Grumpy Gamer

LHC

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:46:27 -0700

If you're like me, you probably worry about the temperature of the superfluid helium cooled superconducting magnets that line the 27 kilometer Large Hadron Collider located somewhere in the country of Europe.

But you can stop worrying, as I have, and just go to the new Cooldown Status Page to get up to the minute live temperature readings. If you notice any anomalies I'm sure there is number to call, but I feel pretty safe knowing that Alice is on duty in sector 12. That is until that backstaber Atlas from sector 81 decides he wants her job and start spreading rumors. Atlas is a jerk.

Tim and Dave and I

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:18:32 -0800

Tim and Dave and I spent the afternoon hanging out at LucasArts. Don't jump to any conclusions. You'll only make yourself sad.

Monkey Island 2: SE

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:26:19 -0800

Last night I went to a swanky party held at the Farimont hotel in the Tonga room, and place that looks like a ballroom that a pirate ship crashed into, where LucasArts announced Monkey Island 2: Special Edition featuring all new Guybrush hair.

It's hard to believe that twenty years later so many people would sill love and play Monkey Island. I would not have believed it if you told me back then. We were just making a game and hoping we didn't get fired for having so much fun.

Here is a picture of Tim suitable for framing or carry around in your wallet.

Goodbye Olympics

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:54:42 -0800

In a nail-biting final game Canada won the gold medal in hockey defeating the United States in a score of something to something. Honestly, I wasn't paying much attention.

I'm just glad Canada won. Not because of some adopted national pride, but more because I didn't want to deal with the lingering smell of tear gas and burning cars.

At this very moment the entire country of Canada is drunk and singing the national anthem outside my apartment building.

But to be completely honest, it's really nice to see. Canada is a pretty cool place filled with really nice people and I think they deserve this and to feel good and have so much pride in their country.

I also read that President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper had a beer bet on the outcome of the game. I'm not sure why presidents of countries wager meaningless bets on sports games. If you're going to bet on something, bet big. The looser of the hockey game should be forced to adopt the health care system of the winning team. That would have been a bet worth having.

I also have to confess. For as much Grumpiness as I have towards the Olympics, I could not resist going to at least one event, so last week I went and watched Curling. I remember making fun of Curling when I was a kid, but it's a damn fun sport and probably like most people, I went for the fights.

The Irony

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:22:49 -0800

I Want This...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:06:22 -0800

I want this painting hanging in my living room. Getting up each morning and see this will really set the tone for the day.

DeathSpank Nominated for 7 Academy Awards.

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:55:16 -0800

It's true, look it up. But that's not why we're here today.

Long time readers and premium Grumpy Gamer subscribers will remember that I'm not a big fan of the Olympics. It's a corrupt institution that has been taken over by corporations and a fascist controlling body. Let's face it, the Olympics haven't been pure since 654BC when snowboarding was introduced.

But since I'm currently living in Vancouver Canada, it's hard to escape the Olympics given that I live 2 blocks from where the opening ceremonies are taking place and mobs are starting to descend on the city.

Just to give you an idea of how crazy it is out there, Darren and I were working at my place today doing a big play through of soon to be Academy Award winning DeathSpank, killing stuff, solving adventure game puzzles, laughing at all the funny stuff we're probably going to have to remove for legal reasons and generally having a swell time, when a loud ruckus rises from the street 22 stories below. We go out on my balcony and what do we see?

Some nut job running down the street with a lit torch being chased by an angry mob.

The Olympics are crazy and I can't wait until they are over the homeless are returned to the streets where they belong.

Do the athletes still compete naked? I haven't watched in a while.

Damn It Robin!

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:40:49 -0800

DeathSpank Named Game of the Century

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:35:37 -0800

People often stop me on the street and say "Hey Ron!" and I say "I don't have any change...get job!" and then they say "We're not beggars, we just want to know why you're working so hard on DeathSpank?" and I say "We do it for you so you can play the best damn game ever!" and then I give them some pocket change so they can buy booze.

One of the things we've been working so hard on the last 2 months is dialog. Over 6000 lines of the funniest crap you'll ever hear. How do I know it's funny? Because actors never study their lines. They just come in to the studio and begin recording and quite often they will start laughing and we'll have to stop recording because it's the first time they've read it and it's funny.

I wanted to introduce you to a couple of the actors in DeathSpank and who better to start with than Michael Dobson who plays DeathSpank. When we did auditions back in March I had no real idea what DeathSpank should sound like. Michael was the first person to read for the part and he nailed it so perfectly that we just stopped looking. He's top notch and when he's in the recording studio he becomes DeathSpank. I can't imagine the game without him.

Second on the list is Brian Dobson (no relation to Michael Dobson...oh wait...my mistake, they're brothers). Brian plays Eubrick the Retired with perfection (not to mention several other roles). For those of you that saw the demos at PAX, we were showing one of the dialogs between DeathSpank and Eubrick.

Next up on the star studded list is Orange Couch. Not sure how we would have made it without Orange Couch. This is where I'd sit and pour over scripts and do last minute rewrites if things weren't working out or as funny as they could be.

And last is Hothead's "Sound Guy" Adam. Don't let the unassuming name of "Sound Guy" fool you, despite having his fingers on all the wrong buttons in the this picture, he knows what he's doing right up there with the best I've ever worked with and the sound design in DeathSpank is excellent.

Well, that's it for this episode of "Why the Hell Doesn't Ron Post More on His Blog!".

PAXERY

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:25:53 -0700

The PAXORIFFIC game show called PAX is finally over and it was PAXTASTIC, so let's go over all the PAXERY!

Now, if I was smarter, I'd divide this up into several posts to fool you into thinking I post a lot, but I'm not going to do that. You're too smart for that and I respect that smartness. Instead, I'll just break it up in to the different subjects, or "sections" as they are called in some countries.

First off...

The Keynote

I don't even know where to begin. When they asked me to do the keynote, it took three days for me to make up my mind. I've never spoken to a group of people larger than about 100 and giving the keynote at PAX was a terrifying thought of the most terrifying terrifyingness. I don't do a lot of public speaking. It terrifies me. Maybe you've heard.

I finally said yes because this was something I knew I needed to do. If I said no, I'd regret it for the rest of my life. It was a chicken I needed to slay or I was going to die trying.

I asked how many people would be coming to the keynote and they said around 2000. Big number, but I thought I could handle that. I started working on the speech immediately and spent the next two months writing and practicing and swearing off WoW for the duration. If I was going to screw this up, I was going to be damn prepared.

Day of the keynote, I arrived at the Main Hall a few hours early to get set up and check out the stage. When I walked through the door and saw the sea of chairs the calmness I had worked so hard for over the last two months vanished. "How many chairs did they set up?" I asked. "6000" was the reply. 6000! wtf! I didn't agree to this! My fear endlessly bounced between "what if only 100 people come" and "what if all 6000 people come".

There was a funny incident at the U.S. border on the way down involving PAX that I wanted to tell as an opening joke. I refused to write it down so it wouldn't seem rehearsed and ran that though in my head as I waited for the hour of reckoning.

The lights finally dimmed and they told me they were ready and I was escorted to the stage entrance as someone in my head kept calling out "deadman walking". I stood behind the curtain, took a deep breath and said "I'm ready". The curtain was pulled aside and I walked on stage.

I can't even describe what it's like to look out over 6000 people who are all looking back expecting you to do something. I wish I'd taken a picture. Seriously. I wish I'd taken a picture, that would have been really funny and I thought of it an hour after the keynote ended.

My number one goal was to get everyone to laugh in the first 15 minutes and I think I did that. I don't remember the rest of the talk. That's the honest truth. I remember the first 15 minutes and the last 5, but the rest is a odd blur.

A lot of people told me that they loved the keynote, even Wil Wheaton, so I guess I didn't dance around the stage half naked doing pirate impressions. Or maybe that's why they liked it.

Also, a huge thanks to Clayton Kauzlaric for helping me photoshop a couple of my images, most notably this one, which got a huge laugh. Also, to Deirdra Kiai for masterfully running the image-show back stage, and to Darren Evenson, Chris Mitchell and Dave Grossman for reading over my speech and telling me I can't say things like "You're all wasting your lives playing video games!" at PAX.

Wil Wheaton

Wil Wheaton has been one of my heroes for a long time. I like to think that I liked Wil before it was cool to like Wil. I was one of the few people that really liked Wesley Crusher on Next Gen and I was thrilled to find out that he was at my keynote and twittered this:

"That was the most inspiring keynote I've ever heard. So awesome. Thank you, Ron Gilbert!".

Now, why he was twittering during my keynote and not paying attention is another matter, but I'll deal with that later.

I also got a chance to meet Wil for the first time at PAX and he is truly one of the nicest guys I've ever meet and he can totally house sit for me anytime I need to be out of town.

Monkey Island Fans

Many thanks to the hundreds of fans that came up to me during the show and said thank you for Monkey Island and how they're looking forward to DeathSpank. You are truly the most awesome group of people I've ever known and I love each and everyone one of you more than the others.

I only had to sign one body part at the show, so I consider that a big win!

Dominic Armato

Despite being the voice of my creation Guybrush Threepwood, I had never met Dominic before. Back when we were doing Monkey 1 and 2, the thought of voice was crazy talk. "Computers will never be able to do that!" I'd scream, then follow up with "You can't connect more than two computer together at the same time!" and other insane rantings that all turned out to be completely wrong.

But I digress.

If PAX wasn't thrill packed enough for me, I got to hang out with Dominic Armato and maybe PAX is just filled with nothing but cool people, but damn is Dominic one cool guy. I never had a voice in mind for Guybrush (voice acting being crazy talk and all), but I always thought Dom (I can call him that now that we're BFFs) nailed it and it's double cool that he's such a nice guy. And Dominic, if you're reading this, good call on ordering the pizza.

DeathSpank

Holy crap! DeathSpank pwned PAX. Am I using the word pwned right? I think it means "any small, ornamental mat, as of embroidery or lace used to decorate".

We gave hourly live demos on the show floor and the DeathSpank booth was packed for every demo. We ran though one of the Monkey Island style dialogs with Eubrick the Retired and then went around killing stuff.

We had this and another 14 inch tall DeathSpank statue on display for people to touch and break small parts off of. We also made four smaller ones that we gave away to five lucky people. Yes. I know. Four statues and five people. It's how we entertain ourselves.

This is where I spent most of PAX. Locked in a small room in the back of the show demoing DeathSpank to an endless stream of press and people looking for the bathroom. Harmonix had their Beatles Rock Band stage right outside our meeting room. I now hate the Beatles.

But enough about DeathSpank, let's talk about DeathSpank!

But first watch this...

...then...

READ
THIS
AND
THIS
AND
THIS
AND LISTEN TO THIS
THEN READ THIS!