The Journey and the Spiral

It was almost 4.5 years ago that Farshid's brother stepped into our office. I don't even remember why he had come, but from the very first moment, Syros was surrounded with magic. We talked about a dream far far away... a dream as vivid as impossible ... a dream to make video games.... it all happened really quick ... he jumped in the ideas right away and started making 3D models in no time ... models that were exported to be rendered inside the OGRE3D engine... me, being always engaged in little game related projects with no real art couldn't believe how good the fusion of art and code was ... seeing progress every day ... feeling something different this time around ... the enthusiasm of Syros helping us apply a force needed to turn the wheel ... in no time Peyman was around animating the first 3D characters and Soheil joined in and brought excitement with his visualizations ... finding a book called Soshians threw us all in the dream journey of love, achievements, hard days, brotherhood, loss, belief and non stop work.... a journey which reached its destination a few days ago (May 9th) with the international release of Garshasp.

A journey that had many achievements for the team, a team that started from zero literally and had to learn everything from scratch. A journey that seemed endless at many milestones.

As a product, the game was rated mediocre in the international scale among the best in the field, which is quite good considering the journey that has brought it to this point, but what really matters is the process which is in place now and the new journey which is going to take off from this destination or better say this origin.... this is just the beginning .. we're born again ... it all just started!

Seems like a loop at first but its in fact a spiral ... riding the spiral ... gonna end it with Tool:

I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired to fathom the power, to witness the beauty,
to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
to swing on the spiral
to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.

With my feet upon the ground I move myself between the sounds and open wide to suck it in.
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up and reaching out. I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
what ever will bewilder me.
And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.

Human Magic

The magic inside... different methodologies and processes and regulations all try to streamline a development process and reduce the risks hidden throughout the journey which includes creativity and engineering.... However, there lies a magic ingredient which can boost everything or kill all attempts, bring life to all or take all that lives... bring on success or absolute failure ... this magnificent or lethal ingredient is nothing but the human side of things ... the stuff that happens when two collaborate or take sides... this is what can make a team leap a hundred years or crumble all that has been made in a hundred years ... oh how valuable ... oh how the magic lives ... how we still rely on this magic ... how we all need to be magi ....

Black and White

Black Swan, a perfect movie that defines perfection....

The Book

"Masters of Doom", this was the book that changed my life in 2003 when I read it for the first time. The life as lived by the creators of the first major 3D First Person Shooter games, id software. The book is wonderfully written and highly inspiring. It was probably the driving force which helped me believe in pursuing an alternate life, following game development as a career. An alternate life which for me included major changes in life.

I had a chance to read this masterpiece again recently and it was even sweeter than the first time I read it. 8 years, drastic changes in life and the first attempt to releasing a game have passed since the first read but it is even more inspiring and adrenaline pumping today.

The book is all about determination, love, passion, problems, reality, sacrifice, success and life in general. Wonderful.

Embracing Failure

Failure can be valuable if it helps find a better solution for the problem at hand. A very interesting post about the topic here.

Creativity needs deviation and deviation can lead to failures, information gathered from the failure can be used as heuristics necessary for the next search in the problem domain. Elegance can emerge among all the chaos.

Ancient Warriors in the Digital World

We often called our few and highly talented and motivated developers at our office Samurais. This was a subconscious feeling and an appropriate word for defining the developers who have helped us during the last 8 years that we have established our company. It still feels the best word for describing these guys.

The Samurai were retainers for their masters and aligned their actions in life to be able to support the master in the best way. The masters for our developer samurais have always been the projects. A Samurai would commit seppuku upon losing the master and this is the mindset of a Samurai developer upon failing the project.

There are many attitudes, specifically the mental ones, that can be analyzed and discussed for comparing the legendary warriors with the modern incarnations but I will go for one I recently came across.

I was talking with a few friends recently about how I feel the special developer (coder, designer, artist) here is the one who when has an eye taken, a hand chained, attendance time limited and generally constrained, will do the best possible work and do it with zero complains and with the highest quality possible. Oh this being something doable by the few special ones, the few Samurais around. It turns out that this is what the word "courage" meant for the Samurais as the Book of the Samurai, "Hagakure" says.

..."Young men should discipline themselves rigorously in intention and courage. This will be accomplished if only courage is fixed in one's heart. If one's sword is broken, he will strike with his hands. If his hands are cut off, he will press the enemy down with his shoulders. If his shoulders are cut away, he will bite through ten or fifteen enemy necks with his teeth. Courage is such a thing."

From the 7th Chapter, Hagakure

Courage is indeed such a thing...

Pure Random

After another night of deep discussions with a couple of friends, it seems that one of the basic questions that still has remained un-answered for me is the existence of pure/real randomness. Is there such a thing as a random behavior which has no scientific explanations? Not something seeming random due to lack of contextual information but something random for god itself.

This question easily leads to the concept of free will and its existence.

Will I ever find the answer?