Gshonk's Blog

Top Films of 2011

gshonk — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:17:25 +0000

2011 was a great year for good movies, but a terrible year for Great films. Of all of the films I watched this year I would only put the top two on this list into the “Great films” category. Granted I also didn’t see nearly as many films as I normally see, so maybe I missed some great ones; if so let me know. Without further ado; my Top 13 Films of 2011.

Drive

The Artist

The Muppets

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

50/50

Super 8

Hugo

Of Gods and Men

Beginners

Like Crazy

The Ides of March

The Help

Honorable Mention: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2; Everything Must Go; Paul

Worst Movie: Green Lantern

Wanting to see: The Adventures of Tintin; Sherlock Holmes 2; Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Previous lists: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

Top Albums of 2011

gshonk — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:50:03 +0000

It is that time again, yes I know it is starting late, but I moved to a new city, got a new job and shipped a multiplatform game; so Music and Movies took a back seat until late in the year. Well thanks to some friendly suggestions and the help of the awesome spotify I have finally narrowed it down; so here it is in no particular order, My Top 13 Albums of 2011. Enjoy!

Band – Album

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Bright Eyes – The People’s Key

The Black Keys – El Camino

The Decemberists – The King is Dead

The Strokes – Angles

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Feist – Metals

Nero – Welcome Reality

Eisley – The Valley

Battles – Gloss Drop

The View – Bread and Circuses

The Features – Wilderness

MuteMath – Odd Soul

So there we have it the Top 13 Albums of 2011. Let me know what you think of the list.

Honorable mentions : Death Cab for Cutie – Codes and Keys, Dropkick Murphys – Going Out in Style, The Lonely Island – Turtleneck & Chain, Cold War Kids – Mine Is Yours, Justice – Audio, Video, Disco, The Streets – Computers and Blues

Check out my past lists! 2010 2009 2008

Dallas IGDA Candidate statement (Or I’m at it again)

gshonk — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:41:11 +0000

I’m running for the board of Directors of the Dallas IGDA chapter, below is my candidate’s statement. If you are voting please feel free to ask me any questions you may have!

Dallas is set to be one of the power houses of the US game industry, the area is brimming with local talent and more is arriving every day. Because of this, the Dallas IGDA has the opportunity, the need even, to become one of the largest, most active and exciting chapters in the world. Local chapters are the heart of the IGDA and, if elected to the board of directors, I will help take it to the next level. My number one priority is to strengthen and grow the community. This will be accomplished in number of different ways, including:

Develop and implement regular monthly meetings with high-quality speakers, panels, and round tables. These presentations will focus on building games, growing individuals, and strengthening studios all at the professional level.
Formally implement social and networking events (in addition to the regular monthly meeting), to unify the community, and create professional connections and friendships.
Help local students learn about and break into the industry, by holding at least two special student focused meetings a year.
Working closely with the national IGDA board of directors to give back to the community and strengthen our local chapter
Record the monthly meetings and make them available online for those who can’t attend

Now about me, I have loved games my entire life and first started making them when I was 12 years old. I attended Full Sail University and got my BS in Game Design and Development. After college I moved to the Philadelphia area to work at a local casual game studio, Megatouch Games. I worked there for 3 years first as a programmer, then as a designer and later, lead designer. While at Megatouch, I shipped over 25 casual titles . Along with local members of the IGDA I helped founded the VGI Philly in May of 2009 to help foster industry growth. I have spoken at several conferences including: Wizard World, GDC, GameX, PAX East, Gameloop Philly and GCECS. I have also worked on giving back to the student community by speaking at local schools and writing for GameCareerGuide.com. In 2010, I was elected as Chair of the Philly IGDA chapter and helped make it one of the premier chapters in the USA. As chair, I helped charter the chapter, implement regular monthly meetings, hosted several game jams, and local studio showcases (averaging around 200 attendees), and grew the chapter from around 10 average participants to 70. In May of 2011, I accepted a job at id Software as a Technical Producer on Rage and Doom 4, which brought me to the beautiful city of Dallas. If elected to the board, I will use all of this experience to help make the Dallas IGDA a great chapter.

Moving On

gshonk — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:35:11 +0000

It is with excitement that I’m announcing that I have accepted a Technical Producer position at id Software in Dallas, Texas!! This is a huge move for me and my career and I’m extremely excited. But this means I will be leaving Philly and the all the awesomeness that is here. I have included my letter to the Philly IGDA Chapter.

Hello Chapter,

It is with mixed emotions that I write this letter to inform you that I will be stepping down as the Chair of IGDA Philly later this month. The reasons for my departure though are not sad but are in fact super exciting for me personally, I have accepted a Technical Producer position with id Software in Dallas, TX. This is a huge opportunity for me and my career and I could not pass it up. But it is with sadness that I leave Philly and the Philly IGDA. I would like to thank all of you for be so excellent over the last year that I have been the chair of this chapter. Together, you the members and our awesome leadership team have made the Philly IGDA one of the premier chapters in the USA, one that is looked at as “doing it right”. So from the bottom of my heart I thank you.

Now on to what is happening next. Matt Brenner, the current Vice-Chair, will be stepping into the interim-Chair position when I depart. Matt has been crucial to the success of the chapter and I couldn’t have done it without him. Matt will be an excellent leader of the chapter and I pray that you all treat him with as much excitement, kindness and enthusiasm as you have treated me. The IGDA Philly is bigger than any one person, the Chair is a figure head position who serves YOU, the members of the chapter, so lets not let this slow down the growth and awesomeness of this chapter. We have a ton of great events planned for the next few months and it is going to be a great year in Philly!! (May and June alone will see 8 games released locally). There is also a LOT of work to be done still, so if you can please step up and volunteer with the chapter, we can always use the help. The goals that we on the leadership team set for the chapter this year have only partly been reached, but there are still 7 months left!

I want to also thank Tristin Hightower and Allison Berman for there work for the organization. Tristin has been part of the leadership longer than anyone and does more than you guys will ever no behind the scenes, I would have been a crappy Chair without her always pushing me to get things done and keeping me organized. Alli stepped up in a big way when we needed a new secretary and has always been a great help even when she didn’t have internet. Treat them well, the chapter needs awesome people like them.

The May 14th meeting (A marketing meeting!) will be my last meeting, followed by (as usual) drinks and food at Mikey’s. I would love to see all of you one last time at this meeting, so please come out in force.

It is hard for me to leave Philly during such an awesome time, and again I thank you from the very bottom of my heart for an amazing last year here. I couldn’t ask for a better chapter to help runs, you guys are great friends.

See you soon,

Grant Shonkwiler

Chair IGDA Philly (for one last time)

Top Films of 2010

gshonk — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:12:44 +0000

So here we go my top 13 films of 2010, it was a pretty awesome year so it was a long drawn out fight for the top spots. There were also a ton of movies I didn’t get to see that I wanted to, so if you have any suggestions please let me know.

The Social Network

Black Swan

Inception

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Toy Story 3

The King’s Speech

Shutter Island

The Fighter

Restrepo

Blue Valentine

True Grit

How to Train Your Dragon

The Other Guys

Honorable Mention:

Red, Easy A, Kick-Ass, 127 Hours, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Tron: Legacy

Worst movie of the year(that I saw): Percy Jackson & the Olympians

PS I really want to see Howl but I can’t find it anywhere.

Candidate Statement

gshonk — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:24:44 +0000

So a bit of a cross post from my other blog, but I wanted everyone to know about this. Below is the candidate statement that I have submitted to IGDA National, thanks to everyone who helped me refine and edit this down to a strong and pointed statement.

I believe the IGDA can be a catalyst for change in the way our industry is viewed and the way we, as game developers, view our passion and our livelihood; but our biggest problem is lack of excitement and engagement in our members. We, the members, are the heart of the organization and the best way to help and engage members is by empowering our SIGs and Chapters. As Chair of the Chapter in Philadelphia, I was able to help raise the excitement in the community by engaging with developers and discovering their needs. This excitement resulted in industry-relevant meetings and grew the Chapter by more than 50% in less than one year. If elected to the IGDA Board of Directors, I have seven main tasks that I would like to work on.

East Coast IGDA Conference: the West coast has its own IGDA conference and it is time one on the East coast is organized by the Chapters in the region.
Webinars: they were incredibly valuable; I would love to bring these back.
Increase value to members: I want to make the current benefits more visible to members. There are a lot of great benefits that most members don’t take advantage of. I want to increase the value of membership so people feel they NEED to be a member. We can accomplish this by finding out what members need and providing it by partnering with organizations that will fulfill those needs and more.
Fix the website: I will help elevate the website to the same standards the rest of world holds their industry organizations to.
Regional Super Volunteer: Chapter leaders currently only have Gordon and each other to go to for advice and solutions; there should be a volunteer whose sole purpose is to support Chapter leaders. These volunteers would be assigned to 3-6 Chapters and would support the leaders in any way needed, as well as escalating problems to the board.
Empower the Chapters: By helping Chapter leaders find sponsorships, connecting leaders with other Chapter leaders, helping Chapters formalize, removing obstacles for international Chapters formalization, and helping Chapters develop and present powerful and useful content to their members.
Empower the SIGs: By increasing the visibility of the SIGs and their work, encouraging the SIGs to publish periodic white papers and articles; finding space for SIG meetings at conferences, and helping SIG leaders wherever else needed.

Top Albums of 2010

gshonk — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:56:52 +0000

Okay so several of you have asked me where this post is and why it is late. Well to be honest I had a terrible year in music last year, not that there were bad albums, I just forgot to buy them… So yeah here is my list. I’m sorry I missed some of my favorite bands but I was overloaded by “new” old music. Also you will see a lot of Soundtracks, that is because I’ve done a lot of writing this year and these fuel my work flow.

Cloud Cult – Light Chasers

Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

She & Him – Volume Two

The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Spoon - Transference

Amy MacDonald - A Curious Thing

Daft Punk – Tron: Legacy (OST)

Hans Zimmer – Inception (OST)

Nigel Godrich – Scott Pilgrim vs The World (OST)

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

MGMT- Congratulations

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

Cee Lo Green – Ladykiller

And that is it, those are all the albums I got this year I know there are a ton I’ve missed please let me know which ones you think I should check out.

IGDA Board Of Directors

gshonk — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 04:09:20 +0000

I have officially announced that I’m running for the Board of Directors of the IGDA this February. I have created a facebook page and a blog to keep people informed of what I’m working on and my campaign. I’ll also keep this blog updated. www.facebook.com/GrantForIGDA http://grantforigda.wordpress.com/

Note: Elections are open from February 21st through March 18th. You must be a paid member to vote.

An assortment of stuff and things

gshonk — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:51:01 +0000

So I have a bunch of things to update, first off I got one of those twitter thingys, pretty fun. You can see the new link to the left there. Also for you longtime readers you see I have a new layout! It was about time for an update. Next we have a foot of snow so we are off work today, so I’m getting ready for the Global Game Jam here in Philly tomorrow. I did an interview with the Philadelphia Business Journal about the event http://bit.ly/g4OSUf, thanks to Tristin for setting that one up. Also there are a bunch of updates going on over at http://igda.org/philly so check those out. We are working on a lot of fun things this year for the chapter so get ready!

Now I must get back to writing my talk for a conference that will be taking place in Mid-March (announcement to come soon).

IGDA Philly

gshonk — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 22:28:26 +0000

So I would like to announce that I have the honor of coming back to be chair for two more years of the IGDA Philly chapter. After the announcement yesterday we had a town hall meeting that got a lot of awesome ideas floating around on things the IGDA chapter can do to be amazing in Philly. It was really exciting and humbling to see how excited people are about both the community and the organization here in Philly. Great things are happening in the organization, stay tuned for exciting updates