. The rest of the day went well, at least. Finally slayed the beast, etc.
DarrenTorpey: @RasmusBoserup Yeah, Castle Crashers is one of my favorite Xbox 360 games. Tons of fun for co-op multiplay. I've probably played 40+ hours
DarrenTorpey: RT @PetriPurho: Coded a [@phil_fish] filter and applied it to invaders: http://bit.ly/OkkBA , http://bit.ly/iAdWD and http://bit.ly/sIyaI
Sarron posted a photo: It was Celebration of the Senses Day and I was to give a presentation on Cucumber (the automated-testing tool) to the development team at Punchbowl Software, so Vickie & I ...
DarrenTorpey: RT @GambitGameLab: Congratulations to all our grads! Way to go, @dizzyjosh, @desconcentrado, @laura47...! We're so proud! *sniff*
DarrenTorpey: Single-A games: http://bit.ly/vcBXr (been looking for better terms for high-production-value indie games... maybe this can help)
darrentorpey: RT @CorvusE: New blog post: Today I Die http://bit.ly/Vi99j
darrentorpey: Also working on creating captions for Kyle Gabler's excellent Global Game Jam (#ggj) keynote on YouTube. CaptionTube makes it doable. =P
This was the first year the Independent Game Conference East has been held, and I think it was a great start. My hopes for IGC East were to do some good networking and see a few interesting session...
BarCamp Boston 4 was the first BarCamp I’ve attended, and it certainly did not disappoint! I’d heard great things about it, and last year’s BarCamp-inspired Boston GameLoop set my expectations even...
Jeff Ward and I are proud to announce today that we’re officially presenting AngelXNA 1.0 to the world. AngelXNA is a game prototyping engine built upon Microsoft’s XNA framework. It offers all...
darrentorpey: @nirvdrum Nice! I'm trying to do the same with #AngelXNA. So far, I think Logging fits the "super-easy defaults plus straightforward config"
darrentorpey: @BarCampBoston Thanks for a great event. (my first BarCamp proper, but not first unconference) Well organized; great space (especially hall)
Sarron posted a photo: Photo courtesy of Chris Bowen.
I’m really looking forward to attending BarCamp Boston this weekend. This will be my first BarCamp, but I’ve heard great things about it. Last year’s BarCamp inspired Darius and Scott to run th...
darrentorpey: RT @multiplayers: Totilo: Nothing clever to say about this one. I'm happy and sad: http://tinyurl.com/d7k23g (Totilo's moving on)
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how games can integrate with the web and provide players with a natural connection between the main game experience and the meta-game, where progress tracking,...
darrentorpey: @avantgame I swear Apple designs their hardware to fail the week (or two) after the warranty runs out. It's uncanny. =P
One of the very best talk of GDC ‘09 was Clint Hocking’s talk on improvisational play. That article does a good job of summarizing his talk. The element that I want to talk about is the part about ...
darrentorpey: @gamerDNA Final Fantasy VI (FF3 on SNES) and Command & Conquer (the original) #gaming
GDC 2009 was awesome. It was an amazing week. For this post, I’ll stick to a quick recap of a few highlights, and I might even get a little sentimental towards the end. GDC, after all, is both a st...
Sarron posted a photo: Author said: "Ooh someone is checking out Phil's ass" heh Darius, Alex, Scott & I are also seen here Photo taken by Daniel Tabar (Data Realms)
Sarron posted a photo: Author said: "Ooh someone is checking out Phil's ass" heh Darius, Alex, Scott & I are also seen here Photo taken by Daniel Tabar (Data Realms)
Sarron posted a photo: We're figuring out how to play this game, which was made for the event Photo taken by Daniel Tabar (Data Realms)
Sarron posted a photo: We're figuring out how to play this game, which was made for the event Photo taken by Daniel Tabar (Data Realms)
Sarron posted a photo: Here's a picture of our OLD, OLD, OLD website for the WPI Game Development Club
Sarron posted a photo: My new business card, as made up for GDC 2009
Sarron posted a photo: Taken just after I pushed my first contribution to AngelXNA to Bitbucket.
All three core developers for our Global Game Jam game, Game of Nom, have now posted post mortems of the development process. Amanda Cosmos Mine Jeff Ward Jeff & I wrote Game Develo...
Sarron posted a photo: Lionne, my Blood Elf Mage on the Farstrider's (US) server of World of Warcraft. This image taken from the character selection screen when he was around level 30. In this p...
This is a continuation of my series of brief write-ups for games I played in 2008. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution Why I played it I was highly intrigued and inspired by the bold cha...
I recently encountered a clever and innovative ad for the new Fire Emblem game for the Nintendo DS on a games-related website I was browsing. In it, five tactical challenges are presented, each off...
darrentorpey: I'd say @tinysubversions' Meggy Rogue-like is almost an actual *game* already. You can lose, but not win. Like SimCity. http://bit.ly/FBTgq
Introduction This is a brief post mortem of the Game of Nom, written in the style of those published in Game Developer magazine. Nom was made by Amanda Cosmos, Darren Torpey (from whose persp...
Our very first Global Game Jam was a huge success! So much can be said about such a great event, but I’ll stick to some personal accounts and reflections for now. First, on the topic of the webcas...
This week I finally got around to viewing some of the talks from last November’s IGDA Leadership Forum. Videos, slides, and even very well-written summaries of each talk are available on the site, ...
darrentorpey: @Blurst Appealing to the indie AND voyeur in us all! (that is, all SIX of us currently watching) Happy Friday the 13th and 1234567890 day!
darrentorpey: @trappermarkelz I use lots of Gmail Labs features. For one: canned responses helps with support for small websites. Easy to personalize, too
darrentorpey: EA CEO John Riccitiello's Nine Steps to Recovery for the games publishing giant: http://bit.ly/fTRt (incl. emphasis on Wii and digital dist)
darrentorpey: @VoxelBoy Unity was available, but we decided to go with XNA/.NET/C# because we were more familiar with it and had a very 2D game concept
It's happening now! Check out the first annual Global Game Jam website to learn more and watch the action (see below). Wanna get psyched about the event and/or the games that will come from it? F...
darrentorpey: played Castle Crashers, Geometry Wars Evolved², and Gears of War 2 on Xbox http://gamerdna.com/r/3iz
darrentorpey: played World of Warcraft on PC for 2:47, and Gears of War and another game on Xbox (11 achievements, 145G) http://gamerdna.com/r/3fp
darrentorpey: played World of Warcraft and Peggle Extreme on PC for 2:40 total, and Castle Crashers on Xbox (1 achievement, 20G) http://gamerdna.com/r/3as
This is a continuation of my series of brief write-ups for games I played in 2008. Dragon Quest VIII Why I played it I remember really enjoying the utter simplicity of the old Dragon Quest/War...
darrentorpey: @gtjuggler Sweet, dude. Rock that Unity pride!
darrentorpey: added A Kingdom for Keflings to his game list http://gamerdna.com/r/2xs
darrentorpey: RT @PetriPurho: Crayon Physics Deluxe is out the door: http://tinyurl.com/7xcw4p
This is the first installment of a series I hope to continue throughout the year where I intend to go through most (if not all) of the games I played last year and give them a quick write-up. I'm ...
This is the first installment of a series I hope to continue throughout the year where I intend to go through most (if not all) of the games I played last year and give them a quick write-up. I'm ...
darrentorpey: All my games of 2008: http://bit.ly/Rjr2 (as memory serves... oh, and it's LONG) Happy New Year, everyone!
For unknown reasons, I was inspired to write up a list of every game I've played this year. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe I've just been listening to the Dismemberment Plan's Emergency & I too mu...
darrentorpey: played GameTap on PC and Gears of War on Xbox (5 achievements, 90G) http://gamerdna.com/r/229
This recreation of Zelda music (mostly from The Wind Waker) blows me away. I've been listening to it over and over again for a few days now: I really hope the creators of The Wind Waker get to s...
Thanks to Kotaku (and, more directly, the lovely Robin Hunicke) for bringing my attention to this:Boom Blox (and a few others, like deBlob ) made me particularly happy to play my Wii and bring it a...
Darn you, internet. Every time I look away for a while (guilt steadily building over the neglect) and come back I find you're even better than you were before. But your gifts are not without their ...
I've decided to order Edmund McMillan's 10-year celebration CD. It's a mere $10 and contains a whole heck of a lot of animations, movies, sketchbooks, and distinctive games from McMillan's first de...
darrentorpey: played Rock Band and Rock Band 2 on Xbox (2 achievements, 30G) http://gamerdna.com/r/1HC
If you follow PC gaming at all, you've probably heard about GoG.com (a.k.a. Good Old Games). I think it just about goes without saying that GoG.com is the best thing to happen to PC gaming since ...
darrentorpey: @rails Thanks for the update. It's nice to have occassional, even if irregular, updates like this to help us be ready & plan for the future.
darrentorpey: Glad to hear installing games to 360 HD brings significant speed improvements. That kind of thing matters a lot to me. http://lin.cr/6x2
darrentorpey: Barack Obama; The next U.S. President; It's true: yes we can
darrentorpey: @imran_malek The song will never die, dude. The problem IMO was people repeating a dry humor element (of the baked good variety) ad nauseum.
darrentorpey: Little Big Planet user creates a real, functioning calculator, as in a calculating machine: http://lin.cr/1qg I'm nearly speechless.
darrentorpey: @tibbon Wow; I'd never seen that before. I can only imagine the courage it took for Jon Stewart to do that broadcast.
darrentorpey: @samhouston Good ol' Generals. Don't forget the Zero Hour expansion. Super-weapon commander, baby. ION CANNON READY!
darrentorpey: Retweet Space Invaders keyboard: http://tinyurl.com/64ln9v. Sweet.
darrentorpey: @tinysubversions Safari is quite good and fast on Windows, IMO. You might want to check it out if you like speed.
darrentorpey: @trappermarkelz I tried the Too Human demo the other night. It seemed pretty darned cool. Given the low reviews, I'm guessing I should rent?
darrentorpey: GameLoop '08 is over, and it went great! Simultaneously casual and well-structured. Wide range of topics, all handled in depth. Good times.
darrentorpey: I mean, seriously: adding a tactical element to the Heavy like that. I think I'm in heaven; Saint Walker is greeting me at the pearly gates.
darrentorpey: Just chillin' at the Tri-city park in Placentia. Very peaceful, especially given it's actually right in the middle of urban sprawl.
darrentorpey: Locked out of office. Forgot to get my new code. Didn't think I'd be the first in on a big meeting day. Sipping too-bitter coffee in cafe.
darrentorpey: On my way to a b-day/housewarming party, waiting for Red Line train, with quizzes and beer on the mind. Mmm... quizzes and beer.
darrentorpey: Toldjaso: Harmonix brought Rock Band 2 to the Boston Post Mortem. Watching people play RB1 DLC, though. :P
darrentorpey: @samhouston You're learning the joy of nostalgia, my friend. It's a power that will never fail you when looking back at videogames past.
darrentorpey: @trappermarkelz It looks great, though. Still feel like there's more they could do with the concept, but Yahoo never seems to go far enough.
The Wonderful End of the World was recently released on Steam. I've played it for a while now, and I'm quite happy with my purchase. It's a very competent Katamari Damacy clone, full of charm, crea...
darrentorpey: @jschementi No kidding! At gamerDNA it's understood that "the office is for communication". Ergo most of the actual work gets done at home!
I signed up for GameFly a week or so ago, after having it recommended to me in general by Trapper and Steve. I signed up specifically for the purpose of catching up on the Ace Combat series, becaus...
Sarron posted a photo: GamerDNA logo lovingly crafted (by a fan, presumably) onto their Porsche in Forza.
I can hardly believe it's been 10 years since I walked into the games store in the Mall of New Hampshire (I believe it was called "Software, Etc." back then) and chose the Protoss-cover StarCraft S...
.flickr-photo { }.flickr-frame { float: right; text-align: center; margin-left: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Group Shot, originally uploaded b...
Last November I had the joy of attended the Montreal International Game Summit for the first time. Jason's been hyping it up on his blog and in person for so long now, I figured I'd try my luck and...
When Valve announced that a Steam pre-order of the Orange Box allowed entrance into the Team Fortress 2 beta you know I signed up right away. I've been an avid Team Fortress Classic (TFC) fan for m...
After a brief (okay, not-so-brief) hiatus from blogging, I'm glad to say I'm finally back.So why the long silence? I'm not sure, actually. I could take the easy route and simply say: "life was busy...
Sarron posted a photo: In the Fall of 2002, we got a little crazy....
Sarron posted a photo: Darius Kazemi: too sexy for the WPI GDC?
In a recent interview at a game dev company, I was asked a fairly typical and straightforward question: "Why do you want to work on games in particular?"I can hardly believe how relatively unprepar...
Much of my volunteer and on-the-side work for the last 6 months has been with the IGDA Education SIG. I started volunteering with the IGDA as a webmaster for the Columbus chapter of the IGDA. Last ...
GDC 2007 is over now, and with it the hustle and bustle of 12,000+ people has once again left the many halls of San Francisco's Moscone Centers West, South, and North. The story of GDC '07 is not a...
Sarron posted a photo: I know I'll treasure this photo for a long time to come. Thanks for a great GDC, Darius.
It's been a while since I've posted about GameTap, and I feel the hard work the GT people have been up to has finally warranted another post.There have been great improvements to GameTap since the ...
Better late than never -- I'd like to talk about how great it was being a part of the Boston Game Jam, which took place over the weekend of January 20th and 21st.Fifteen professional (well, 14, plu...
Boston Game Jam (January 2007)Location: MIT Education Arcade LabDate: Jan 26, 2007Number of Photos in Album: 10View Album
Now that the GDC 2007 Academic Workshop has been officially announced, I'd like to mention the awesome news that I will be speaking as a part of the event. That's right -- I'm actually going to GD...
As I mentioned in my last post, Jason Della Rocca's talk on "at least 10 reasons why the games industry doesn't suck" inspired me to get on with writing some of the thing that have been on my mind ...
I just wanted to make a quick post to mention that Jason Della Rocca indeed gave a great presentation at the Boston PostMortem last Tuesday about why the games industry doesn't suck. As I expected,...
While browsing BetaNews the other day, I saw the announcement of the merger of ATI Technologies and AMD. First impression: very interesting... and probably good for gamers and future gamers, in...
I've had some thoughts about girls and games floating around in my head for a while, so when The Escapist released their "Girl Power 2" issue, which contained some rather interesting and enjoyable ...
Those who know me know that I've always been a fervent supporter of Steam. Mostly, as I think is understood, my support comes from a desire to see such alternative publishing methods grow into thei...
And now, just because, here are a few tidbits from the games side of my world at the moment:GameTap continues to rock my world. I got a call from a nice woman with a deep southern drawl asking me i...
At long last, Gabe Newell has announced the pending release of long-famous vaporware title Team Fortress 2. Not only that, but at EA annual summer press event today Gabe showed off a "portal" techn...
A somewhat impromptu post here, but on a topic I've wanted to register some chatter on for some time. One of my design "pet peeves", especially when it comes to RPGs, has been called out by Edge i...
The latest (here in America) issue of Edge Magazine has a nice feature that examines the question of whether the Playstation 3 has already won the console war. Assumed is that the known war is betw...
Congratulations to Harmonix Music, makers of such gems as Amplitude and Guitar Hero, for winning a runner-up award for "Best Developer" (of 2005) from Edge magazine.I'd also like to take this oppor...
Way to go, Planet Half-Life.Today I happened upon Planet Half-Life while investigating the Half-Life 2 CTF mod.They (PHL) had a poll on the front page as follows:Would you date Alyx?( ) Yes... IN M...
I feel the need to write a little more about GameTap and why I like it so much...Heroes of Might and Magic I, II, & III have now been added, meaning that GT now has all four core games making up t...
Funkitron, a small, independent game development company in the Boston area has just released their newest game, Funkiball Adventure: Lost Legends. Funkitron's focus has always been on the casual g...
Sid Meier's Civlization IV was released last week, as was Call of Duty 2. I imagine that I'll be posting thoughts and impressions from both games up here, but I want to start with my first impressi...
Date: Mar 24, 2004Number of Photos in Album: 1View Album
Sarron posted a photo: Grant Sarber explaining his artistic vision for the game -- the old man IS the dragon!
Sarron posted a photo: Most of the team is here looking at some early town designs
Sarron posted a photo: Most of my team members were rather camera shy, actually
Sarron posted a photo: From one of Darius' early game design workshops. Yeah, we had fun. =)
Sarron posted a photo: This was the awesome creative make-a-non-electronic-game-with-others event that Darius held. It was part of Worcester Polytechnic Institute's New Student Orientation (WPI ...
Sarron posted a photo: That just ain't right man. THAT. AIN'T. RIGHT.
Sarron posted a photo: Mike & Darius... doing that whole "runnin' the GDC" thing. One. Crazy. Day. At a time. (Back in Fall '02)
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