Author: Scott

My Off the Grid column at Joystiq is back from its unofficial, unannounced hiatus. This week, it’s about good games to play on international flights. Not to spoil it or anything, but the answer is “None. I don’t want to play any games. Why am I not there already? More wine, s’il vous plaît.”

I passed my flight to France watching Dexter with Bonnie, replaying Metroid: Zero Mission, replaying Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, and playing the same three or four Neutral Milk Hotel songs on Jam Sessions over and over again. I was going to do some design work, but… yeah right.

Next week is a very special Off the Grid. It’s special because it’s about video games.

I’ve been super-negligent with this blog, but I’m hoping that’ll change starting now. I just made the difficult move to our lovely French apartment, and I’m currently trying to get back on a normal schedule of blogging, working, designing, etcetera.

I’ve very nearly caught up with everything, so hopefully things will get back to normal soon (well, normal in the sense that I’m living in France, but posting here regularly like a good little blogger).

In Scott news, both Officeball and Arrowgamé have been published at the Escapist. Check them out. What’s coming out at the end of this month? I’m not telling (because I’m not sure yet, but I’m also not telling).

It’s true. In less than twelve hours I’m leaving the country, and not coming back for six months. Bonnie and I will be living in Grasse, a small, beautiful city in the south of France. It’s incredibly exciting.

My American cellphone will be disconnected for the six months I’m in France, but those wanting to contact me can still do so via e-mail. (scott¹numberless²net).

We’ll have regular internet access in our apartment, and we’ll be posting plenty of photos to our joint Flickr account, as well as updating our brand new travel blog with stories and more.

Okay. Back to packing.

Like, an old-school arcade. It’s called “Chinatown Fair”

9 Mott Street
New York, NY 10013
J/M/Z to Chambers Street, 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall

They have Para Para Paradise. I am so there.

Special thanks go out to Kevin Cancienne for cluing me in, and to New York City Geekdom for the additional info.

I know, I know. That’s no excuse for negligent blogging. But it’s kinda been a busy time for Scott Jon Siegel (and here I thought I’d have the whole summer to work on Scottypedia). Here’s a brief update on stuff I’ve been doing:

I’ve been interning at area/code: They recently launched a unique online game for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, called Sharkrunners. I did a lot of playtesting and bug-testing for Sharkrunners, but I also wrote a sizable amount of the in-game creative copy. It still makes me giggle whenever I receive an “important message” from The Dreyfus Foundation or FIN (Friends of the Ichthyological Nation). The game is also incredibly fun. Do yourself a favor and check it out if you haven’t done so already.

area/code has a few other projects in the works right now, but nothing I can really talk about. It’s all pretty exciting stuff, though. a/c has become a serious think-tank for game design and general tech know-how.

I’ve been designing games for The Escapist: I’m pretty excited about this latest venture. I’m working with Escapist Magazine to deliver monthly non-digital game designs for their website. My first design is a dice game called Magic Numbers, and I’m really happy with how it came out. I’m currently working on future designs, but in general I’m psyched to be pioneering a unique venture between online publications and games.

I’m going to France! It’s true! I’m headed to the French city of Grasse for six months, starting in late September. What will I be doing there? Well, not much. I’ll be doing a lot of online writing, hopefully teaching myself a few Flash skills, and designing a whole lot of games. Mostly, I’ll be relaxing in our beautiful apartment, enjoying the ocean view and sipping sirop. I’m currently embroiled in visa nonsense, but with any luck I’ll have it all resolved by the time I get on the plane.

So, yay! Busy! Back to work!

Maybe that’s an obvious statement, or maybe not. I get the impression from the Joystiq readership that they feel being a professional blogger is easy as pie.

Truth is, even I’m a little surprised as to how hard it is to do the full-time blogging thing. For anyone out of the loop, I started as a full-time blogger for Joystiq a few weeks ago, and it’s been, well, hard! I’ll get into the swing of it soon, I’m sure. But it’s no cakewalk, I’ll tell you that.

On top of all my new coverage, I’m still doing the Off the Grid thing. This past week was Diceland, a very clever strategy game from James Ernest which uses paper dice. I like it, but even after reviewing it I know I need to go back and play more of it to build a solid, game-design-y opinion. We’ll have to revisit it later.

Scottypedia is going well so far. I’m not ready to hand out the link (although you can probably guess the URL); I’m still trying to get a certain number of starter articles set up before going public. In the longer term, I’d love to get random article excerpts appearing in the sidebar here. As if I’m starved for things to do.