I hadn't seen this before --The Unfinished Swan-- what an elegant idea. The FPP -- first-person painter! I wish the creator hadn't chosen to go eerie with the mood, that seems like cheating a little... it's so easy to go scary. Still, it's beautiful And it's an XNA-developed title. Interesting.

The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.

It took me a long time to find someone who wasn't a laughable buffoon or a stuck-up prig. While I do like the idea of marrying into wealth and aristocracy, all the male aristos had silly voices and I couldn't imagine myself married to any of them. The monks were actually the most appealing, but despite my best efforts -- playing music for them, giving them the thumbs up, dancing for them -- none of them would be seduced away from their chosen path of Light.

Then in the town square of Bowerstone I found him: Cyrus the Traveler. His facial hair is a bit odd, certainly, but he was solidly middle-class and had a pleasant speaking voice. His moral standards, too, are high -- perhaps annoyingly so since he refused to go to bed with me even after we were engaged. But I respected his decision.

I took him with me to Oakfield, where I had bought the charming Luminous House cottage, where I thought we could live. Alas, he was a bit too middle-class... he told me he didn't really care for the house and wanted something better. What could I do? I asked him to wait for me and took off to gather some more money to buy a nice townhouse in Bowerstone.

After a few adventures I thought I should return to spend some time with my fiancé fearing that he would be lonely and less in love with me. I hurried back to Oakfield, splurging 8 gold on a carriage to get there faster.

But he was nowhere to be found! I ran all over the place frantically. Perhaps he had gone back to Bowerstone? I raced back to the city and spent hours walking the streets. I even waited in the pub for a bit (where we first met) in case he should drop by for a pint.

But no. Cyrus had disappeared.

Has he run off with some floozy? If so, I can forgive him if only he'll come back. Is he on a trip? He is, after all, a "Traveler" and I'm afraid our conversations didn't really reveal much about his line of work. Has something -- god forbid -- horrible happened to him? Has he been murdered by bandits or devoured by balverines? Shall I ever find out his fate?

I've tried getting over him. I even proposed marriage to a new man, after a time. He's fun, romantic, bubbly; but he has a large mustache and a silly speaking voice and he is quite stout and... frankly, he's just not Cyrus. We're still engaged but I really ought to break it off. I just don't feel the same way about him as I did about Cyrus.

Besides, what if Cyrus comes back one day? What if he reappears next time I turn on my console, with the silver ring still there like a halo over his head, symbol of his faith and loyalty while I went off proposing marriage to some other, inferior, lesser man?

The life of a hero, I am finding, is hard in more ways than I could have imagined.

I've been invited to give a talk in November to students in the computer science program at ITESCA in Sonora, Mexico. There's no game-focused program there so this will be a pretty basic talk, and as some friends of mine have already pointed out, students seem to *always* want to know how to get into the industry. I figure I'll give a broad overview of the industry in terms of how production is generally divided between skills, what the impact of casual games/iPhone/downloadable console games has been for independent game developers, then give them a massive amount of resources -- books and websites, mostly -- so they can do their own research. And then, of course, Q&A. My Spanish is non-existent so I'll have a translator, too. Haha.

Any other tips? Or, if you know of good books/websites that I might not be aware of, please pass them along to me. Thanks!