Bodisafa's blogness

Pretty amazing journey so far

2012-01-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

Lightning Prototypes DBA'd to Magic Pixel Games last year and we shipped Carnival Island PS3. Now, we're working on something totally different, crazy, and so far shaping up to be my favorite project ever. I wish we could talk about it...but nope. :)

Lightning Prototypes

2010-03-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

As reported on bluesnews, our team was laid off on March 2nd. Seven of us got together and formed Lightning Prototypes the following weekend. We have tons of ideas and an overwhelming amount of support. It's time to make the Willy Wonka job again. :)

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

Life has been very interesting this year. Many friends have left EA this year, but I continue to crank away on some top secret stuff. It's very challenging, but also super rewarding. I hope to be able to talk about it in the spring.

Wow...it's been forever.

2009-09-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

We went back to the east coast for three weeks in August. We even rented a beach house for a week. It was amazing and we were very fortunate to meet up with lots of old friends as well as our crazy family of goodness. :)

We're working on something crazy and new. If you are a programmer and looking to relocate to the Los Angeles area...or happen to live here already...all the better....drop me a line.

We're looking for a 360 Rendering Engineer, Junior->Mid UI Engineer, and Mid->Senior Level Generalist Engineer. As always, part of what makes our team rock so hard is that we try to bend the position to match the goals and dreams you want to achieve.

Quiet but still doing stuff.

2009-03-16T03:38:00.000-07:00

Started a Facebook account and reconnected with lots of people through the ages. It's been a lot of fun.

Boom Blox Original won a Bafta for Best Casual Game!

The Boom Blox Bash Party trailer is out too!

I received the team head cold finally, so I'm going back to bed. :)

Awesome BOOM BLOX article!

2008-05-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

From 1up.

Music in BOOM BLOX

2008-05-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

Mark Mothersbaugh talks about the BOOM BLOX music here.

1UP gives BOOM BLOX 100 / A+

2008-05-06T12:57:00.001-07:00

Here's an awesome review if you are still on the fence for BOOM BLOX.

1UP article

Penny Arcade loves BOOM BLOX

2008-05-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

Main review

Comic

Fantastic Four

2008-05-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

Riley, Hailey, and I were watching the super old Fantastic 4 TV show on Boomerang, via on-demand. Riley and Hailey have been going back and forth saying, "it's clobbering time". Riley sometimes says, "flame on" and then runs all around the house at max speed.

Tonight, we were sitting at the table and Riley said, "it's clobbering time." Hailey says, "that's enough clobbering time!"

As I'm writing this, Riley says, "it's [dramatic pause]" and then both Riley and Hailey in unison say, "clobbering time!"

Deirdre thinks I've created some monsters. Heh, guess that's what refresh is all about. :)

Yay, the BOOM BLOX website is finally live

2008-05-02T23:03:00.001-07:00

We had a temporary one for a long time.

Check it out out:

EA official BOOM BLOX website

IGN is posting videos about the Create mode

2008-05-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Joe and IGN put together some awesome stuff on Ben's amazing Create mode (aka Editor).

IGN goodness

Wow Yahoo really loves BOOM BLOX

2008-05-02T11:20:00.001-07:00

We didn't pay for this, they came to us because they wanted to show how much they enjoy the game.

Woo hoo!

Yahoo's BOOM BLOX site

Wheels on the bus alts

2008-04-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

The bed bugs on the bus go chew...chew...burp.

The Riley on the bus says "Let's go fast!"

The Hailey on the bus says "I like pink."

The Elliot on the bus says "gurgle gurgle gurgle."

The Daddy on the bus says "Play BOOM BLOX."

Lots of great press on BOOM BLOX, so go buy it!!!

2008-04-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

I've heard from friends at Nintendo that this is one of the best games to come out on a Nintendo platform in years. Hopefully you'll give it a shot. I can honestly say there isn't a game like it out there. Despite working on it from the beginning, I can't wait to get the final version to build levels and swap them with my friends. If you're building levels and want to share them with me, just drop a reply. :)

GoNintendo

IGN

Kotaku

1UP

GameTap

Joystiq

NBC

Mercury News

BOOM BLOX 2008 Trailer up

2008-02-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

Yay! The gameplay trailer is finally up!!!
http://www.ea.com/boomblox/

BOOM BLOX

2007-12-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

Yay, PQRS has a real name! I can't wait until people see what the game looks like. It's been so long since we've shown anybody anything. I'm itching. :)

Various silly keys/passwords

2007-12-11T20:58:00.001-08:00

Riley and I play this silly game where I catch him in the "Daddy trap." He has to use a magic key to get out. If he has run out of keys, he needs to know the current password. Some recent passwords which have inspired silly situations:

"I forget"

"I can't tell you"

Riley has caught on now, so I can't do this trick anymore.

Meat!

2007-09-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

We sat around the dinner table tonight - Deirdre with her sling (broke her arm falling over a suitcase in very early September chasing Hailey in the dark...doh), Riley half in and out of his chair, and Hailey in a white dress covered in various food substances. We were eating steak and cheese burritos and talking about how we can't imagine Hailey ever being a vegetarian. She loves meat so much.

On an impulse, I raised my hands high in the air and exclaimed, "Meat!" Hailey was quick to do the same. Then, Riley copied Hailey. Elliot was near the table with a big grin on his face while the rest of us all kept goofing off - arms flailing and yelling lots of "Meat!" "Meat!" "Meat!"

I love this crazy family.

PQRS is announced

2007-07-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19649887/site/newsweek/?from=rss

Wii Can't Wait to Play

Steven Spielberg makes his return to videogames.

By N'Gai Croal

Newsweek

July 16, 2007 issue - A true artist can find inspiration anywhere. But not many get to find it while playing Wii Tennis against Nintendo's legendary designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. For director Steven Spielberg, however, that's just another day out of the office. "Afterwards, we were talking about the Wii and I said, 'Wouldn't it be fun if we could dot-dot-dot?' " Spielberg says of his meeting with Miyamoto at a 2006 videogame conference. That dot-dot-dot turned out to be an action-puzzle simulator—code-named PQRS—that neatly blends the creativity of the building-blocks game Jenga with the charm of a Saturday-morning cartoon. It runs on top of a physics program that lets you manipulate blocks with the Wii remote as if it were an extension of your hand. Or, as Spielberg explains for all the non-geeks out there, "It just seemed like a great thing for the entire family to play together over Christmas. Although you don't need the excuse of a holiday to enjoy it."

That's true, but we should take a moment to celebrate Spielberg's return to the world of videogames. The acclaimed director has long moonlighted in game design, working as far back as 1989 on such sci-fi titles as The Dig for his buddy George Lucas. When Spielberg cofounded DreamWorks in 1994, the new company quickly formed an interactive unit, but the division lost money and DreamWorks sold it to industry giant Electronic Arts in 2000. Still, EA executives and Spielberg remained friendly, most notably with their collaboration on the 2004 launch of a master's program in game design at the University of Southern California's film school. A year later, after several conversations and negotiations, Spielberg and EA announced a partnership to make three videogames together, the first two of which were shown exclusively to NEWSWEEK.

The second game, code-named LMNO and made for Xbox 360 and PS3, can be described as "North by Northwest" meets "E.T." —if E.T. were female, grown up and, um, hot. You don't play as the girl, however. You're an ex-secret agent, and the bond that you forge while on the run with the computer-controlled woman—good, bad, indifferent—determines the nature of her special abilities and the ways in which she'll assist you. Says Spielberg: "The challenge is, can the game have an emotional impact on players while they are actively manipulating the world?" Based on the clever ways in which he and EA are extracting a genuine performance from their digital Eve—complete with eyes that widen, lips that curl and translucent skin that lights up in different colors to express her quicksilver moods—we think Spielberg's got yet another hit on his hands.

Riley's doctor visit

2007-06-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Riley just told me that he went to the doctor's office yesterday. He got a nipple on his hand (pointing between his knuckles). I guess that's all the rage with 3 year olds in the LA area.

Riley also has a white gold tooth. It's a sneaky gold tooth, to match Daddy's.

Happy Father's Day. :)

Sea World

2007-04-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

We went to Sea World yesterday with Jack and Meg (they came out to visit for a week). We had lots of fun seeing Shamu and the dolphins. Riley and Hailey loved the playground area, especially the large sandbox area.

Disneyland

2007-04-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

Deirdre and I took Riley, Hailey, and Elliot to Disneyland. I had been doing some crunching at work for the last week or so. With that behind us, why not go to Disneyland? It's about 30 minutes away from here, which is so crazy. When we arrived, Riley immediately said we had to meet Mickey Mouse. It was very important to Riley that he met Mickey and that Mickey met him and Hailey. When we arrived in Toon Town, the wait was supposed to be over an hour. When I explained to Riley that we would have to wait for a long time in the line, he quietly sat down on the ground. I guess he has a future in waiting for game consoles, movies, concerts, and the like. :)
After about 45 minutes or so (he was running around like a monkey after the first five minutes so I carried both of them while we went through the line) we met Mickey. He was on the steamboat in the middle of filming a movie, but he took some time out of his busy day to meet Riley and Hailey. I recorded it with a video camera, but I have no idea how good it came out.

We went on the Pirates ride afterwards. We sat up front and got a bit wet on the waterfalls. :)
Riley was very excited about grabbing the loot from the treasure chests. Hailey was dancing in my arms to the Pirates band playing next to the entrance of the ride.

After Pirates, we had some yummy Pineapple float while we waited for the Tiki Room. Hailey loved it, though both kids were a little scared of the Tiki statues chanting.

Next, we went on the train around the park. Both Hailey and Riley love trains. It's so much fun to see their faces light up when the train approached the station.

We arrived back at Main Street. The Main Street Parade was just starting, so we watched that. Then, we headed back to the car via the tram. Next time, we'll shoot for going to see the fireworks...

Riley designs his first game - Jump Jump

2007-04-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

Riley first told us how much of a mess our living room was (and it wasn't...for once :) ).
He was talking to Ben how you had to jump over the stuff in the room.
Ben asked Riley if he was designing a game. Without skipping a beat, he told him that the name of the game was "Jump jump." He then told Ben how you play the game:

Jump jump jump over the car and the balloon and the bucket and you win the gold trophy (a pink piggy sock). When Ben asked Riley how you win the game, Riley replied, "I'm going to win."

So Ben, Deirdre, and I were joking that the win condition for the game was that if your name is Riley, then you win.

Having a blast

2007-03-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Working on a super-secret project at EALA. Not many people at EA even know what I'm working on. It's quite amazing...the best job I've ever had. More later...when I can talk about it. But, I think it will catch a lot of people off-guard.

The kids have settled in quite well. The mature orange tree in the backyard produces lots of oranges and whenever we want it to smell like Jamba Juice, we just squeeze some...or if we're extra lazy we just stick one in the garbage disposal. Heh.

Elliot Taylor Dixon is due today...but he's probably taking a cue from Hailey and hanging out in mommy for a bit longer. With an immediate work deadline out of the way, he can come anytime now...thanks for waiting. :) Mommy is sure ready for you to arrive.

Oma is here to help with Elliot's arrival. Ben Smith also joined us on the project and has been living at the house. The kids just adore him. I drive along the Pacific Coast Highway during my commute. It's so gorgeous...I am thankful everyday for all the blessings.

Hailey is a Howler Monkey

2007-03-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hailey has one of those screams that I've heard people say sound like a police whistle. Then, it migrated to making you want to claw your eyes out. But, it kinda tweaks me in a way where my system shuts down. I can just hold her and wait until she's doing a bit better. It doesn't happen very often these days thankfully...but today she had another one of those episodes. So she got a new nickname...howler monkey. It's quite fitting really. (duck)

New Job and a big move

2006-11-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

I left Helixe last week and started at EALA this week. I can't talk about what I'm working on, but it's way cool.

This move happened really fast and the level of family support has been nothing short of amazing. We owe you all so much.

An apple a day doesn't keep them away

2006-11-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

If you haven't been to the dentist in a long time...go. I waited 5 years and had my first root canal yesterday. Ouch!

Thanks Nintendo!

2006-09-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

It's so great that the Wii is launching in the USA on my birthday. I just hope I can find one...

Ah...the power of Legos

2006-09-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

Forget cheese, Legos are way more powerful. We have three small sets of Duplos now. I was instructed by Riley on the proper way to fix stuck Legos the other day:
"First, you put the blocks in your mouth. Then, you bite and bite and bite and then they are in two pieces." I told him that he would get chipped teeth like me (since that's what I did with my adult teeth...oops). I guess that's the proper way though, so no arguments there.

We picked up a tube set. Deirdre doesn't like them as much, since they are too abstract. But, they are way cool. They come with balls to roll through the tubes. Hailey seems to like the silly face on the blue ball. For the moment though, it's too big for her mouth, so she can't choke.

When we were out in California, we bought ourselves Legos one year. I think we spent a solid few days one weekend playing pretty hardcore with them. It's great to all gather around the pile and make stuff, though I can't wait to play with regular-sized Legos in a few years.

5-week sabbatical

2006-07-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

I gave six months notice of my 5-week sabbatical. Then, I picked up a severe case of poison ivy the first week. Ha. It's been great, though it's hard to stay away from Outlook when the VPN is right there. I really should hide the shortcut or password protect it or something. I still have 3.5 weeks to work on my crazy sabbatical project, in between various camping trips.

Hailey is afraid of all men that aren't her Daddy. If I could only keep it that way until she was 18... :)

Deirdre's softball team is undefeated heading into the playoffs tomorrow. They should kick some serious butt. Woot.

I did this crazy LinkedIn pass tonight...it's such a small world.

Riley turns 2 years old

2006-03-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

Riley was spoiled rotten today with a play kitchen, tricycle, remote controlled firetruck, and new animals and stories.

He only had a 45-minute nap, but was dancing and having a grand time up until the end of the day.

Grampa Gary came by yesterday to visit with him and Hailey. Hailey's been flirting with all the guys that hold her with big smiles...for the women she pulls their hair. Probably a bit jealous. :)

A great day...if every day could be as fun and simple.

Riley tells a story

2005-12-21T11:49:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday Riley, Alex, Grammie and Grampie Kimball, and I went to the beach. We found a softball and Grammie threw it on the ground to show Alex and Riley that it didn't bounce. We all laughed. We watched the seagulls and played on the playground.

Today, Deirdre just called me to say that Riley was telling Oma and her the story about going to see the seagulls and throwing the ball and it didn't bounce. He laughed as he was telling the story.

Too cool.

Riley's first joke.

2005-11-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

I went in to greet him in his room today.
I typically ask him if he has poopies...which usually results in a 50% correct answer.

Today though, he said very firmly, no...puppies! Then grinned.

Heh.

Hailey is curled up on my lap

2005-11-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

What a crazy week it has been. Hailey Grace Dixon was born 10/25/05 at 3:55am.
She weighed in at 7lbs 6.5 oz.
The effects of Wilma finally made it up our way. So it was quite a rainy and breezy night.
We went a couple of hours before, but while it was progressing, it seemed like we were going to have to wait until morning at least. We live so close to the hospital, so it seemed much easier to just go home and sleep comfortably. I went to the local CVS to get some meds to help Deirdre sleep, but they had just changed the computer system over. It was a bit of a mess, but it was pretty funny timing anyway.

About an hour and a half later, Deirdre's water broke and we gathered everything and rushed in. Deirdre's mom had come over to babysit Riley if it turned out we needed to go in. We arrived at the hospital at 2:24am, everything was progressing quite fast. The meds Deirdre took cut the edge off of the contractions, so she was sitting in a rocking chair wondering about taking stronger meds. She wanted to go to the bathroom, but the nurse checked and said she would have the baby in the toilet...she was just about to give birth. Crazy. So the doctor was called in and we moved Deirdre to the bed. The doctor asked her to wait on pushing as she got her outfit all ready. She barely had enough time before Hailey came out. She cut the cord and only after told us that it was wrapped around Hailey's throat twice. Due to how fast she came out, it left no damage or hurt her in any way.

Riley has been an absolutely amazing older brother. He sings to her when she cries, offers his diapers when she needs to be changed, gives her kisses, and rubs her head gently.

Having 2 weeks off is also amazing. I check in now and then, but everything is going great over there. Woot!

Riley has a police car now - we went down to the edge of our driveway and watched the cars go by. Lots of fun. :)

Fun memories from the summer

2005-09-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

I stayed a lot at a hotel nearby work this summer. I was working very late and wasn't able to drive the 30-40 minutes home afterwards.

1. Hanging out at the front desk at 4am waiting for someone to come and unlock my hotel room door, since my room key died. An old woman with almost no teeth was wanting to get into my hotel room so she could use the bathroom. She was on her cell phone with somebody about how she hadn't managed to get into a room yet. I think she did have to use the bathroom, but I couldn't get into my room either. I ended up driving home that night.

2. I had been at the hotel a bunch. They gave me a free coupon for a soda at the room near the lobby which has all kinds of breakfast and junk food. I was tired, but couldn't sleep so I watched Monk and DeadZone on USA. During DeadZone, a commerical for Fanta came on. I got all wired for some odd reason and ran down and grabbed a Fanta using the coupon. Then, after finishing the Fanta, I went back to work and wrote code until 7am or so. It was a good night in the end.

3. I was completely tired and wanted to go to sleep. There was a huge dog was on the other side of the wall. It sounded like some sort of Marmaduke. Crazy low gutteral to high pitch bark/howl. I just couldn't help but laugh.

4. I finished up a big chunk of code. Deirdre, Niamh, and Riley were at a campground for our yearly camping trip with the gang of friends. I left at 3:30am, went to the hotel room (I had planned out exactly where everything was as I was driving over). Passed this weird couple in the hall. It sounded like she was trying to get him into her hotel room. But, I wasn't sure. Was in and out of the hotel room in about a minute with all my stuff. Drove up to New Hampshire, about 2.5 hour drive. Stopped briefly at home to get the time fabrication vehicle (aka Jetta).
When I was just about to the campground, I saw a deer at the side of the road. I seriously thought about pulling over and petting it. Then, I realized I was pretty tired. I did make it to the campsite - said "hello" and promptly fell asleep. I pretty much was useless all that day, in and out of sleep. But, breakfast around the campfire, yummy pizza for lunch, and Zeb's was great.

Solving Riley's sister's name by math?

2005-08-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, now that we finally made it to vacation time, I found myself awake at 2:30am. For too much of the summer, I was typically trying to solve an interesting problem at that time, so it seemed the process hadn't worn off quite yet. I was just itching for something to puzzle over. :)

We still haven't figured out a name for Riley's sister. So, I said to myself, alright, what kind of formula could I apply to generate Riley's sister's name?

So I started with J as the first letter of my first name and R as the first letter of Riley's name.
The difference is a positive movement of 8 letters, so I scored it as +8. (J=10, R=18).
I then took the minimum distance in months from my birth month to his as November->March. One can describe this as a positive movement of 4 months, so I scored it as +4.

This yields a +2 letter movement per month movement (+8/+4).

Riley's sister is due to October, which is a negative shift of 1, to equal a scoring of -1.
Which means that Riley's sister's name should be -2 letters off mine, or begin with an H.

To calculate the middle name, Riley's middle name is Scott. This translation can be described as the sign or magnitude of the first name's calculation, or +1 (R->S == +1).

Following this then, Riley's sister's name should have a middle name that starts with a G.

So how about Hailey Grace Dixon?

Trying out AudioScrobbler

2005-05-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

I joined AudioScrobbler. I listen to a bunch of weird stuff. It's going to be intereresting to see what it thinks I'll like. Perhaps it will get as good as Amazon. I swear Amazon has secret agents which spy on me...either that or they get all my money for music.

http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/mrbodisafa/

A dream from August 13th, 1995

2005-04-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

This dream has four parts.

The first part, I was at my old house in Old Orchard Beach. (It is a split level house, with 2 separate houses.) Deirdre and I were visiting my aunt Linda - who was living where my uncle Glenn normally lived. My aunt had two movies she wanted to show us. The first movie was one tape long and the second spanned two tapes. My aunt told us that the first tape was about the last straw before a huge China (vs. ?) war started. The second tape was about the war itself. I don't remember any actual footage from the tapes. Also in the room is a friend of my aunt's - I guess - but I didn't know who she was.

My father came in at this point, he just wanted to talk - which was weird since he loves movies. My aunt decides to leave at this point, because she needs to drive home.

Beach
Deirdre, my dad, and I are rounding a left corner at a beach. In the ocean, there is a treehouse - tipped over and buried in the sand. The treehouse was brown plastic. Alongside the treehouse was a tipped over cardboard box. Near the box was a collection of figures - G.I. Joe, Transformers, etc...(the cardboard box was the same as I had when I was a child).

Just then Harry Schaffer (from L.G) came from out at sea (or he had been at the water's edge all this time). So, I ran out into the water and we started splashing water at each other.
Another L.G. employee came from the shore, but I don't remember who he was.
Ast this point, I was wearing my glasses (the ones I use when I'm sitting in front of my computer). The left earpiece was suddenly all twisted. I thought to myself, "All I need to do is hit the tab key to fix it."

Hospital
Deirdre is in the hospital and seems very sick. All of these men keep visiting her, giving her money for sex (?). She takes the money, and says no. The men, who into the room separately, all leave separately. Then, this old man comes into the room. I recognized him to be very close to Deirdre - as if he was her god parent or something (when I awoke later - I wondered if he was her guardian angel). The old man says to her, "I have good vision and I have always known you had a tatoo on your left leg." He gives her lots of money, she says no - he smiles at her. Then he turns, smiles and me, then leaves. We were very happy at this point - as if this money removed an enormous weight from our chests.

Realtor
Deirdre and a realtor with a really lame English accent are talking. They enter an upside-down u-shaped area. It looks like an open courtyard. The tiles are dark maroon - though there isn't much ambient light. The realtor says, "The whole place is actually very crappy." On the steps - on the opposite side of the courtyard is a pickup truck. This pickup truck is covered in a sheet. Deirdre asks, "what's that for?" The realtor replies, "It's the garage - it is quite crappy, really."

Random is beautiful.

2005-03-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

I was taking pictures all over San Fran this afternoon and into the evening. Since everything out our way has been ice and snow, I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals with no socks. As it became dusk, people were out with their scarves and gloves. Each time they saw me, I received the greatest expressions.

But, the best was this Asian woman when I was walking through Chinatown. Best I could figure, she was saying something about my poor mother...

Heh.

Riley will be a big brother

2005-02-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

Cool.

Football...breakfast of people

2005-02-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

It's that time again. People watching football. People watching commercials. People eating...stuff.

Who knows who will win. Perhaps the pope does.

I start swimming tomorrow. I should be going to bed in 15 minutes. Har.

Had the flu, how about you?

2005-01-30T19:55:00.000-08:00

After feeling like a schmuck for coughing and hacking and having the sore throat of doom...
I seem to be coming back to my old quirky self. Yay. Or Doom...?

Now with more snow, and less drool

2005-01-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

So, we're sitting here in the lovely New Englandness and Riley is trying to follow the mouse on the TV.

In the end, we'll probably throw him in the snow and see if the drool sticks. Otherwise, we may be left to the madness of sitting inside and playing World of Warcraft.

It's another day and the world is not filled with cheese yet.

2005-01-20T20:39:00.000-08:00

There once was a man who lived somewhere else.

Ok, guess it is time to join this craziness.

2005-01-13T13:37:00.000-08:00

Who knows how often I'll write on this puppy. But, here it is.

If you want to see pictures of our son Riley, you can head over here:
rileyscott.aboutmybaby.com