JUNK RUNTAH

Augh! The New York Times Employs This Person !

Nathan Bransford breaks out his hammer and wallops this (ahem) "Ethicist".
Go, Nathan!

Available link for download

Are you stuck in this information security rut

Heres a new post I wrote for Rapid7s blog that I think you might like...

There’s nothing really new in the world in which we work. Every problem you face in information security has already been solved by someone else. Why not use that to your advantage? There’s no time for baby steps in security. Sure, you need to “walk before you run” by thinking before you act. That comes in the form of knowing your network, understanding your risks, and getting the right people on board. But not taking the time to learn from other people’s mistakes and developments in information security is downright bad for business...{read more at Rapid7.com}

Available link for download

Avadon Developer Diary 2 What Sort Of Game Will This Be

Here is another long overdue developer diary for our next game, Avadon: The Black Fortress. These articles are about the ongoing process of developing our new series of games. The first installment was about the source of the idea and the basic framework of the plot, which came together fairly quickly.

We recently gave a long interview about Avadon, with a lot of information about the storyline and game system. If you havent seen it already and want some hard information about what the new game will be like, its a good place to start.

So I Had the Basic Idea

Now I needed to decide what sort of game I was going to write. So the next step was to decide on the theme, the mood, and the choices. This process took weeks of thought and is worth attention. It might be a little bit technical and vague though, so if you arent interested in the artsy parts of game design, you should probably wait until the next part, when I get into the game system and the cool number-based hacky-choppy stuff.

Once I had the skeleton of a plot and setting, I think about how the game will "feel". What will the player be doing? How will I get the player emotionally involved? What gripping choices will the player make? You see, I make small budget games. Fancy graphics and sounds arent going to happen. My main weapon is the ability to tell a good story, so I focus on that. For Avadon to succeed, I have to make it interesting. How do I do that?

The Theme - You Have Power. How Do You Use It?

So first, I need a Theme. This is a set of vague questions and ideas that determine the choices and quests the player will face. When I am designing a new area or town or set of characters, these are the questions I go back to for ideas and inspiration.

So you are a citizen of the Pact, five nations that have banded together to keep the barbarians and monsters at bay. And you work for Avadon, a secretive and powerful force that hunts down and destroys those who would disrupt the safety and stability of the Pact. Avadons word is law.

Role-playing games work best when they are, at some level, power fantasies. You are a hero (or villain). You have power, and you get to choose how to use it. This has appeal to a lot of gamers, myself included. So the first step is to place the player in a position of power and responsibility. You need to protect your people, and you are given a lot of leeway for how to do it.

But there are also hints that your power is too great. Your word is law, and that isnt necessarily a good thing. Well, its great for you, but not so hot for everyone else.

Maybe you want to play a thug or a bully. Or maybe you want to resist the temptation to misuse your power, which is satisfying in a different way. And the story of Avadon is about all of the same sorts of choices. Avadon can do what it wants. Will you guide it to do the right thing? And, for that matter, should a group with so much power exist?

That is the theme. Power. The option to misuse it. What will you do?

This is a theme I go back to a lot. I think it leads to interesting games, and a good theme makes coming up with ideas and writing dialogue a lot easier.

The Mood - How Does the Game Feel? Light or Dark?

The next thing to decide is how the game will "feel"? Will it be dark and grim? Bright and cheery? Will there be humor? Will there be detailed descriptions of horror and chaos? How many nice people die?

Based on the theme, Avadon could go very dark. Mass Effect 2 dark, easily. But I decided early on that I dont want that. I like writing humor, and I think games that are too unrelentingly grim arent very fun.

I decided that Avadon will have a lot of humor and some areas that are fairly cheery. Some of the characters will actually be happy. Sometimes, you will be able to squish evil and make choices you actually feel good about. There will be more confused, cynical moments, of course, but a little of that goes a long way.

A lot of this will show up in Redbeard, the all-powerful master of Avadon. He has much responsibility and power, but I am making him a cheery character, with a lust for life, a macabre sense of humor, and someone who takes true delight in his reach and authority. This character will be the spine of the series, so I want him to be fun to write. And he is.

Of course, these are big games. That makes it easy to have some areas that are light and some areas that are grim. And I will. But, when you are laying down the whole plot, knowing what mood you want at the start helps you get the balance of Neat! and Yuck! right.

The Choices - How Does the Player Change the World?

Finally, choices. I think the most important quality of my games, the thing that adds interest and keeps me interested in writing them, is the ability to make choices that affect the ending. Of course, Im not the only developer that does this. Bioware is better at it than I am. But it is still something very important to me.

Happily, now that I have the setting and theme, the choice comes naturally. Avadon has almost limitless power, and it can use that power however it wants. Sometimes it uses it for the good of the land, but sometimes corruption sinks in. Avadon has many enemies. The players choice will be whether to serve Avadon or reject it. Whether to work for Redbeard, master of Avadon, or fight him. Or even plot to replace him.

Choices like this make writing a game much easier. Whenever I design an area and the conversations in it, it provides me a North Star to sail toward. I always skew the choices and conversations toward that final choice, the final destination.

And Then I Have To Write a Game

All of this is a little vague and metaphysical, I know. It is supposed to be. This is all stuff that has to get settled before I write a single line of code. It takes months of thought. But when Im lost in the wilds, when I have a thousand bug reports and fifty dungeons to design and Im going crazy, that is too late to figure out what I want the game to be like. I need to put firm clear principles in place so that, when I am exhausted and distracted and just trying to wrap the game up, I have as many questions already answered as I can.

The next diary will be about the next step, the game system, the actual nuts and bolts mechanics of what the game will be like.

Available link for download

Australia Warning This Post Is Almost As Long As The Film

Its May and things are going from good to better, to bad to worse, to great, to alrightish-once-Ive-had-this-cup-of-tea-and-oh-is-that-a-muffin? to just life. I have far too many things to say in one post, so I will attempt to whittle them down. (I have failed to do any real whittling. More wittering that whittling, really. Sorry.)

Australia flew by in a flurry of dismal attempts to be upgraded on planes, gingham tents in garages, small, energetic dogs, beaches, kangaroos, sunsets, beer, sushi, birthdays and suspended vegetarianism. It was marvellous. My impulse when attempting to describe three weeks of holiday in a few sentences is to launch into detailed descriptions of the weather. I am going to resist, though, and try and tell you what the holiday itself was actually like. I will aim for brevity. (Again, FAIL.)

There were four of us visiting - Ben, his Mum, his Dad and me. Laura (Bens sister) and her partner Rob live in a wooden floored house in the suburbs of Melbourne. Ben and I stayed in a delightfully-constructed gingham gazebo in the garage. (However, unlike any that I have seen, this garage was free of dusty boxes of crap, which made the experience considerably more pleasant for us.) Some days Laura and Rob were working, so we all took ourselves off on adventures around Melbourne. I hadnt realized quite how nice a city Melbourne would be. I have been to Sydney, Cairns, Brisbane and Darwin, and I must say I preferred Melbourne to all those places. It seems small and friendly, whilst also managing to be lively and a bit glamorous. What a clever balance to strike. At first I was a bit suspicious of all the happy, trendy people in the bars and cafés. It all seemed a little too perfect. Laughing trendily and sipping at excellent wine, they all had a joie de vivre that confused me. It seemed odd to me that nobody was screaming at their children or swearing at passers-by. Their skin was tanned, and not at all the shade of grey to which I have become accustomed. The sun was out, and yet all the men appeared still to be wearing their tops, and none of them were proudly sporting third degree burns. It was baffling.

I quickly found that, even without these simple home comforts, I felt pretty relaxed in Melbourne. Ben and I traipsed about taking pictures of the amazing graffiti in the lanes, and went to the achingly cool Until Never gallery. We did this on our own, so as not to bore his parents and sister with our joint love of street art, but there were plenty of family trips as well. We spent a few nights on Phillip Island, where we watched the penguins on their twilight journey from the sea to their hillside nests. We sat on the beach with our binoculars, peering at the little birds as they huddled together and ran across the sand. The following day we went to a wildlife reserve. By that point I had started to feel a little interesting-animaled out (we had seen some extremely soporific koalas that day), so trailed into the wildlife reserve without a great degree of enthusiasm. I was wrong, though, as it turned out to be brilliant.

Kangaroos and wallabies boinged freely about, eagerly nibbling the feed we had been given to offer them. At first I found the kangaroos inexplicably scary. I think it was the way that they could be right over there, looking idly at a piece of grass and contemplating life, then suddenly, at the merest rustle of a paper bag, they would have bounced over in a single, terrifying leap, nosing into your hands and slapping their great tails in the dust. I did a lot of hiding behind Bens arm, until he managed to shake me off and I was on my own, nervously being eyed by ten hungry marsupials. They paled, though, in comparison to the emus, who were also freely stalking the sixty acre park. Huge, ungainly things, I couldnt help but interpret their cold stare as that of a gangster who is planning to wreak some terrible revenge on you, but who will psychologically torment you first by silently standing behind you while you are warily feeding kangaroos. Walking through the mob of emus (that is the actual collective noun, I looked it up) all I could think was I CANNOT OUT RUN THEM. THERE IS NOWHERE TO HIDE. Ben fed one, and it nearly snapped his hand off. I crept back to the kangaroos, who suddenly seemed like adorable newborn kittens in comparison.

My birthday was lovely. Ben made french toast for breakfast, complete with maple syrup, strawberries and cream, and delicious coffee. The rest of the family went off belt shopping, while Ben and I caught the tram into town, and wandered about, happily going to galleries and sipping Champagne. We saw some of the most amazing photography Ive ever seen, an exhibition called On The Quiet Water by Yang Yongliang. (The photos on the website do not do justice to the incredible power of his work. It is somehow at once peaceful and apocalyptic. He combines ancient and modern methods to create awe-inspiring, delicate pieces that held us enraptured as we walked around.) After a delicious day, we needed to go back to Lauras, to meet up with the family, have a small slice of the lemon cake Ben had made for me the previous day, and go out for dinner.

We walked through Flinders Street station, and at once heard the telltale sounds of a group of beatboxers and rappers, otherwise known as a cipher. We watched for a bit, and then, after a bit of nudging from me, Ben joined in, energetically adding his own beatbox sounds to the group. I stood at the side, took pictures and grinned, wishing for the millionth time that I too could magically beatbox without actually having to do the hours of practice it would take for me to be any good.

Eventually we caught the train back, and after a quick turnaround and a bit of gift giving/receiving, we walked along the road to a lovely Japanese restaurant, where we devoured miso soup and edamame, after which they brought out three of those wooden boats piled high with sushi and sashimi. It was amazing, and by the time the taxi cam to whisk us into the city I was heady with sushi delirium.

Ben had found a place called Bennetts Lane Jazz Club, at which was performing a man called Mr Percival. We hadnt heard of him before, but the descriptions on the site of his use of loop pedals and vocal dexterity attracted us. We were not disappointed. As soon as he started his set it was clear just how wonderful his voice was, smooth and effortless. He started by looping the backing to Aint No Sunshine, building it up with harmonies on top of harmonies. By the time he came in with the first line, we had been waiting in exquisite agony and so burst into applause. He continued like this, using three separate microphones and connected to three pedals, recording and playing back his voice as he leapt across the stage to manipulate the sounds. The most impressive thing, though, was that while he was doing all this, he was chatting with the audience, merrily inviting our participation and jokily making everyone feel completely relaxed. It was beautiful, but also seemed that we were witnessing myriad feats of engineering, using the technology to eliminate any need for anyone else to accompany him.

All throughout the first set, Ben and I were on the edges of our seats. Ben uses his loop pedal a lot in his work, and I love layering up vocals on my tracks, so we were both in awe of Mr Percival as he played with the pedals, and his voice, so expertly. It was no surprise then, I suppose, that in the second set, when Mr Percival was singing Superstition and asked whether anyone wanted to come and sing, I scrambled to my feet and practically bit the microphone out of his hand. Laura shouted out that it was my birthday, so after that he made a few more references to me. Later on, he decided to get a man up on stage, and selected Ben (as the Birthday Girls boyfriend), who he seated on stage and forced to sing, while Mr Percival came to where I was sitting and began dancing with me. Ben sat, eyes squeezed shut, singing, until he had clearly had enough, and started to beatbox. Mr Percivals head whipped around, and he promptly threw me aside from the ballroom pose in which he was holding me and leapt up on stage.

They did a duet for the next few songs, and the audience couldnt believe it. Ben is an amazing beatboxer, and not unused to being up on stage, so together they whipped up everyone in the room into a voice-wizardry-induced frenzy.

After the show we chatted to him, and he and Ben gazed into one anothers eyes, clearly each a bit in love with the other. I smiled, and tried to pretend that I didnt mind that Ben had totally stolen my thunder ON MY BIRTHDAY. I was secretly just really, really proud. Then we all went drinking.

It was a bloody marvellous birthday, all in all.

Actually, it was a bloody marvellous trip. I hated the flights as much as I always hate flights ("Ben, wake up. Wake up. My feet have turned into bear feet. Ive got paws! Wake up!") but other than that I loved all of it. We ate in wonderful restaurants and saw some excellent comedy (Tim Minchin, marry me). I developed an allergic reaction to guide book speak ("browse the enchanting language of the enticing tourist information pamphlets, carefully crafted by people who think youre a moron to provide you and your family with an unforgettable experience that will transform you into people trying to work out the best way to end your own lives using a copy of The Lonely Planet"). I loved spending time with Ben and his family, and I love Melbourne.

Manchester had become green in the time wed been away. Rainy, yes, but greener. Since being back I have found a nice little café job in the Craft and Design Centre, have a few gigs, including doing some Guerilla Busking this Friday. Ben and I are writing a proposal for a commission about words and music, which, if we manage to win it, would be shown at the Summer Sundae Weekender festival in Leicester. I am moving into Bens house soon, as soon as there is room for my clothes, computer and terrifying costume jewellery collection.

Australia was brilliant, but I found myself glad to be back. Manchester is becoming home now.

I have to go and lie down now, after this epic post. Oh, and also because I have a cold so I need to go and moan quietly to myself whilst trying to learn words and come up with a groundbreaking idea for a commission proposal. Sniff.

Available link for download