AltSci Cell

Greetings,

As of today, this site is totally upgraded. The features that it supports are:

If you're just looking for my latest blog, find the yellow Articles tab, click the Blog with the latest date, and you'll probably find a link to my latest work. What is AltSci Cell about? If you got here through the domain cell-game.com, you probably know that I am writing a video game called Cell. This website will show pictures of it until it's completion, at which point it will have downloads available and it will allow you to purchase the game.

What type of game will Cell be? Cell is a game about the technology of communication and how we use it to define our reality. Even before I owned a cell phone, I wanted to write a satire on the high cost of cell phones. Now that I have a cell phone myself that costs $80-100 per month (don't ask me how), the satire hits home. While satire is still a motivation for Cell, it's not the main motivation. Now that I understand the idea of cell phones, I am much better equipped to ask and perhaps to answer the question "Why do we really need a cell phone?" Don't expect me to lecture you on your bill.

More specifically, Cell will have a semi-traditional gameplay based on the love sim genre with a bit of American style mystery and plenty of philosophy. I'm going to try my best to script as little as possible in AltSci Cell (opposed to Hack Mars, which will have over hundred scripted sequences) so that the player is the engine through which the plot is explained. People seem to like controlling their own destiny and video games give them a very weird (read: unique) way to express it.

I wrote a great 3D + AI engine programmed in C++ and Python, which I plan to open-source upon the release of the game. I plan to release the game for PC Linux, PC Windows, PC Mac, and PS3 sometime this winter 2006. Unlike Hack Mars, which has seen delays for 3 years due to laziness, AltSci Cell will focus on easy stuff.

What else is going on in my life? I'm helping to organize Neg9 meetings here in Seattle. I go to Seattle Wireless hack night every Wednesday. I went to Las Vegas for Defcon, I went to San Diego for Toorcon, I went to Portland for Kumoricon, and I am going to do stuff at Seattle Wireless field day. I plan to visit Spokane soon.