I've started a podcast

Two posts inside a year! Well this is a special occasion I have started a Star Trek Podcast called Synthaholics. While at PAX East this year I spoke with several members of Disruptor Beam about their upcoming game Star Trek Timelines and I asked them for their favorite Spock moments! I also got the opportunity to speak with the cosplayer Bellechere and she shared with me some of her thoughts about Leonard Nimoy. These interviews are split between the first and second episodes! Please check out the Synthaholics website. http://synthaholics.com/

You can also listen to my show on iTunes and Stitcher! The links below will take you directly to my podcast!

Playing Catchup

My last post was for PAX East 2014; a year later and I’m newly home from PAX East 2015. I will try to quickly make an update on what has happened over the past year.

Shortly after PAX East 2014, I participated in my second Game Jam with the Buffalo Game Space. The game’s theme was “parallel universes.” We came up with a game called Quantum Sliders where the game alternates between 3 types of game play. The game switches from a side-scroller, to a beat’em up, to a top down shooter every several seconds. Since the 2014 Global Game Jam, I was encouraged to get into 3d modeling in Maya to focus my game design skill set. So, that was what I did for this game. I designed several enemies in 3d and had them move in different positions so that we could have a few frames. This allowed them to animate a bit in unity. For this game jam I also designed the level lay out. The game can be played at the following link.

http://www.buffalogamespace.com/bgsforums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1399&p=2733&hilit=quantum+sliders#p2733

My friend Aaron saw my Maya work on Facebook and asked me if I was interested in working with him on a Star Trek web comic. I agreed and I started working on modeling ships for the comic. I will update the “Other Projects” section with my work on this.

In September of 2014 I participated in another Game Jam with the Buffalo Game Space. Our theme was “let’s do something weird.” We broke up into smaller groups for this Game Jam and I focused mostly on 3d models in Maya. I designed the first level once you leave the hall way with all of the doors. I also designed most of the props in the second level (the TV, Lamp, Couch and Knife) after the hallway. I worked on the first draft of the script and did some of the voice work. We choose to call the game Enlightenment because when we first started brainstorming we brought up the idea and stages of enlightenment.  Below is the link for this game. 

http://laksom.com/Enlightenment/

In January 2015 I participated in my second Global Game Jam. This year’s theme was “What do we do now?” The group I was a part of came up with the idea to do a “choose your own adventure” type game where the scenario was a job interview. As in a normal interview you are asked a series of questions. What makes this game interesting is the strange questions with the even stranger answer choices. I modeled the office which is the back drop for the interview. We called our game The Awkward Position. 

http://globalgamejam.org/2015/games/awkward-position

In January I was talking with Aaron and about the comic book and had the idea of starting a second project: A Star Trek Podcast. We played around with some names for the podcast but after a while Synthaholics was born. We hope to have our first show up and running sometime this month. Below is a link for the Podcast page. Please note that the page is sparse because the podcast is not yet live. I have also put together a Facebook group for Synthaholics and a twitter page. Please join and follow by clicking the Facebook and twitter buttons on the Synthaholics web page.

http://synthaholics.com/