Monthly Archives: September 2009

New Host, New Sites

By Rubes | Published: September 23, 2009

For a little while now I’ve been setting up a website for Orange River Studio and Vespers, and I’ve reached the point where it’s pretty much ready to go live. But that also gave me the opportunity to switch from Blogger to WordPress for this blog, and after some testing I think it’s time to make the switch. So the new URL for The Monk’s Brew is now http://orangeriverstudio.com/monksbrew, although I’ve tried to set things up so that the feeds transfer over seamlessly. So there shouldn’t be any need to re-subscribe to the feed, and most links should transfer you over automatically. I’m still learning about this whole process, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed something. If anyone discovers this is the case, by all means let me know.

Although Blogger is nice, I’m really liking WordPress. I’m very impressed with how powerful it is, [More...]

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Steve’s Cell Phone Number

By Rubes | Published: September 22, 2009

So one of the cooler things that happened at GDC Austin took place at the Speaker’s Party, a nice rooftop patio party for all of the speakers at the conference with, happily enough, an open bar. I was there in Austin by myself, and I’m not the most extroverted person by nature, so mingling at a social event where most people seem to know each other and I know zero isn’t exactly my comfort zone. But hey, open bar.

So I got my precious free drink, scanned the crowd, and tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do next.

I finally saw someone I recognized, but only barely; Tom Abernathy, one of the advisors of the Writers’ Summit. I knew a little of him, but I only recognized him because he introduced me at my talk. I approached him and thanked him for his intro, and [More...]

Posted in interactive fiction, miscellaneous | 5 Comments

Wrapping Up At the GDC Austin

By Rubes | Published: September 18, 2009

I’m finally getting some time to put some thoughts together on this year’s GDC Austin, as I sit in the airport waiting for my flight back. Luckily, it’s still possible to put some thoughts together, after dumping half a beer on (and in) my laptop last night. I thought for sure that was the end of the line for the MacBook Pro, but it seems to have survived the scare.

It was an impressive amount of beer dumped directly over the power button and right half of the keyboard, and I wasn’t exactly the swiftest to respond. But after giving it some time to dry upside down, it did start up the first time I tried. After that, though, on subsequent power-ups it would only cough and gasp before shutting down. It looked bleak. I’m not sure what did the trick. I gave it one last shot by holding down [More...]

Posted in Vespers, characters in games, game design, interactive fiction, text in games | 3 Comments

A Moment To Pause and Catch My Breath

By Rubes | Published: September 1, 2009

Well, that was a bit longer hiatus than I was expecting, but there you have it. It was quite a July and August. Mixed in with an impossible workload, particularly in August, was a couple of vacations (including an awesome backpacking trip to Yosemite National Park, which required more preparation than I had expected) and a big deadline. Yeah, that deadline. It’s amazing, particularly without having children, how easily free time can get sucked away before you realize it. So just about every spare minute I could find was spent working on my presentation, which has left very little time for any Vespers work recently.

I’ve given a lot of scientific talks and lectures before, and it’s pretty rare to have to prepare my talk well in advance. On only a handful of occasions can I remember having to turn in my slides before I gave the talk, which [More...]

Posted in game design, interactive fiction | 4 Comments