« the Bleynac | Home | El Laberinto Del Fauno »
Shifts of Focus
By Corvus | May 12, 2006
I have two half posts that I’m still working over. One is my Round Table post, which I’m going to commit to having up for you on Monday morning. The second is something of a response to Christy Dena’s first podcast in which she interviews Chris Crawford (link). (Un?)fortunately, I also have some design work that I need to focus on today, so don’t expect anything weighty this afternoon.
I am so enthused by the Wii news trickling out of E3 that it’s causing me to grapple with some direction choices. If, as has been hinted at, indie developers will have a good development platform with the Wii, then perhaps I want to be a part of that. There’s no reason (that I can think of) that the Honeycomb Engine wouldn’t find a good home on the Wii, as well as the web. It’ mean a shifting of some priorities though, so it bears a lot of thinking.
Yesterday I went out and bought a used copy of Kirby Canvas Curse and a copy of TAO’s Adventure for the DS. So far I’m enjoying them both, although TAO has insufferably long cut scenes at the outset.
Then, I took a spin through the television department of the store I was in and saw a few floor model LCD HDTV’s on mark down. Our 32″ 16:9 CRT television went “bam” some time ago (about a year out of warranty) and we’ve been relying on a smaller 4:3 tube which, as I’ve complained about before, makes games look pretty terrible and details difficult to make out. I called up Ms. Knittiot and babbled about the low low prices and we agreed to take a hard look at the budget, a process made easier by the spreadsheet system I built and maintain to keep track of our finances.
Long story short, after calling a couple of places and finding out how much it would cost to repair the old TV, we decided to go ahead buy a new one.
Of course, the floor models were missing features we wanted (for example: remote controls) and we ended up buying a brand new 32″ LCD HDTV, with HDMI inputs and everything. Of course, we spent quite a bit more than we planned, but now I don’t have to sit mere inches away from the television to notice details in the game environment. Details like, you know, doors and stuff. Plus, I’ve now discovered that those blurry white lines on the screen aren’t random artifacts, but actual in game text!
The Renown beta has hit a snag, in that the supplier of cards I thought I’d go with hasn’t shipped me the cards yet. I’m going to try and get them on the phone today. If you know of any game prototyping distributors, let me know.
All right, I’m feeling visual, so I’m going to go and get my 3d on. I’ll check in later if I feel remotely textual.
|
May 12th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Not to induce buyer’s remorse or anything, but these days universal remotes are pretty cheap and handy. Also, you can usually write/email/call the manufacturer and get a replacement cheap and easy. I’ve had to do both as my reciever was a used and somewhat busted unit with a faulty volume control.
Still, with LCD’s - I’d say newer is always better.
May 12th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Yeah, that unit was also a white box and missing an HDMI input, which just seems like a silly purchase at this point.
The other two sale units were Westinghouse, of which I’ve not heard great things.
May 12th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Most definately on both calls I think. Not having HDMI now is like not having S-Vid a few years back. You might not buy the cables right away, but when you want to you’ll be glad you have it.