I passed a bookshop a while ago, as a book entitled What Men Know About Women caught my eyes.

I picked it up and open it, thinking that I could find some interesting facts, tips, or hints of how to make my girlfriend happier.

It’s empty.
None of the pages have a single letter or line.
Blank.

Damn.
I should have known.

~as told by a friend~

Answering one of the question in the comment: Any advice on how to get to game testing?

Well, first is to realize that the perception of game tester being paid to play game the whole day, is a myth. QA (Quality Assurance) is really the worst job ever in the IT industry. But yeah, the fact that you test games makes it much better. At least you can hold a console controller rather than boring old keyboard (most of the time).

Second, the perception that you can get “somewhere” by starting as a tester, is, from what I see, a rare occassion. If you hope to be a programmer, artist, or designer, and start your way from tester, there’s a good chance you may stay there until you’re bored to death and forced to move on with your life. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m just saying it’s hard. Unless you’re so dedicated, show them you work really hard, and produce outstanding results, I’m afraid it’s a long long road to go through.

But if you just want to be a tester and happy to be one, then I don’t see why you can’t be one :)
I guess the best way is to do direct application to the companies, tell them that you love games. Unfortunately these days even game testers need degrees and at least some decent educations. You know, to show people that you can finish up something even at times it can be boring, and that you know how to write report and stuff. So many people want to be a game tester, you would rather pick up someone with better background than random joe.

If you know someone inside, then it would be a totally different story. High way all the way. Aahh.. It’s a shame that most game developers are like secret society living in a secret dungeon. Wouldn’t it be cool if you can just meet them anywhere, in parties, in the streets, in schools, and they talk to you first, asking “So, we’re looking for someone to test our game…”

Today we got a cup-stealer and a chair-swapper.

The cup-stealer stole all the cups on the tables. But at the end we found out that he/she’s actually a cup-cleaner, because we found them in the dishwasher.

There is a lot of fuss about chair-swappers, that I can devote a whole category just for chairs in our office. But I’d like to be normal, so I wouldn’t do that.

Another new thing is the coming of a new girl as a tester today. It’s pretty good. It increases the percentage of female in our office from 4.5% to 6%. I would really like to meet a girl artist or programmer, though. Where are you girls? It’s a lonely road here with so much testosterone.

The story begins somewhere in the future. The main character, April Ryan, is just an art student, when one day she has a dream that there’s actually another world out there. The twin world of the earth. The world of magic. Apparently a long time ago, the two worlds were one. Science and magic were in one world. For some reasons they were seperated, and now some people are in the mission to unite them again, which may bring to total Chaos. So you as the chosen one, must do something to save the world! Yay!

Plus:

• A cool down-to-earth GIRL main character
• Great great story - this is the one that made me couldn’t stop. I mean it!
• Reasonable and fairly easy puzzles - well, most of them :). The thing that I hate the most from adventure game is made-up puzzles with no logic behind it, making you stuck for hours, wandering around and having to go through millions of trial and errors. This game is pretty good at making sure that doesn’t happen.
• Good humours all the way - It makes me relax. No tension and pressure to save the world. It’s a big job, you know! You can’t be too stressed out.
• Full *good* voice acting for all characters - I cannot imagine if I have to read all those dialogs without hearing any voice. It’s gonna be a totally different experience (probably not better).

Minus:

• The animation is probably pretty good for that time (around year 2000), but there’s this one person I save walk like Zombie! I kid you not! Totally walk like Zombie where he’s not supposed to!
• I don’t like the ending :(. There are too many things left untold and unexplained. I guess it’s left out for the sequel, but they could’ve given more. Somehow I feel that the developers ran out of time near the end. I finished the few last chapters in a breeze (compared to the few first ones).

So my overall score is: 8.5 (out of 10)

Okay, I was missing a while ago, playing The Longest Journey.

Great great adventure game! It’s been a while since the last time I got addicted to computer game. I play more console games these few years. The last adventure game I played was Escape from Monkey Island.

I forget how much I love adventure games. Too bad that they’re not as popular anymore now :(

One thing I noticed since I became a game developer: I play game like one!
Everytime I do any mission, meet someone, or solve puzzle, my brain doesn’t stop turning thinking how they do it and what logic behind it. I’m telling you it’s pretty tiring! It’s like I have to be both the user and developer all the time.

So say in this adventure I go from one place to another, and I have to combine some of the things in my inventory to accomplish something. I would think, which of these items that I didn’t acquire optionally from the old place? Because right now I can’t go back to the old place and am trapped in this new place. To solve this puzzle, if it’s not possible to go back, then the items I need to combine are just the ones that I either must have got in the old place or just any in this new place. So I wouldn’t bother to try the items that are not in that group. Do you understand what I mean? In a way, it’s not that fun. Sometimes I want to just play without thinking about the mechanic. Really!

Anyway, I can’t wait to play the sequel: Dreamfall. Coming out soon! Yay!

The main character totally sounds like me.. It’s scary..

After you read these three thread of letters with Jack Thompson, you will want to either bang your head or someone’s head against the wall.
You Don’t Wanna Know Jack! That Crazy Lawyer Tried To Arrest My Boss
VG Cats - Jacko
Jack Thompson… Straw Man - Aelon.net

Somehow this dude interests me. I could almost feel his pain :)

“For being a total f***ing ***hole. I think video games or [sic] freaking awesome, and they are my entire life, and for you to insult them, is like telling me my life is totally worthless. For this, sir, I AM GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!!!”

“Need to have a hint message on how to use the hint messages”

One of our testers finds things can be very confusing. Poor tester.. :(

Hi,
I just want to drop by to tell you what I’ve been missing for a while. I am addicted to a game and it’s been about 2 weeks now. It’s the only thing I do after work (well apart from watching my fave tv shows, cooking, and the standard hygiene maintanance). I think I’ll be able to finish it soon. At that time I will write something about it. Definitely!

Don’t think I have forgotten about you, you’re always at the back of my head, like a nagging mom telling you to call her once in a while no matter how busy your life is.

So talk to you later,
Meexia

‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says

It’s interesting that for every reading, every single person has different highlight. For me it’s this bit:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”