Seg On Media

The Speakeasy and Audience Consent

On Friday September 30th 2016, I attended a preview performance of The Boxcar Theatre’s The Speakeasy, an immersive theatre performance at the production scale rivaling that of Sleep No More in New York City.

Marketing photo from Boxcar Productions.

There are a number of aspects of this show that were going right. The cast are all extremely talented delights who really show the depth of their abilities as performers. The content itself has very challenging questions posed both in content and to the art form. Sadly, the piece obfuscates all of that with significant consent issues.

I have serious issues with the safety and comfort of the audience of this show. As a professional house manager and immersive experience artist, there are conditions and policies that concern me. Conditions which, at best, prevent audiences from enjoying the piece. At worst, can cause emotional, if not physical harm. It comes down to providing constant and continuous consent throughout the performance. An audience that is well informed of what’s expected and how to opt-out of the space temporarily, if needed.

My concerns can be solved by the following:

Clearly identified, accessible non-performing ushers in every room;
Clearly identified, accessible non-performance audience lobby;
An organized front-of-house experience.

I’m deeply concerned this production will leave a horrible experience to people who haven’t experienced immersive theatre. After my experience, I wouldn’t blame someone to cast off the art form completely. I’d rather not make a habit of saying other productions could improve respecting an audience. I want Boxcar Theatre to respect their audiences now.

My Friend Jory & Dreamfall Chapters

This Friday June 17th, the final episode of Dreamfall Chapters will close a story told over 17 years. Starting with The Longest Journey in 1999, the storyline has been with me for my post high school professional career.

This will be one of the last titles with the work of my friend, Jory Prum.

I first met Jory early on during my time at Telltale Games. The Nordic sound guy with his own studios, Jory was one of the most friendly people I have ever met in not only video games, but in all of the entertainment business. That’s the thing about talented sound engineers. They always take the time to listen.

The last time I saw him was January. I got him a bottle of Prager Port Wine as a small thank you gift and met for dinner with Scott Looney. The gift was for two reasons: Years ago, Jory hired my friend Amanda Rose Smith purely by my direct insistance. The other: Jory was one of the few people I worked with that reminded me of the work at Telltale was valued. During the darker periods after the layoff from Telltale, it was a beacon of light and hope. I was able to tell him why he was so importantly helpful to me. There’s a small comfort knowing he knew exactly how and why I valued him as a friend.

There’s a few times that video games deeply affected me emotionally. Even with the rise and fall of my career in video games, Ragnar Tørnquist‘s story remained to be the art I strove for. I’m even humbled that Dreamfall borrowed from my contributions to analytics in narrative based gameplay. It brought me further joy to see two of my friends working on game, Jory and Amanda Rose. I’m going to be in a very private space when I get to play the episode. There will be moments of sadness for all the endings it presents and joy that this work is celebrated.

As artists, the truest celebration of our lives is to experience the art we create. While we are deprived of what could have been, we have what is already out there. We are able to treasure every moment this beautiful person created.

Two Houses [Alike in Dignity]

On March 24th and 25th 2016, we did an abridged version of Romeo & Juliet we called: “Two Houses: Alike in Dignity.” An immersive theatre production where the audience is moving and interacting around in spaces, and not a traditional stage & theatre seats, told between two physical houses on a street in Oakland. The production is framed as all the scenes with Romeo up till and including the balcony scene.

Like most good art, this started as a Twitter joke between Bunny (the director), Aaron Muszalski, and Jonathan Pirro (Mercutio) of doing the balcony scene in the middle of Oakland, ambient noise and all. One and a half months later, we did the show.

Note: All of the photos are by Joe Carrow, our official photographer of the production.

Rich Media Content on Social Media

This is a comprehensive guide for making links from your website look good when shared on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

All of these features are free to implement. You’ll need to either register for an account on each platform and in some cases create a “Page” for the entity (organization, brand, etc) for the website you’re developing. Most of the platforms share the same if not similar settings. We’ll walk through all of the options in a combined view and how you can optionally customize to a particular platform.

This Photo

This photo.

Amanda Rose Smith is one of my good friends. Someone I trust and care about more than most, and do a lot for. Amanda is a part of wonderful memories from my time in New England and though the years continues to be a trusted friend. I joke sometimes that I’m her agent as I’ve got her a few gigs though the years. Which is to say, I make sure the right people know about her. What Amanda is doesn’t need interpretation.

In Jan 2015, Amanda posted photos from wedding dress shopping and did not have a happy face. Just as I was about to message her, Amanda messaged me saying she was considering a corset for her dress. I booked the appointment with Dark Garden Unique Corsetry for the day after GDC.

Autumn (owner of Dark Garden) came into the shop early for the appointment. I know it’s her job, but I thanked her anyway for doing a wonderful job. She make sure Amanda was going to get the outfit she wanted. As her agent, I requested that I lace her on her wedding day. As many of you know, I am trained in these sorts of things and I sure as hell wanted it done right.

On the day of the wedding, I came early to help prepare. I’m important enough to care and not important enough to be in the ‘official’ wedding photos. I helped prepare the space, but I had one job: Lacing Amanda. Beforehand, I got dressed with the rest of the groomsmen when I realized something. I walked over to her husband Patrick and said “This is a bit strange, but trust me”. I unbuttoned one shirt button, then buttoned it back on. “There, now say I dressed both the bride and groom” and walked out.

I waited next to the brides’ room for when Amanda was ready to get laced. Needless to say, Amanda was starting to get into panic mode as they were behind schedule. Switching to my customer service voice, I gathered the dress and asked for some help from the bridesmaids. With two bridesmaids at each side holding a ribbon, I went to work in getting my friend ready for her wedding day. Making sure there was enough give for the rest of the afternoon and evening, but will still stay on. When I was done tightening, I dismissed the bridesmaids and finished the knot.

When it’s done right, wearing a corset is having a hug travel with you. Sometimes I’ll signal I’m done lacing by giving a hug. This time that hug meant more. I was preparing my dear friend for a wonderful day, proud of everything that this woman is. Imprinting that hug with the friendship of all these years we’ve been in our lives.

This photo means everything to me.

This photo.

Photo by Lesley Arak Photography.

My story of The Latitude Society

I was on board very early in the appointment. Crawling down a pitch dark tunnel, feeling my way through a winding path, a light source finally revealed a library. One very similar to the Myst library, albeit smaller. I knew I was in for something special. What I soon gained was a community of wonderful people and a part of myself I had lost: My desire to create.

This is my story of Nonchalance’s The Latitude Society.

Seg’s Game List of 2014

Everyone’s doing it, so am I! These are the games of note for me, but I had to separate into categories of titles my friends or myself worked on. I haven’t been able to play many newly released games this year, but here’s a few released this year I’d like to note.

The Quick Indie Guide to Protecting Your Accounts

Hello! If a friend linked you here, it’s because they care about your online accounts from getting seriously steamrolled. While there’s always a degree of risk, these steps will cut that risk significantly. Where at worse, if one account becomes compromised, it doesn’t give the keys to everything else you have.

Update: Crash Override Network’s tool C.O.A.C.H. is a great step-by-step guide you can also use.

There are two parts to how I protect my online accounts. One is free but available for a few services. The other is buying a piece of software. Together they do change the philosophy of how you create and manage online accounts, but you’ll be much more secure by doing it.

Good Old Games & Dominique Pamplemousse

As the producer for Dominique Pamplemousse (or ‘Professional Extrovert’ as Squinky calls me), I have to get the game in front of as many people as possible. With the IGF Grand Prize & other nominations, there’s a lot of opportunities presented to the game and it’s my roll to capture them. Course, we’re limited by budget (there is none) and time (I have little of).

Our sales are particularly high in Europe and Russia. Shocking as the game is English only and no advertising to speak of. Steam is a good partner and everyone at Humble is wonderful! I figured adding Good Old Games would compliment the Eurozone in coverage. The only contact I had was a Submit Your Game link. I gave a little bit of info in the form, and named drop our festival destinations along with the fact the game is already released.

I wasn’t expecting this kind of response:

“Shipping the Empty Box” Confirmed for PAX Dev!

I will be presenting a lecture at PAX Dev!

Shipping the Empty Box
Releasing [string:titleOfGame] on [array:platforms]
Working on [string:titleOfGame], you need to release it on [array:platforms-0] and perhaps on [array:platforms-1] in the future. You have [int:NULL] time till release. Build engineer and programmer John “Seg” Seggerson (Telltale Games, John McNeil Studio, Dominique Pamplemousse) will help smooth the multi-platform release by outlining build engineering tips for platforms on desktop, mobile, console, and beyond. Increase artist, writer, and programmer efficiency with a set of core specifications and planning applied to existing platforms and future platforms. Skills and knowledge that will reduce release headaches for your [int:sizeOfTeam] team!

This is the build engineering panel I’ve always wanted to do and finally getting to do it. My experience with Dominique Pamplemousse was releasing a game without having to worry about making the game. I needed to create the empty box to ship to Steam & Humble. This clean-room process made me think about the build process in this perspective, and finally got me to apply for this lecture.

Talking with my game industry friends, we couldn’t think of ever seeing a build engineering panel offered. Not just PAX Dev, but GDC as well. My hope was to get accepted to PAX Dev to focus getting the content together in time to apply for GDC. I got my wish!

The lecture will be in two acts. The first act will be guidelines for a build system from my experience. Going into specifics isn’t helpful because game engines are too different for me to cover. Instead I’ll be going to broad guidelines. The second act will be releasing my master asset list, a core asset list, and the philosophy behind it. This list will contain all assets for every platform I can talk about. Then another core assets needed to convert over to these targets. If I have time, I may make a NPM/Bower app to do these conversations.

Over the summer I’ll be working on the details of the lecture and have everything ready for submitting for GDC 2015. I’m super excited to work on this and get to attend PAX Dev & PAX Prime!

Shipping the Empty Box Releasing [string:titleOfGame] on [array:platforms]

Shipping the Empty Box
Releasing [string:titleOfGame] on [array:platforms]