welcome back to week 3!
resource roundup!
omg COMBAT MATH! my gateway drug to JRPGs, like many Americans, was Pokémon, which was just complicated enough to appeal to junior nerds but still easy enough that your little brother could just sort of level up a Charizard enough to brute force through the Elite Four without much strategy. this article from Gamasutra uses Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy as case studies to explore the kinds of considerations you need to make when planning a battle system that is actually fun and compelling.
instructables recently featured a great beginners series on working with solar energy. if you’ve been wanting to bring solar energy into your smart home DIY or your microcontroller projects, this is a great place to start. the lessons are straightforward and you can apply the general skills your learn to any project you have in mind.
sometimes you just need a button to not look like a button, whether that’s thanks to a design request or just some fun concept you have in mind. this guide digs into some unusual cases, like making a button look and act like a text link. I enjoy a guide that just unabashedly shows you how to do something contrarian, rather than try to harangue you to follow a standard. look, if I want to make a midi autoplay on infinite repeat just let me DO WHAT I WANT.
but on that note, this post gets into the problem of using ARIA to solve accessibility problems that should probably be addressed in the design or architecture in a different way. ok, sometimes a button should be a button.
Google’s Material Design isn’t for everyone (buy me a drink and I’ll happily rant about the good old days when the internet was a beautiful chaotic dream), but here’s a nice guide to simplifying motion design to make your projects consistent and appealing.
📅 upcoming events!
monday November 19! Beta Publix IX! London UK: London’s only curated night of video games and theatre returns for a NINTH jam-packed evening. if you want to check out the cutting edge of performance and play, this looks like a good way to spend a monday night. tix are £10-12 and available thru Camden People’s Theatre.
saturday November 24! The Intimate Space at St. Mary’s Tower! London UK: Steep – a night for adventures in electronica, improv, and sound art returns to the St. Mary’s Tower for the final time in 2018. this is an intimate experience featuring Janine A’Bear and The Slate Pipe Banjo Draggers. here’s a soundpiece that A’Bear recently made for the listening room of David Lynch’s Silencio nightclub. tix are £5.50 and available on wegottickets.
opportunities:
Welcome to my Homepage is a super fun online residency program that has regular open calls for their monthly slots. they are currently accepting applications, due November 15, for January 2019 to June 2019. you should apply! you get a month to do something new and weird in their digital space as well as a mini exhibition of your work at the Museum of Human Achievement in Austin, Texas. this is a free residency, with no fees, so what are you waiting for???? you can apply thru their website.
Estalagem is hosting their fourth Residency for Contemporary Music and Electronics on the Island of Madeira. from a friend who’s done the program: “this residency is really fun – it’s like a holiday with other musicians, with workshops in the day and concerts at night. I went a couple of years ago. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get away and develop some new ideas in a friendly environment.” it ain’t free, but it looks like a nice way to refresh your practice and connect with other artists. deadline to apply is November 16.
the 2019 Game Developers Conference has an open call for Alt.Ctrl.GDC, the on-site showcase highlighting unique control methods for playing games. the deadline is November 30, and you’re invited to submit any and all one-of-a-kind game peripherals, contraptions, and novelties to share how they enhance game experiences and challenge expectations. more info, including some inspiration from standouts from Alt.Ctrl.GDC’s past, is available on Gamasutra.
just for lulz:
*~housekeeping~*
as always, submit to the open artist call if you have anything in the works that you are excited about! and if you have an event or opportunity to promote (anywhere), please send me all the details. the next newsletter will cover the week of November 12 to November 18, but I’m happy to promote events farther in the future as well and keep them on the calendar.
