07|11|2007 - NYSC Orientation: 3 Weeks of Hell? 3 weeks of life in a confined space much akin to a minimum security prison facility, living with people of different cultural backgrounds and religions from all over Nigeria, congested accommodation with 28 people to a single room, the nastiest of bathroom and toilet sanitation, waking up at 4:30am every damn morning, very little food unless you had the cash to splash; boy was I in for one hell of a ride. National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) What the hell is it do i hear? Well NYSC is an obligation to all Nigerian citizens that have just completed university to serve and help develop the country for a year, just like you’re obliged to serve in the military for 1 year in some countries. Upon graduation from university you are randomly posted to one of the Countries 36 states where you must partake in a 3 week orientation camp after which you must work for the remainder of the year. The mandatory aspect of it all is that without serving Nigeria you will be unable to work within her as all prospective employers will require a proof-of-service certificate prior to considering you for a job. Why the hell did i do it do i hear? Well only those that graduated from university above the age of 30 are exempted from service. Other ways you can bypass the service is to seek employment elsewhere outside of Nigeria or start a business within Nigeria as opposed to working for someone else. I wanted to keep my options open as I wasn’t 100% sure on where I wanted to work (Nigeria or abroad) so I decided to put my game face on and do it. Foreign vs. Local and the Grey Area The normal procedure is that if you went to University in Nigeria then you will be randomly posted to any of ther 36 states (excluding your state of origin and the state you went to University). However if you were fortunate enough to have gone to University outside of Nigeria then you were given preferential treatment; you could choose which state you wanted to serve in. My initial choices were the popular Lagos and Abuja camps, I had heard about the 5 star hotel-like camps in Ogun state but I opted to serve in Lagos instead because of it's reputation as the commercial hub of the nation and once the 3 week orientation camp had finished there would be a lot of opportunities waiting for me to take advantage of. Fact: 95% of all corpers that ended up in Lagos state rigged their service posting, paying anything within the range on N10K to as much as N50K just to get posted to Lagos. Some even paid nothing because they had the right contacts while some unfortunate few, despite the fact that they paid a whole lot of money still didn’t get into the Lagos camp. Only a lucky few (if any) actually made it into the Lagos camp on the strength of coincidence; although I’m yet to identify anyone that falls into this category. The 3 Week Orientation Camp The orientation camp was akin to a military boot camp, except the soldiers gave us a lot of slack. Registration alone took like 5 hours and most of the time was spent waiting or filling out forms under the scorching Nigerian sun. I'm living proof; I was brown-skinned when I went in but now there’s no mistaking it, I’m black. Accommodation If I told you the camp was like a half-star hotel then that would be an overstatement. Over 3000 youths turned up, about half of which were guys and 28 guys were assigned to a single room consisting of 14 double bunk beds. The cleanliness of the bathroom and toilet left much to be desired while water and electricity were pretty much non-existent. My only saving grace was that I had attended boarding school in Nigeria during my early years so adapting back to fetching water from a well and cuing up for food wasn’t a problem, but a prior life of hakuna matata in the UK put some speed bumps on my transition period. Dress Code The dress code for the camp came in two forms. The parade attire consisted of a light green baseball cap, a crested white t-shirt, a light green khaki long-sleeve shirt and trousers and bright orange jungle boots. The PE attire consisted of a plane white t-shirt, white shorts and white sports shoes. Although these clothes (and variations of them) were on-camp regultion attire, trust in the rebellious nature of we the youth of the nation , we still wore mufti most of the time, especially on the free Sunday's. Daily Drills The daily drills involved waking up at 4:30am in the morning for 2hr exercise sessions, followed by 2hr marching sessions at 9:00am. The exercise sessions were mirrored again at 4:30pm in the afternoon but in this instance the exercises were sometimes substituted with sports activities like football and volleyball instead. Sunday being a day of rest was different, after the morning Church service most of the day was free. Food & Supplies The food is free and paid for by the government, but at N250 per day per corper you can’t really expect much from it. The only time you would catch me in the vicinity during mealtimes was during breakfast when we ate bread or during lunch and dinner times when they served rice (especially on Sundays when the rice was specially prepared). The good thing about the Lagos camp was the Mami Market; a vast array of vendor’s setup under canopies selling everything from food and drinks to clothing and accessories. Catching Fun Fun was partially derived through the social interaction with both the guys and girls (mainly the girls), participating in and watching the sports activities and a handful of parties and events held by the NYSC coordinators. Such special events were hosted independently by Celtel (a concert-like event featuring popular artists such as Weird MC), Guiness (sponsored the Mrs. NYSC and Mr. Macho competitions and featuring Olu of Maintain) and MTN (sponsored the campfire night and cooking competition). My Friend Udeme "My friend Udeme, a great man" was the running gag of the Guinness stand during my stay on camp. It originated from the highly successful Guinness promotional advert featuring a pilot named Udeme who achieved his childhood dream of becoming a pilot and spends most of his evenings with his friends at the local Guinness bar. Any Guinness drink as well as anyone known to spend most of thier evenings in the camp's Guinness stand would come to be known as Udeme. Although a lot of things changed, one thing that remained the same was the Guinness joint. Standing tall and proud and filling the night life with gyrating music, ice cold booze and bright lights that would guide the international flights flying overhead home. The Guinness stand was the hub for all corpers seeking social interaction, merriment and the need to drown their daily stress, future worries and past sorrows at the bottom of a bottle of extra cold Stout, Smirnoff Ice or Gordon Spark. No matter what problems befell you, you could always console yourself in the fact that you had a friend in Udeme, a truly great man; the only problem was he didn’t come cheap. Main Events The main events of the camp were the inter-platoon competitions, a Manowar session and the endurance trek. Upon arriving at the camp each corper is assigned a platoon (1 to 10) and each platoon would compete against one another in an array of competitions throughout the 3 weeks including marching, football, volleyball, cooking, sanitation etc. The Manowar session is a series of physical activities including an 8-foot wall to be scaled solo, a rope-net to climb, an obstacle course to complete and a 12-foot wall to be scaled as a team effort under time restrictions. The endurance trek was a grueling 6-hour walk under the Nigerian sun into the neighboring Ogun state and back. The few that couldn't brave the distance opted for public transport but most rose to the challenge, some even using the fact that other guys and girls around them were still going strong as mental support to keep going. I’m glad to say I took part in all the activities. All in all I had a blast, met a lot of interesting people and made a lot of new friends. Let’s just say It was a once in a lifetime experience that I would rather not visit again. Next Phase: Cheap Labour! Well, the 3 week orientation camp finally came to an end, it went by pretty quickly and now it’s time for the working phase. You’re assigned to work for a company; be it a local government, school, telecoms, oil & gas or brewery etc. As a corper you're not paid the same wages as a staff so we get paid anything from N10K to N50K (as opposed to say over N150K for your average staff) depending on where you work. Well, i’m trying to sort myself out for this phase so i guess i'll keep you posted on any developments.

22|02|2007 - Game On Exhibition Throughout this week i had seen different ads for the Game on Exhibition at the Museum of Science in London. It looked pretty interesting but i didn't think much of it at the time because i was broke and there was no way i was going to drag myself out of bed at 9:00am on a holiday and beat the rush hour traffic just to check it out. Besides, i lived outside of London and it costs a lot more to get a train before 9:00am. Fate? Destiny? Well something came up and i somehow found myself in London on an early Tuesday morning anyways so i decided to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. This was my first time in this part of the city so i had to ask around a bit but i finally found my way to the Museum and spent some time wandering aimlessly around the different sections, man it was huge. I got into the Game On section at about 2:00pm, i must admit i imagined some boring lecture about the history of computer games but instead it was more like a huge arcade featuring important and popular games from the industries history; past and present. The catch was you only had 1 and a half hours to play as much as you can and i wasn't about to let it go to waist. I had this vibe of nostalgia as i walked through the lounge which pretty much lasted throughout the whole exhibition. I was like a little kid again only difference was i sported a blazer with a formal shirt and a goatee sticking out from underneath my chin. That's a lot of Games Each game was enclosed in an arcade cabinet-esque container and had one or two game pads sticking out depending on the type of game. They had Pong, Street Fighter (1 and 2), Prince of Persia, Pro Evolution Soccer, Madden NFL, Halo (multiplayer), Final Fantasy VI, Dragonball Z, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Goldeneye, etc... the list just goes on. I couldn't try out Wii Sports and PS3's Motorstorm 'cus the waiting line was way too long but i could see them in action and Motorstom in particular looked great (graphics-wise that is). There was also some good concept art and game design information on display for games like Max Payne and GTA. They even had the original Max Payne character clothing on display; the leather jacket, Hawaiian shirt, pendant etc all worn by the actor that did the comic scenes and used to create the texture for Max in-game. It was enclosed in some see-through plastic cabinet but in my opinion they should have let viewers try it on and take pictures of themselves in mid-air while executing slow motion bullet-time dives. The Losing Spree For some reason i was on a serious losing spree, got my behind handed to me in Street Fighter II and i thought i was the best in the whole world... obviously not! It was a tough match though but someone had to loose. To add insult to injury some little kid beat me 3-Nil in Pro evolution soccer 5! I mean WTF? Oh well, i can argue that it's been a while and i was pretty rusty, besides i bet he'd been playing it all day... at my prime things would have been much different! Anyways it was a pretty interesting exhibition afterall and i was kinda glad i went. On a side note the actual science museum was pretty spectacular! I'd probably check it out in greater detail someday.

17|11|2005 - Blitz Games Talk This evening I attended a very interesting talk on "gender inclusive game design" by UK based game developement company Blitz Games. The talk was hosted by Kaye Elling, the Creative Manager of the company. The evening started off with a brief exposure to some industry figures concerning console sales and game player age demographics. She then proceeded to introduce some new concepts like male/female/neutral gender spaces which basically refer to places within a game that appeal to either specific genders or both. So for example, a strip club in GTA would be considered a male gender space, a hair salon in The Sims would be considered a female gender space and the mushroom kingdom in Mario would be a neutral gender space. Mario was a good example of a gender neutral game primarily because it is aimed at the younger demographic and hence would appeal to a wider audience. She also brought up some key game mechanics: Action & Reaction Situation in a game where an action normally made by the player results in reaction, positive or negative determined by the nature of the action. So for example you run an errand for an NPC character to finance the purchase of a weapon upgrade from a trader. Risk & Reward Situation in a game where you take a risk that would normally result in loss of assets like wealth, health, etc but for the sake of a sometimes even bigger reward. An example of this would be running through a danger zone which could possibly result in loss of health and even death just to get a weapon upgrade hidden at the final destination. Punitive Systems This refers to game systems and mechanics that punish the player in some form for failure. Punishment could take the form of restarting the game from the beginning or a loss of resources. A good example of this would be the game Hitman where there in-game save wasn't possible and getting caught meant failure which lead to restarting a stage. I understand the game was meant to be realistic but it sacrificed some fun at it's expense. Based on the game mechanics she brought up above she then explained how females don't normally like taking risks and suggested that some "Risk & Reward" elements be substituted for "Action & Reaction" elements instead. She also brought up an interesting concept of how males and females view games, that males would normally say; "look what i'm making this guy do" and females would normally say; "look what i am doing". She rounded up by listing some aspects of games that girls enjoy like customisation, friendship, cooperation, interaction (with other players and NPC's) and that violence was only ok if justified like being provoked, stylised or comedic etc. She concluded by listing two books from which she got her material and potential sources for further study, they were: Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market. Chicks and Joysticks: An Exploration of Women and Gaming. The talk was pretty informative and i'll be sure to take these concepts into consideration when designing my next game, i hope you do too.