What's New

Wednesday, June 25th

Fire Hose Games

AudiOdyssey is still making the rounds in the press, as a MSNBC article by Kristin Kalning is coming out tomorrow. GAMBIT is in full swing, and I'm working with a team of students on a new visually impaired accessible facebook game, and so far I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with the team's work.

However the most exciting thing right now is that I'm really moving forward with Fire Hose Games, the video game startup I'm doing now that I've graduated (please excuse the mediocre website.) Fire Hose is a new studio centered around the idea that games can have a positive social impact on the world while still being extremely fun and engaging, and (from a business standpoint) profitable. Specifically we've identified and are focusing on three key areas for game development:

  • New user interfaces that change the way we play games (think how different the Wiimote and Guitar Hero interfaces are)
  • Games that not only teach but get people excited about learning, especially science and engineering
  • Titles which are accessible to a broad cross section of users, and allow for meaningful interactions between different groups

Those are the areas I'm interested, and hopefully they give you some idea of where the company will be going. Right now I'm having fun making contacts, putting together the initial development team, and fund raising. It's pretty intense, running a business is certainly a new experience for me.

This is our temporary placeholder logo, by Bill Elliot. Not bad for a first version, huh?

As always, contact me with questions or inquiries about the startt up. My info is right there on the left sidebar.

Wednesday, June 11th

And the hits keep on coming

Lots of news! First, let's start off with my thesis - it's finally done! And not just done, but posted for your reading pleasure! The Human Controller: Usability and Accessibility in Video Game Interfaces is now online. If you have quesitons on it please feel free to e-mail me and ask away.

Second, AudiOdyssey has been all over the news for the past week. Stories have popped up in the Toronto Star, Tech Digest, Cubed3 News, and the Boston Herald to name a few. There might be a couple more in the works as well, which is great; the more people read about accessibility in games, the more it will become apparent that it is possible to make games that work for a broader audience.

All of this news is great, but I suppose it all pales in comparison to ACTUALLY FINISHING MIT! Yes, I am now an alum for the second and last time. Graduation was great, nobel peace prize winner Mohammed Yunus gave an incredibly inspirational speech about making a difference in the world, and I got to wear a crazy hat:

Yes, those are lemmings. I think that they were a fitting addition to my mortarboard for several reasons, but I will leave it to you to figure out why that may be.

Wednesday, June 4th

Thesis, and AudiOdyssey in the News

New developments! AudiOdyssey was featured in a press release, and has been making the rounds all over the internets. Articles have been popping up on CNet, Gizmodo, and of course GAMBIT. As a quick clarification, I've seen several sites claim that AudiOdyssey is a Wii game. That is incorrect, AudiOdyssey is a PC game that features dual inputs, the keyboard or the Nintendo Wii Remote. So you can play the game with the Wii Remote, but on your PC, not on the Wii.

Of course, we would jump at the chance to move the game to the Wii, but I don't know if Nintendo is interested at the moment.

Other news - I'm posting my thesis! I'm temporarily posting it here until I find a more permanent home. It'll probably take me the rest of the night to post, so you may want to wait until Thursday for a more complete version (but you are welcome to peek at it as I post tonight). I'll also do a few blog posts on it over the next few days, after graduation of course.

Finally, I'm starting to move on my start up, Fire Hose Games. We're going to begin making new games soon, but this too is worthy of its own blog post. If anyone out there is interested in learning more, hit me up with an e-mail and I'm happy to talk more about it. I'm also looking to hire some team members, so if you have game development experience and would like to learn more drop me a line.

Graduation is on Friday! Soon I will be done with MIT once and for all, and will be moving on to bigger and better things.

Friday, May 30th

Holy Crap, I made it

I did it! I'm going to graduate! Turned my thesis in with 90 minutes to go, and passed all my classes. Wheee!

A bunch of things I have been putting off writing about:

  • This summer I will be revamping the website and adding a lot of functionality in, and you'll also see a lot more in the way of posts. Awesome!
  • I know everyone is excited about my thesis, I will link to it as soon as I get it set up on its own website.
  • There's been a lot of buzz about AudiOdyssey in the press recently, and a rumored spiritual sequel. More to come on these later as well.

Thanks to everyone for their support while I was writing and for not bugging me too much about the lack up updates :)