Intention gone bad

Have you seen the new State Bank of India’s debit card advertisement on the television?

This is what it wants to say

“Welcome to cash less world, its fantastic even pick pockets need to look for jobs”

This is what it says

“See this hard working, under fed, man; “bholu” ( bholu means simple), he is dying to make his ends meet and can barely have dry bread by the end of the day, but hey viewer you don’t need to worry, you can use our debit card for all your lust”

Somwhere on the screen you can read that the guy who is doing all the hard work is actually an ex-pick pocketer.

Actually the “ad” is very S”ad”.

Such ads are the outcome of forced innovation / forced style of a wanna-b- creative director.

SBI being a non private bank, a government property, it’s hard to imagine of what can be the motive to air such an ad.

Broken and Slow

I FELL

I Broke my knuckle and i broke my wrist.
My typing speed has reduced by 50%, and now i realize the importance of customizing mouse clicks :)

4 weeks to type with both hands again :( hopefully

Will there be an awakening

Why does it happen, that you believe something is right but you still can’t convince yourself to do it. Does your brain repel the discomfort that the right thing can/will cause if you do it? Is that the reason? Or does the reason lie in a deeper Zen?

My wife was forcing me for more than a month to go and watch “Rang de Basanti”, well I was aware of the reviews that were in the air, some of my so called same bandwidth sharing friends also gave some seriously high ratings and I was very sure of what I would be getting to see on the screen.

So, the day came, today and we went for the movie, this was the second time for my wife (now I know why).

This movie moved me, I felt different. This was not the first time something moved me I have had this feeling many a time, while watching seriously good movies, playing seriously good games, listing seriously good music, but this good feeling also had some not so good about it.

I got the message in the movie loud and clear and I know it’s correct. I consider myself above average in connections, deductions and conclusions. My mind can extrapolate, differentiate and statistical figure out problems. But after watching this movie and giving it some serious thought on the drive back home I cannot stop questioning myself as what can I do as an individual for my country. (Or is it really just about my country, my home, my continent or my earth or my universe, or is it just about me?)

Okay seriously, coming back to the country thing, I am not talking about any killing or going against anything and all that.

I am talking about just myself and my country as a place, what can I do about it?

Do you feel guilty (ever) when you throw an empty Pepsi/coke glass on the road? Well I do feel guilty quite often, but then I think “What the hell”, who cares and why should it matter.

If my grandfather reads this he would say, “Yes it matters, if everyone stops doing this we will have a cleaner place”. My mind computes the logic but does not respond to this statement emotionally well.

When one thinks, “hell no one will stop doing this’ - OR – you might think “most of the people will not stop doing this”. Both of these thoughts are correct but the deduction is wrong.

What deduction?

Hell no one will stop doing this - OR - most of the people will not stop doing this, therefore what difference it makes if I just throw the damn glass here.

Will you see the place cleaner if you don’t, will you see the place dirtier if you do?

The answer is we don’t care, its SEP (Somebody else’s problem). Its invisible to us, till the time it becomes so much that you start noticing it and start hating it and then you say “this place stinks man, is desh ka kuch nahi hosakta hai”

I don’t know what the solution is and neither am I looking for someone to give me a solution. Or for that mater if there is a genuine problem for which I need a solution

All I know that the tag line of the Movie “a Generation awakens”.
…..Is true…It’s true for me.

Genius He Is

For last one week I was forcing myself and convincing me to do something which I just did not wanted to.

I am not much of a music person, I can say I love trance music (especially psy-trance) as my brain readily understands the underlying pattern. Besides this genre of music I don’t listen much of anything else. I don’t mind if someone is playing the latest bangra tune or the new hindi remix or even pop, rock, blues, jazz, its just that I don’t go out of my way to groove on these.

Coming back to the point, I had promised my mother and my wife that I will take them to the Jagjit Singh Show. When my wife called up a week back that the tickets are available and whether she should pick on extra for me to tag along, I don’t know why I just agreed to it.

Well glad I did, it was one of the most fantastic times I had in a long time. What a voice. Okay, all of you JS fans must be going “You didn’t knew that”, well I knew he is considered a maestro gazal singer but had never really heard his pieces the way I did today.

Genius, he and his team were on fire, speaking and playing their own raga language. I will be lying if I say that I understood the lyrics. But I could clearly see the rhythm, I was able to find the slightest of pres and posts, the ups and downs, the pattern was beautiful.

Today JS has added one more to his fan list of millions.

Gaming Life

The more and more I think of game design the more I realize how closely it relates to life itself.

Objectives --> Rules --> Obstacles --> Resources --> Actions --> Feedbacks/Results

Objective: Gurus talk about how to live better lives, how to set good targets so that you can achieve them. In Professional life they talk about setting smaller objectives and achieving them instead of the bigger ones where there are higher chances of getting lost. Each smaller objective takes you closer to your bigger one and eventually takes you to your aim.

How about no objective in life? That’s impossible; you will have some objective or the other. Maybe to become a lead programmer for valve or maybe to find the route to the next Rave party, but in either case there will be some objective. Let’s consider the positive case, you know your objectives and you know how all these objective lead to your monster objective. This gives you clarity of thought and focus. You will still need to figure out means to achieve them but you feel confident as you know exactly what you are aiming for.

On the other end, if you have no objective (that’s never true IMHO), or you don’t clearly know what it is - you feel drifting, with nothing to look forward for. (Lazing around in a Goa shack with a beer in hand, also has an objective: Having fun – Its in back of yeah head)

Therefore knowing your objective is very important and Clear Objective is good.

Rules: Everyone’s lives are governed by rules, rules of nature, social rules, rules laid down by self etc. Some rules can be broken and some can’t. When you break a rule to achieve your motive, it gives you instant delight but with a long term insecurity.

How people feel lost in new places, have you ever seen a tourist, holding a notepad and looking hopelessly at a railway station in India, as what to do next? Rules!!! , he has no clue how the rules work. Rules of where to inquire from; rules of where to look for train schedules; rules of how to catch a cab, rules of where to get their tickets from all these make him feel alienated. In this example since the railway system in India is quite different from most of the westerns counterparts, the tourist’s brain is not able to readily match patterns in his head.

Now have you seen a tourist, with a smiling face eating a chicken tikka roll at an Indian Airport? Rules!!!
His mind recognizes the patterns better, he understands the symbols, he understands the rules and he feels in control of the environment. Our mind is continuously recognizing patterns; we try to find order in any chaos. If we are unable to find this order, that thing is useless and the brain rejects it. (Off no interest)

Let’s take a bizarre example.

Imagine yourself meeting a 4 headed alien and being invited to play “HUU-HUU-HUU-BAM-BAM”, you go with him and he puts you in open pink field with purple gates all around you and goes “HUU…aek….HUU duo…HUU…teen”, you are now praying to god of what’s going to happen next.

God is kind! The gate opens and you see 19 aliens coming out with a ball wearing 2 sets of colored clothes. Are you feeling better now? (Does you mind recognize a pattern and gives you a small sub-set to think about)

Not quite; may-be the word BAM-BAM is still making you pray god.

If you build up the story the way you like it, you will notice the more you understand the rules the more comfortable you get.

What if the game was called “MUUAH-MUUAH-HEE-HEE”?? Probably less scary but still alienated.

So knowing rules does not make you feel safe but it does give you a lesser sub-set to worry about, it makes you feel knowledgeable, which is a good feeling. Assuming in our game “HUU-HUU-HUU-BAM-BAM”, the alien friends tells you that the purple gates a permanently locked. This definitely gives you one less thing to worry about.

Being aware of rules is good, learning the rules fast makes you feel knowledgeable and more in control.


Obstacles: Anything that impedes progress; progress in achieving objectives. What kind of obstacles do we get in our lives’?

Dilemmas: Whether to do this or do that?
Human Competition (People): Work front, personal front.
Enforce Rules: You cannot buy booze today as it’s a dry day. (Breaking some rules and achieving objective is always fun, but has its own challenge)
Physical: Damn the Highway No. 6 is jammed; you will need to take the longer route. Or you can’t make it to the final 10 for the finals as you have a sore knee.

The realization that a thing is an obstacle holds true only if you have an objective and the current thing impedes your progress. Otherwise the thing is not an obstacle for you. (Brain is very good in distinguishing things as obstacles or not an obstacle.

Now, which of the following way gives more delight or more feel-good emotion?
Is it?
Achieving your goal with no obstacle at all
Achieving your goal by over coming all the obstacles within the rule set.
Achieving your goal by over coming all the obstacles within and outside the rule set.

Can it be generalized?

My answers are all 3 holds true in different scenarios and it cannot be generalized, but most of the feel-good emotion comes out from point number 2.

(There is another way which results in maximum feel-good emotion – and that is when you create something - will write more on this later)

Why do people give up on something?

The challenge provided by the obstacle is too difficult and the objective you are trying to achieve is not worth it. So you just forget about it and move on to some other objective.

Is it correct to say that the challenge bar can be raised by having the objective more needed? I would say yes, but within a critical limit. After that both the objective and the challenge seems stupid and absurd.

So obstacles are good, in most circumstances, good challenges make achievements feel better.

Resources: Anything that assists or acts as catalyst in achieving objectives or takes you closer to it.

It will be hard to include all kinds of resources available to humans. Various types

Things improving your physical ability.
Things imparting knowledge on subject. (Learning rules). Increases mental ability.
Things improving your social status/standing.

So if on one hand we have obstacles impeding the progress, Resources on the other tries to balance out your ability against the challenges.

Resources are always limited; one can never have an infinite supply of any kind of resource. (No there is no alternative of “give all” in real life)

The existence of resource in itself leads to certain level of challenge or dilemma. Ask yourself when to use the resource. (If money is a resource, should you spend the money now and buy yourself a commodity A or wait for sometime and buy a better commodity B available in time T. If time is a resource, should you spend this time reading this crap or go on and do some real work.)

Resources are useful; it helps you keep up your confidence level and chances for success. If you efficiently utilize the resources it also increases the feel-good emotion.

Actions: Things you do or perform in order to achieve your objective or move closer to your objectives.

Each action comes with a procedure, which explains how to perform that action.
Each action comes with a set of rules, which explains if the action is limited to space, time and/or resource.

Actions are must to achieve your objectives; having a bunch of actions to choose from, choices for actions (Dilemma) always makes you feel safe, even if the action does not lead to your objective.

Feedbacks/Results: For every action performed, their will be a resultant reaction. When you will achieve an objective, it will result in satisfaction-emotion.

Feedbacks are important for us to fathom that we took an action, if there are no feedbacks you will probably try to perform that action again in order to get one. If you don’t get any result or feedback you would probably feel that it was a wasteful action.

Have you ever sent job mails to some pathetic organizations, who don’t respond to your mail? (Not even saying “you pr**k, we don’t want you!”

Action: You start punching in the keys.
Result: you see letters appearing on the screen.

Action: You click browse button to attach you resume.
Result: A window opens for you to locate your document.

Action: you click send button.
Result: Web page shows acknowledgement of message being sent.
Conditional Result 2: A delayed mailed demon mail of failure to deliver message.

At this point you are waiting for a feedback, a result, a reaction.

If you don’t get any response, then the dangerous thing starts to happen. Assumptions (any body a fan of steven segal movie Under siege and the train dialogue “Assumption is the mother of all f*****)

Quick responses, feedbacks are good; it makes you aware of your actions.

Let’s sum it up

1. Clear Objective is good.
2. Being aware of rules is good, learning the rules fast makes you feel knowledgeable and more in control.
3. Obstacles are good, in most circumstances; good challenges make achievements feel better.
4. Resources are useful; it helps you keep up your confidence level and chances for success. If you efficiently utilize the resources it also increases the feel-good emotion.
5. Actions are must to achieve your objectives; varied set of allowed actions makes you feel good.
6. Quick responses, feedbacks are good; it makes you aware of your actions.

Good game are those that uses these points well, so that they fit together in maximizing feel-good emotion.

Games mimic life, they form metaphors.

There is lot one can learn from one and use it in the other.

Sketch

Highly recommended

http://www.isketch.net/

Beware: Highly addictive.

31 Days Over

31 days over since my second last blog post.

Today was my second day at Microsoft. I have joined in as Program Manger – HED (Home and Entertainment Division).

So its time to start making GAMES.

It has been fabulous 2 days, I have an excellent team and looking forward for everything.

Elevators

One of the quietest times during my entire day is when I am in the elevator.

Elevator People Classification:

People looking at the ceiling of the elevator. These are generally standing in the middle.

People looking at the floor of the elevator. Generally these are people at the back side of the elevator, they know they have a long way to go so why bother.

People looking straight at the *closed* slide doors of the elevator.

Well enough of stupid classifications.

This is the time, where you don’t have anything to do, I mean you have nothing to do (physically), besides looking up, looking down or just a blank stare at the sliding door.

If by chance you are in one of those intelligent elevators, probably a good voice will keep you entertained while the sliding doors open and close on floors. (Something to learn from Hitch Hikers Guide To Galaxy)

Then there are people like me, When I am in a lift/elevator I spend my time looking around for something to read, hmm probably the instruction list of the elevator or some scratched graffiti, if you are in India. (“Raju loves basanti” kind of messages).

I can read the instruction list again and over again every time, I just don’t know why?

I know that this elevator cannot carry more than 600 kilos but I still want to read it again.
I know in case of emergency hit the RED button but I still want to read it again.
I guess I am reading it just for the sake of improving my score. The score of how many instructions can i read completely before my floor arrives.

This scoring system will not make sense for people who are from New York or like cities where you have a zillion stories to go, then probably you can try scoring for number of times you can read the entire instruction list :) .

What else one can do in an elevator

1. Talk on your cell phone.
2. Try to be friendly with your neighbor.
3. Try to read graffiti. (Jai Hind)
4. Try to make graffiti. (Jai Hind)
5. Poke your nose.
6. Try to learn voice over acting by mimicking the intelligent voice.
7. Read instruction list, maximize score and try to get you name in Guinness Book.
8. Solo Brainstorm about another point to add to this list.

Enough of wasting your time, reading this.

But before I end.

Don’t you think that intelligent elevators should add another piece of code to its fuzzy logic.

How many times have you seen a person repeatedly pressing the elevator button, he is trying to think that his tap..tap..tap..tap..tap..tapping the button will make the elevator understand….”Some one really wants me fast, and override everything and reach his floor” That would make an intelligent elevator really intelligent.

If you are a hardcore gamer read on otherwise this is the end of post.

Recently I have played lot of games which uses repeated button tapping as a form of game play.

God of war’s repeated tapping to make your killing move
King Kong’s repeated tapping to make the T-Rex not eat your neck.
Prince of persia’s repeated tapping to over power sword battles.

How about an elevator game ? Multiplayer real life elevator game.

One guy on the 10th floor, elevator on the 5th and the opponent on the ground. Ready, steady go..tap..tap..tap..tappp.ttapp..tapp.

Happy tapping and Cheers till next time.

31 days

31 days to go…..I am all excited, if computers could feel then I am probably feeling just like one fresh installed computer.

I got formatted, re-installed all the software in my brain, properly allocated correct directory structures and all set to test my new graphic card. (duh!)

31 days to go…. For me to start my new job as Program Manager, Microsoft – Games Division, I will be working out at the state of art campus as Gachibowli, Hyderabad.

Its is the largest development center of Microsoft outside of USA.

31 days to go….

I cannot talk much about the nature of my work, as there are bunch of papers stapled to my lip. (NDA) but all I can say I will be making GAMES.

Also wondering if I can get a role in the new upcoming Halo Movie, I was always confident about my acting skills :) , it would be great if I can convince Alex Garland to add a character to his script. Anyways jokes apart, I am really looking forward for my job to start at MS and a new journey into the mysteries of good gameplay.

Other things that i am looking forward for are:

1. Indian Game Developers Guild to start.
2. My sister’s wedding in December.
3. Permanent license plate for my new car that I bought 2 weeks back. (See)
4. My new Nostromo™ SpeedPad n52.
5. Peter Jackson’s King Kong – Both the movie and the game. Demo looked very impressive.
6. Coming weekend’s Italian cooking session with family.

From Vada Pav to Biryaani

This post has been long over due.

I left Paradox Studios and moved to Hyderabad in persue of my hunger to know more, to make more and to love more games.

Last 2 months was lot of reshuffling and re-settling. Its not easy to switch cities, till now I thought only To-Do lists (Note: Plural) on your desktops and approaching demo deadlines where the stressors, but Boy! Moving cities is a big pain in the *$$. Especially if the city you are leaving is Mumbai (THE CITY of India).

This recent experience made me come up with a To-Do List for moving Cities.

Assuming you know your date or month to relocate.

• Finalizing a place to stay in the city you are moving to.
  
  
• Fire up your internet and Google for the city’s websites
  
  
• Keywords – City Name – Cost of living – Rentals – Commuting
  
  
• Nice to have details
  
  
• City Map
  
  
• Bookmark Forum’s on rentals/sales.
  
  
• Telephone number’s of estate agents.
  
  Call up and pretend that you are the richest dude around, make sure you sound as if Bill Gates just applied for a job in your company. This will give you a list and rentals for the best localities around.
  
  Call up another agent and now pretend you just got fired and filed for bankruptcy yesterday. This will either get you nothing or bunch of cold words, in which you should try to figure out the names of the locations and try to remove the (int) part as they are the rental costs.
  
  So now you have yourself a price range.
  
  
• List of friends or friend’s friends and/or family members. (This might give you a good chance of locating few more in your family tree, the ones you have never heard off).
  
  
• List of Hotels/Motels/Guest Houses according to your price range.
  
  
• List out modes of travel to that city from yours.
  
  
• Optional – List of wine shops J
  
  
• Your bank Branches.
  
  
• Your Cooking Gas (LPG) Company’s Dealer.
  
  
• Your Mobile operator Branches.
  
  
• Plan a weekend trip to the city (you might want to extend the stay so have leaves applied for)
  
  
• Reach the city and park your gear at your decided temporary accommodation.
  
  
• Buy all local news papers having “Classified” section for rental ads, start calling, try getting lucky.
  
  
• Hook up with an estate agent, but make sure that you tell him your budget which is 20% less than your actual one. My trick: I ask him to show me two sets of apartments:
  
  
• 1^st is for myself and my budget is X (less than my actual budget).
  
  
• 2^nd for my brother (if you don’t have one, create a fictitious one) which is approx. 10% more than my Budget. This because I am a range guy I like things in brackets. That’s just me.
  
  
• Get lucky – strike the deal –get back home before you leave runs out. I recommend having few days extra, one never knows how much paper work needs to be done and how long it can take.
  
  
• Finalizing the Packing plan
  
  
• This can be quite tricky, depends on how much stuff you have, if you are like me, married without kids and with basic house hold stuff and the company is bearing the relocation cost, I strongly suggest hiring a Mover and Packer agent.
  
  
• Get the list of all the Packers, again I am the brackets guy, inquire the price list from the best to the one with the funniest name, which might sound more like a game studio than a Packer company. Inquire INSURANCE details. Ask details for
  
  
• Packing material that they will be using.
  
  
• Transportation vehicle
  
  
• Packing time
  
  
• Ask them to show you photographs (They generally have one)
  
  
• COST.
  
  
• Hidden cost
  
  
• INSURANCE (Don’t fail ask what if the good needs to be stored for a day or two at the destination city).
  
  
• Pay the booking charges and get all contact information.
  
  
• Finalizing the Travel plan
  
  
• If you already been to the city once for finalizing your apartment, you know how good or bad the last mode of commuting was? If its good book your tickets if not then choose another mode of transport.
  
  
• Confirm the dates to
  
  
• Your current landlord (Notice)
  
  
• Your new landlord (Inquire for availability of keys et al.)
  
  
• Your mover and packer agent.
  
  
• Your maid (Notice period for Mumbai Bai, that’s cool huh!)
  
  
• Your cable operator.
  
  
• Your news paper guy.
  
  
• Your friends and family (This will help them find time for your farewell party)
  
  
• Yourself (you don’t want to forget it yourself in all the stress and anxiety)
  
  
• Request Change of Address to:
  
  
• Your Bank.
  
  
• Your Telephone/Mobile Operator.
  
  
• Your Credit Card agencies.
  
  
• Your Game Developers Magazine Website.
  
  
• Your Tax agents and Insurance Agents.
  
  
• Your Cooking Gas (LPG) Company. (Request for transfer as well)
  
  
• Your internet service provider.
  
  
• You are all set now.
  
  
• Packing, Moving, Reaching and Settling.
  
  
• If you have followed the list above you will be able to ease out Packing, Moving and Reaching.
  
  
• Settling might take a long time.

It has been over a month here and I am still settling in.

Will talk about my New Job is the next post and man! It will be exciting.