Due to a swine flu scare, school is out at least until Saturday. One would think I would be like, “Sweet, no school!” but no. For the first time in my life I was like, “Nooooooooooooo!”

Not just because school is awesome, but because it meant that I had to reschedule two meetings that were planned this week (one is going to be over MSN, the other at my house). I also can’t do any DS programming while school is closed. And with an extra week to work on a programming assignment that we get marked on, it means that I have to make it THAT MUCH BETTER because I don’t have the excuse of having no time.

Thanks, swine flu.

I know what you’re all thinking, “We hear nothing from her in like a month and then it’s three posts in a row! WTF?!” Gimme a break, I’ve been busy! Plus, what better way to procrastinate studying for the Fundamental Information exam tomorrow than to do some housecleaning?

In addition to the two posts I just wrote, I:

• Updated the HAL FAQ
• Created a Visa FAQ
• Answered a few e-mails (this is a major achievement for me, believe me)

Anyway, just a quick update: I just finished my first week of my second year. It’s already shaping up to be even more busy than last year, but I’m really excited about my classes. I get to study DS programming! And DirectX! I’m nervous about the computer graphics class, though, because it’s mostly going to be about learning and understanding the math behind graphics and animation. But, hey, if I can learn that then I’ll have overcome one of the hurdles that’s plagued me since high school: my inability to do math.

Now that I’m in my second year of school and have a better idea of how everything works, I figured it would be a good idea to write up a more detailed description of HAL’s curriculum. I’ll explain the basics first and then get into a more detailed description after the cut.

The Basics

The first thing you should understand about HAL’s approach to teaching is that it is focused on ensuring that all students are able to get a job. It might not necessarily be in their desired field (especially in regards to video games; only about 40% of students in the game programming course and 30% in the planning course go on to get employment in the gaming industry), but almost everyone does get a job in the IT industry.

What this means in practical terms is that the curriculum focuses not only on teaching you how to program/design/whatever but also on helping you pass various certification exams that will make you attractive to potential companies. The last year of both the two-year and four-year programs is less about actual study and more about securing employment. Third year students also do a 3 month internship at a company (obviously limited to those in the four-year program only).

In terms of the curriculum for the video game tracks, the two-year program offers programming and game design (ie. graphic design) focuses. The four-year program has programming, game design, and game development focuses. The four-year program’s music course also offers a game music focus. For the four-year students, most of the first year programs cover the same material although that begins to change in the second half of the first year. After that, the exact curriculum varies depending on your focus and what year you’re in.

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Note: This information is based on the Japanese gaming industry.

I’m sure most people who play games have contemplated at one point or another what it would be like to be one of the people making the game instead of just playing it. But for those serious about breaking into the industry, it’s a long step between “I want to make games!” and actually doing so. Before anything else, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with what kinds of jobs are available.

Here is a simple breakdown of the basic jobs you can get at a gaming company:

The most widely-known jobs are the programming and graphic design ones, but what about a “game designer”? There isn’t actually a “game designer” position; the term usually refers to the job of a game planner, but can also cover that of a director or producer.

Programmer, graphic designer, and sound engineer are all entry level jobs. Planning is on the cusp; it’s possible to get a planning job without any prior work experience in the industry, but it’s less likely. Director and producer jobs are usually earned through promotion.

For those interested in producing and directing, planning seems like the obvious track for promotion, but the reality is that programmers and graphic designers are just as likely to be promoted to those jobs. For example, the basic promotion track for a programmer looks something like this:

Ultimately, for those serious about getting into the industry it’s a good idea to do as much research as possible into the industry and to then work towards getting the job that seems to fit you the best.

So, first off since I forgot to update, I passed level 2 of the J-Ken Practical Information test (no shock there; it was bleedingly easy).

In February 2008 I took the J-Ken Systems Information exam, which is actually 3 separate exams that make up one certification. I thought I was only going to pass the programming skills portion, but I actually passed the fundamental skills one as well. The only one I failed was the systems design, which I thought I didn’t have a prayer of passing.

Except… except… I failed by one point. ONE. POINT. Passing was 65/100 and I got 64. ONE QUESTION AND I WOULD NEVER HAVE TO TAKE THIS BLOODY TEST AGAIN. At least the only one I have to take next time is the systems design one; that’s one feature of the J-ken I really, really like. Passing one exam rolls it over to the next try, so you only have to keep bashing your head against the wall retaking the tests you haven’t passed.

I’ll see you in the fall, systems design exam!

“Although preventing harassment is an admirable goal, a requirement that LGBT people remain invisible and silent is not an acceptable means of reaching that goal.”

- Lambda Legal¹

It wasn’t so long ago that games, especially console games, were primarily offline forms of entertainment. Over the years, however, that has changed and these days online communities — from MMOs to official chat services offered by gaming companies — are a booming industry. With the change in the way players interact has come a need for game companies to define what is, and is not, acceptable behavior. While all companies that deal with online communities will have various policies in place to help them police their players, the truth is that most of these policies do little to curb the harassment that many players face. In addition to the usual problems with harassment, there have been a few notable cases where the policy has reinforced discrimination against an already discriminated-against group.

In this post I will be examining two of the most well-known cases of this problem. The first is a case from 2006 involving Blizzard regarding a woman named Sara Andrews being threatened with expulsion from WoW for advertising her gay-friendly guild; the second is a recent and ongoing case involving Microsoft regarding the suspension of an Xbox Live account of a woman known as Teresa because she identified herself as a lesbian in her profile². Both these incidents involved gay women — who, I would like to point out, are parts of groups targeted for harassment not only because of their sexual orientation but their gender identification as well — and both of them involved policy wording that appeared to be equal opportunity but in reality only negatively impacts non-heterosexuals. (more…)

HEW 2008 - Level 3 (Unfinished)

Current Deadline: Finish game by March 2
Current Progress: Finished: basic game ; Working on: explanatory text, story text

Things are officially going well. Starting last week most of our classes became devoted to finishing our HEW projects. This enabled me to meet the basic gameplay deadline one day early (whoo!).

HEW 2008 - Level 2 (Unfinished)

I had a spot of trouble trying to implement the guard moving independently from the player. I used kbhit() so that the game would only try to read a character if a key was pressed, but I didn’t think to reinitialize the variable I was using so once an arrow key was pressed once it would keep trying to read the direction of the arrow key even though there was no input. Once I got over that hump, though, it was smooth sailing.

The other “problem” I ran into was that my random labyrinth generator sucked. I did some looking into algorithms that I could adapt, but ultimately decided to go with a fixed board. It makes the game a lot easier, but most people won’t play it more than once so whatever.

I actually have two other end of the year assignments (my WB homework is to create a page using javascript, css, and HTML; my CT homework is to do a 1 to 2 page report on a product of my choice), but things seem to be going well. I’m almost done with my CT and can probably get my WB finished today in class, which leaves the text for my game. Which I’m dreading because, well, WRITING IN JAPANESE. It’s the bane of my existence, I swear. But I’ll get it done. Somehow. Probably with the help of my friends.

HEW 2008 - Level 1 (Unfinished)

Current Deadline: Finish basic gameplay by February 19
Current Progress: Start room and level 1 finished

Not sure if things are going better than expected, or worse. On the one hand, I’ve spent a lot of time procrastinating (or taking care of other things). I got sidetracked by an assignment to code a SameGame, which ate up about a week of class time. Then, this week (literally the day after I finished it, of course) my teacher said we no longer had to turn it (people complained that they didn’t have time to do their HEW project). Getting the display to work like I want it to always seems to take twice, or three times, the amount of time I expected it to. And don’t get me started on debugging.

But, I have some time tomorrow during my AS work shift to start on level 2. Since the basic game mechanics are the same as the start room I’ll have a solid base to work with, so that’s a plus. Level 3 is a labyrinth game that I coded for an assignment (that, if I recall correctly, we didn’t actually turn in). I want to make some modifications to it (clean up the board creation algorithms and add guards who move about the labyrinth randomly) but absolute worst case scenario I can do with simply porting it.

Assuming I make the March 19 deadline (ie. have all my levels coded and debugged), that gives me about a week to add the storyline and other text (explanation of the rules, controls, etc). The only problem is that everyone is going to be busy with their HEW assignment so I might not be able to get my friends to proofread my Japanese… which will undoubtedly result in hilarity when my senpai come and play the game. Hilarity for them, that is. Naturally, I will want to crawl under a rock and die.

Even if it does have cringe worthy awesome Japanese mistakes, though, my game is going to rock. Well, as much as a game coded for the console API can rock, that is.

PS. The game has a name: 『魔女の館』 (”The Witch’s Mansion”)! I wanted it to be “The Sorceress’ Tower”, but that didn’t sound right in Japanese.

So, our school year ends after the first week of March, but our normal classes actually end in February. The first week of March is taken up by Hal Event Week (HEW), a competition where students show off their projects (video games for gaming students, web pages for web students, etc).

The second, third, and fourth years have been doing group projects for the past few months, but we first years basically have February to create our project alone. Apparently last year the first years did group projects as well, but there were problems so this year it was switched to be individual.

So! I thought up my game design a few days ago:

Name: Untitled (I can’t think up names to save my life)
Type: Adventure/Puzzle
Story: You (a princess) have been captured by an evil sorceress and have to escape.

Gameplay: Each level is a different puzzle, there are three levels:

• Level 1: You start in a room, when you walk to the door you have to pick the lock (a Mastermind-style game).
• Level 2: You have to get outside by choosing doors (and finding keys to unlock the doors).
• Level 3: You’re outside, but not safe yet! Navigate the labyrinth to find the exit.

I’m stuck using the console API, which means that I can only use ASCII art (no graphics) but the good thing about Japanese is that not only can I use kanji (I’m going to use the Japanese word for princess — 姫 — as the player avatar), but I can also use squares (□), circles (◎), etc. which makes my life a bit easier.

I think I should be able to get this done in a month, especially since I’ve already coded a Mastermind program and I’m currently working on a labyrinth game for my programming class. But, then again, I have a tendency to think bigger than I have time to code, so we’ll see.

I don’t think I’ll win the competition or anything, but if I can make an interesting game I’ll be happy. Anyway, wish me luck!

I would just like it to be a matter of record that I hate programming for the Windows command prompt console.

For class we’re doing a Battleship game and I wanted to have input be by using the arrow keys and pressing Enter. Which I did! But instead of it being something nice like, keyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) , this is what I had to do:

rewind(stdin);
input1 = getch();

if ( input1 == 224 ) {

  input2 = getch();

  if ( input2 == 72 ) { // up arrow pressed
    //action
  }

  if ( input2 == 80 ) { // down arrow pressed
    //action
  }

  if ( input2 == 75 ) { // left arrow pressed
    //action
  }

  if ( input2 == 77 ) { // right arrow pressed
    //action
  }
}

Note that it takes two characters for the arrow keys (other keys only need 1). It’s not that it’s hard or anything like that… just… annoying.

It’s only a few months until 2nd year (and programming for the DS!)… it’s only a few months until 2nd year (and programming for the DS!)………