Results tagged “the gameshelf” from jmac.org blog

Announcing The Gameshelf Blog, a new community of intelligent-if-eclectic game news and discussion. I hope that it will fill out the long and dreary spaces between new Gameshelf episodes with interesting game-related tidbits that share the show's spirit.

I've invited everyone whose name has appeared in an episode's credit roll to join the site as a contributor. I went by memory so it's entirely possible I overlooked you (or your mail client ate the invitation as spam); if that's the case, and you want to help, please contact me!

Yes, it's the same URL that the show has held for years. I quietly replaced the static site with blog software a few months ago, and more recently redesigned it so that a link to the most recent episode will always appear at the top. The blog and the episode videos have separate RSS feeds, too. (Rather, one's a subset of the other.)

And so 2007, the first year I employed the four-pillars metaphor of organizing my life, draws to a close. The metaphor serves as more of a mnemonic than a scorecard, but let me nonetheless look back and see how well I balanced the year across them.

Dating: Well, yes. The first time I've had a relationship as long as a year, and isn't it just ducky that it happens to line up with the calendar year, too. All is well. (And I don't have much else to say here, because it's not really a bloggy topic.)

Video: It fell short of expectations, though what output I did make was great. The year saw only two Gameshelfs and two Jmac's Arcades. The Arcade receives an update only when I get inspired to spend a day stitching a show together, so its having a pokey pace is fine. But Gameshelf was supposed to see three shows in the first half of the year. However, both episodes we did make were better by a giant leap over the four shows (plus demo reel) that we shot in 2005. The improvement was entirely a matter of better overall planning by the whole crew. It leaves me really looking forward to what we'll do in the coming year, but that's a topic for another post.

Volity: Quite a ride. My relationship with Volity was stone cold through the winter and into spring. I was totally burnt out after throwing my life into it for most of 2006. A cafe conversation with AET re-ignited my interest in leading the web client project myself, and zthen I spent several months completely absorbed in it, culminating in a working pre-Alpha in August. And things haven't exactly stalled there; better to say that we've been caught up in highly devilish detail-work, which was slowed down a lot by my entanglement with personal financial setbacks in the autumn.

Money: Another crazy ride. At the start of the year I figured I'd be working for ITA indefinitely, but by spring I couldn't resist seeing what putting another iron in the fire felt like. So I got an hourly contract job with a remote client, and I liked it, enough so that at the start of the summer I officially started calling myself a software consultant. But I made a mistake in not building up more clients than the one, so when they silently stopped giving me work I was left in the cold. After two months of scrambling, I find myself with several new clients, and looking forward to a new year of self-directed work.

I don't know yet if I want to carry the pillars metaphor into next year. I probably will anyway, out of intertia. It's served me well and my areas of desired focus have not changed much.

2008: Stay the course, except moreso. Unless I don't. I admit to feeling that all my meeples are on the board, if you know what I'm saying. I want to be able to do new kinds of art, too, but I'm so invested that it's hard. We'll see what happens.

The crew and I have been pondering this in email. Everyone likes the idea of my expanding the show's talent pool, and we've been thinking of ways to find (and filter) more good gamer-guests.

Here's a draft of a web-based questionnaire I just threw together. The idea is that I'd post it to the show's website, then place ads on appropriate community forums and such that link to the questionnaire (incidentally advertising the show itself as well). I'd then follow up with the more interesting responses (though maybe not immediately), and take it from there.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Hi! Thanks for your interest in helping with The Gameshelf.

At this time I am looking to expand the pool of people I invite on the show to play games. Prior to this casting effort, this has been limited to folks I already know from gaming and other social circles. I'd like to cast the net a little wider in an effort to get a broader variety of gamers on the show.

Callbacks will be as spotty as The Gameshelf's own production schedule. Perhaps you'll hear from me immediately; perhaps it'll take months. Perhaps you'll bump into me on the street one day and ask me about the time you submitted the application and never heard back, and I'll look all confused. At any rate, all applications will be read, filed, and ruminated upon.

You can leave some fields blank if you'd rather not answer certain questions, but the more complete your form is the better your chances are. All replies will be confidential (I won't go copying your email address onto another webpage, or anything).

Name

Email

Age

Sex

Where do you live? (The Gameshelf is shot in and around the Boston area.)

What is your favorite tabletop (board or card) game? Why?

What is your favorite digital game? Why?

Any other games you love? (Sports? Role-playing? Puzzles? Etc?) Why?

Why do you want to be on this show?

On that note, why would _I_ want you to be on it?

What would you change about The Gameshelf?

Please upload a photograph of yourself. Nothing glamourous, but enough to show me what you look like. If possible, have your photographed self wearing the sort of clothing that you'd expect to wear on camera. Use your own best judgment about that!

Anything else you'd like to say (or ask)?

I've canceled the Dec 18th shoot; half my crew had things come up unexpectedly - not surprising for late December - and it wasn't the best date for game-playing talent, either. I'll reschedule for something in January. Watch this space.

While I love those friends who've volunteered to play on the show and always welcome their return, I've also been thinking about casting the net a little wider for talent. I'm unsure what the sanest way to go about this would be. Posting some "Wanna be on the Gameshelf?" info on the show's website would be one thing, and making a post on the davis_square LJ community would be quite another. I would like to mix it up with some new faces, but that means auditioning. I'll try anything once, but it's not terribly clear to me how to audition folks to be good and camera-friendly gamers!