Where was I...?

Well, the office is more or less set up… not comfortable, but it’s a place to work. New computer is a horror story I won’t put here. I didn’t want this to be a personal blog where I whine about my life.

I want things to change in my life though – I want them to move forward. To this end, I’m attempting to acquire useful skills for a career in the games industry. I’ve been learning programming, scripting, modding – reading every book on game design I can get my hands on… along with some sketching and short story writing (slow going, but I’m making the attempt)

This blog is part of that – I want to document my efforts, and also to put here my observations, on design generally, as well as games.

My observations on Ikea, briefly, so I’m not leaving people in suspense: the way it’s arranged makes me think of the way sets are arranged for other media; film, theatre, games, whatever. It needs to be aesthetic, it needs to be practical to your specific purpose but it also needs to appear as though it would be practical as a living space, even though it isn’t really used for that. (in the case of Ikea, it not only to highlight the furniture itself, which they’re trying to sell, and lead the potential buyer to imagine how it could be placed in their own home, but to draw you through the store, round that one-way system they have. It includes those little detours where they build a flat.) Very clever. There are books that have been recommended to me about this… it will have to be investigated further.

I have been playing games – I started Prince of Persia for PS3. It’s ok, I’m playing it on casual – it’s far less frustrating than many other games due to the idea that you can’t actually die...
I’ve renewed my subscription to World of Warcraft – gotta love those seasonal quests!
I’ve been watching J. play The Force Unleashed – I’ve not been impressed enough to pick it up myself – what’s the point of being a bastard when that’s what the game expects? It also looks pretty repetitive, though the first little bit playing as Darth Vader looks fun.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is awesome – J’s already played through, so now we’re gonna go through together – maybe I’ll collect achievements or something to make it a little different… though I won’t get them all unless I play it through on each difficulty, which I don’t plan on…

Anyway, that’s more or less what I wanted to say last time, but got cut off… Next time will be better, I swear.

Friday

So… I had this interesting conversation this morning.
Stop me if you’ve heard it all before, but… maybe when companies are trying to reach out to the female market, that’s the wrong group to be aiming for.
Thinking about it, girl-gamers are very different people from other girls who perhaps aren’t interested in games (or simply don’t identify themselves as gamers). We’re talking about 50% of the population. You aren’t going to find one single factor that links all of them apart from the fact that they’re all female.
So, what are these companies looking for? Do they want more girl-gamers? People who maybe sit on the fence at the moment? Borrow games from other people but aren’t committed to seeking them out for themselves? There seems to be a trend for “casual gaming” at the moment – is that people who don’t play games otherwise? Older audiences? Younger audiences? Don’t get me wrong, apparently Barbie Fashion Show sold very well, but it really doesn’t interest me...

Anyway, home time... I’ll do some research on this topic and blog more another time... the question interests me...

Also it’s my birthday today, I don’t have to be deep or purposeful^^

Day One

The beginning is as good a place to start as any, as they say...

I deleted an old blog I had here as it had no public content and started a new one. I hope to be able to write reviews, opinions, and generally get my personality out there on the web in what will, with any luck, be a form not cringingly embarrassing to me in five years time...

Introductions are possibly in order:
I'm Sarah; hello!
I work in the QA dept of a video games company in the UK: yes, that essentially means that I play games all day - I know from experience that it would only be cruel to disillusion you at this point, if any illusion you should hold.
Graham Linehan was on Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe, a one-off programme they did on BBC4 last night, talking about how video-games have advanced leaps and bounds in every aspect except narrative and storytelling... my ambition is to correct this. But first... to move on from QA...

More on this another time hopefully, I've just realised that I will be late for my bus if I don't go now.