Mieux vaut tard que jamais !

This modest corner is what I like to call "Studio Mojo" :)

It doesn't look like much but there's still a couple keyboards missing because of an obvious lack of room. I am so happy these days, you just can't beat that. I'm still extremely confident that I made the right choice leaving my golden cage at Gameloft. Some great things will be made around this desk, I know it!

So it's fashionable at the moment to blog about Resident Evil 5's trailer being "racist". So here's my 2 cents about that.

As usual, the overall response and the opinions expressed by video game players themselves are mostly pathetic, and make me feel lucky that those same persons do not debate publicly about politics.

Now, each time someone has to say anything negative about a video game, they fall in the "conservative mothers" category without any further thinking applied to the problem. The argument that this polemic shouldn't even be because there hasn't been one with other games or trailer featuring equally "shocking" content is ludicrous.

If there's anything Capcom often lacks, it's definitely taste (I'm refering to their abusive use of western pop-culture cliches in almost everything they do). To think that some people claim that there is nothing to feel insulted about in this trailer leaves me in awe.

People, it's really time to get a brain for yourself, and a heart while you're at it. There is a simple question that suffices to understand the whole matter and to help thinking reasonnably about it. Ask yourself:

If Africa was as big a market for video games as the US, would Capcom have been more careful ?

Deep down, you know the answer is an unequivocal YES. And that's where everyone should stop at.

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2 new games I worked on:

(Warning: some views expressed in this post might get you bitching, it depends on how idiotic you are)

*Download midi mobile phone music from Holy Wars below:
- Holy Wars: Battle

- Gordes Town

- World map

- The Forest (my personal favorite)

I totally forgot about this, but Holy Wars: Sons of Enoch is out, and so is the first ever video game adaptation of Oban Star Racers! Actually they've been out for a little while now but I was to busy working on my next project (which is 99.9% complete now) to recall that I actually worked on something else.

Holy Wars: Sons of Enoch
Beat'em All/RPG, nice blend of both, good graphics and cool fighting mechanics.

And Oban Star Racers

Racing game from the TV animated series. The game is cool but a bit too hard for me. (Maybe I just suck?). Anyway it looks terrific, if you liked the show you have to play this one. If you don't know the show you have to watch it.

Both games look sweet, don't they ?

So, yeah... They're both mobile games so there's not a whole lot of improvement here compared to my previous condition. :) These babies were developped and published by Devalley Entertainment. But actually, working on them was quite different than working on Gameloft games, which I 'm going to say a word about in a minute. But first, a kind word about Devalley, because they deserve it.

If you play with your cellphone sometimes (and I mean running games on it :)), you have to try Devalley games. This studio isn't famous (yet?) but has been around for a little while now. Their games are the first ones on mobile that really had me say "Ha! Now THAT's easy to pick up!". They're incredibly easy to play and fun, the frame rame is always good, the graphics are nice and the storylines are wacko. Everybody who thinks Gameloft or EA Mobile make great action games should try Gun Fever. Devalley's sudoku game "Sudoku QI Training" is amazing too, and I've been playing it each time I went to the bathroom for the past 2 months (honest). The company is small and dedicated to the love of gaming. Their games are amazingly quick to pick up and it takes no more than a couple of seconds to save your game and quit it whenever you need to. There are keys to press at anytime in the game that save your progress or turn the sound ON/OFF, without the need to go browsing in tiresome and laggy menus (*cough* Gameloft *cough* :)).

Edit: I deleted the rest of the article because I realized its content was downright insulting to a lot of people who didn't deserve it (that much). I'm sorry.

!!!Freedom!!!

Tonight I'm finally free from Gameloft. A couple of people there must be litterally pooping their pants from happiness. :) I can assure them then the joy is shared.

I guess I'm not realizing yet. But the nice thing is that from start to finish, I didn't have one single moment of hesitation before resigning. There was no time where I hesitated or thought to myself: "perhaps I should reconsider, this is a very nice position with a high salary and comfort". Nope. I did it, and now it's done and that I officially don't have any other revenue and have to live on my life savings, I'm very confident I made the right choice and I'm not scared one bit about the future.

BRING ON THE FUTURE !

We had this amazing little good-bye party on the shore of the Seine river here in beautiful Paris, 20 people showed up and we rocked. They made me the most totally rad gift, both excellent and amazingly annoying. For the sake of decency I can't say what it is exactly, but let's just say it will be a great reminder of the people I loved the "most" there, so I never forget why was everything this way. Guys, you rock :)

Playing with a simple line

Don't pay attention to the stupid "waveform" image above, it's just there trying to be pretty. Here's a bit of totally useless messing around with music, with story telling in mind (as always for me).

Tonight I felt like playing a bit with the woodwinds. Here's a simple line of oboe (which is of course copyrighted and that you should NOT rip to use anywhere else:)):
1-Oboe

Then I added a bit of piano to kind of "cue" the Oboe melody, and a bit of harp in the background. It starts to sound a bit like a mother/child relation ship to me :)
2-oboe+piano+harp

Here I tried to replace the harp by a gentle celesta part, it now sounds a bit as if the scene was more set in childhood (but obviously the focus wouldn't be the child itself or else I would swap the oboe for a "cuter" lead; so the result sounds more like "childhood" than "child" to me.
3-oboe+piano+celesta

So finally I droped the celeste and re-put the harp instead for more "readability" and a warmer sound. I droped the piano as well and I doubled the oboe with a flute and finally added a simple part of backing strings chords to make the result sound "fuller" and more emotional (the string section is the most emotional tool in the whole orchestra I guess). Ho by the way: flute + harp = pure magic ! (easy I know but it works just so well).
4-oboe+flute+harp+strings

I think the flute and oboe playing in unison just sound so wonderful, they have such a strong narrative power ! And I intend to use this combination a lot. :)

It's past 2 in the morning and I would really like to build a true "tiny tutorial of basic orchestration for dummies" right now, but tomorrow I have to go to my faaking job, where I feel as useless as an unijambist in an ass-kicking contest. I'm always thinking that maybe when I have the guts to quit I'll have more time to put my back into music and orchestration and my piano lessons a lot more, but I know I'm gonna end up doing everything but that... Still playing too much Mame and trying to improve my BlitzBasic skills (for the good of the world though! :)). I'm just so depressed right now.

I'd rather kill myself than live a whole life knowing that I never was the composer I wanted to be. I have to convince myself all again that this is what I do, this is what I am, a composer. But the last five years at Lameloft really had a negative impact on my self-confidence and actual ability I guess. Anyway nobody ever reads the bullshit I write here, but it just feels somewhat relieving to write it down :)



Everything but the piano => Garritan Personal Orchestra

Piano => Malmsjo Piano from Artvista (which is my secret weapon for a convincing orchestra/piano mix with no effort)

Blown away...

Even more New York photos

Doesn't this look kind of Bladerunner-ish ? (I'd hope so:)). I don't know which version is the best, horizontal or vertical ? I have deep love for very wide images.





This one was of course taken in China Town. -->

Some more NYC photographs - Grand Central

Look what I just got !

Mama !

New York City II (September 2005)

Here are other pictures i took while in New York City last September. What's nice when you are on the top of the Empire State Building is that you don't get the smell from there.

New York City (September 2005)

A few pictures from my business-then-holiday trip to big apple, last September.
I don't have a camera, so I used my girlfriend's one. She'll always let me take the pictures, not because she thinks I'm better than her at this, but because she's somewhat too lazy to take too many pictures a day :)