Saturday, October 22, 2011

Where The Magic Is Made...

...or at least a hell of an awful lot of it! I certainly don't want to make light of the significant Sony contributions to Twisted Metal (many departments, starting with Santa Monica PD and going through Marketing and Sound and Movies and on and on and on) or the invaluable contributions made by many 3rd party companies (not to mention my own work that is on display in the game), but this is where the Eat Sleep Play Utah team takes all of that stuff and turns it into a full fledged game:


Pretty unassuming, eh?!? Certainly not as cool as the Blizzard campus with the fucking Warcraft statue/fountain out front! :)

But before you judge too harshly, know this: Besides being a very cool building in which to work (it was an old hardware building built-I think-in the early 1900's) this building is also the NEXUS of kick ass game making in Salt Lake City! 

Or at least one of the Nexi (it's Nexi, right??!)...

Cause besides Eat Sleep Play, this same building houses CHAIR (the amazing Shadow Complex/Infinity Blade creators) and SMART BOMB INTERACTIVE (creators of the fantastic kid's MMO Animal Jam, a game my daughters have been addicted to for the last 4-6 months!)

So there ya go! 

David 

Disney Days

Hit Disneyland and California Adventure last Sunday. FIrst time back since May because work has kept me so bizzy. But I needed some quality time with my girls and we'd been away from one of our favorite places for too long.  So I made the time and we went. Took some pics. Just wanted to share a few:

Our season passes! Got them in May but this was the first chance we had to use them. Man I love the Disney Season Pass! 


Nice to see Uncle Walt was also a firm believer in iteration. Good ol' Iteration: can't make a successful creative project with out it. 



Vampires on Space Mountain?!? This is the image that came back to us after we got off the Halloween version of the amazing coaster. WTF?!?




Both my kids are now brave enough to take on TOWER OF TERROR! This is a pic of the entrance to the ride car itself after you walk thru a super detailed line queue of an old, haunted Hollywood hotel. I've only ridden TOT once before last weekend (when my oldest had just turned 5) and the theme/set dressing/story scared her so bad, she's lived in fear of it ever since. This time, her younger sis wanted to go so she wrangled up some courage and we rode it! They both loved it and so did I...


 As you can clearly see from this pic! :) 






Ah, Mr. Bradbury-what a fan I am! So cool they did this for your classic story! 






Pumpkins hanging from the Halloween Tree branches...




One of my favorite rides- The Haunted Mansion- all decked out for its Halloween/Xmas mash up. Love the gingerbread smell! 


  Pumpkins all up in the woods as we wait in line to enter the mansion...


Words to live by posted in the queue for Splash Mountain. And yes, we took the plunge in FUCKING OCTOBER!


 As you can clearly see from this pic! :). Yeah we got soaked but were dry within 15 minutes! Love me some So Cal weather! 


By the way, check this out: 

That's about 1 year ago...check out the faces of my kids (same front position in each pic...I always try to get us the front of the log rides and the back of the coasters if I can!)...what a difference a year makes! From being scared to loving the thrill...there's a metaphor/life lesson/greeting card in there somewhere but I'm too lazy to sniff it out...

Ok, that's all I got for now- later ya'll!

David

ps...damn I hope that pic of me in the poncho doesn't end up as a gif on GAF or some such down the line. Ah well- the price I pay for sharing my life! :)...

pps. I'm not that vain of a guy but my brother did make me feel like a total wimp for wearing a poncho on a water ride. So as you can see in the most recent pic, those days are long gone :)...