Nick Cummings

It’s easy to get down on yourself when you’re trying to grow in a lot of disparate directions all at the same time and the results of your work aren’t clear. It’s a constant struggle for me, especially considering my tendency to focus exclusively on what I could be doing better under the guise of pushing myself to work harder and more efficiently.

In reality, I’m just being hard on myself for no good reason — probably because it’s easier than acknowledging that life is hard and making even a modicum of progress on anything substantial is no mean feat. So I wanted to take some time to look at the progress I’ve made in the past few weeks.

I’ve started working with a couple of new languages: Python and PHP. I’d always heard Python recommended as a great first programming language, and I can see why: it’s strict, but that forces you to keep your code orderly and easy-to-read. I’ve actually shipped a few snippets of Python code at work, which I’m pretty proud of considering

1. I’m not an engineer, and

2. I hadn’t even touched the language two months ago.

For someone who’s pretty comfortable with HTML, CSS and Javascript, PHP was the missing link necessary to put this whole Internet thing together. Now that I’ve confronted my fear of dollar signs (turns out they’re called sigils — who knew?) I’m excited to see how PHP incorporates within a greater web-design framework. It’s particularly useful to me from both a professional and a hobbyist standoint, since both Facebook and WordPress run on it. I’m most excited to see how I can start building out the knowledge necessary to help build Silicon Sasquatch into the site I’d always wanted. I’ve been carrying a mental laundry list of tweaks, fixes and improvements my site has been in desperate need of for years now, so the thought of being able to finally do something about it is relieving.

So that’s the code side of things. In terms of design, I’m starting to get my feet wet with Knytt Stories and Twine. I’m really excited about what Twine can do from a choose-your-own-adventure perspective, especially given its excellent visual UI and clever implementation of variables. The last “interactive fiction” game I wrote was a short, crude adventure game for my TI–83 where the player was an unfaithful Bill Clinton who had to escape from the White House and the terrible wrath of the First Lady[1].

Knytt Stories is the best do-it-yourself Metroidvania generator ever created. In case you’re wondering what the hell that hyperlinked word means: Metroidvania is a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania, two game series that share a legacy of two-dimensional, exploration-driven action gameplay in an open world where the player progresses by obtaining new abilities that enable new areas to be discovered. It’s a very engaging subgenre, and I’ve been dreaming of making games in that style ever since I first played Metroid II: Return of Samus as a young kid.

Considering I’ve been working full-time, editing articles for Silicon Sasquatch and traveling a bit in and around Austin over the past month or so, I’m actually pretty satisfied with how far I’ve come since I recommitted to making games. It’s even more impressive when I consider how hard it’s been to pry myself away from the final chapters of Persona 4 Golden.

It’s been hard work, but the best part is being able to look back on what I’ve done and recognize that it’s been a fun and fascinating journey so far. Learning new skills, refining old ones and taking the time to let my mind wander are some of the most rewarding ways I can think of to spend my time.

Speaking of which, I should probably finish sketching out this Knytt game and start actually building something.

I.

Once upon a time, I made a book.

That book was called Silicon Sasquatch: The First Year or So. And other than the fact that it’s printed on paper, wedged between a cover and bound by glue on one side, it’s not really a book in the traditional sense. It’s primarily just a collection of the best/worst/most significant articles we posted over on the blog I edit accompanied by short running commentary and a few brief essays highlighting our few successes and many failures along the road to becoming self-published independent writers without even a modicum of planning.

So it’s not exactly a page-turner. And I knew it at the time – I knew this wasn’t the kind of book you’d shop around to potential publishers in the hopes of catching someone’s attention. So we went with a small initial run – 50 copies, paid out of pocket by three unemployed writers – and sold the majority at-cost to friends and family. A few of my friends even read it and gave me feedback, which is a courtesy I’m still deeply grateful for.

There were about eight copies from that initial run intentionally left unsold. We’d originally planned to send copies out to games writers we were inspired by – folks like Jeff Green (former EIC of Computer Gaming World/Games for Windows), Leigh Alexander (Gamasutra, Kotaku and lots more) and Christopher Grant (founder of Joystiq). Aaron, Doug and I signed the copies and began drafting personalized letters to each of the intended recipients to try to explain with ample humility what, exactly, we’d just sent them.

I was paralyzed. I never sent out the copies.

I was afraid of being seen as a me-too writer, and I feared this book would be the final nail in the coffin for a misguided and inconsistent blogger with a bachelor’s degree in a dying medium. I couldn’t deal with the possibility of being rejected or worse – ignored.

So that’s why there’s a cardboard box in my living room I don’t open anymore.

II.

This post you’re reading right now came about because I was combing through some abandoned article drafts on this blog and came across an untitled draft from December 2010. It began like this:

In hindsight, maybe it was stupid of me to spend my free time working on a book for an incredibly niche audience for the last couple months when I could have focused my efforts on moving out or finding work or, you know, not going broke.

After the book was printed and the copies had been distributed, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I’d spent two months knee-deep in the project, spending hours each day on layout, writing, editing and coordination with the rest of the blog staff. After years of dull work experience and more than a few false starts on my way to adulthood, I’d finally had a project where I could give it everything I had. And when that was gone, I began to worry.

Months passed. I was no closer to a job and the relatively minimal income needed to move out of my mom’s house than I was before I began working on the book. So I started looking for the next big thing I could take on.

Life intervened. I found a job I love and I moved to Austin. The rest is history.

2011 was a strange year for music. There were lots of good albums, but few massive break-out successes or major records that redefined standards. (Even stranger is the fact that I’m saying this in a year where Radiohead dropped a new record.) But that’s not to say there wasn’t a ton of great music to be discovered this year — far from it.

One of the best things about living in Austin is being in such close proximity to so much great music. I’ve seen dozens of bands this year, and that’s probably done more to make this a memorable year in music for me than anything else. Either way, I wanted to follow up on last year’s tradition by producing a list of my personal top 25 favorite albums of the year.

I’ll be posting individual articles breaking down some of the details on my top ten albums, but to start things off, here’s a partial list of my favorites:

25. Washed Out – Within and Without
24. Mastodon – The Hunter
23. Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, but You Will
22. Death Cab for Cutie – Codes and Keys
21. Telekinesis – 12 Desperate Straight Lines
20. Noah and the Whale – Last Night on Earth
19. Adele – 21
18. Real Estate – Days
17. Feist – Metals
16. Bright Eyes – The People’s Key
15. The Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck
14. Beirut – The Rip Tide
13. Wye Oak – Civilian
12. James Blake – James Blake
11. Cults – Cults

Check back soon for the top ten.

Update 1/22/2012: It’s done! Below are my personal top ten albums of 2011, incluindg links to a short write-up for each.

10. Wilco – The Whole Love
9. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
8. Foster the People – Torches
7. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
6. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
5. The Head and the Heart – The Head and the Heart
4. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
3. The Antlers – Burst Apart
2. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
1. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead

Fall has arrived all around the country, but Austin’s leaving its scorching summer behind kicking and screaming. I was optimistic that we’d be leaving these triple-digit temperatures behind sooner rather than later, but these things can’t last forever. I know how our solar system works, after all!

I’ve been incredibly busy with all manner of work and diversion, which is unsurprising for a dude in his mid-twenties. Last week was f8, the big Facebook developer conference, and watching it left me feeling humbled in a really profound way. A huge part of why I love working at Facebook is that I believe in the product we’re making – its value, its significance, its ability to affect our lives for the better – and I’d never seen those ideals demonstrated so wholeheartedly as they were during Zuck’s presentation.

I try to avoid talking about work on my personal blog for a lot of reasons, many of which are probably obvious, but I do want to make clear just how proud I am of the work we’re doing and how glad I am that I get to be a part of it. Above all else in life, I want to know that the work I’m doing is having a real, measurable and profound positive impact on people. I’m grateful to work for a company where people care about those things.

Last weekend was also the Austin City Limits music festival, which was an intense and draining way to spend 72 hours. It was also an absolute blast. I mentioned this to a few friends, but seeing live music performed always reminds me just how much I miss playing music with friends. Band was an instrumental (sorry) part of my childhood and teenage years, and I really miss the thrill of being on stage and collaborating with people to make music. It’s something you have to feel to understand, maybe.

This weekend is Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse and Highball Lounge on South Lamar in Austin. I didn’t get tickets to any of the showings at the Drafthouse theater, but I did wander over to the Highball Lounge for the indie games festival taking place there. I’m hoping to go back today and put together some more thoughts on the games I played, but I saw some really inspiring creativity on display.

I always toy with the idea of making games for a career. It’s probably silly, given that I haven’t been into programming in about a decade and only know a little bit about game design from the books I’ve read, but I think I’m interested in making games for the same reason that working for Facebook is so important to me. Games give people an interactive and shared experience with an interactive narrative that everyone can experience differently. By putting people in control of the experience, playing a game is also an intensely personal experience. Whether the reward is just mental stimulation (like rotating blocks in Tetris) or serious considerations about personal choice (BioShock’s “a man chooses; a slave obeys” scene), there’s just nothing else like it.

Anyway. My point is that games are a budding and brilliant new medium (new as compared to any other major medium, that is) and I’m thrilled by the prospect of being involved in shaping the course of that medium. That, and the opportunity to express myself creatively and work through countless problem-solving exercises and trial-and-error routines in designing and polishing a game experience sounds like some seriously gratifying work — the sort of tasks where I can really get into a flow state.

So yeah. Someday.

Austin has a pretty active gaming community, it seems. I know a number of great developers are here, including Twisted Pixel, makers of some of the most hysterically funny games in years. I’d love to get involved with that scene and meet some of them, but I’m not sure how to go about it. Maybe I can just mention my game-blogging past? That might help.

Speaking of game blogging, and especially of it being in the past:

I’m not sure what’s going on with Silicon Sasquatch, but I’m pretty sure the answer is “nothing.” I haven’t been able to track everyone down to talk about next steps, but I’m gonna have to consider the site on indefinite hiatus at this point. I think the blame can be placed on each of us having significantly busier personal and professional lives and a site with stagnating design and, honestly, WordPress is starting to feel a little too bulky and antiquated to enjoy working with.

I wonder if Tumblr might be worth revisiting?

Long story short, I love writing about games because I love writing and I love games. I don’t think I’m done writing about them forever and ever, but when I’m working as much as I am and I barely have any time to even play the games I love, it becomes a challenge to fit in the time to publish, too.

But it’s something to think about.

I don’t know what to say about Steve Jobs that hasn’t already been said. As usual, John Gruber’s got a good perspective on Jobs’ resignation, so I’ll just redirect you there.

I never met Steve Jobs. I’m pretty sure nobody I know has ever met him, either. And yet it’s hard to think of many people who have had a greater impact on my life, indirectly or otherwise, than Jobs.

Quadra

I’ve recently picked up Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken after a month or so away from it. If you had to sum it up in one word, I guess it’s about gamification, but that’s such an ugly and misleading name. It’s more about what game systems can teach us about human needs and gratification and it’s full of great ideas about how to apply those lessons to real-world issues. It’s not the first or most original book on the subject, and it’s certainly not the best-written (McGonigal’s voice seems stifled out of some misinterpreted need to write with authority), but the ideas she puts forth are just so tantalizing to a lifelong believer in the value of games.

As with any new technology, I’m not sure how I feel about layering artificial game systems on top of real-world events. I’m fairly confident I don’t need a game that pits me against my roommate in a never-ending competition to see who can take the garbage out and do the dishes more often (although visitors to our apartment might disagree). But I am fascinated in social systems we create and what drives people to love or hate them. To look at World of Warcraft and to only see a fantasy role-playing game is missing the point; the effect it’s had on millions of people’s lives, both good and bad, is the real story there.

I’m currently in the midst of what might politely be called a quarter-life crisis. I say “politely” because I’m actually in a really great spot in my life right now, all things considered, and I don’t want to sound like I’m totally out of touch with the support and luck that brought me to where I am today. But on the other hand, I’m at a bit of a crossroads, and I can’t deny that there are a few big, ugly Truths — picture indistinct, feral creatures with matted hair, wicked claws and dripping fangs — that have cornered me and forced a confrontation. For instance:

• I’m closer to age 50 than to being a fetus

Not the best example? Fine. How about:

• I’m closer to age 30 — the age of real adulthood, I presume, because I sure as hell don’t feel like an adult yet — than I am to 20
• I still don’t really know what I want to do with my life (I’m beginning to think this is a trick question and we’re all doomed to struggle for meaning in a largely empty and unforgiving universe and the sooner I realize that and start settling for “good enough,” the better)
• I’m concerned I’m not making the best use of my time

These issues are nothing new to anybody who has ever had one of those moments where reality, armed with a battering ram of stop fucking around, bashes against the splintering defenses of your self-identity until you’re forced to admit that — oh wait — it might be time to reassess how things are going.

Returning to the previous list for a moment: That last point is a complex one, but if we break it up into its constituent pieces, it’s actually surprisingly easy to fix.

Right now, the component of my life most in need of improvement is how I manage my personal time. I want to start working out again in earnest (i.e., more than once every week or so) and to make sure I’m taking time to read and write often — things I enjoy doing but rarely make the time for. Why do some of my favorite activities feel like chores? Why would I dread taking the time to sit down and bang out a blog post?

I think it’s because I have no way to gauge success in either area. Working out feels great once I’m actually doing it, but it’s also unpleasant in a few not-insignificant ways. I mean, sweating is kinda gross. But more importantly, I don’t have any hard-and-fast way to track my progress. I might notice that I ran farther or faster than the week before, but I’m always wondering what external factors might be affecting my results. Maybe I just ate better this week, or maybe I was sleeping more soundly? Spontaneous gamma radiation stimulated my muscles and now I’m a marginally better athlete? Those variables just end up filling me with doubt.

I see some value in building game systems that ignore those nagging questions rather than solve them. Who cares why I ran faster today? What matters is that I have a comprehensive record of all my time spent working out and the statistics to measure success. Nike+ is a huge step in the right direction, but its biggest drawback for me is that I have to actively engage with the program to track my progress. It’d be so much better if the system could give me a nudge every now and then to remind me about how close I was to achieving one of my goals or to remind me how close I was to hitting, for example, a cumulative 100 miles run with the app.

Writing’s the same way. Word counts are obvious, as are blog posts, but that’s only scratching the surface. What about outlining, or personal journal entries, or editing projects for friends, or planning the next big feature for my website? Even if there’s no tangible reward, having those statistics feels almost like a necessity at this point. That’s not to say that writing isn’t its own reward, but adding some layer of game-like elements to these personal challenges starts to make a lot of sense when I think about the value it can provide.

I’m sketching out a few possible designs for what I have in mind. With any luck I’ll remember to upload them — it’s probably worth at least 5 points.

Every morning at 8:00 I receive an email from this guy named Buster. In each message, Buster tells me to write. I usually end up ignoring his advice. After all, I’ve never met him.

Buster is the Seattleite who runs 750words, a site for free-form, private writing on a daily basis. I’d highly recommend it for anyone who struggles to get their thoughts together before getting their day started. It’s inspired by Julia Cameron’s concept of morning pages, a first-thing-in-the-morning mental cleansing technique of sorts, from her apparently fantastic book The Artist’s Way, a book I fully intend to read but — like so many other great ideas — I just haven’t found the time for.

I guess that’s the big theme here: Time. None of us ever seems to have enough time, right? I have to wonder why that is, because time is actually pretty much the most abundant resource we have in life. There’s always more time coming our way, and we’ve got more than enough ways to quantify it.

And yet I feel like all I can do is barely hang on throughout the daily and weekly pace of life. Sleep yields to work, and work leads to socializing, and socializing eventually gives way to a quick hour or two to myself before I succumb to exhaustion and do it all over again. It’s in this way that entire weeks disappear on me without a trace.

Part of that probably can be blamed on the job I work. We move fast — like really, really fast — and days seem to fly by. But it’s a tradeoff, and in return I get to work in an engaging environment with great people.

Still, there’s no question that the things I love doing don’t always line up with the work that’s available. I took advantage of the abundant yet stressful free time that characterized my underemployed early twenties (oh my god, I’m no longer in my early twenties!) to discover what sort of work really engages me. As it turns out, I have pretty humble ambitions:

• I love to read and write (of course)
• When it comes to design of any kind, my flow be fresh, son
• Intellectual conversations totally make my day

And when it comes to values, I’m similarly grounded. In the long term, I think the only things that really matter to me are:

• Good friends and family within proximity
• A comfortable personal space within a larger creative community
• A culture that values and produces great food, coffee and beer

So what does that mean for me in the meantime? Nothing, really. I’m pretty thrilled to be where I am in life right now — it’s fresh, exciting and has me looking forward to seeing what each new day brings. And I think I’m finally in a position to start building a path from where I am now to where I want to be in the future — what I want to accomplish, what I want to prove to myself and how I want to get there.

For the first time ever, I understand what adults mean when they say they’re not getting any younger. Every day counts, and the choices we make in the moment are probably the most important.

Frankly, I’m grateful to have a pretty good idea of where I want to be in ten years. It doesn’t feel constraining like I feared it might. In practice, it gives me a good sense of what I want to do in the intervening years, and it gives me plenty of room for flexibility in how I get there.

But I’ve gradually come to realize over the last few months is how easy it is to lose sight of the things that are most important. There are so many extraneous distractions in life, and remembering to take the time to focus on oneself is pretty damn difficult most of the time. Maybe it’s the introvert in me, but the time I spend making lists, playing music, reading books and writing my fool heart out is probably the most valuable. I think it would be a terrible mistake to forget that.

Consider this post a reaffirmation of my commitment to writing every day, no matter how painful it is to come up with a meager 750 words of shitty prose. A writer has to write, and honestly, I haven’t been much of a writer lately. But nothing feels more natural or more fulfilling than when I’ve written, rewritten and published something worth reading. This post clearly doesn’t come close to meeting those standards, but you get the point.

I don’t need to make everything I write public — believe me, less than 5% makes it onto this blog — and honestly, every time I write here I consider making my blog private or preventing it from updating my Facebook and Twitter feeds. I worry that most people think it’s weird when someone writes publicly about what’s on their mind. But I write because I have something to say, and the thought of dumping this stuff into a Microsoft Word document to be hermetically sealed in a My Documents sarcophagus until the end of time is just depressing.

So in summary: I’m going to write a lot because it’s important. Most of it is going to suck. And I’m not particularly sorry.

Man, I’ve totally dropped the ball on writing lately. I don’t do new year’s resolutions, but I kind of assumed I’d be writing something every day this year — it just seemed like a good thing for a writer to do. And now it’s April, and I haven’t posted on my own blog in more than two months.

Whoops.

There are a few factors at play here, and if I may be so audacious, a lot of the blame for this dry spell can be put on circumstance.

Basically, I got a job at Facebook and moved to Austin. Considering I’d spent the last couple years navigating the dismal Oregon job market and had grown used to moving back and forth between Portland and Eugene, I wouldn’t say this was something I was planning on, exactly.

I was contacted in February about an application I’d submitted and promptly forgotten about back in December of 2010. I don’t mean to sound dismissive; I really figured I didn’t have a chance of standing out in Facebook’s applicant pool, and so I shoved it to the back of my mind as a momentary flight of fancy before I settled back into the monotony of filling out countless identical bookstore and coffee shop applications.

Things moved fast. Almost exactly one month after Facebook contacted me about my application, I was riding the bus from my new apartment to start my first day of work in Austin. And yesterday marked the conclusion of my fourth week at the company.

I can’t begin to tell you how lucky I am to be here. My job is challenging, my coworkers are awesome, and Austin is a fun and surprisingly nuanced city. Of course I miss the Northwest like hell — I probably always will until I find my way back someday — but I needed this kind of a change, even if I didn’t know it. I’d always wanted to move somewhere I’d never been where I didn’t know anybody; it sounded terrifying and thrilling at the same time. And fortunately, it was totally worth taking the plunge.

I know how depressing it can get when you’re fresh (or, as I was, stale) out of college and feeling like the opportunities you’d been promised by your teachers and mentors are nonexistent. I think the problem is especially pronounced in Oregon, what with its nation-leading unemployment numbers and dearth of new business opportunities. So here’s my advice to everyone back at home:

1. Be open to anything new
2. Remember your strengths
3. It never hurts to apply to your dream job, even if you’re convinced you’ll never stand out

Oregon has always been my home, and I’m all but certain I’ll end up living there again someday. But now is the time to branch out, pick up, and do something completely different. You won’t regret it.

We can rebuild it. We have the technology.

Confession: I’m a perfectionist. I’m never satisfied with anything I do, which has its benefits and disadvantages. And while I’d love to analyze my idiosyncrasies in exhaustive detail (with color-coded chapters and annotations aplenty,) I’d rather focus on the positive: My drive to keep improving the things I make.

Since 2008, Silicon Sasquatch has consumed more of my free time than any other hobby or interest. The evidence for that is abundant: I’ve written and edited hundreds of articles, produced a half-dozen podcasts, managed a Facebook page and Twitter account, and even designed, edited and published a book. I’ve probably spent thousands of hours of planning, writing, editing, designing and attending meetings for the benefit of the site.

That’s awesome! I’ve got a legitimately great set of work to showcase in my portfolio, and I’ve helped to launch and nurture a brand and a pretty decent publication with the help of a couple of dedicated friends.

Yet for better or worse, all I can focus on at this point is what’s lacking. Readership is stagnating, book sales have stalled, and we’re struggling to find the time and energy to implement all the design improvements we have in store and to coordinate with all the talented, enthusiastic contributors who are eager to join us.

Which leads me to Cummings’ Self-Deprecating Greater Theory of Time Management for the Underemployed, which reads as follows:

Spending time on tasks that don’t directly lead to income is a terrible and shameful mistake that will lead you to an early, hastily-dug grave.

But is it really a waste of time to try to produce something original? Sure, we’re not generating a shred of revenue from our site, but that doesn’t necessarily mean our content and our brand are worthless. I’m proud of how far we’ve come in two years with little-to-no guidance or entrepreneurial experience.

So that’s the big question for 2011: How will we build Silicon Sasquatch as a brand that is recognized, respected and — with any luck — monetized?

Honestly, it’s a little uncomfortable to write about a book called Eating Animals. Even the title sounds foreboding; after all, meat and food in general are very important, sensitive subjects for everybody, and I don’t want to come off like I’m trying to tell anyone what to think. But the truth is that we’re all at least a little naïve about the food we eat, and there’s a key moral distinction between being in the dark and staying willfully ignorant.

Like a lot of people do at some point in their lives, I’ve waffled back and forth between eating meat and sticking to a vegetarian diet for a few years. And because it’s such an important issue for me, I’ve read some books, watched a handful of documentaries and pored over a lot of articles about factory farming’s environmental and economic impact. But despite all the well-written and well-researched literature out there, nothing succeeds at putting things in perspective like Eating Animals does. It’s as humble and sincere as any book I’ve read about food and animals, but it’s also the most direct and resonant.

Jonathan Safran Foer writes with the engaging candidness that you’d find in a Michael Pollan book. But unlike Pollan, Foer’s book is unwavering in its ethical acuity. Foer wrote Eating Animals as a product of three years of research, investigation, and soul-searching. All that work wasn’t done to inform his own dietary choices (he had been a meat-eater all his life), but in order to decide how best to feed his unborn son. He wanted to know exactly what he would be feeding his child and to understand the ramifications of eating food as it’s produced today in the United States.

Eating Animals is not an indictment of meat-eaters, nor is it a propaganda piece for vegetarianism. It won’t try to “convert” you to any one diet, although you’ll probably at least want to be more selective about the meat you eat — and who could disagree with that? It simply explains exactly what’s going on with our food industry, and really, that’s something everyone should be aware of. After all, the food you choose to eat is the food that keeps getting produced.

I walked away from reading Eating Animals feeling confident in my sticking to a vegetarian diet, but if that was the only thing the book accomplished it wouldn’t really count for much. Rather than thinking about the food I was eating, I was left to consider just how far divorced we are as a society from the food we eat. I think that is one of the most significant problems facing us as the world’s population continues to grow and meat consumption skyrockets domestically and in other nations.

(Adapted from my review over at Goodreads. Feel free to add me if you wanna nerd out about books.)