First things first: if you’re not using an RSS reader (or other feed manipulator), you’re wasting tons of time sifting through and reloading all your favorite sites, not to mention missing out on some great sites that rarely update. I use SharpReader. It’s super easy: download and install, point at some sites, and you’re in business. It figures out the RSS feed for most sites if you just plug in their home URL. Some people prefer to use a reader that’s online, so they don’t lose their feeds list when they travel.

For the more hard core productivity freak, though, you want to track your every computing minute with the AllNetic Working Time Tracker. As soon as you start using the computer, it asks you what you’re working on. Psychologically, this forces me to think about what I really want to be doing: even though I have a “feeds and forums” item, I have to make the conscious decision that that’s what I’m sitting down to do. You can easily get totals, which are initially depressing (”I busted my ass for 6 hours worth of work?”), but eventually helpful in estimating and planning. You don’t have to use it forever: give it a shot for a week or two and see what it does to your work habits.

A friend of mine used to dream about his plan to have a gaming/internet cafe with awesome live DJs.

It looks like that dream is almost here. Thanks to joystiq for pointing out this awesome video that pioneers the “dancing in the front, LAN party in the rear” concert arrangement. It also happens to be an entire video about DotA (and how, in Sweden, gaming gets you chicks).

(Disclaimer: I know, I know, my update for the day is a link post. So sue me– it’s been a long day invoicing clients with QuickBooks. Note to future indies: don’t open QuickBooks until you are irreversibly committed to taking the plunge, lest the horror of it turn you back.)

I’ve noticed a ton of screenshots coming out of Tokyo Game Show, but I haven’t seen anything that’s really blown me away. Now that there are rumors of a PS3 price drop (confirmed in Japan), this might even be a machine someone could actually buy (next year, after they overcome supply problems).

So what’s the big game? Where’s the drool-worthy gameplay video? What’s everyone talking about for the PS3?

Personal favs so far: Final Fantasy still looks like Final Fantasy, and Lair looks like some real kid-geek-dream fun.

Will Wright announced Spore’s asynchronous multiplayer plans a while ago: everyone’s game will upload content to a central server, and then your game will pull down content to populate your world or galaxy as necessary. There may be some sort of content ranking system. The idea is that the game will be so amazingly customizable that no one could explore much of it all on their own: there will always be things you haven’t tried, and you can go see what someone else has done with them.

This is a very neat approach to the player-generated content question, and great for a single player game. However, it’s also a good step towards encouraging a metagame: getting people to think about your game while they’re not playing it. If you imagine a similar multiplayer model with a more goal-oriented game, several possibilities fall out. I’ll describe a cooperative multiplayer possibility, because it’s my favorite.

Say that a planet’s inhabitants are a valuable resource: some types can create fantastic weapons, some create fast ships, some generate wealth, and so on. It’ll take too long to create all of those planet configurations yourself, but you’ve got a trick up your sleeve: you can share planets with friends. Each of you assumes a role. You discuss your strategy over e-mail, at work, at school, wherever, and then head home and get to work. It’s a single player/multiplayer hybrid, with the added bonus that you’re getting people to talk about your game all the time.

On first glance, it appears that Gmail doesn’t support partial matches. So, if you want to exclude all your messages about coding, you’d want to include “code”, “codes”, “coder”, “coding”, and so on. Can this really be true? Can the mighty Google really offer such a hamstrung search?

It also doesn’t support searching within message headers.   For an e-mail service that relies so strongly on search, I’m hitting the limits very quickly.  Other e-mail programs have searches that can take tens of minutes, but perhaps it’s worth sticking with them until Gmail moves out of beta and hopefully fixes a few of these issues.

If you haven’t checked out this fun ARG-like site for Valve’s Portal, it’s pretty funny. Aperture Science contains a questionnaire determining your suitability as a disposable test subject. The strong writing is probably the work of Erik Wolpaw of Old Man Murray fame, who’s at Valve now.

To get started, you’ll want to check out the first post of this thread.

Spoilers: (Don’t click the images until you’re done!) If the last screen doesn’t pop up for you, or you don’t want to finish all 50 questions, you can also skip to it by typing in “thecakeisalie”. Someone found this image in the flash file. Don’t bother writing down your user ID– just get rejected. Both ending screens are available here and here.

I’d like to brainstorm a bit about asynchronous multiplayer. I’ll suggest a few definitions here:

• Multiplayer: an aspect of a game that allows one player’s game experience to be affected by another player’s in-game actions. (Is this flexible enough? Should Achievements count? Should the actions have to be in the same game, or can it work across games?)
• Synchronous multiplayer: a multiplayer element that relies on the players being in the same instance of the game at the same time. Multiplayer Starcraft and Halo, for example, are primarily synchronous. Meeting up with your friends and killing helpless animals in World of Warcraft is synchronous.
• Asynchronous multiplayer: multiplayer elements that can occur between two players who aren’t playing at the same time, or connected via a network connection at the same time, are asynchronous. Geometry Wars’ high score list is asynchronous (but is it really multiplayer?). Sending mail to someone in World of Warcraft is asynchronous.

Asynchronous multiplayer is pretty cool. It requires less commitment from the players, who don’t have to play at the same time as their friends, or stay at the computer for long periods of time. It also doesn’t require the same development resources as synchronous multiplayer: a client-server architecture, elaborate matchmaking systems, and so on. It’s also much less discussed than synchronous multiplayer, so let’s get started.

Some types of asynchronous multiplayer:

• Play By E-mail: for naturally asynchronous games like Civilization, X-Com, and Chess, there’s no need to keep two people confined to the same time or place. Just alert them when it’s time for them to play their next turn! This is well-suited to games that require a lot of thought each turn. This game type need not be restricted to just e-mail: instant messenger or a custom client work well, too.
• High Score Lists: simple and old-school. Geometry Wars, with its high score lists restricted to only your friends, has come a long way from the anonymous 3-letter score chart on the video games at your local arcade. Are these multiplayer? They don’t actually impact a player’s game– just a list that’s kept outside of the game.
• Achievements: Another border case. Achievements have surprised me with their success: I hear lots of gamers comparing their achievement points, or talking about the challenge getting the last few points from game X. But they also don’t really impact another player’s game.
• Stand-ins: This PDF about asynchronous multiplayer, from the developer of several political games includling Activism, pointed me towards a game for the Palm called The One (based on the Jet Li movie). Palm to Palm communication could only occur when the device was docked, so the game would devise an AI version of the player based on stats and such. Players could then fight on their own Palms against other players’ avatars.
• Visitors: Bits from one player’s game move to another player’s game.  For example, in Animal Crossing: Wild World, some characters leave one player’s town and show up in another’s.
• Player-Generated Content: (This category needs a better name.)  Through gaming, one player causes content to appear in another player’s game.  Will Wright has suggested that Spore may have content like this: players’ planets will be make an appearance in other players’ universes.  Nethack bones files are created when one player dies; then, when a new dungeon is created for a player on the same server, it may incorporate the bones file, making it possible for one player to stumble across another player’s remains (and loot).
• Item trading: Items can be traded asynchronously, whether in the same game like in World of Warcraft (via auction hall or just mail), or across games (need an example).

Okay, that’s a lot to cover, and I’m sure I’m missing plenty!  I’ll be coming back to this topic later.  It’s on my mind a lot recently, because I’m trying to devise multiplayer aspects to fit into my current in-development game.  I’d love to hear if anyone has more types of novel multiplayer, favorite types, great experiences, or just any other thoughts.