Finding Balance

Greetings everyone. I am alive.

With the higher stress of this new schedule of training at work, my life had been slowly falling out of balance for the last couple months. I’ve had zero desire to get in and program anything or continue taking steps toward my overall plan of developing myself and my future business ideas. My wife and I have been having a hard time taking care of our bodies beyond the basic exercise we were getting from walking everywhere we need to go. We haven’t been working as hard on the relationship we have with each other. Along with that, we have also been letting our relationship with God suffer some in the hustle and bustle of life. While none of these areas had fallen behind to the point of being noticeable by others, they were at a stage where we needed to take action before it got worse.

One night a couple weeks ago, my wife called me out on that lack of motivation that had been affecting all of these areas of my life, and since then we’ve had long conversations to try to find the core problems that were getting in the way of the drive that used to be there. I’m glad to have a partner that will talk to me honestly like that. The problems were both internal and external reaching deep into various aspects, which is why it took these past two weeks to regain the groove and momentum. At this point I can’t change my work situation but thankfully many of the other obstacles are due to the way we have operated on auto-pilot at home. We got that much needed wake up call to address these issues at a very good time before we both got too set in our ways and more permanent damage occurred.

I am getting back to the basics of the entire reason I want to develop games. It is a motive that I need to take some more time to examine so I can clearly express it for myself and for everyone else that asks. I will make a blog post about that very topic sometime in the near future.

Development for Color Combat will be put on hold for the next couple months at least. I got too far ahead of myself and tried to do more than I could accomplish in a reasonable time frame with my current limitations of my skills and limited support that I have. The idea is something that is still ever present in my gamer’s heart and I will make it come to life at some point.

For the past week, I have been learning javascript to improve my capabilities with HTML5 games through GameMaker: Studio. It also serves to improve the way I think about code due to the different approach that the javascript language uses compared to the other languages that I have used before. If things go well over the next week, I should get back to working with GameMaker: Studio more.

Also, I finally got off of my lazy butt and went out running semi-regularly. For someone that used to avoid running with the exception of chasing a ball or Frisbee, this is a pretty big deal. The goal is to continue to push to turn that semi-regular running into a solid regular schedule of running, though minor health issues have been slowing the process down somewhat.

This update has gotten long enough at this point; I got a little too excited to share with you all again. The rest of the information can come in a later post.  Please bear with me as I get back into the swing of things.

I hope you have a great and fun week!

Change, The Constant of Life

Hello everyone!

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of changes at work which left me with very little time for rest and recuperation. I’ve been put into training for a new position, which means my work schedule has changed. It will change a number of times again in the near future before things stabilize. Along with that, I have to actively focus on learning a mass of new information needed to perform the job properly; no more taking the free time at work to think about game development or learn new tricks. Because of all of this I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of time I spend developing or playing games in order to spend more time with my family when I’m not at work.

I will temporarily pull back to posting these blogs every other weekend and aim to have them ready by Sunday evening my time. Once I’ve learned the job properly, the schedule will stabilize and the stress levels will go down considerably. The process shouldn’t take more than two months. Then I can return to spending more time working on games and reaching out to you all. This is the process of life, growing and changing.

See you in a couple weeks! (If I find the time/energy I will make a post next week)

Partial Success

This is coming a little late today but I wanted to get the update on the goal out there.

I was a little short of my goal of putting an hour each day into coding and designing, but I did restore some of the desire with designing games. The underlying coding structure of Color Combat needed to be redesigned to allow for the game to expand without being too complex to manage and that has been accomplished. There isn’t a visible change in the game but that was one of the real hurdles to getting back into working on it.

A few of the other hurdles in life have also been passed. Language class is over and I achieved my goal score of 2+/2+ on the Defense Language Proficiency Test. I’ll be returning to my old work schedule that will give me more time overall to be home with the family and work on this game. The stress of life is decreasing some, and I intend to increase my productivity in response. The future is looking brighter again!

This was another shorter post to share the results of last week’s goal. I don’t have specific plans on next week’s post, but my birthday is coming up in a few days so something will probably come to me.

See you next week!

Challenge: Recapturing Motivation

Welcome back to my blog.

This will be a short one. An extended period of high stress has drained all of the drive I’ve had with programming lately. I’ve found myself filling that spare time with a lot of other distractions, like cleaning and more video games. It is time to get back to work and grow that motivation again. I will get that fire to complete games going again. I will not let this lull slow me to a complete halt.

In order to do this and be held accountable, my goal is to spend one hour each day working on Color Combat for the next week to have an update ready to show everyone. Look forward to next Saturday where I will share whether or not this goal helped rekindle that excitement.

Have a great week everyone and don’t let your troubles keep you down!

Business Plans

I hope everyone is having a good Valentine’s Day/President’s Day combo weekend. I apologize about the delay on this blog. Valentine’s Day is an anniversary for us and our plans that day came first. Along with that, we’ve been dealing with an extremely fussy child the last two days. I am already ready for next weekend, sigh.

Now on to discussing my future business plans. These are a few of the ideas I have about running an independent game development business. It isn’t all set in stone yet, but overall this is the direction that I am leaning in until I find the appropriate style for my tastes.

First and foremost I want to be open about games in development and the financial aspect of running the business. While the amount of reveals through open development will vary based on games and development situations, I do like the process of discussing what is going on early and often with future players. I also will share sales and expenses figures in some format as the business moves along. This is more for future developers that might want to know about what the money side of things looks like for a solo developer (and hopefully small team in the future).

Second I want people to own their copy of the game. I plan on releasing games through digital distributors like Desura/Steam/Humble Store, and if you buy from one store I will try to make sure you get codes for any other stores available. I will also put out DRM free builds for those that don’t want to use Desura/Steam. On the topic of ownership, unless I specifically say otherwise (such as if the game is still early in alpha development) you are free to use the games in any monetized videos, because a game is nothing without people to play it!

That is it for this week. I don’t have the next blog planned out so it will be a surprise for everyone, ha. See you all next week!

Changing Mindset

Happy Saturday everyone!

I am starting to understand my aversion to life in the military. The human aspect is being lost, forgotten, or trampled as rules and measures to increase control become more numerous. I am also seeing this same issue as the norm in business, education, and government. As a nation we are trapping ourselves in a world where the rules are defined by those who have done wrong or by those who have been victimized. Instead of merely punishing the wrongdoers or increasing cultural awareness to provide more support where it is needed, we choose to fashion a rule that removes flexibility from a situation typically harming the greater majority in the process. The harm might not be immediate, but frequently the longer term effects of the “cure” don’t outweigh the sacrifice of freedom. Barry Schwartz gave two TED* talks dealing with the loss of practical wisdom like this. These rules seek to protect from catastrophe, but they also serve to remove human judgment regarding the specifics of the situation. The people that follow the rules slowly lose that essential human trait, while the ones that seek to harm others are not being deterred by these same rules.

The mini-rant will end there, but one day I might explore this more in depth. I feel that this needs to be talked about more than it is these days. Please feel free to share your thoughts on this. I would love to have this be a conversation starter.

I will catch you all next week with a game release and another blog post!

---

*TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages.

Changing Situation

Happy Saturday everyone!

There has been a big change to my work schedule until the middle of February. I have started language class this week which means there is an addition of a combined 2 hours worth of homework and vocabulary study each night on top of being in class for 40+ hours a week. I get home right at that high energy terror phase lasting from the early afternoon until dinner for our little one. There is stress of having to retake my yearly language proficiency test in February instead of October, and the fact that I still have to perform my duties as an NCO after class. With all of that, it has been very difficult to find the time and motivation to make much progress with working on the game for this month and interact on social media. Thankfully, the game project for this month, Breakout Clone, is a fairly simple one in terms of design and programming. The game will still be complete by the end of January, but I will probably have to cut out some additional features I was thinking about implementing this time around.

I haven’t forgotten my goals for this month or next, and I won’t stop the weekly blog, however the content might be lessened for the next few installments in order to compensate for the reduced amount of free time. I can’t sacrifice spending time with the family too much and so the other time requirements have to suffer a little. I hope that you all will understand, and I look forward to seeing you each week while I work through the increased responsibilities and afterward once things have returned to a normal schedule in terms of my day job.

See you next Saturday!

Games and Giving

Happy Saturday everyone!

I was looking at the economy for video game content in the US recently, and 15.4 billion dollars worth of game software and digital add-ons were sold in 2013, according to the annual report by the Entertainment Software Association. For a comparison, the US yearly box office gross revenue was 10.9 billion dollars, according to pro.boxofice.com. Financially, the world of video games is here to stay. I am glad that I will get to be a part of something I love that is a stable player in the US economy and a quickly growing one in the world economy. As we approach the Christmas season, I’ve been taking more time to reflect on what I want to do with my future in the gaming industry.

While I haven’t gotten it all boiled down into a simple little business slogan yet, it is a fundamental question that will drive how I grow as a developer and the way I interact with the gaming community as a whole. The gaming industry has been a growing inspiration for me as I look into the charities that are run by and funded by game companies and individual gamers. Just to name a few, there is Child’s Play which supports hospitals and domestic violence shelters with consoles and age appropriate games for children, Extra Life which supports Children’s Miracle Network hospitals with the donations pledged by the gaming marathon supporters, and Games Done Quick which will support the Prevent Cancer Foundation with its event in January. I want to support these kind of charities in the future.

There are many more charities, companies focused on designing games to support people with autism and PTSD, and game makers pursuing social causes with their games. Other companies are in the industry to promote better working conditions for game designers.  I don’t want to make games solely for the purpose of making money. I want to be a part of making things better either through my games themselves, engaging with the community, or some other aspect that I haven’t even thought of yet. I fell in love with games because they are fun, can get us involved in stories that we wouldn’t have imagined on our own, can be a platform of common ground to make friends, and allow us to experience worlds where the rules are fair for everyone. I want to have fun doing what I love and make a small impact on who I can in the process.

Next week I will go over what I have been learning and my progress with finishing my game for this month, the Snake clone.

Why do you love video games? I would enjoy to hear from you in the comments.

See you next Saturday!

Work and Holiday Parties

Happy Saturday everyone! Hopefully your Saturday has less to do with work than mine does. Working every other weekend is a bit of a bummer at times.

---

 

Life

I don’t have an update on game programming this week primarily because of the extra hours at work this week. Becca also wanted to do a holiday party yesterday and that further limited the time I had for working on programming. I am still not quite back to my normal health, and I have been out of energy to do much other than help around the house or play games and watch movies. It also felt like a good time to spend a bit more time with the family overall. Thankfully, I said that we would talk some about the video games that I am playing these days.

Let’s go back to the holiday party for a bit. My wife absolutely loves to bake and decorate cookies, especially when she can do it with a group of friends. What better time is there to do a little cookie making than the Christmas season? We had five young boys, three mothers, and myself in our small apartment kitchen and dining room turning sugar cookies into Christmas trees, stars, snowmen, the Cookie Monster (ironic?), other Sesame Street characters, and ginger bread men. Our son isn’t old enough yet to actually decorate but he did get to eat a cookie and play with the older boys for a few hours. The crowded space wore on me pretty quickly, but we all enjoyed the time together.

---

 

Video Games

So being a gamer that has been around for a while, I have tried out a good selection of games old and new, both good and bad. Some have been a huge time and money sink for me (League of Legends…), while others have been play once and never touch again for various reasons (Mass Effect 3 multiplayer…). I want to share a little bit of my current taste in games. Maybe one day I will try to put together a complete list of every game I have ever played, but that will be a pretty long list.

My main games right now are Lord of the Rings Online which just got on the list last week, League of Legends, Mass Effect, and Risk of Rain. They each have their different aspects that I like about them, both in what they bring to their genre and their worth to me as games. LOTRO has one of the best MMO communities I have ever seen, game puts you right in the middle of the story, and you can explore the world in a lot of detail. League is my love/hate game that always brings me back due to my competitive nature; I am a huge fan of the MOBA style games, and League essentially defines the genre right now. I am slowly getting into Mass Effect because of the story even if the ending of Mass Effect 3 is a let down. Risk of Rain is one of my pick ups that lets me see the success of an indie developer using GameMaker: Studio to bring a nice game to the market.

Below is a short categorized list of the games I have been playing recently with the first in each section being the one I’ve played most recently.

MMO – LOTRO, SWTOR, TSW
MOBA – LOL, DOTA2, Strife, Infinite Crisis, Smite
RPG – Mass Effect series, Fire Emblem Awakening, ChronoTrigger
Action – Risk of Rain, Diablo 3, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Other – Super Smash Bros for 3DS, Fantasy Rivals, Starcraft 2

For anyone interested, my League name is NewbDaddy. Feel free to shoot me a game/friend invite.

My rambling has continued long enough. I will see you all next Saturday!

Some Sickness and Success

Happy Saturday!

I am still trying to figure out the general size and format of these posts. So I will likely be trying different approaches over the next number of them before I settle on a standard that I like. Today let’s break things up into sections.

---

On Life

The family has been sick for at least a week now. Overall, it is minor, but it drains a lot of energy when combined with working full time on my part and mothering a 15 month old full time for Becca. We have difficulty getting moving physically even though we are motivated to get many things accomplished like cleaning the house before we have a holiday cookie baking party. I’ll just be there to eat cookies since I am not good at the cooking or decorating parts.

My wife and I have enrolled in Liberty University Online. She is going for an associate’s degree in accounting which would put her in a good place to manage the finances of the game studio I am planning to start in the future. I’ll be working to finish a Bachelor’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies within the next three years since I have credits across various fields already.

---

On Game Development

Last week, I completed my second game for the OneGameAMonth challenge. It is just a simple clone of the classic Pong.since using GameMaker: Studio. It is a simple exe file that just runs the game. Because I know people are hesitant to use exe files from random people, I am also planning to convert my simple games into HTML5 to be played in a browser without needing to download any files. So far the game file has been added to my public games folder on google drive where I will continue to place my completed free and demo games until I have a better solution setup.

For my month two game streak, I am making a Snake clone. Again it is a simple clone of a classic game. In fact, I am finished with the core gameplay and just have to put the closing touches on the game to make it acceptable like menus and a game over screen. With how close the game is to complete already, I will most likely make it public by next Saturday and move to working on another classic game this month.

I got the idea to do a progressive development challenge from an article on gamedev.net: “Your First Step to Game Development Starts Here“. The plan is to get a number of small games under the belt while learning new techniques with each game that can be used for future projects. While I do have ideas and plans for original games of all types and sizes, starting small and actually finishing what I can do just beyond my current ability each time will eventually get me to a place that I can feel confident in working on a more ambitious game for the market.

---

That is all for this week. Next time we will probably talk about some of the games I’ve been getting into lately. See you next Saturday!