Gameloid Part II: The Revenge

Gameloid returns, in a somewhat reduced capacity. Gameloid will act as the development and marketing label behind a new tabletop roleplaying game I am developing based around customizable card decks, called the CCRPG System. It’s going to be legen… wait for it…

Imagine the speed and flexibility of your favorite card game combined with the role-playing focus of a typical pen-and-paper roleplaying game with flavors from Eastern roleplaying video games in the setting and throughout the combat system. That’s the idea behind the CCRPG System. Take a look at the CCRPG blog for designs, a draft of the Combat Rules core document, and other fun stuff. Also let me know if you wish to join the exclusive G+ group (must be invited to join) for regular incremental updates.

As the game gets closer to being finished, Gameloid will once again fire up the Film Production Engine and create marketing materials and tutorials for the game.

-The Overlord

…DARY!

Portraits by Marianne

Marianne created some portraits for the Gameloid trading cards. They are mighty.

Click here to see them.

-The Overlord

Our First Video… BLOOPERS!

Watch David attempt to act for the first time ever. Fail. Oh yeah, some other people mess up too. Of course they’re all off camera so they enjoy a bit of anonymity. Until I out them. That’s right, Ann Sprinkle, Chris Sprinkle, Andrew Haws and Michelle Haws (credited as Michelle Alvarez) are all responsible for this too.

Enjoy!

-David

Genesis of Gameloid

In the beginning, there was… well, I’ll get to that. Before there was Gameloid, there was Dogshadow. That story is covered in detail here. Before that, in the beginning I mentioned before, there was a contest. Read about it on David’s living portfolio and resume here.

-David (a.k.a. “The Overlord”)

Change is Good, Right?

I recently graduated from San Jose State University with a B.S. in Business Administration, concentration in Management Information Systems. It’s do or die time. Either get a job or figure out how to make money with Gameloid. Unfortunately nothing is quite that simple with me. For one thing, I’ve had a month or so to sit around and gather my thoughts about what’s really important to me. I realized that, much as I am a geek of all trades, my primary focus has always been music. In fact, if you look at the movies I directed and edited, the music is usually the focus of each production. They are more like music videos than proper narrative films. Even on Mann Halfte, directed by Chris, my primary role was composition and sound mixing, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

So another wave of changes is sweeping Gameloid. It’s time to set aside any pretense of me as a director of narrative films. Gameloid will now focus on making videos for various songs and compositions. Other members have promised to make a few more narrative films, and we will produce those as usual, but my work and focus will be on music. It will still be geeky, but more music geeky than gamer geeky. One great thing about this is that I should be able to start doing live performance to accompany our YouTube presence. It’s tough to recreate videos live, but it’s relatively simple to play songs live.

So what do you all think about this?

As for the day job… well, I will probably get one sometime soon, but I’ve decided to do what I can with Gameloid and music in general regardless of what else happens in my life.

-David, Overlord of Gameloid Productions and Maestro of Mayhem

Geek of the Week: Science

Saving the best for, well, almost last (next week: the Geek of all Trades), this week I’ll be discussing the science geek. I’ve become more of a science geek over time, partly because of genuine interest, and partly because pseudoscience and “consensus science” has taken over the media and I see it as my duty to set the record straight. I’m probably not making any friends by questioning the dogma surrounding the latest health scares and ecological crises, but I probably don’t make many friends by comparing real life to gaming situations, quoting from movies, or pulling people into the Mac vs. PC debate either. So what have we learned so far? Only girly geeks tend to make friends with non-geeks? Something like that.

Science Geek T-Shirt by Gameloid
See more Science T-Shirts

Science is a process. It is not the memorization of facts. It is not the comparison of credentials. It is not the consensus of scientists, or the media, or the government. Science is a process. A science geek lives and dies by this process. It is a process of skeptical observation and experimentation. I’m not going to go through the scientific method in detail, but here is my handy geek version: Observe a phenomenon and study existing research into the phenomenon. Develop a hypothesis that explains the phenomenon. Develop a test to determine if the hypothesis accurately explains the phenomenon. Run the test. Tell your friends about it. Listen to them explain why you’re wrong, and how they could do it better. Insult each other on Facebook. Develop a new test that demonstrates conclusively why your friend is a moron. Post it on YouTube. Wait for Mythbusters to find your video and run the experiment properly. Find out why you and your friends are all morons. It works.

There is a difference between a science geek and a science nerd, by the way. A nerd probably has at least a master’s degree in a science, and they have memorized things like atomic numbers and weights for the entire periodic table of elements. Geeks probably don’t have more than a bachelor’s degree, which might not be in a science, and they look stuff up. Memorizing is… silly. And, of course, science dorks are the ones spreading pseudoscience around. Many of them work in the government or at media outlets. They know just enough jargon to be dangerous, so watch out.

-David, Overlord of Gameloid Productions and a science geek in progress…

Sex and Violence

What do geeks want to see? Sex and violence, just like everyone else. From scantily clad heroes (of both sexes) to more scantily clad heroes… beating each other to death – sex and violence permeate geek culture just as it does most human cultures. Is it an indication of male dominance in geek culture? Something about humans in general? [Note: Is it just my imagination or are there more horny, violent women out and about these days?]

So how should Gameloid proceed? Should we buy into these tendencies and provide sexy violent entertainment? Should we defy our human nature and try to provide so-called “high class” or “moral” movies? Maybe we should do both. We’re certainly not the only organization struggling with this problem. A quick look through my roleplaying books and the covers of video games with extensive history shows a long struggle with this issue.

I think the key for me personally (and I would guess a lot of geeks feel this way) is how it’s handled. For example, I love Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”, which has a ridiculous amount of sex, and violence (and violent sex) but it never feels arbitrary or gratuitous. Trouble is, I’m not exactly Kubrick. How does an ordinary geek determine if sex and violence is approriate for a story? No really, I’m actually asking.

-David, Overlord of Gameloid Productions, and a sexy-violent geek