Categories
Web

Formula 1

There was a point in my life where I enthusiastically followed Formula 1, and it’s easy to remember when: Ayrton Senna. My interested in F1 started and ended with him, and I’ve never bothered to pay attention since. As much as I love to play racing games — it’s one of my favorite video game genres — I don’t find it particularly interesting to see cars race on TV. If I was a fan during the Senna era, it was because of the stories that developed during his run, and the drama that followed from race-to-race (the action, the rivalries, the controversies, etc.)

Fast forward to earlier this year, just ahead of the start of the 2019 Formula 1 season. I’m sick in bed, binging madly to keep my mind off my incessant coughing, and I decide to check out a new documentary series on Netflix called Formula 1: Drive to Survive. I was hooked, and binged all 10 episodes in one go. It covers the 2018 season, but by examining certain drivers and teams, which means the focus is not on the winners of the races, but on the drama that takes place on and off the track, and that’s what got me.

What’s happened since? I immediately wanted to know how the upcoming season 2019 was looking like, and so started looking up news and reports, and I’m now at a point where I listen to a weekly podcast called Shift-F1 (funnily enough, it’s hosted by three guys from the gaming press, including Noclip‘s Danny O’Dwyer), I watch all of the practice, qualifying, and racing highlights on YouTube (the official Formula 1 channel is really great for this), and on a daily basis I’m watching lots of videos on YouTube that are F1-related, examining how things are going, analysis of the cars, drivers, tracks, etc.

I’m also really bummed by how Ricciardo is doing with Renault this year.

My sudden surge in interest in Formula 1 has even spilled over to Formula E, the electric car racing series, and I’m following it in a similar way — and I’m quite excited for the upcoming documentary, And We Go Green (produced by Leonardo Dicaprio). Formula E is also quite interesting in that it adopts in real life a lot of “mechanics” that we’re used to seeing in video game racing — there are actual boost pads on the track.

So all this to say that these days I’m having a lot of fun following the world of these speedy cars, and that’s without any interest in watching actual races live.

Categories
Events Games Personal

Friday Fluke

Pretty much ever since I’ve worked at Ubisoft Montréal, I’ve sent out an email at 16:oo on Fridays to invite everyone on the team to take it easy as we head into the weekend. It started out as a pretty typical “beer mail” — as Production Coordinator on For Honor, one of the things I did was order and stock up the beer fridge (along with soft drinks) — and over time I started having a bit of fun with the email. When I changed teams (the Game Operations Online team), I kept doing it, even though it wasn’t really a habit the team had — I remember the first one I sent, grabbing a beer and then standing alone, with no one else drinking. Eventually they caught on, and on top of sharing a drink and chatting, it turned into playing games and the like.

Last year I decided I didn’t want to call it the “beer time” anymore — because of the alcohol connotation that could make non-beer drinkers feel uninvited (even if we stock up on other things, like sodas, juices, kombuchas, etc.) — and decided to brand it as the “Friday Fluke.” I’m part of a team called Harbour (offering online solutions for all of Ubisoft), and the “fluke” is a part of an anchor, and so I saw this as an “anchor” for the week — and I also liked the other connotation that the word has (an unexpected piece of good luck).

With that change, I’ve been turning that end-of-week time into more of an event, and the latest thing I’ve introduced (as of a few weeks ago) is that we kick it off with someone doing a presentation about something personal using the PechaKucha format (20 images/slides x 20 seconds), in order to get to know each other a bit better. It’s been great so far, with everyone doing a fantastic job with what they shared, even if they were a bit nervous about trying out the format. I myself did a couple (to get people used to it), first a rundown of my 10 favorite anime series, and then for the second one I broke the format a bit, giving my 20-second thoughts on all 25 James Bond movies (I included Bond 25).

After that we usually end up playing games in a large group, usually of the social deduction variety, things like Werewolf, Secret Hitler, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, The Resistance, Coup, etc. For Werewolf, after playing through two copies of Werewolf Legacy, I’ve now started creating my own scenarios, but that’s for another post.

I’m sharing this just to put it out there that the end-of-week “beer time” that is not uncommon in game studios (we used to do it during my time at Eidos Montréal, in the Square Enix Montréal studio, as well) doesn’t have to be just that, and can be turned into more of a social event, in which everyone can feel like they can be part of it, and contribute.

Categories
Personal

Four Years a Game Dev

It was four years ago on this day (Monday, May 11, 2015) that I started my first day as a game developer. After leaving our life in Tokyo at the end of March (on the 31st) and spending a month in my hometown while I continued to look for work, we moved to Montreal during the first week of May so I could start the following week at Eidos Montréal.

Thinking back, it was a bit of a crazy idea to suddenly do a career change and make the decision to find work in the games industry. As I’ve written before, it wasn’t easy, but I’m glad I persevered, and I find myself still incredibly thankful to be working in this industry (now at Ubisoft Montréal, for just over 3 years).

Sure, I do miss my life in Tokyo, all of my friends there and all the amazing people I worked with, hung out with, and shared fun times with, but I have no regrets. Four years a game dev.

Categories
Games

Recent Gaming (May 2019)

The Picross-inspired Piczle Colors.

Following the post I put up recently about TV shows I’ve been watching on a weekly basis (which does not preclude continued binging, which I’m currently doing with the second season of Cobra Kai), here’s a survey of what I’ve been playing video games-wise in recent weeks.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I’m at close to 60 hours on this, and still haven’t completed the main game. I’ve stopped playing it a few times since its release, in order to jump on other things I also wanted to play (Red Dead Redemption 2, The Division 2), but I came back to it this week and completed a few more missions. I still think this world is so incredibly gorgeous, and I love being in it.

Gems of War. It has an incredibly generic name, and it’s a free-to-play game (something I’m not a big fan of generally), but this game by the creators of the original Puzzle Quest got me hooked immediately. It’s basically exactly like Puzzle Quest with a few upgrades, and up until now, I haven’t felt like I needed to deal with F2P incentives, but I can see it coming down the line. After being incredibly addicted over the first few days I was playing it, I now haven’t touched it in weeks, and maybe that’s for the best.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. To my great surprise, I’ve discovered the joys of playing Super Mario games co-op. Before picking up this game I had never played co-op in any of the other Mario games that offered it — never felt the interest, looked too chaotic — but since I like to play games with colleagues at work, I figured I’d give it a try, and I ended up loving playing in co-op (usually 3 players) much more than in solo mode. I had an absolute blast playing through the campaign with two colleagues, and we’re currently backtracking and getting all 3 star coins in each level, in order to unlock all of the bonus levels — which is something I’ve never bothered doing in any Mario game. I’ve had so much fun playing this way that when we’re done unlocking everything, I’m planning on bringing my Wii U to work so we can play through Super Mario 3D World that way.

Picross S. Playing through Piczle Colors put me in a Picross playing mood, and the release of Picross S3 last week reminded me that I hadn’t played any of the Switch releases yet, so I picked up the first one and have been having a great time with it (I’m about 50-60 puzzles in).

Piczle Colors. I love Picross, and this Picross-inspired game by my friend James Kay’s Score Studios is just as fun. According to my Switch stats, it’s the game I’ve played the most on my Switch this year so far (after finishing it, my play count was at over 20 hours). If you love Picross, you really need to get this as well.

The Division 2. I was incredibly excited for the release of this — I quite enjoyed the first game — and it hasn’t disappointed. Although I’m sure you get more fun out of it if you play with others, I’ve pretty much soloed it exclusively so far (I used matchmaking for one mission I was having a hard time with), and it’s been fine that way. I’ve put in about 60 hours, and have completed the campaign (I did that at around the 50-55 hour point). I’ve dabbled a few hours in the endgame, and do like it — especially the new specializations that gives you a super weapon — but I’ve decided to put the game aside for a bit so I can play through some other things.

The Gardens Between. I picked this up a while back while it was on sale, and only just recently got around to playing it. I’m really enjoying it so far, in part because of the fantastic art direction, but also because of the innovate gameplay that revolves around forwarding and reversing time (a bit similar to some of the things we saw in Braid, but still with its own twists). Highly recommended.

TowerFall. I’ve loved TowerFall for a long time, previously playing it on PS4, and recently picked it up on Switch as well. The impetus was actually for a team activity we were doing at work (a silly tournament we organize for our interns), because I wanted the 6-player option that only the Switch version offers. This game is still so much fun.

Yakuza Kiwami 2. I played through and finished three Yakuza games last year (Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, and Yakuza 6), and so wanted to take a break before I get to Kiwami 2. I started playing it this morning, and it feels just as good as all the other games I’ve played. I love this series to bits — this is my spiritual successor to Shenmue — and I’m really looking forward to playing Judgment this summer (new game not in the series, but from the Yakuza studio).