Dan Efran's Blog

I am Number Six!

2010-02-24T18:13:00Z

My latest game, Ka, placed sixth out of 30 entries in the Jay is Games Casual Game Design Competition #7.

Play my new game, Ka!

2010-02-02T19:07:00Z

My new Interactive Fiction game (what some of us still call Text Adventures), entitled "Ka", is an entry in the Jay is Games Casual Game Design Competition #7.

Please hop on over there and play it. Play the other entries too: I'm sure they're just as cool as mine.

The Name of the Game of the Rose

2009-08-20T16:17:00Z

(Dan Efran Reviews Cool Books: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco)

[ SPOILER warning: I hate spoilers, but it's hard to review a book without describing the plot somewhat. I'll try to be subtle. ]

When an author spends seven pages describing one doorway, you know he's not going to be cutting you any slack. You can only hope that the book will be as rewarding as it is challenging. That's the game Umberto Eco plays, and he plays it well. He writes to exercise his considerable cleverness, then dares you to keep up.

Start with a Gothic mystery reminiscent of a Hammer Horror B-movie: an isolated abbey, a mysterious labyrinth, grotesque murders inspired by the visions of Revelation. Black cats. Dark and stormy nights. A miasma of drear and despair.

Add a witty and loving pastiche of Holmes and Watson, with William of Baskerville (get it?) endlessly criticizing Adso (get it?) for proposing improper syllogisms.

Add glimpses of the turbulent politics of a time (1327) when Popes and Emperors strove for authority over each other. Throw in a cameo from the Inquisition, predictably vicious, self-righteous, manipulative, inexorable.

Braid these threads into an exploration of paradoxes of faith: impure monks; unjust judges; innocent witches; heresy and doctrine conflated; ugly unicorns.

Then whip it all up in a cyclone of images, fever-dreams born of scripture and doubt. Chimeras leap from the margins of illuminated manuscripts. Mirrors reflect lies. The language of Babel makes sense. Things unseen are known; things seen escape knowledge. An open door stops you in your tracks for seven pages. Sense alternates with nonsense, the sublime alternates with the ridiculous, in lists of examples far longer than this one. Hope you like that kind of thing.

Meanwhile, the mystery keeps ticking away, a parade of corpses taunting the intrepid detectives, one after another, carrying away precious secrets.

This book is a labyrinth. You are expected to get lost in it, marvel at the clever twists and reversals, wander its chambers in increasing distress, then eventually escape, still wondering what path you really took, what you really discovered. There is a climax; there is a conclusion; but there is little of catharsis or release. The prize for completing this journey through doubt is not certitude, but more doubt.

I liked it.

NERDcast!

2009-07-08T21:23:00Z

'Becca and I appear on this N.E.R.D.cast hosted by my good friend, Hollywood monster-maker Jordu Schell. Nerdy things are discussed. Check it out, hopefully it's as much fun to listen to as it was to record.

While you're at Jordu's site, be sure to check out his gallery of monsters. He's an imaginative designer and a very impressive sculptor. Of monsters.

Plot is eternal.

2009-01-17T17:36:00Z

"And what happened then...?
Well...in Who system they say
That Darth Vader's small heart
Grew three sizes that day!"

Escher's Relativity in Graph Paper

2008-03-20T02:45:00Z

Last entry, I mentioned that I once contemplated building a Linka model of M. C. Escher's Relativity. I never actually did that, but I did put together a neat study model of the scene, out of folded graph paper (and a bit of cardboard for support). I've just posted a picture of it on my sculptures page.

If you're modeling this scene yourself, this picture could be a useful reference. It's pretty accurate, though perhaps not exact. (There's room for disagreement on some staircase widths, for instance.)

Escher's Relativity in LEGO

2008-03-18T14:21:00Z

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this faithful reproduction in LEGO of my favorite Escher print.

I'm glad those guys made that: now I don't have to. (I started planning a model of Relativity years ago, but never started building it. It's a tempting subject because it's recognizably Escher but isn't actually physically impossible to build; furthermore Escher pretty obviously designed it using a sort of 3-D grid, so it translates well to LEGO or similar systems. I was going to use Linka, which I still think would suit the subject perfectly.)

Executive Summaries Are Great

2007-08-30T23:22:00Z

Executive summaries are great!

Most good ideas can be summarized in twenty-five words or less.
Many non-fiction books are padded with excess verbiage. Reading a good summary or in-depth review of a book can be as useful as reading the book itself.
There are periodicals that review and/or summarize popular books - a valuable resource worth exploring.
Can't find a summary of a book? Try reading the last paragraph of each chapter. Make your own summary for later reference - try to express each chapter as one paragraph, or one sentence.
Summaries aren't a good replacement for fiction, which is about the journey, not just the destination. But they can deepen your understanding of a work after reading it.

America's Master Sculptor

2007-06-18T17:16:00Z

I'm interested in "hobbycraft" - building scale models of things, for example. It's fun, and some people get very good at it. Right now I want to call your attention to a little-known master of the art.

Ernest "Mooney" Warther, a steel-mill worker with a second-grade education, spent over four decades carving the history of steam locomotives - over five dozen trains - in exquisite detail. Moving parts are lubricated with nothing but slippery wood; color is conveyed by different woods, not paint; he even made his own carving knives. The results are genuinely beautiful - not mere models, but works of art that gained him international attention in his lifetime. He did other carvings too, including a very impressive math sculpture, half a thousand working pairs of pliers sprouting from each other in a tree formation, all carved from a single piece of wood. Yet today, though his work still shows him to have been a major American sculptor, he seems to have been largely forgotten.

Thankfully, Warther's impressive works are still on display in the family-run museum his home has become. I've been on the guided tour several times and always find it inspiring. The sculptures are displayed and lit very well, and there are some other things to see on the grounds. If you find yourself anywhere near Dover, Ohio, and have any interest in modelmaking, sculpture, trains, arrowheads, buttons, gardening, knife-making, or the power of a can-do attitude, be sure to check out this little gem of a museum.

Meanwhile, celebrate the power of the Web as you check out some samples at the museum's Web page: http://www.warthers.com/carving.htm

Hello Earth!

2007-05-06T15:14:00Z

Greetings and welcome! I'm Dan Efran, and this is my blog.

I resisted for a long time, but let's face it: I want to make my opinions available to the world, along with hyperlinks to cool stuff I see online.

That spells BLOG, and since this narcissistic practice is actually fashionable, I might as well get started!

I'll be writing about anything I feel like writing about, but you can expect to see a lot about "hobbycraft", or people building cool stuff for fun.

I'll start off, predictably, with a link to my own gallery of cool stuff: toyware (software toys) and games, LEGO sculptures, digital art, and more.

www.dan-efran.com

Enjoy!