Strange Journeys
Tyler Sigman: Game Designer, Writer, Engineer
Category
Random Stuff
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04.13.09Hobbling DeadJust wanted to take a moment to plug my colleague's webcomic: The Hobbling Dead (zombie humor) www.hobblingdead.com New issue every monday--start at the bottom of the page and scroll up. Nice and clean B&W artwork, and who doesn't like zombies? Go read it for a truly Strange Journey!
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03.16.09WTF is Leg Fisher Man?The LegFisherMan game is a tribute to a a brave, never-say-die real-life counterpart. To watch a master at work, see this video: Real Life Leg Fisher Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsiSoNWCy-M Now he is immortalized in 8-bit. PLAY THE GAME
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03.05.09Leg Fisher Man - the Free Flash Game!In troubling times like these, the world needs a hero. Thank goodness for LEG FISHER MAN. To honor him, I've made a Flash game that captures his majesty and courage. PLAY THE GAME
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02.14.09Another Chapter in Failed Humor…[caption id="attachment_94" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Strange Adventures of Sigma - Special Valentine"][/caption]
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07.22.08Camouflage Styles in a Time of WarIs there anything so utterly repellent as popular culture adopting camouflage as a clothes pattern during a time of "war"? It strikes me as a blatant symbol of how out of touch popular culture can be with the geopolitical developments of more substance. It gives me the shivers in a terrible sort of way. Continue Reading...
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04.21.08Starcraft vs Company of Heroes, WoW vs Every Other MMORPGHere's an interesting post about the design aspects that make some modern RTS games like Company of Heroes and Dawn of War less suitable for high level play than Starcraft. The OpEd theorizes that being less suitable for continued high-level play is one of the reasons why these games, despite their strong critical reception, are nowhere nearly as big a phenomenon as the afore-mentioned Blizzard Machine. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18326 I think the points are excellent and I've seen them in other guises (e.g. board games). Namely, degrees of randomness can work for and against you. Also, simple presentation = gameplay clarity. I still think ...
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04.14.08Rock Band…uhh…RocksI was quite late to the bandwagon, but I'm officially on it now. Of course, I'm not going to catch this kid any time soon. Guitar Hero and Rock Band turn out to be no brainers. That is, they're just about impossible not to like. I never thought I would ever be persuaded to purchase a plastic guitar, let alone a set of fake drums, mic, and second guitar to go with it. But here we are, and I own all of them. And they are worth every cent! I watched the Guitar Hero thing develop from a bit of a distance. ...
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02.05.08Game Design is a Team MetaGameMoogle.net just posted a nice little piece about the differences between "ideal" game development (aka do whatever you want without constraints) and real world game development. While it's not the most glamorous or enjoyable part of game design, the constraints of working on a team are extremely relevant to day-to-day designer experience. While I have your attention, also check THIS OUT if you haven't already seen it. Can anything really top a monkey riding a border collie? I mean, really? (Ok, owning two border collies does make me a bit biased to collie-based entertainment.)
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01.30.08Captain Rémy Sainton Sails the Spanish MainPirates of the Burning Sea released on Jan 22. For those of you that don't know, it's yet another MMORPG entry into a crowded market. 10 million WoW subscribers can't possibly leave too many free eyeballs, eh? I've been following POTBS for several years with some interest. It is, of course, one of the games I would have really, *really*, REALLY loved to have worked on in a significant creative capacity. Another is Medieval Total War. I'm not saying that based upon its success (which remains to be seen), but simply based on topic. MMORPG set in 1700ish Caribbean? Sign me ...
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01.16.08The PlagueEvidently, our house is infested with vermin. Or at least it was. Our fiesty orange cat, Red Sonja, has captured and/or killed 5 mice since Saturday. I knew we were getting a little slobby, but not THAT bad. It's now grown to be some weird part of our nightly ritual. Once we finally get in bed, lights off, reading finished, blah blah blah--give it about 5 minutes and then *pounce...squeak...squeak...squeak*. At that point, I'm glad that she caught said mouse, but less than enthusiastic about having to attend to the situation. Actually, when I say "caught", I mean more that she has located ...
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12.22.07Holiday Gift - Free Boardgame DownloadHappy Holidays from StrangeJourneys.com! Best wishes for a great 2008.
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11.11.07The Briliant Design of Team Fortress 2I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 by Valve (Part of the "Orange Box", of course). By "a lot", I mean enough to make me tired, skip other games, and generally interfere a bit with my daily schedule. My "a lot" these days doesn't even rank in the annals of hardcore players out there; I have a pretty busy life and if I play 2 hours of a game on any given day it's somewhat unusual. After I bought the Orange Box, a solid 2 weeks passed before I could break away from TF2 long enough to even BOOT ...
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11.06.07BGG.CON #3 on the HorizonNext week is BGG.CON #3. Hard to believe it's been a year since the last one. I've been to many conventions, and I'm hard pressed to think of one where I've had *more fun* than last year's BGG.CON. It was the perfect size, filled with the most amazing game library, and the attendees were by-and-large more than pleasant. The convention is held in Dallas, and is put on by Aldie and Derk of the amazing www.boardgamegeek.com. If you're going to be there, give me a ping at tsigman atttttttttt yahoo dot you know what. I hope to be bringing two or three of ...
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08.30.07Another Draft Behind Me (The Brilliance of Fantasy Football)Another year, another Fantasy Football season. I’ve been playing enthusiastically for the last five years or so (along with everyone else in North America). It’s the strength of the game that really engrosses me. I’m definitely not the biggest sports fan around—yeah, I’m a diehard Bronco fan, but that used to be all I’d watch. Now I’ll watch a Cincy vs Cleveland game, simply because I’m involved in the outcome. Or more accurately, the outcome affects me. Fantasy Football just happens to be a really successful mainstream game. You know, the type of game that ...
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08.24.07Hasta la Vista…VistaIn a fit of what I can only describe as “irrational thought” (or at least my crush ADA Novak might describe it that way), I selected “Vista Business” when I bought my new Lenovo Thinkpad T61 laptop a couple of months ago. My loose rationale was that Vista is taking over, so might as well hop on the train and start getting used to the New World Order. And it surely can't be as frustrating/annoying/error-prone as a few complainers have made it out to be, can it? Surely it is just the Availability Heuristic at work... A couple months of BSODs ...
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08.16.07Reality TV Doesn’t Bite…not all of it, anywayReality TV is a lightning rod for criticism. It's responsible for the stupefication of America, not to mention the unfortunate economic pressures it puts on the networks. (Reality TV generally is a lot cheaper to produce than scripted shows, *plus* the ratings have been good. Together that means a lot less scripted show content is on the air.) I'm as aghast as anyone at the pure idiocy of shows where the featured contestants must do nothing more than guess what's behind curtain A or B. But I'm an unabashed lover of shows where people actually have to demonstrate a REAL SKILL. My ...
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08.09.07A 3D Modeling Program is a CAD Program by Any Other Name…This week, I've been boning up on 3DS Max a bit, so I can do a better job of making some test tracks environments for the game demo I'm helping out with. If there's one frustrating thing in life, it's knowing exactly what you need to do, just not how to do it. (Okay, there are other frustrating things in life, but this one ranks up there.) You see, when you combine my college experience, aerospace career, and game development career, I have done a SH&TLOAD of 2D/3D/CAD modeling in some form or another. But every time you have to learn ...
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08.02.07Speaking of THE RIG – Russians Claim Underside of North PoleWell, just yesterday I was speaking about how I believe THE RIG (one of my feature scripts) is pertinent to current events, even if it still has some futuristic elements. Then, the Russians claim the underside of the North Pole because of potential oil and gas reserves. I kid you not: I could go change about a dozen lines in my script right now and it would match what just happened. Instead of vast reserves off the coast of Japan, I could move things to the Arctic Circle. Then maybe I'll just add a few lines about how cold it is ...
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07.29.07B-17G “Sentimental Journey”I was driving home the other day, and heard a significant rumble from the skies above. There's something about a high-horsepower radial engine that gets your attention--especially when there are four of them and those engines are Wright Cyclones. Indeed, I nearly wet myself to look up and see a B-17 passing overhead. It's an easy profile to recognize because of the distinctive tail (as well as the aforementioned four engines!). The B-17 is one of my favorite aircraft, and I've done a huge amount of reading on the WWII air war. It's not everyday you see them, because there are ...
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07.23.07One Ticket to Strangeville…Welcome to Strange Journeys: the personal scratch-pad of Tyler Sigman! I'm a professional game designer and writer, with feet dipped into both the electronic and paper gaming industries. I'm also a recovering aerospace engineer with several years of sobriety (if you don't count the relapse of Spring '06). This blog was inspired by how much I've enjoyed getting a window into how other creatives, professionals, and businesspeople think, work, and act. As a working creative myself and owner of my own (small) company, I've decided to create Strange Journeys in hopes that some of my own commentary might be useful or just plain entertaining to ...
