The Meat and Potatoes
Thoughts on the Lost Season 5 Finale
Here are my thoughts after reading a few discussions and adding some of my own opinions…
Jacob has been the leader of the island for a long time, and wants to bring people to the island who deserve second chances, and let them live in this utopia forever with eternal life. Forgive them of their sins, so to speak. Very biblical. He does this by physically touching them as we see with his interactions with the young Losties. None of the touched individuals have died during the show.
He also touched Ben when Alpert took Ben to the temple to be healed. But he warned he would never be the same again. He means he will live forever, on the island…like Alpert.
Alpert has been touched and lives forever (as we see by him not aging). He also says “I’m this way because of Jacob”.
The man with Jacob at the beginning is against bringing people to the island. He says it never works and they always end up corrupting the island. Jacob has faith in people and thinks that it can work, and feels he is learning more with each attempt.
Jacob and the other guy can’t kill each other because they have been “touched” and thus can not die. But the man against Jacob has found a loophole. The loophole is that somehow, by channeling dead people, he can in fact kill Jacob.
We’ve seen him channeling many times…
Alex - Told Ben to listen to Locke (who we found out is actually the guy against Jacob)
Christian - Talked to Locke at the donkey wheel
Horace - Talking to Locke in the jungle
…and more that I can’t remember.
There are still a ton of holes, but I’m happy with this general theory. I’ll add more to this as it comes to me.
Kysio is Born
My girlfriend (@HeatherOT) is busy getting her own business off the ground. She specializes in a form of holistic therapy geared towards helping professional athletes recover faster and perform better overall. As such, she was in need of a few basic things to enable her to begin bringing her services to market. This included a name, a logo, a website, and a solid brand strategy. With these goals in mind, we got to work.
The Brand Strategy
One of the core components of her therapy involves a light massage that clears toxins from the lymphatic system, otherwise known as Manual Lymph Drainage (MLD). Originally Heather had decided on SportsMLD as the name of the company. While straightforward, this had 3 negative aspects. First, it would be difficult to brand given it’s rather sterile and soul-less nature. Second, it effectively closes the door on any additional techniques that could be bundled with her services outside of MLD. Finally, it didn’t let her “own” her technique, as the name was already inherently tied to as existing well-known technique (MLD). That being said, the first step was the decision to package her process as a product rather than a service. If you’re familiar with The Secret, you’ve witnessed this type of approach firsthand. Its very hard to own and brand The Law of Attraction, but wrap a very appealing and compelling brand strategy around it and suddenly you have something much more palatable sell.
The Name
The next step was to come up with a name. Being that MLD is considered to be an alternative medicinal technique, we didn’t want the name to draw upon any stigmas that might be attached to that sort of topic. Alternative medicine is largely regarded as having its roots in spirituality. Professional athletes and trainers who are looking for concrete and measurable results are going to be less responsive to this type of positioning. After a solid 2 days of brainstorming we chose Kysio (pronounced “Kee-zee-oh”). This was a play on words starting with the base word, “Kinetic”, then playing off the interesting “lym” letter pairing sequence in “lymphatic”, and finally appending the “sio” letter sequence from the word “physiological”. Together, Kysio sounded fresh, high-tech and still retained a bit of the zen-like aspect of it’s core technique.
The Logo
Kysio allows athletes to obtain heightened performance levels by stimulating the body’s natural recovery system. This made it important to design a logo that created a juxtaposition between biology and the kinetics. After playing around with a few ideas I stumbled upon two symbols that were visually similar, and spoke to both of the aforementioned concepts: a strand of DNA, and a spring. After a few hours of exploring their visual relationships, I had something we liked. A few rounds of refinement later and I had the basic logo complete. From there I chose a typeface that further clarified the direction, and gave the logo an overall fresh and confident look. Finally, I settled on a blue color scheme to convey a sense of rejuvenation and trust.
We’re both very happy with the finished product and I’m excited to begin working on the website. So without further ado, I present to you, Kysio…
The Love Machine (iPhone Game)
Those of you following me on Twitter have no doubt heard me referring to a “secret project”. Well today the cat is out of the proverbial bag. I present to you…
What is it?
The Love Machine is a campy little game for the iPhone and iPod Touch that reveals the type of lover you are according to how *cough* dexterous *cough* you are with your finger. It’s currently “In Review” at the App Store and I’m hoping for a Valentine’s Day release (I know, wishful thinking). The Love Machine will be available for $.99. This is the first of hopefully many games to come from Bear Genius, the name of my modest little game workshop.
I plan on doing a series of posts detailing my entire journey building this app. For now, hop over to the website and drop in your email, or follow us on Twitter.
Here is the official description that will appear on the App Store…
See how you measure up, or test that special someone to see if he/she is worth your time. This is the perfect ice breaker and conversation starter. Great on dates or in a bar or club.
As soon as you touch the heart, a timer will begin. You will then have 10 seconds to tease the heart in any way you see fit. Hint: A good lover has the right pace, and knows how to keep things interesting.
Hot Sidebar Action: December 4th
- Dr. Awesome iPhone Game
Super cool new game for the iPhone. Grabbing it now. - Second Life Foresaw the US Banking Crisis
Interesting little blurb about using virtual worlds to predict real world behavior. - Quote
Brilliant quote from John Gall. - The Design Studio of Mike Precious
Some amazing work here! Very inspiring. - All WotLK PVE Content Defeated
Nihilum/SK Gaming have completed all the raiding content in WoLK. Wow. - Google Lively To Shut Down In December
Um, that was fast. - SGN’s iFun Turns iPhone Into PC Game Controller
This is pretty incredible. I’m not sure how practical it will turn out to be, but I love the innovation.
Scrapblog takes home two Adobe MAX Awards!
The winners have been announced and Scrapblog has taken not one, but two Adobe MAX awards in both the RIA category and the coveted People’s Choice Award! We could not be more excited about this. We’ve had our eye on this prize since the birth of Scrapblog and we can finally check that off our list. Kick ass!
PackRat Launches a Subscription Option
PackRat has just launched a subscription option for players called PackRat XL. I had a feeling this was going to happen sooner than later. Judging from the forums, it appears to have been well received dispite the backlash of the original ticket launch. This move rounds out a solid revenue model short of advertising, but as Josh has mentioned in the past, ads were never very lucrative for them. I hope it works well, I’ll be watching closely.
Scrapblog is an Adobe MAX Award Finalist, Vote For Us!
And we’re pumped about it! Please help us out by voting for us. We would greatly appreciate it!
Hot Sidebar Action: November 10th
- Top 10 Most Original Facebook Games
I would have put PackRat on this list, but a solid list nonetheless. - The Facebook Marketing Bible - November 2008 Edition is Now Available
The title says it all. Grab it! - Free Realms
New virtual world from Sony. Going to check it out. - Who’s Growing on MySpace? Top 10 MySpace Games by New Players This Month
Inside Social Games rounds up the top 10 games on Myspace. - My Favorite Commentary on the Virtual Goods Summit
Bret extracts a few choice nuggets from Adam Martin’s coverage of a few recent conferences.
Hot Sidebar Action: October 28th
- The Princess Rescuing Application: Slides
Slides from a recent presentation by Dan from Lost Garden on applying game design principles to application design. - Top 10 Best Looking Facebook Games
Inside Social Games ranks the best looking Facebook games. - An In-depth Look: Mob Wars
KISSmetrics takes a look at what has made Mob Wars so successful. - The Art of Using Notifications within Facebook Applications
KISSmetrics takes a look at the different notification methods used by publishers on Facebook. - 50 Beautiful Blog Designs
The title sums it up. Some great stuff here. - The Art of Using Challenges within Facebook Applications
KISSmetrics takes a look at how challenges are used within Playfish’s games. - The Art of Gifting within Facebook Applications
KISSmetrics runs through the gifting flow for a handful of popular Facebook apps. - SocialDeck Releases First iPhone Game with Facebook Integration
I’ve been waiting to see who would be the first to do it. Simple game, but its a first step. - How is the Facebook Redesign Affecting Social Games?
Inside Facebook takes a look at how the redesign is affecting (or not affecting) the gaming app charts. - Why LittleBigPlanet Is Web 2.0 For Games
Gamasutra compares LBP to common aspects of the Web 2.0 space. - GDC 2008 - Part Two - Game Design Workshop
Old post from Click Nothing about the Game Design Workshop at GDC2008. Forgive me I just discovered Click Nothing. - You’re Infected! And dispeling.
Sounds like there is more to the zombie event than meets the eye. - Braiiins for breakfast?
WoW has an event going right now where people are turning into zombies. Sweet!
Hot Sidebar Action: October 21st
- 5 major cultural differences between Games people and Web people
Andrew compares a few differences between the web world and gaming world. Great insight for those of you web people getting wrapped up in the wave of social/casual game design, myself included. Or vice versa. - Virtual items design: Build it yourself or use UGC?
Andrew shares an old email from Charles Hudson with soem great advice regarding UGC goods. - Designing a Level System
Elder Game has nice write-up on considerations when designing level systems. - Game Design Lessons From Evolutionary Psychology: Social Status, Pt. 3 - Bling
Part three of Bret’s series on social status in games. - Game Design Lessons From Evolutionary Psychology: Social Status, Pt. 2 - Leaderboards
Bret talks about leaderboards and their relation to socil stauts in games. - A Feature Set from a “Core”
Brenda Brathwaite follows up her first post about defining a “Core” in your game design. - Free to Pay to Play
A nice examination of the subscription model versus dual currency systems.