Today I’d like to share my Wikipedia user page, and what makes my personal Wikipedia profile special, even though I hardly contribute to Wikipedia, is the wall of userboxes. Wikipedia userboxes are like pieces of flair on an Applebees employee: they’re useless and tacky, but you might occasionally get a laugh out of them. I updated mine to reflect my current interests.

This is my profile. You can also access this page by clicking on the Wikipedia icon on my Contact page.

I know, I know, I went a little overboard. I doth procrastinate too much. Speaking of which, I need to start hauling ass to get my degree in eight weeks. So I bid you adieu.

For this post, I want to introduce you to a new American political party that has captured my interest. It calls itself the American Pirate Party, formulated on the Internet just one week ago. I know that seems awfully young for a new political movement, but I’m doing my part to spread the word. The American Pirates demand that the current political system in Washington needs a complete overhaul from the inside out. We are not pirates from days of yore, stealing treasure on the high seas. We’re modern day pirates who wish to hijack the current political system in America to combat the tyranny and corruption created by this culture of fear. I got fired up when I learned about it, as the idea was on the front page of Reddit. This new political ideology has spawned a subreddit, an official homepage for the party, and a couple of facebook groups. It’s a start, but it’s not even off the ground yet. Turmoil plagues the Pirate Party, as obsessive-compulsive redditors bitch and moan about having to explain American Pirate Party to strangers. I really couldn’t care less. It’s not a pansy name. It may have originated on the Internet, but it’s still serious business. I’m sick and tired of the status quo in my country, where sick children bankrupt families, and Big Brother is watching you. The image of a pirate perfectly fits my idea of how I relate to the government. We’re not free, and the people who point out the emperor wears no clothes are outcasts. This will be exciting, whenever the organization gets off the ground.

Maybe it’s just a generational thing. The Baby Boomer generation has failed miserably. They didn’t even get pot legalized. Sure they had to put up with Richard Nixon, but my generation has had to put up with George Dubya Bush, possibly the most ignorant, arrogant, and clueless leader of post-modern times. And now the Baby Boomers that are still alive and in power—they won’t give it up, won’t stop fighting useless wars like their fathers before them. They’ve created the largest prison population in the world, thanks to privatized prisons. They continue to pollute the earth with fossil fuel, even though we clearly have alternative sources of energy to choose from that won’t slowly kill the planet. I’ve had enough of the greed, enough of the money pit politics that have flushed our economy down the toilet. We’ll be lucky to come out of this recession as a superpower nation. We might have to make due as an ordinary regular nation, if China hasn’t demanded our debts be paid by then.

Third parties never win, but I don’t care. Something has to be done. If you love your country, you do what you can to make it the best it can be. You can’t just side by the sidelines and hope the Democrats actually pass reform. You have to do it yourself. And by “yourself”, I mean the unwashed masses. I think if people knew about the American Pirate Party, it would gain some grassroots support. All the teabaggers in the news lately are just sheep following the orders of wolves, pawns in a game of Republican chest beating. They can be reached out to if the message gets to them. I enjoy capitalism as much as the next guy, but the comfortable lifestyles we live won’t last forever if we keep going down the path we’re still taking. Two party politics get hardly anything done, and they’re tearing apart the middle class.

I can’t wait until the American Pirate Party becomes an official organization. I might get involved in St. Louis politics, if I or someone else can organize a chapter here. If you think this might be something you want to be a part of, sign up on the homepage and let your voice be heard. You can also post in the subreddit if you have new ideas or want to share content. Our mascot is a velociraptor. Is that awesome or what?!

I’m thinking about creating some American Pirate Party propaganda to make some use of my education. But right now I’m way too swamped with schoolwork. Speaking of which…

The following is a simulation of what the game would look like for the disclaimer and title screen:

The concept behind the Labyrinth is simple: you register your username and avatar in order to play the game. If you should at any time fail the game (“game over event”), you must start all over again. The Labyrinth is designed to be a point and click adventure that is as challenging as possible, requiring both puzzle-solving wit and quick reflexes to respond to real time events. At the end of the game, free prizes are handed out to the first 1000 users to complete the challenge. The mission of the Labyrinth is to survive its many pitfalls and death traps, and escape alive.

The Labyrinth will feature stunning visuals and engrossing Foley design to immerse the user within the game. Each user will use their own HUD (Heads-Up-Display) to perform actions, customize their game options, or access their inventory screen. Each user gets their own custom avatar and an inventory screen that contains previously gained items. Some key items once obtained stay with the user even if they encounter a game over event. There will be a massive marketing campaign behind the Labyrinth essential to the game experience.

The Labyrinth is a game you play through your Internet browser. In this medium it will be less expensive to produce as opposed to developing a console game. There is also potential for releasing The Labyrinth over WiiWare, Xbox Arcade, or Playstation Network. The marketing campaign will attract users, and The Labyrinth will pay for itself through advertising. Every time a user reaches a game over event, they must view a thirty-second advertisement. The social benefit of The Labyrinth is a gaming experience tailored to hardcore gamers seeking a puzzle challenge that requires code-breaking skills and quick thinking. It will also provide bragging rights to the first users who complete the challenge and receive special prizes.

Concept for a New Website

The concept for a new website which will give its users a unique and exciting video game. The name of this website will be “The Labyrinth”, with the URL “www.labyrinththegame.com.” Instead of a usual Adobe Flash application game, the website is composed of various pages containing intelligent links. The point-and-click adventure will remember the user’s previous actions, and certain events in the game will play out differently based on their choices. It will be similar to the concept of Kong Studios from the alternative rock band Gorillaz, which allowed the user to wander around a giant studio complex and interact with set pieces. The user explores the interactive world of The Labyrinth looking for new clues to advance the plot. Previously visited rooms will undergo subtle changes that affect game play. Each user creates an avatar within the game. Their inventory slowly gains new items to help their quest. They must avoid pitfalls and environmental hazards, a potentially horrible fate waiting past every corner to end the user’s game. When a user reaches “Game Over”, they must start all over from the beginning of the game. This is to add a level of challenge to the game, because the first 1000 people to beat the game will receive a free t-shirt. There will also be special prizes for the first users to complete “The Labyrinth.”

The audience for a website like The Labyrinth will be catered to English-speaking gamers, both casual and hardcore, from North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. The Labyrinth could be programmed in multiple languages to appeal to a wider audience. The website will be tailored to mature gamers, as challenges within the game will require quick reflexes and a stomach for unexpected surprises. Each game over within the labyrinth will involve a grueling and painful death, similar to the sci-fi movie The Cube. The script for The Labyrinth will be written with a sci-fi fantasy twist, using mystery to entice the viewer to uncover the conspiracy behind The Labyrinth.

Promoting a website like The Labyrinth will ideally be spread on a viral campaign, without revealing the secret prize for the first and early subsequent users to complete The Labyrinth. The marketing and advertising for The Labyrinth will use the element of mystery and foreshadowing to attract users, like the advertisements for the television show LOST. Some grand twist hidden in secret code spread throughout the promo material will lead to the final answer in order to win. Obviously it would require a great amount of wit on the users part to play The Labyrinth.

The majority of The Labyrinth could be programmed in Javascript, possibly Actionscript. Illustrator, Photoshop, and possibly Maya could generate the content of The Labyrinth. A program like Dreamweaver could be used to place clickable areas that lead to user generated events. Algorithms of The Labyrinth will need variables that track the user’s previous actions, and the user’s amount of time spent in each room. Real time events that require quick thinking could play out differently based on these variables. Few online point-and-click games are intricately complex and multi-layered to the extent of providing an extreme challenge. This may alienate some users who do not want to play a game that requires them to think. However, they will have no knowledge of the real life rewards waiting at the end of The Labyrinth. In order to complete The Labyrinth from start to finish without a break, it will take the user at least four to five hours of gameplay.

The interface design for The Labyrinth will be individual web pages that fit themselves to the user’s resolution on their monitor. The world of The Labyrinth leaves no pixel unused. The HUD of The Labyrinth will give the user access to game options and the inventory screen. The inventory screen will not interrupt game play, but just superimpose itself over it. The inventory screen will allow a user to closely analyze each item in a three-dimensional view. A user can hold one item at a time. However, some items can be combined to fit the user’s needs. It should be relatively easy for a user to play The Labyrinth. It should not be harder to play than a game of Myst. I expect all users to encounter a “Game Over” event multiple times, so users will have the game play mechanic memorized through repeated use. Users should want to visit The Labyrinth for the challenge of the game.

A project like The Labyrinth will require thorough development and bug testing in order to provide the smoothest experience possible. It goes without saying that a project like The Labyrinth will require a team of developers working in a collaborative effort to achieve the highlevel design that I have imagined. The most common “error” a user will encounter is a Game Over event, which results in the untimely end of the user’s avatar and a restart from the beginning, and the users can learn from their mistakes. Users can find various “safe zones” within The Labyrinth to idle their game and plan their next move. After all the prizes for The Labyrinth have been given away, possibly a checkpoint system could be introduced for the last event a user triggered, and make it easier to finish the game. Serious errors like a browser crash or a system error need to be avoided. Perhaps a bonus prize can be given out to users that accurately find and report bugs. There is potential for users to exploit the system and cheat the game. Actions like these need to be safeguarded against with thorough testing. The whole concept behind The Labyrinth would be ruined if hackers managed to beat the game without resolving challenges.

A website like The Labyrinth should be designed to provide an extreme mind-boggling challenge and a fresh experience. The visuals need to shine with vibrant detail. The audio needs to give the user the sense of space within each room of The Labyrinth, as well as lead users to solve certain puzzles. A plot needs to be developed to support the game play. Viral marketing campaigns should spread the word about The Labyrinth, and in the end should be used as a tool to reveal the ultimate secret behind The Labyrinth. Users of The Labyrinth need to feel like they have received a mental workout, the kind of satisfaction that comes from solving a riddle. But in this case, they will seek to solve an incredibly epic riddle full of surprise and intrigue.

Features and Benefits of The Labyrinth

The Labyrinth from the user’s perspective will be mostly in his or her point of view of their avatar in the point and click adventure. Each individual user of The Labyrinth will create a personal avatar. They can either recreate their own appearance or make an entirely new character. There will be options for creating an avatar’s gender, age, height, weight, race, hair style and color, anatomy, and apparel. This way, The Labyrinth will offer the user a more personal and connected experience. For the purposes of analyzing The Labyrinth’s audience, the user will be an English-speaking male between the ages of 18-29 who is literate, mentally capable, plays games for leisure and/or challenges, and has an Internet connection. The challenges behind The Labyrinth will test the user’s wits to their limits. The Labyrinth will defy convention by not relieving the user’s stress, but adding to it through high anxiety challenges and real time events that require an immediate reaction. The user will draw entertainment from The Labyrinth because of how immensely challenging it is. They will solve puzzles and worm their way out of complicated death traps, receiving short-term rewards along the way, like new items—some essential to continue the adventure, some purely cosmetic. Along the way, the main antagonist CASSOS will try to discourage the user from continuing the adventure through teases, intimidation, and general insanity. Completing The Labyrinth will require comprehensive code-breaking skills as well as quick reflexes. In order to beat The Labyrinth, material from the marketing campaign will need to be analyzed for clues on how to solve certain puzzles and riddles. This should be a game that gives users an intellectual workout. It should feel like a real accomplishment to escape the boundaries of The Labyrinth, and the free prizes handed out to the first 1000 users to complete The Labyrinth will add to that sense of achievement.

The Labyrinth is not necessarily designed to make the character a better person. The point of the game is to survive and get out alive in one piece. In that sense it appeals to the user’s primal instincts of outwitting the enemy and escaping the nightmare that is The Labyrinth. At its core, The Labyrinth is a story about man versus machine. The computer controlling the virtual world of The Labyrinth is the ultimate target to be destroyed before the user can escape. Perhaps the character can be considered a better person after escaping The Labyrinth knowing they applied their skills towards beating an artificial intelligence. Only the cleverest users will figure out that all the marketing material released before the game is the key to solving the mystery behind The Labyrinth.

This project is designed to create an epic and satisfying gaming experience that you could play over the Internet for no charge. Anybody with a computer connected to the Internet can participate in The Labyrinth. It is also to create a large viral marketing campaign that will go hand in hand with the gaming experience. The inspiration behind The Labyrinth comes from the survival/horror genre of games. Games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill challenge the user with multiple puzzles that must be solved in order to advance the plot. The story behind The
Labyrinth is heavily influenced by Valve’s Portal, in which you play a character trapped inside a scientific facility armed only with a gun that creates interdimensional portals essential to navigating through its challenges. Portal also has an evil female computer personality that teases and intimidates the user throughout the game.

Wireframe for Content of The Labyrinth

The welcome screen of The Labyrinth starts with a disclaimer, read aloud by a computerized female voice: “The Labyrinth is an online virtual experience. It is meant solely for mature audiences. The material presented in The Labyrinth contains violent and disturbing images. Children should not take part in The Labyrinth. By viewing this disclaimer, you make the claim you are ready to experience the challenge awaiting you inside The Labyrinth. If you are not prepared or if you are under seventeen years of age, log off immediately. You have been warned.”

After the disclaimer, the welcome screen goes to the log on screen where users enter their username and password. Once logged in they may set their game options and create their avatar. The Labyrinth begins with a point of view shot of the user’s avatar waking up inside a strange room. Inside is a bed, a toilet, a mirror, and a table with a user manual. A computerized disembodied voice speaks to the user: “Hello subject number . I am CASSOS, Computer Automated Scientific Supervisor Operating System. You have been selected to participate in a scientific and psychological experiment of great magnitude. In sixty seconds, the door of this room will open, and it is your task to find the exit to this facility referred to as ‘The Labyrinth.’ You may use any items you discover to help you on your way. Any resemblance of danger inside The Labyrinth is only meant to enhance your performance. You can find shelter inside safe rooms similar to this one throughout The Labyrinth. Please refrain from smoking during this experiment. The Labyrinth is brought to you by the good people at—“ At this point the voice become heavily distorted and unintelligible. “The door will open in five, four, three, two, one.” The game of The Labyrinth begins.

Some of the challenges in The Labyrinth include puzzles that can be solved at the user’s leisure. Some rooms will shut the user in and an immediate threat to their survival is presented, such as poison gas or a dropping ceiling. The user has to act quickly to stop the threat, or else die a painful and grisly death. Frequently CASSOS will inject her two cents about the user’s actions meant to intimidate the user. Near the end of The Labyrinth, CASSOS will become increasingly mentally unbalanced and apologetic. The final battle of The Labyrinth will be between the user and the main hub of the CASSOS computer. When the user completes The Labyrinth, the screen will be a point of view shot of the user’s avatar climbing a staircase towards a door with an exit sign on top. The screen fades to white as the door is opened. The screen fades into a scene in the middle of the desert. To the right of the user is a dune buggy with a note attached to the steering wheel. It says “Reserved for administrators of The Labyrinth
for commuting to the local metropolitan area, fifty miles due east.” The user’s avatar starts the dune buggy and rides off into the sunrise. Fade in the caption “Congratulations, you have escaped The Labyrinth. You are the user to escape The Labyrinth.” If the user is one of the first 1000 users to escape, they will be informed of the prize they won.

Marketing for The Labyrinth

The marketing campaign for promoting The Labyrinth will be about half the project’s overall budget, but it should also be quite attention-grabbing. It should extensively span Web media and traditional media. Viral videos will be produced and released on the Internet. They will have a survival-horror edge to them. For example, there could be a cell phone video from someone inside The Labyrinth trying to escape, only to meet his grisly end. A video could be produced to seem like the government made it for purposes of analyzing The Labyrinth. There should be clues and hints on how to advance the game, making it an essential part of The Labyrinth experience.

On the Web, The Labyrinth will have its own Twitter, Facebook, and individual promotional website (to create awareness of the game before its release). An email campaign will be conducted using both bought contacts from advertising agencies, and from individuals who sign up for the newsletter on the promo website, which will also serve the purpose of preregistering users before the game release. It will offer users a free tutorial on how to play the game. Beyond that, the promo website will give users the tools to spread the word about The Labyrinth on other social networking websites.

For traditional media, television promotion is essential. It is a popular trend among video games to advertise themselves by buying large chunks of commercial time on top-rated television shows. The Labyrinth will be no exception. The Labyrinth should be advertised on such networks as G4, Comedy Central, Spike TV, HBO, Showtime, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, TNT, USA, TBS, among others. Large billboards with vague messages as to the purpose of The Labyrinth should be posted across major metropolitan areas. Billboards should not give away just exactly what The Labyrinth is. It will be up to the audience to go to the URL to find out. A publicity stunt of some sort should be attempted before the release date. This stunt should be done in a large public venue with lots of pedestrians and members of the press.

Challenges and Risks for The Labyrinth

• Writing the code that controls the real time events in The Labyrinth
o Solution: Dreamweaver and Actionscript coding could provide the kind of real time feedback needed for The Labyrinth, with a server side program at the core of supporting the environment.
• Protecting the system from hacker exploitation
o Solution: Require people to register in order to play the game (this will be essential for the prizes handed out at the end of the game). Design the website with randomized password protection that only the System Administrator will be aware of at any time (at an undisclosed location, of course). Take all necessary precautions to prevent users from obtaining the source code within The Labyrinth.
• Writing the code that makes The Labyrinth run smoothly on as many current computers as possible.
o Solution: Design with a user-friendly build of The Labyrinth which installs the game content on a user’s computer that can run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Maybe it could be iPhone compatible, or just build a separate mobile phone application that you can play The Labyrinth on. The Labyrinth will most likely require Abode Flash Player 10 for cut scenes.
• Getting users to come to labyrinththegame.com and play the game.
o Solution: Promote a massive viral marketing campaign essential to The Labyrinth experience. Examples: the advertising for LOST, The Dark Knight, Snakes on a Plane, the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero.
• Turning away minors from the graphic material presented in The Labyrinth.
o Solution: Program the website to register on the highest possible parental rating for filtering software. Force users to read the disclaimer before they can play The Labyrinth. I imagine a computerized female voice saying the disclaimer out loud before the game even begins.
• What kind of timeline will The Labyrinth have?
o Solution: Let’s assume the script and storyboards for The Labyrinth are complete and ready to be implemented. Production of The Labyrinth will take approximately one year. Using the Build–>Test–>Fix–>Test–>Fix–>Deadline pattern, the build phase will last about four months, the first test phase for about two months, the first fix phase for about two months, the second test phase for about two months, and the second fix phase for about two months, hopefully placing the deadline within a year of start of production. The marketing campaign for The Labyrinth will involve a separate timeline handled by a professionalmarketing company.

Budget and Cost for The Labyrinth

• What kind of salary will individual members of The Labyrinth project team receive?
o Solution: The Labyrinth will not cost as much to produce as it would if we were developing a game for a console or PC. The medium in which you play The Labyrinth is over the Internet through your computer’s Internet browser. So by working in that medium a game can be created with a limited budget, and thus salary will not reflect that of a big development team, but rather a small independent team. Besides, in order for this game to be successful it will involve a large marketing campaign involving lots of freely given away prizes. So, a programmer will receive a salary equaling $45k per year, a graphic designer between $12k-$20k per year, and team managers between $28k-$35k per year.
• What will be an overall budget for The Labyrinth?
o Solution: Half the budget for The Labyrinth should be spent on building and developing the game, and the other half should be spent on the large marketing campaign to promote The Labyrinth. If there were two programmers, two graphic artists, and a team manager working on The Labyrinth it will cost about $145k-$175k per year, and multiply that with any number of teams involved in developing The Labyrinth. For arguments sake let’s say three teams. It could be between $435k-$525k. This does not include salaries for play testers, but for an Internet game they could be hired at a dirt-cheap price. For spending about $550,000 on development of The Labyrinth, an equal amount is spent on promotion spread over a wide variety of mediums (radio, television, Internet, billboards, publicity stunts) and free t-shirts, maybe more. To do a project like The Labyrinth it will cost between $1,000,000-$1,500,000.
• What kind of ROI (Return on Investment) is The Labyrinth expected to have?
o Solution: The Labyrinth’s ROI will be primarily from video advertisements. For every “Game Over” event a user encounters, he/she must watch a sixty second video advertisement before the game begins again. There will also be alternative sources of revenue like merchandising The Labyrinth accessories.

Soon you will be able to watch this video on my website too. I have to go now. I have a lot more work to do than I thought.

We’ll see how it works out.

Track list:
1-Amazing Horse
2-Electro Gypsy
3-Narwhals
4-Owls
5-8bit Shrooms
6-Blimp
7-Electro Gypsy (Angle Grinder 8 Dnb Remix)
8-Baby Baboon
9-Pelican

The first three tracks on this album are a trifecta of addictive electronic beats. “Amazing Horse” soars with tight synth melodies with a nice panned drum kit to back it up. “Electro Gypsy” sings a ballad about future music while bringing credibility to the title. And then there’s “Narwhals”, a happy go lucky tune about nature’s oddest sea mammal. These three tunes will be stuck in your head for the next two weeks after you hear them. You might even sing along. It’s an incredibly strong opening to an album.

Ironically this album has no songs about lemons. Five of the nine tracks are dedicated to animals. This album should have been titled “Weebl’s Menagerie.” “Yesterday’s Lemon” relies heavily on comedic value, since most of the songs were designed for looping Internet cartoons. It’s really obvious where the loops were meant to end, because it’s where the breakdown of the song is. Some of the songs have a children’s music feel to them similar to They Might Be Giants. However, when you produce an album with the line “Look at my horse, my horse is amazing… With a stroke of its mane/It turns into a plane/And then it turns back again/When you tug on its winkie”, you’ve exited the realm of children’s music. The humor of this album is superb in my opinion, but if you’ve ever watched a Weebl cartoon and thought to yourself, “Fuck this noise,” then you won’t like this album.

The only other song on this album I found notable was “8bit Shrooms”, because I’m a Mario fan (I grew up on the NES) and its the sole heavy metal song in “Yesterday’s Lemon.” Weebl’s vocals are clear and solid throughout, and some of the tracks are even supplemented by female vocals. Personally I’d like to find out what kind of home studio setup Jonti Picking is using. The production values of this album are slick, and remind us how pretty much anybody can release a record these days. The only shortcoming of this album is the remix of “Electro Gypsy”, which has a hard hitting edge to it that sticks out like a sore thumb (too much compression on the drums). I didn’t find the remix particularly creative, and would have preferred more original songs.

If you are willing to give these tracks a chance, they’ll worm your way into your regular listening schedule. The songs may be short in length, but their brevity is made up for by their replayability. If you don’t already love narwhals now, you soon will, and realize that they are in fact the most awesome sea mammals in the world.

****/*****

There’s something about the subtle art of the mash up that really hits me deep down. It’s a union of two unrelated musical pieces made to conform in pitch and tempo as a single expression of pop culture spirit. This particular mash up is like an underwater disco party where every sea creature is invited. There are other mash ups out there on the Internet that can give food for thought.

Rick Astley and Nirvana are two music acts that usually incite a groan of disapproval from yours truly, but for some reason if you put the two together, all is forgiven. I can’t explain it; something about the unholy matrimony of these two songs that captivate my attention and adoration.

I don’t know if this one counts, because its sort of a remix of a remix. I don’t even know what you would call that. It’s still a great mash up.

This mash-up is nuttier than a bag of squirrels. They even kept the 11/8 time signature of the Outkast song and made it work with “We Will Rock You.”

And this is where we get into the just plain weird. I don’t know who came up with the idea of mashing a David Bowie song with a children’s TV show theme song, but whoever did is a freakin’ musical genius, even if it was made on someone’s Mac.

And so in conclusion, the musical mash up: a modern day invention made possible by means of digital manipulation of audio, an auditory oddity that defines the creative side of my generation, nostalgically looking to the past to create songs to incite a moment of ecstatic musical joy in the present.

That’s all for now. I’ve got some shameless self promoting to do.