Game Beats

Moving to Adventure World

Sam Beattie — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:44:16 +0000

In three days’ time, I’ll be starting my new job in the Cambridge offices of Zynga Boston as an Associate Game Designer. I’m really, really excited about this position, since it means I’m going to be working on Adventure World, the new Zynga game about the particular brand of tomb-raiding archaeology practiced by Indiana Jones and Lara Croft.

In fact, check out that splash screen above. Zynga’s actually signed a deal with LucasArts to bring Indy himself to the game. Which, of course, makes me doubly excited, since now I get to work with an Indiana Jones license!

This is going to be one of those rare weekends where I can’t wait for Monday.

ASoIaF LEGO Minifigs on Tor.com

Sam Beattie — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:47:03 +0000

My friend Matt writes for Tor.com, and he’s just featured my Song of Ice and Fire LEGO minifigures in an article for the site! Go check out the article, and then spend some time with the rest of the content at Tor. It’s a great site for anyone interested in science fiction, fantasy, and anything geeky in general.

Edit: So apparently I’m all over the internet now. Matt tells me that the traffic from the Game of Thrones twitter actually crashed Tor. These are just a few of the links I found:

Tor.com
Reddit
Comics Alliance
io9
MTV Geek
Game of Thrones on Facebook
Eat Sleep Geek
Fuck Yeah, Jon Snow!
Technabob

Finished the Dance

Sam Beattie — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 03:52:46 +0000

This week was surreal. It was full of sending out resumes to game companies, filling out other applications, and on top of that, I was working to get my additional Jagged Alliance 2 game diaries finished for Quarter to Three. (I’ve been doing one per day, so the fifth one is now available to read.) Which means that I ended up working to get all the video-game related stuff out of the way so I could sit down and read. I repeat, I wanted video games out of the way so I could get some reading done. That’s the polar opposite of most of my time at college.

But now, I can focus on the game-related stuff again, because earlier today I finished A Dance With Dragons. Minus a few little nitpicks, I absolutely loved it. Specifically, the book has enough huge WTF moments to rival A Storm of Swords, even if none of them individually are as big as the Red Wedding. One thing that specifically surprised me, without spoiling too much, is how much of an enormous badass Wyman Manderly turned out to be. He’s like Martin’s version of Titus Andronicus.

Damn it, now I have to wait for my friends to finish the book so I can really talk about it with someone.

Welcome to Our Tropical Hideaway

Sam Beattie — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:23:15 +0000

As you may see off to the right, I’ve been playing a lot of Jagged Alliance 2 lately. I think the best part about this game is the sheer replay value from playing through with different mercenaries each time. The personalities playing off each other really work to create a different narrative for the experience each time.

Since I have a bit of time on my hands lately, I’ve started writing a series of game diaries about JA2 for the website Quarter to Three. I’m playing through the game with the 1.13 patch and writing about my experience as I go, highlighting my team choices, describing my tactics, talking about how the game holds up, and making a little narrative about the whole thing.

The first entry was just posted today, so you can see it at Quarter to Three.

Playing at Stories

Sam Beattie — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:18:37 +0000

My senior thesis at Dartmouth was a look at video games as a narrative medium, entitled Playing at Stories. For a while, I was thinking about trying to publish it, but in the four years since it’s been written, there has been so much change and progress in not only the games industry, but also my opinions on game design, that the points addressed in the thesis are fairly out of date. I may revisit it at some point, but in the meantime, I’ve made the original thesis available on my “Projects” page for anyone interested in reading it.

Moving On

Sam Beattie — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 16:25:18 +0000

Well, today’s my last day at Blue Fang Games. I have to say there aren’t any hard feelings on my end; it’s been a great couple of years, and I can’t have asked for a better place to have started my career in the games industry!

In any case, I’m looking for game design opportunities. I’m focusing on the Boston area, but I’m not entirely against the possibility of relocating.

Big Damn Spaceship

Sam Beattie — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:36:57 +0000

So as you may have read in the “About Me” section at the top right, I’m kind of into LEGO. I recently, (over Memorial Day weekend,) finished a build of Serenity, the ship from the movie of the same name and the TV show Firefly. It’s a project that I’d wanted to build for years, and that I’d been working on since October 2010.

You can see the rest of the photos on my Flickr photostream.

Hey, I remember this place!

Sam Beattie — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 04:24:02 +0000

Look at that, this page is still here. Funny how that works. I’m going to be starting this up again. I’ve given the page a different look with a new name,* and I hope to be updating as frequently as possible so as to push all of my old posts that should never again see the light of day way, way, to the bottom of the archive.

*Good lord, “The Literary Gamer?” Was I pretentious in 2008 or what?

Review of 1942: Joint Strike

Sam Beattie — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:43:53 +0000

My first review for GameRevolution has been posted! It covers 1942: Joint Strike, a game that was quite a bit of fun.

Hit up the review here, and let me know what you think!

I’m Not Quite Dead

Sam Beattie — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:23:43 +0000

I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted, but things have picked up for me recently. Since I’ve been so busy, and it’s not like this blog actually makes me any money, it’s kind of fallen by the wayside.

Since I last posted, I’ve taken on two new jobs. The first, as kind of a side gig, is that I’ve begun to write reviews for Game Revolution. My first review, of the game 1942: Joint Strike, should be posted soon, and I’ve been working on another one this week for Bionic Commando Rearmed. I’m just doing Xbox Live Arcade games so far, since it’s easy for GR to send me a redeemable code, and so far I’m just getting free games out of it, but hey, free games!

On a more career-oriented note, in eleven days I will be starting work in QA at Blue Fang Games. It’s entry-level, sure, but it’s a foot in the door of the industry in which I’ve wanted to work since I was five years old, drawing old Nintendo Power-style level layouts for imaginary platformers. (I created multiple concepts for a Calvin & Hobbes game of which I was particularly proud.)

Blue Fang is known for the Zoo Tycoon series, which I’ve always respected for the fact that it took the “tycoon” name, which often guarantees a game is shovelware, and actually made a quality franchise to go along with it. It joins Roller Coaster Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon in that respect, so it’s in good company.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled. Blue Fang is based in Waltham, MA, near Boston, so I’ve spent the last week or so looking at places to live in the area. At this point, I’ve missed the September 1 move-in, but I’m heading back down to the city tomorrow to keep looking.

So between everything that’s been going on, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to spend on The Literary Gamer, or even gaming, for that matter. (Although I did finally unlock all the weapons for my medic and pyro in Team Fortress 2, that was like, two weeks ago.)

Don’t worry, TLG is not dead, and I expect my posts to become a bit more exciting now that I’ve actually kick-started a career in the games industry.