Your Rey post makes a hell of a lot of sense. But do you think Obi Wan's voice during the lightsaber scene has any significance other than just being a throwback to an old Jedi master?
I think it was just a cool thing that they did, because the line of dialogue worked. It’s hard to teach Jedi, apparently. Obi-wan and Luke both failed at it, with disastrous results.
There were three moments that stood out for me on a second viewing of the new Star Wars, and they hint at Rey’s origins. In her destroyed AT-AT home on Jakku, Rey has a homemade doll wearing an X-wing pilot outfit. In the flashback at Maz’s bar, we see a very young Rey holding an adult’s hand while a shuttle holding her “family” flies away. The adult’s voice sounded like Max von Sydow to me, but I’m not 100% on that. (Edit: a bunch of people have told me that the adult holding her hand is Unkarr Plutt, the guy she sells junk to on Jakku. I think Sydow being near still counts as watching over her though.) Finally, when Han is explaining why Luke disappeared, he says that Luke was trying to train more Jedi (plural), but one went rogue.
The easiest explanation of her origin is that when Ben Solo turned to the dark side, he carried on the old family tradition, of killing all the kids at the Jedi academy. That explains why there aren’t any other student Jedi in TFA, and explains why Luke would go into exile rather than trying again with more recruits. Maybe Luke was even returning from the trip where he recruited Rey to find that everything had gone to shit. He decided to go into exile, stopping only to drop Rey off on a backwater planet (Jakku), where Luke had an ally who could watch over her (Sydow), and she would be able to live without discovering the Force, or worse, being discovered and recruited by Snoak/Kylo Ren. The Rey we saw in the flashback was young enough that she’d have only hazy memories of the people that dumped her there, hence the X-wing pilot doll.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Poe Damron was also a survivor of Luke’s first Jedi academy class, given his seemingly impossible prowess in a cockpit. Maybe Finn too, but that feels less likely to me.
I was surprised that I liked The Force Awakens more on a second viewing. Rey is one of the best developed characters in Star Wars and is exactly what the prequels lacked: she’s as cool/stone cold as Han Solo but also has the Force and the laser sword business that Luke Skywalker brought. If we aren’t counting robots, she’s already my favorite Star Wars character. Hopefully, Rian Johnson won’t fuck her up.
Are you experimenting with any VR UI/control stuff that you thought would be good, but turned out to be terrible? For example: Simulating a wheelchair in VR that is controlled by having your hands at your sides and motioning the way you logically would in a real wheelchair in order to move with the touch controls. (I may or may not just be giving you that idea for free so that I might get to play as Professor Xavier one day).
We've tried a handful of things that ended up working much better than expected, but we haven't had any complete disasters yet. Well, at least none that make it to my desk. There have been some really hilarious/nightmarish bugs though. I'll start grabbing video of those to share later.
Is "Bunch of Dads" coming back? I loved that show.
I stopped doing A Bunch of Dads a few months ago because of my daughter. She's old enough and has enough personality that I felt weird about sharing increasingly personal stuff for entertainment (and maybe education) of an audience.I'm open to continuing the show in another format, but I'm not comfortable sharing my personal experiences as a dad. Maybe a write-in advice format with a panel of dads, moms, and even childless folks would be fun?
What exactly will your new company focus on VR wise, Tracking? Software/Games? Also what is your favorite headset so far?
We’re building software and will have more to share early next year. Right now, we’re building using the Vive, which I really like because I can wear my glasses under the headset comfortably. I wouldn’t call it my favorite, for any reason other than that it’s the one I’ve spent the most time with.
What's the best way to support you other than being an investor with huge bucks? Always want to make sure you're doing well and to help out however I can. Also, are you excited for the new Star wars?
I’m ok for right now on the money front, but thanks for asking!
I’m really excited about the new Star Wars. I’ve got tickets on Thursday night and again on Friday afternoon. I’ve heard nothing but good things from the people who’ve seen it.
Without sounding egotistical, try to be as objective as possible, but do you think that Tested will experience a drop in traffic now that you have left? I know I personally have now stopped listening to This is Only a Test; you being on there was most of the reason I subscribed.
Man, I hope not. I get questions like this a lot, and I think people expect me to be flattered or something, but I’m not. I don’t understand why anyone would think I’d want anything Tested-related to suffer after I left. I left an amazing job to start the site, spent five years of my life working on it, and left as gracefully as possible, giving Norm and Whalerock 2 full months of notice before I needed to leave.
So, what exactly are you doing now? I know you left tested to focus on VR- Are you starting your own VR Dev Shop? Are you working for/on Vive? I never saw a clear "Now that I can talk about what I left Tested to work on, here's what it is!" post.
I started a new company that’s currently working on our first product and raising money at the same time. Sorry to be vague, but I can say that it isn’t a game and that it will be available on all the platforms that will have us. I’ll have more details in January and February.
What was the name of that kids board game with the raven that you mentioned a couple years ago?
It’s called My First Orchard, and my daughter was able to play pretty much as soon as she learned four colors (red, yellow, green, and blue). Plays take little enough time that she doesn’t lose interest, and even though it’s cooperative, you still lose often enough that she hasn’t developed the expectation that she always wins. It’s much better than Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders.
Hey Will! Hope things are going well. Just wondered if you had any insight into how much Accessibility users are considered when it comes to VR development as it stands just now? My Dad's into gaming in a big way and is massively looking forward to trying VR, but he's restricted to only being able to move his upper body. He sees VR as potentially a hugely cathartic, surreal and exciting experience, but as hardware companies add more positional and body detection, he fears he could be excluded.
From what I’ve seen, he’ll be fine for the vast majority of VR experiences at launch. Most of the early software will be designed for a headset and a gamepad (in Oculus’ case) with only a relatively small number of games build for hand controls and room-scale VR. That will gradually change, but assuming he’s mobile (in a wheelchair or equivalent), he should even be able to do many room-scale experiences. Because of the way room-scale VR works, when you put someone in one of those experiences, it adjusts to match their natural perspective (someone who is 4-feet tall sees the world from 4-feet, etc).
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