Classes started! Here's a rundown:
Monday: Canada doesn't do Mondays. Definitely a big perk
Tuesday: We all sat in a circle and talked about how great video games are. We went home after 30 minutes for a nap. It was exhausting.
Wednesday: Canada doesn't really do Wednesdays either.
Thursday: Formal debate about whether or not video games are the most awesome, or the most awesome. Hot topic for sure.
Friday: Ice cream party! Fridays are just Saturdays that haven't started yet.
Or at least that's what I feel like some people think I'm doing when I tell them I'm going to school for video game design. The reality is a little less silly and a lot more awesome:
Monday: Ok, but actually there were no classes on Monday. It was Labor Day.
Tuesday: Actual orientation. All the things I expected to get on orientation day we got today. All of our school supplies (including text books, art supplies, a backpack, a water bottle, an umbrella, and a really nice pair of headphones), our IDs, schedule etc etc. We got the rundown in the morning of how classes work, as well as an introduction from a few of the instructors.
I'm enrolled in 8 courses this term (terms lasting 8 weeks). Each course meets once a week for THREE HOURS. I remember labs at TU that lasted 3 hours, and that seemed like the largest measurable stretch of time humanly possible. Like, anything longer than 3 hours just becomes multiples of 3 hours (like 2 3-hours is six hours, 3 3-hours is 9 etc) because 3 hours is a long-ass time to be in class. So I learned that in the morning and promptly began sweating at the idea of remaining focused that long.
In the afternoon we had IT orientation, so we got email accounts, student portal info, and got info about the "video game labs" VFS has (cue music), which are basically just rooms with a huge collection of games to play. There's a PC lab with a VFS steam account that has all the games, and I was playing League of Legends on one of them in my off time by day 2.
In the evening from 6:30-9:30 I had my first class, Storytelling 1. We learned about the 3 act structure using mostly Mass Effect, but a few other games were mentioned as well. All around a good time.
Wednesday: We only had one class from 9-12, Pre-Production Techniques. The title's pretty self-explanatory, but basically we talk about everything that has to happen before you can begin producing a video game. Spoilers, it's a lot of paperwork, but it's kinda fun paperwork. I've been working on my first assignment for that class since we got it, and I've never been so invested in crating a single page document before. Seriously, it's not due until next Thursday, yet I've been working on it steadily every day. I fear this place may be affecting my mental health for the better. What is this?
Thursday: We had Game Production in the morning, which covers everything that happens from the inception to the launch of a video game, and Game Theory (Analog) in the evening. The latter is all about board games, which turns a lot of heads. Cathy will be the first to tell you that I'm not the biggest board game fan around, but I try to dip my toe into the "analog" world occasionally, and the reasoning behind studying them is pretty convincing. This video will explain it for those curious better than I ever could (and is a part of an amazing series on game design that I highly recommend). There's a "practical" element of this class that starts next week, which to my understanding is 3 hours of free-time to play board games.
Friday aka my descent into productivity madness: Only one morning class on Game Art. I photoshopped Steve Buscemi's eyes onto Chris Pratt. That's pretty self-explanatory I feel. Then I went home and began a weekend of hard work. That's absolutely insane to me. I can't remember the last time I did homework on a Saturday, but I worked from noon until 8ish I think? And on things that aren't due for weeks. And I have calendars on my whiteboard with all of my assignment due dates for the entire term WHO AM I?
I haven't mentioned any of the instructors in all of this, because I feel like I'd end up saying the same things 8 times, so I'll just mention it all here. The instructors are (redacted)ing phenomenal. Not only are they all extremely passionate about the things they teach, but they all worked in the industry at one time or another, and some of them still do. The reason we have night classes at all is so instructors can get off work, grab some dinner, and then come teach a bunch of kids how to do what they do. It takes a special kind of dedication to do that sort of thing, and its that sort of dedication that's teaching me. That last sentence felt appropriately cheesy enough to whip this bad boy out.
What a fantastic place I'm in.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Wedding pictures!!!
I got oodles and oodles of wedding pictures from the amazing and incredible Christy Archibald (Facebook here) over the weekend. In fact, we were watching the second Cloud 9 vs. Curse game at PAX when I got the email with the link!!! Max was very tolerant of my non-participation while I poured over our pictures!
She set them up in four albums, and I loved it so much I kept them when I made my own hard copy books! That is what I'll be sharing here! When you click on the link, you'll be taken to Picaboo's website to view a preview of the book I made. I've set them to open a new window this time since it's sort of an exhibition. Tab through the pages for the full experience :) I know I put some in here, but for the full experience, check out the books!!!!
The first is Getting Ready. I've added a couple of my favorites from there.
Then we had the Ceremony! There's also some of that below.
Portraits were taken before and after the ceremony, but they fit well all in their own book. I even added some of these.
Our Reception was the best party we could have ever imagined! TONS of reception photos (we got almost 1000 from Christy in that album!). Ok, for these you HAVE to go look at the book! I'm sorry! I just can't pick out any to share over all the others!!!
She set them up in four albums, and I loved it so much I kept them when I made my own hard copy books! That is what I'll be sharing here! When you click on the link, you'll be taken to Picaboo's website to view a preview of the book I made. I've set them to open a new window this time since it's sort of an exhibition. Tab through the pages for the full experience :) I know I put some in here, but for the full experience, check out the books!!!!
The first is Getting Ready. I've added a couple of my favorites from there.
Then we had the Ceremony! There's also some of that below.
Portraits were taken before and after the ceremony, but they fit well all in their own book. I even added some of these.
Our Reception was the best party we could have ever imagined! TONS of reception photos (we got almost 1000 from Christy in that album!). Ok, for these you HAVE to go look at the book! I'm sorry! I just can't pick out any to share over all the others!!!
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
PAX 2014!! - Saturday
Oh my goodness this was quite the day!
For our Friday adventures, check out this other really great post.
We woke up around 7 am to leave the hotel at 7:30. We went to a Target to pick up some walkie-talkies (Max forgot to bring his States phone) and see if we could do anything with the Target gift cards that are of no use in Canada.
After also hitting up Starbucks for some breakfast, we drove into downtown Vancouver to get in line for the Exhibition hall! We were there around 9, and the hall didn't open until 10 am! On the way in we picked up a PAX program, saw a huge sculpture of LoL character Ziggs, another one of Annie and her giant bear friend Tibbers, and grabbed lanyards for our passes!
Our program informed us that there were things to see on 4 different floors! We quickly realized we probably wouldn't make it through everything (In the end we covered 3 of the 4 floors to their (almost) entirety!!).
After our experiences with lines for Sunset Overdrive and Borderlands, it started to seem like they've gotten too big for their britches. The lines would be an hour or longer, and you would be able to play a 5 to 7 minute controlled demo. It was still tons of fun, but just something to consider for next year.
We decided to head to the LoL games around 1 pm. We split up, Max heading to Subway to grab some lunch for us, me heading to the seating to find us somewhere to watch from.
They were just ramping up for the first rounds. This was to be TSM (Team SoloMid) vs. Team LMQ. Here's the results of their match-up. We had to stand on the side for the first game. We were still really near the front, to it was still pretty good.
We opted to leave after LMQ lost the first game to see some more of the entire convention. We went by a booth for a game called Strife, where Max chatted up one of the members of the dev team. They also had a mechanical bull, that was actually a mechanical dragon. Max would not ride it despite my most adamant protests. I then wondered out into a lobby area to pick up some shirts, when I encountered the man dressed as a lion (in the bottom of this series of pictures).
From here we went to a theatre a couple of blocks over where they were having a discussion panel with a set of the LoL developers. They opened the floor to questions after their prepared speech, and boy were there some bizarre, unrelated questions/comments.
On our way back into the hall, we really wandered around the bottom two floors.
Then we went back to the LoL hall. We caught the 5th game of LMQ vs. TSM (this was especially impressive because it's a best of 5 series! Also, it was SEVERAL HOURS later). We assumed our previous standing position on the side lines, then I bullied our way into two pretty awesome seats to watch Cloud 9 vs. Curse! This was an amazing series! Cloud 9 took it in 3 games, with Curse surrendering in the first game!
For our Friday adventures, check out this other really great post.
We woke up around 7 am to leave the hotel at 7:30. We went to a Target to pick up some walkie-talkies (Max forgot to bring his States phone) and see if we could do anything with the Target gift cards that are of no use in Canada.
After also hitting up Starbucks for some breakfast, we drove into downtown Vancouver to get in line for the Exhibition hall! We were there around 9, and the hall didn't open until 10 am! On the way in we picked up a PAX program, saw a huge sculpture of LoL character Ziggs, another one of Annie and her giant bear friend Tibbers, and grabbed lanyards for our passes!
 |
| Ziggs |
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| Annie and Tibbers |
 |
| The line to get into the main Expo Hall ran through the room where the LoL Finals would be held later that day |
Our program informed us that there were things to see on 4 different floors! We quickly realized we probably wouldn't make it through everything (In the end we covered 3 of the 4 floors to their (almost) entirety!!).
 |
| I found an Xbox game that I love!! |
 |
| There was a Sunset Overdrive demo booth that we waited in line for and eventually got to play! |
 |
| Pokemon booth!! I was hoping for a Ruby and Sapphire teaser, but all they had for demo was their online trading card game (super lame) |
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| Street fighter!! |
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| Borderlands! We spent a lot of time, multiple times, in line for Borderlands, but never quite made it around to the front for the demo play |
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| WarHammer character |
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| Evolve Boss |
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| Play Station had a big section |
After our experiences with lines for Sunset Overdrive and Borderlands, it started to seem like they've gotten too big for their britches. The lines would be an hour or longer, and you would be able to play a 5 to 7 minute controlled demo. It was still tons of fun, but just something to consider for next year.
We decided to head to the LoL games around 1 pm. We split up, Max heading to Subway to grab some lunch for us, me heading to the seating to find us somewhere to watch from.
They were just ramping up for the first rounds. This was to be TSM (Team SoloMid) vs. Team LMQ. Here's the results of their match-up. We had to stand on the side for the first game. We were still really near the front, to it was still pretty good.
 |
| The "Casters" (like the ESPN Football casters) |
We opted to leave after LMQ lost the first game to see some more of the entire convention. We went by a booth for a game called Strife, where Max chatted up one of the members of the dev team. They also had a mechanical bull, that was actually a mechanical dragon. Max would not ride it despite my most adamant protests. I then wondered out into a lobby area to pick up some shirts, when I encountered the man dressed as a lion (in the bottom of this series of pictures).
From here we went to a theatre a couple of blocks over where they were having a discussion panel with a set of the LoL developers. They opened the floor to questions after their prepared speech, and boy were there some bizarre, unrelated questions/comments.
On our way back into the hall, we really wandered around the bottom two floors.
 |
| A whole pile of bean bag chairs |
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| A game based around blowing into your Super Nintendo game cartridge! |
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| The arcade room! |
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| Escalators in the center of the exhibit hall |
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| Max playing Transistor |
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| Fun crazy people near us in the audience |
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| Max on the live cast! See the next three photos, too! |
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| Max was in the live cast right before game 1! Watch at 6:25 |
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| Max in the live cast! This was right before game 3, watch starting at 5 seconds |
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| At the end we got to go take a picture with Cloud 9!! |
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| Max was wearing the same shirt as one of the casters! |
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| Also with the Casters! |
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| We saw TSM on our way out of the conventions center! |
We found our way back to the hotel after that. Sunday morning we had the easiest and most beautiful border crossing of our lives!!!
We've already looked into more conventions to attend. There's a big one in Vancouver next April. They haven't announced the location of PAX Prime 2015 yet, but I think it's always on the west coast somewhere.
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