announcement: new year's resolutions!

On the very last night of 2011, while I was playing Just Dance 3 with some buddies, one girl remarked after earning five stars on a particular song that "I'm not that good at it, but I know how to hold the Wii remote."

She's absolutely right. My fair share of Just Dance marathons before has taught me that the angle of the remote in your hand relative to the location of the Wii sensor bar is everything to getting a high score in those games. You can have your legs in casts and your back paralyzed, but if you can move one arm you can play Just Dance as well as the next guy.

While I suppose you could call this idiosyncrasy a nice accessibility feature, I'm pretty sure that's not what Just Dance's designers were exactly going for.

At the beginning of the evening I felt a little awkward about looking silly, but being socially compelled to play, I moved the remote according to the on-screen instructions and called it "dancing." I got nothing but a sore right shoulder and a blank expression on my face. I had a pretty decent score, but I wasn't having fun. While earning four or five stars was pretty important to my competitive nature, as the hours wore on I went all out with the dance moves on screen, awkwardly bumped into my neighbors, laughed at my clumsiness, enjoyed the music, tried to decipher odd lyrics, and just actually had fun.

And whaddaya know, the high score still came.

Yesterday, "transcending pixels" turned five months old. In that time, I've tenaciously tried to do everything just right, just perfect, just professional, trying so hard to get those four or five stars. Sometimes I've been afraid to go all out with my personality in my writing, aiming for absolute professionalism. Sometimes I forget to have fun.

The future of "transcending pixels" in 2012 is about fun. Of course, I'll still aim for the highest score, but I'll never reach it if I stop having fun.

To honor this particular New Year's Resolution, the following changes are coming.

-Given the lack of general interest in the Transcended Awards, I've taken down the FAQ page and will no longer continue the monthly voting and awards process.

-I will go back to regularly posting 2-3 times a week as I did before November--however, as I intend to still  writing just one game review per week, expect to see posts of other varieties such as:

• An open discussion thread, inspired by the "pixel thoughts" series pre-November, except I will barely say anything and leave the majority of the discussion to the ensuing comments. If you've got a question, comment, or interesting item you'd like to share for open reader discussion, you can always email me!
• Interviews with small game studios and indie designers.
• Guest posts! I've devoted a neat little section of the Blog Q&A with the official details on how to submit a guest post, but I'll repeat the principle here: if you've got something to say about your experience as a gamer, designer, or wannabe designer, you can say it here.
• Quotes I stumble upon from gamers, designers, journalists, and whoever else on the Internet who has an opinion.
• Other related posts and web discoveries about casual games and design theory as is relevant to the interests of "transcending pixels" and its readers (YOU!).

I hope you anticipate the possibilities of 2012 as much as I do. 

And when all else fails: keep calm and play Just Dance 3.