Oh, Sir is a tumblelog by Gian Cruz, iPhone game designer by day and part-time crooner on YouTube by night. Read my thoughts on design, music, and technology.
“Say It To Me Now” Cover, originally by Glen Hansard
It’s been a long time… but I’m recording again :) This is my favorite song from the movie “Once”.
I have new recording equipment, new sound absorbers, the whole nine. Hopefully the videos will sound much better from this point on. I tried my best to remove the noise and lower the peaks in the loud parts of this vid. I hope it doesn’t sound too overprocessed because of it. I’m still learning how to use this stuff, so bear with me.
What began as a random weekend flight to San Francisco has now turned into a “work-from-anywhere” trip to Texas, LA, Oakland, and SF. And during the last week of my trip, I’ll be attending Game Developers Conference 2010!
This wasn’t something I had ever dreamed of going to. (Me? A game developer? C’mon now…) But since this is the first year that GDC is holding an iPhone Games Summit, Kris and I decided that it would be best if we shared in the fun. So I will be there representing Feel Every Yummy, and hopefully we’ll be able to make some connections and learn lots of new things for our platform.
I’m looking forward to hear the lectures from some of the ngmoco:) guys, and I’m especially excited to listen to Eric Johnson’s postmortem on Canabalt. On top of that, I’ll be exploring the Independent Games Festival to check out the crazy new games people have been cooking up.
If you can’t tell already I cannot wait to go to this thing. It’s our first step (of many) in becoming real game developers. It feels like we’re our own company now, and I’m stoked about it.
This would be the reason why I would get an iPad for myself. I don’t think iPads can replace netbooks (I use Photoshop on my own netbook to design on the go — yes, it can actually run Photoshop). But when you look at the iPad more as a ‘SuperKindle’, it becomes more compelling.
Sure, movies are cool, and web browsing is fine (if there’s no Flash, that HTML 5 stuff better come quick), but the killer feature in this thing is the way it can handle what is traditionally print media — the newspapers, magazines, comic books — all in glorious full color and on a large screen. Personally, I will always prefer a comic on the printed page over digital, but when you’re traveling, nothing can compare to having all those books without any of the extra weight.
Panelfly’s iPhone app is my favorite among all the comic book readers in the App Store. They still haven’t perfected page/panel navigation on the small screen (no one has), but with an iPad screen, it shouldn’t be a problem. If they can get the right content for it (none of this back issue nickel & diming — I want to see trade paperback collections and graphic novels), then it’s going be killer. Sign me up.
I can’t get enough of this cover. She gets better and better with every new video she puts on YouTube. I saw her play at Jammin Java back in October, and dare I say she’s even better live. Subscribe to her if you haven’t yet.
I miss doing covers. NEW GOAL: put up a new video on YouTube before I leave for my trip on the 11th.
I stumbled upon this collection of Octonauts books through Matt Smith’s blog. He calls them “quite possibly the most flawless children’s books,” and from what I can see I think he’s right. The artwork is stunningly beautiful; crisp, clean lines and great choice of colors. I’d love to have these lying on my coffee table (although that be weird since they’re books for kids).
If you’re a parent you should considering getting some of these. You’ll probably enjoy looking through this book as much as your kids will.
I have been obsessed with Words with Friends for the iPhone over the past few months, thanks to my friend Alisa. It’s one-on-one Scrabble on the iPhone, but the kicker is its asynchronous gameplay, which means the you don’t have to coordinate with friends when you want to play. You just take your turn at your convenience, and you get notified when the other player finishes their turn.
It’s pretty genius when you combine asynchronous gameplay with the iPhone interface, as I can have multiple games going on at once, and it provides me with a couple minutes of fun throughout my day. It’s there when I want it to be, and that’s what has me hooked. My only problem is that the home interface is a little sluggish, especially when there are a lot of games listed.
The guys over at NewToy are doing big things. I’m excited to see what they do next. If you have Words with Friends, start a game with me: username Gianorama.
Now I wonder if there are other games you can do asynchronous gameplay with… :)
This has quickly become my favorite place to hang out since being able to choose where I work everyday. It has a small but modern library with plenty of desk space, nice places to eat or grab a drink while I do work (Bear Rock Cafe, Busboys & Poets), a great movie theatre that showcases a lot of indie films, and free wi-fi everywhere. Even better, it has my FAVORITE cupcake place in the whole DC area, Cakelove.
It’s only a couple of minutes away from my apartment, so I’m there multiple times a week. If you find me there, come say hello.
This has been my JAM over the past month. British, funky, Electropop. Just my style. She’s coming to 9:30 Club in February too, but I think I’ll be out of town when she’s here. I want to see her live one of these days, though.
As of the new year, I am no longer an employee of AOL. I decided to take the voluntary package that they were offering, so that I can take some time to try new things and pursue new ventures.
This was a very hard decision for me to make. I loved working with the AIM team, and it was a dream of mine to be able to work on such big projects for the web. But I realized that I had an even bigger dream than that — and that was to start my own company, and work on my own terms.
It sounds like a crazy thing to do given the times that we’re in, but sometimes crazy is what’s needed. It feels like the right time for me. I’m young, I have my whole life ahead of me. What better time than now to give it my shot? If it all goes bust, that’s okay, because I tried. It’s a decision I know I won’t regret.
So starting today, I will be working full-time in an iPhone venture I’ve started with my good friend Kris Zabala, Feel Every Yummy, LLC. (Quirky name, yes? Quirky is how we do.) I feel very lucky to be working with such a multi-talented guy like Kris, and I’m super excited about what we’ve been working on. We have a lot of fun iPhone games and apps in the works, and hopefully I can show them to you guys very soon.
Another video for you all! My sisters and I decided to sing a song together over the holiday break. Here’s our version of “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat.
I love love. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Macasaet!
What a crazy weekend, snowstorms, rehearsals and all. I wish all of our friends could have been there, but Mother Nature had other plans.
My friend Mark had the crazy idea of streaming the wedding live online, since he wasn’t able to make it. And believe it or not, it actually worked! I had my netbook with 3G on me, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. I got permission from the priest and positioned the netbook to show the front of the altar. I spread the link to anyone who was online, and a good number of people (even my friend Mike who’s currently in Afghanistan) were able to watch the ceremony, up until my battery died. All of this was possible because of Ustream, Twitter, Facebook, and a netbook with 3G connection. The future at work, people.
I’ll be posting a video of the first dance real soon.
Nerd alert… I was completely hooked on So You Think You Can Dance this season.
I can’t dance to save my life but I fricking love this show. This might have been my favorite dance of the whole season. I don’t really know what they’re doing, but I do know that I get chills when I see it. I think it’s beautiful.
Also, the Michael Buble track has become my favorite in his new album.
