Ness's blog.

Miss Misstep

2011-12-25T14:43:00.002-06:00

I drew something new.

Bigger resolution (and prints if you like it enough to want those -- the photo prints are fairly inexpensive) here.

Happy Christmas!

May I just say...

2011-12-19T22:56:00.002-06:00

...I am very pleased that Studio Ghibli will soon be releasing a film based on The Borrowers?
...Blue Diamond almond milk, as far as I have seen, comes in only two equally lame varieties -- watery-gross and stupidly sugar-tastic?
...The first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is corny and weak in comparison to the much finer later seasons... but is still completely great in comparison to most other television?
...Some Christmas songs are really weird and I don't know how they ever came to be written?

Seriously, that one about the kid's mom kissing Santa Claus. It's weird stuff. It's supposed to be cute because we know what's really going on, but, hey, news: It's still creepy. Sorry.

Hey, what am I doing?

2011-12-05T21:04:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted much recently, and it's because I don't really have a lot to tell you about. I'm in a bit of a rough spot artistically, and I was hoping I could get some help.

I want to begin work on another game, but I'm unsure of what it should be yet. I have had several plans fall through before I made any significant progress, and most of it happened because I began to have serious doubts about why I was making that particular thing.

I understand the importance of experimentation, but I have only a finite amount of time left in my life... and I'm not really going anywhere right now, which I would like to change. I can't just keep poking around; I need to get something significant going.

A key problem is that I like to believe I have an audience in mind, but I don't have enough specific ideas of what that audience really looks like or how to reach it.

I often go through miscellaneous friends and acquaintances in my mind and ask, "Would that person be interested in playing this game?" I usually have a pretty solid answer, but it's hard to understand why I picked those particular answers. Usually the "no" answers are because "she's just not a gamer type" or some such reason. This has been a struggle for me.

I think the number of people on earth who absolutely do not play games of any kind is very, very small (I would like to go so far as to say the number is zero, but I don't want to say anything too extreme on this). Most of the people I interact with enjoy playing board and card games (Monopoly, poker, etc.) or more physically oriented games (pool, tennis, etc.), and, furthermore, a pretty sizeable number like to play small-scale electronic games (minesweeper, Tetris, etc.). The real gap, I think, is between the people who play those "casual" electronic games and the people who play "hardcore" electronic games... And this is where I hit the most trouble, because I want to make things to appeal to a wide audience. Getting people who play board and card games to fit into that next group of people who play simple electronic games seems fairly natural and easy, but getting people who play simple electronic games to play something more sizeable or complicated is, puzzlingly, more difficult, as far as I have been able to tell.

I don't think it's necessarily an issue of complication versus simplicity. There are more complicated board and card games out there -- let's say Settlers of Catan (it's not necessarily the most complicated thing, but it certainly has more depth than, say, Chinese checkers), and a seemingly wide variety of people enjoy them... but the people who would play a deeper electronic game are only the "geek" types. I can understand why the audience for games like those in the Final Fantasy series is a pretty nerdy niche, but I don't understand why, for instance, the games in the The Legend of Zelda series don't attract more "normal" people (they're a plain, understandable kind of fun). True, they do have a comparatively wide audience, but, to my eyes, it's not as wide as it should be.

Adding more confusion to this issue, some simple electronic games are enjoyed by a wide variety of people, whereas others are not. Angry Birds, for instance, is enjoyed by a wide variety of people. Super Crate Box, even if it were not relatively obscure, would only be, it seems, enjoyed by geekier types of people. Most of the games I plan out are along those lines: pretty simple, but still, for some reason, geeky.

All of this seems quite solid and straightforward. I don't often ponder at length whether a certain game would appeal to "normal" people. The part I have to ponder is why it would or would not appeal to "normal" people.

One easy way out of this is to try making a board or card game, because I would instantly broaden my audience just by switching to the different medium. This would be more challenging, though, since it would introduce a cost for producing physical prototypes, and eventually, a physical end product.

Meanwhile, I think this might take me out of my element. Music can't be comfortably integrated into a board or card game, and the art in physical games is different and less significant because it is, at least, substantially less interactive and, at most, completely non-interactive.

I haven't completely thrown out the idea of making a physical game, but currently, I'm leaning away from it. I may put some "electronic versus physical games" thoughts in a future post -- I think I could say a lot more, but this post was getting lengthy enough without going into detail on this.

My important questions, then, might end up being: How can I make a game that appeals to a broad audience made of a wide variety of people? Why do all my ideas and plans always bring up serious doubt as to whether they will reach this goal?

I'd like to hear some thoughts from people -- particularly "non-geeks" / those who only play more casual electronic games (or no electronic games at all) -- I'm feeling pretty lost here. Please comment if you have ideas of any kind!

A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines: now on hold

2011-11-15T20:52:00.001-06:00

I could make this a more significant post, but there is truly very little to say. Tobias is busy with other things, and we thought it best for me not to continue if he couldn't.
The game will be finished. We just don't know when... which, really, is not all that different a situation than what we were in before. Other than the part where we're actually working on it. I guess that's a key thing.

I'm running into complications with the new ETaBY album. It may not be out as soon as I had hoped, and I may be starting something else in the mean time -- I need something to work on, after all.

Today in Totally Pointless Science:

2011-11-05T19:15:00.000-05:00

Do you not have blue eyes?
Would you like to have blue eyes?
Apparently, you can have that fixed now.

That's all today.

Almonds, Almonds, Music, and Music

2011-10-29T21:05:00.002-05:00

I guess my posting schedule is still a little slow. I do want to pick it up!

Somebody recently recommended I try almond milk. I bought some this week, and -- John Wilkes Booth's miserable bones! It's HEAVENLY.
If you have never tried it, you should.
Speaking of almonds, I recently learned that my sister is afraid of them... because of potassium cyanide. I think this is pretty much the greatest thing. I don't know. It's hilarious; it just is.

So much great music has been put out this year. It's almost too much. Well, I haven't been able to buy all of it yet, so I guess that does count as too much -- at least for me.
When we get closer to the end of 2011, I'll probably write it all up. I'm so happy to have all this great content to listen to -- I think God uses these things, so I don't have trouble saying it has really helped save this year for me (if you haven't been able to tell, things have been rough).

On the subject of music:
I'm no longer pretending I'm not working on Ever Toward a Better Yesterday's second album. It's going well, and I'm very excited about it. I won't lie, A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines takes a backseat to this new album sometimes... but I think it's better for ASitMoC in the end, really, because if I don't preserve my interest in it, things are going to crawl anyway. I do have a sizeable handful of content I have not yet sent to Tobias (if you're reading this, and you're ready for it, feel free to bug me about it, and I'll send it along).
It's also worth noting that I've had some rough weeks at my pay-the-bills job -- the music is easier to work on in short bits of time, and it's also easier to find motivation after a stressful day, since there's money in it; "If I keep this up, I can quit my job!" etc.

It's still a bit too early to provide too many details about what you should expect from the new album. I've made a pretty good piece of progress so far, but I still have some decisions to make as to the final content for the album. Once I have those figured out, I'll probably say a little about what the album will contain and announce its title (which has already been decided, but is not being disclosed yet).

Have a good week, all.

#occupyigf

2011-10-15T14:16:00.003-05:00

Hahahaha.
This is humorous to almost no one. Don't worry, though. I'll explain.

This is complicated, but as an exercise in brevity, I'm going to try summarise this situation, instead of going on about it for pages.
Firstly, this is Fez:

It looks very pretty, doesn't it? I think it does. If you want to find out more about the game, see this link.
I don't remember when I started paying attention to Fez, but I think it was not long after it won an award for excellence in visual design at the independent games festival in 2008 (the game has been in development since 2007, I believe). Over time, I've fallen in love with every idea behind Fez, from its minimalistic and straightforward approaches to both presentation and design to its entirely pacifist nature. I'm very excited for it to be released; it looks like it's going to be great!

Secondly, I should tell you about the IGF:
The Independent Games Festival is, to put it in one short phrase, the indie game Oscars. It's a pretty huge deal, because finalists receive more exposure, and winners receive even more exposure still. Also, cash and trophies.
In recent years people have complained that now it's just a ceremony to award games everybody already knows are great, rather than a means of giving publicity to obscure developers who put loving work into excellent projects. I've even read statements referring to "old IGF" and "present-day IGF" as if they are two different things, and all the glory of what was has passed.

Now, on to what has actually happened:
Phil Fish, lead designer / artist behind Fez, has stated that the game is being entered into IGF 2012. There has been quite an uproar about this, since, well, it already won once. This resulted in quite a bit of discussion through Twitter, mostly consisting of upset folks stating why they think this is unfair, and Phil Fish responding (in rather hilarious fashion) that he doesn't care.
It was interesting to watch as Phil Fish and Tom Sennett went back and forth about this, because I think they're both pretty cool guys, and I admire their works. They're also both very strong personalities, often crude and contentious.

Finally, my slightly-less-short opinions:
I was sad to see such an uproar about this, and I'm honestly not sure what to say, because it depresses me to think that I would have to take sides with and against people I appreciate regardless of what I opine. Nonetheless:
I think it's worth remembering that it's been four years since Fez last competed, and it never won the grand prize. People have complained that the game already has had publicity, but do they really mean it doesn't deserve even more? Who is to say how much success something deserves? I will be bold and say that I believe quantifying such things is objectively, morally wrong. We're all only human. God hasn't appointed us judges over who does and does not deserve success or attention in artistic endeavours. If two people work very hard on something they love, it's not for us to choose which of them should be noticed over the other. We can give opinions, certainly, but it's not right to demand things be a certain way.
Now, I can only imagine the depression of entering IGF with something I have loved and put effort into for a long period of time and losing to, say, Minecraft. Still, isn't that the life of an artist? We strive to provide something wonderful for people, and sometimes only a small number end up enjoying it. All we can do is continue to produce beauty and promote it, because, while we are able to do some things to help bring more attention, it is ultimately out of our control.
That said, however... In this situation, there are people who are in control, and who have been given the responsibility of judgement. They are, of course... the judges (for IGF). I do hope they take the situation into account when judging. I'd love to see somebody unknown get new attention, but it's up to the judges to determine what they feel is truly most deserving of the awards. I'll leave it to them.
In an ideal world, all people who ever produced beautiful things would be able to share them with a large audience and live from the profits. Sadly, however, we don't live in an ideal world. We can't fix that, so there's little sense in complaining about it.

Anyway, now you've read my thoughts on art and recognition, which may or may not have been interesting. If you have your own opinions on the broad topic or this specific situation, please share them in the comments!
You also now understand, hopefully, what I was laughing about at the beginning of this post (I don't know if the link is really working, but I was showing that some people started an "occupyigf" hashtag on Twitter)... although this does assume you're already somewhat familiar with "Occupy Wall Street"; if you're not... Well, you're obviously on the internet right now. You have Google.

Miscellaneous life fact: I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm trying UK ("real") English.

Wednesday Ramblings

2011-10-12T20:19:00.003-05:00

I try to post with pictures regularly, but usually it's something unrelated to what I'm talking about. Today you get a possum in a box.

My room isn't very organized. I have left a pile of little plastic boxes in the corner, and I keep stepping on them when I reach over to grab my dishes out of their crate. It's a little painful, and not because the boxes are full of razor blades. They have pointy corners, see, so they're not very comfortable to step on.
Also, they are full of razor blades.
I don't have a lot of space, and I'd like to organize better... I haven't purchased shelves or anything like that "because I don't have space for them", but I'm starting to realize that's a pretty silly thing to say, since such amendments would probably SAVE space, and I'm pretty sure that's what they're made for.

It's autumn now. This used to be my favourite season, but in recent years, it has seemed so short that it scarcely gave time to be enjoyed. Now it seems like a sad -- albeit pretty -- warning that winter is on its way. And it's Iowa; winter hits hard.
It hurts more that I haven't had a car to go anywhere and enjoy the nice weather or the lovely trees. Even if I did have a car, I still wouldn't have anything to do or anybody to do it with.
Essentially, this season has become just as depressing as the other three.

Oh, and since I mentioned a car: During the period when this blog wasn't being updated, I did purchase a car to replace my last -- a 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass. It lasted four or five months and the transmission failed. It wasn't worth the cost of the repair.
I'm saving for something slightly better than last time.

Recently, I took sort of a hiatus from Facebook. I learned some things, mostly that Facebook is dumb.
Really, though, not using the 21st century's favoured form of communication taught me some neat lessons about social interaction in general; they're pretty personal, so I don't know that I'll talk about them at length here. There are a couple things I've learned since coming back, though, that I could touch on briefly:
1. Facebook is dumb: now confirmed and reinforced.
2. When people I know write about and post pictures of all the great times they're having with their cool friends, it makes me want to share about how my life is cool, too -- which, for me, means posting about what I've been working on.
Except my life is not cool, and nobody cares. People are probably just going to read, "Hey, look at me! I did some stuff! PAY ATTENTION!"
This has caused a long-unanswered question to resurface:
How do I share without looking needy or being annoying? It has to be possible, but I don't know how.

Julian Smith is popular with the internet kids these days, so here's an illustration you'll probably understand: He's always saying "I made this for you", right? It's a silly quote from one of his own videos, but I think he repeats it so regularly because it's true. And that's me, as well.
Yes, I do enjoy art, music, game design and assembly, etc... but if I really only cared about my personal enjoyment, I would keep doing these things as a hobby and pursue something different as a career -- with no stress, it would be much easier to love it all. I work because I want to make something for people to enjoy. Not a lot of people show a great deal of interest in what I'm doing, though. It could be because they're unaware, or it could be because what I'm working on right now specifically does not interest them (e.g. "I see that you're making some game, and I do play games sometimes, but yours doesn't look like something I would have fun with.").
If it's the first case, they need to hear about it. If it's the second case, I need to be able to talk to them and ask them why they find my work unappealing; without that kind of information, I'll never be able to help those people, and I think that's sad, because I do this for them just as much as I do for the rest of the people.
Most of the time, though, when I "make noise" about my projects, I feel wrong, like I'm being annoying. It doesn't seem to be effective. Repetition and enthusiasm don't seem to be the solutions; I'm sure for some people, that just makes me seem more annoying. What then, is the correct way to go about this?
I still don't have the answer, but I pray I find it soon. Life will be rough without it.

I drew some pictures.

2011-10-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

All pictures:
Time to Fill This Space
Fatal Watermelon Cascade
Properly Astonished
I Believe There is a Problem
Happy Birthday Robot
The King's Teeth
Emo Robot (Kalena)
Crow Cross I
Concerning the Nature of Justice

Gallery:
MachineSaint on deviantART

A Long Overdue Revival

2011-10-03T19:04:00.002-05:00

I have neglected to post in a very long time. You're aware of this, of course. I say it to be apologetic, not informative.
Sorry I left this so long!

I'll keep my post short, because it's been such a while that it would be silly to try getting you up to date with all the mundane happenings of the last few months. Let's stick with the important bits, yes?
A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines is still being worked on. It will be done. Eventually.
Beneath a Frozen Cloud was released at the end of June. If this is the first you heard of it, I'm very sorry! I never did make an announcement here.
I'm working lightly on a new album, but it won't be out for some time. I don't plan on putting sincere effort into it until ASitMoC is done
I have completed several pieces of artwork in recent weeks; you'll be able to see them very soon.

I will be blogging more regularly now.

No news is no news.

2011-05-05T18:05:00.002-05:00

"Of all the ridiculous expressions people use -- and people use a great many ridiculous expressions -- one of the most ridiculous is 'No news is good news.' 'No news is good news' simply means that if you don't hear from someone, everything is probably fine, and you can see at once why this expression makes such little sense, because everything being fine is only one of many, many reasons why someone may not contact you. Perhaps they are tied up. Maybe they are surrounded by fierce weasels, or perhaps they are wedged tightly between two refrigerators and cannot get themselves out. The expression might as well be changed to 'no news is bad news,' except that people may not be able to contact you because they have just been crowned king or are competing in a gymnastics tournament. The point is that there is no way to know why someone has not contacted you, until they contact you and explain themselves. For this reason, the sensible expression would be 'no news is no news,' except that it is so obvious that it is hardly an expression at all."

-Lemony Snicket

Sorry about the delays; I've had some stuff going on. I have a few moderately interesting updates to share with you, and I'll try to post them very soon.
One specific note: Beneath a Frozen Cloud is coming along quite well; I am making progress... but, well, obviously, it won't be out in April. (For those of you who may have missed out on this bit of information: It is no longer April.)
If I can get things together quickly enough, it should be out near the end of this month, probably, I hope, yeah, or something. I don't see it taking as long as July or August, for sure, unless some dramatic and unexpected events come up, so... expect it in the relatively close future! Before it comes out, I'll be talking more about it; it won't just pop up suddenly... you'll know when to start looking out for it. Also, the official release, will, of course, be announced on this blog.
...Additionally, I will be spamming all forms of communication with the news, so you will probably hear about it multiple times. Because that, as the trend-setting youngsters are putting it nowadays, is the fashion in which I roll. (Did I do that right?)

P.S.: Mouse update -- Bob got me a new mouse a while back. So... yay!

Radio Guy was right.

2011-04-17T01:01:00.000-05:00

If you've been paying attention to Facebook, you're probably already aware I don't exactly love the radio station we play nearly every day at work. It plays a lot of really forgettable, generic-sounding rock music. Every once in a while there will be a song I do like, but other than that it's pretty bland, and since the radio is playing all day, the repetition gets to me, especially when it's stuff I genuinely dislike. I definitely don't hate it, and I'm sure there are plenty of worse stations we could be listening to, but it's not my favorite by any means.

Today, the announcer was introducing a song, and he was saying something like, "You'll still have this tune running through your head at eight o'clock tonight." My immediate, cynical thought in reaction to this was, "Yeah, I strongly doubt that." But when he said the name of the song, I knew he was right: It had already happened the day before.
Yesterday, in the early afternoon, the song had played on the radio; I wasn't immediately sure how I felt about it, but the melody stayed with me for the rest of the day, and I eventually determined that I did like it. Today, after hearing it again, I came to the more concrete conclusion that it is basically brilliant.
The song is Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. You may have heard it, but if you haven't, here's a link to the video.

The verses have this muted, noisy, nigh-atonal sound to them that I find strangely appealing, probably because of all the chiptunes and such I listen to. I wouldn't like it at all, though, if it didn't break into a nice chorus (noise, I feel, is only effective if complemented by something strongly melodic). It does, though... very much so!

The tune is so folksy and carefree; it just has an amazingly positive sound that I haven't heard anywhere else in quite some time. It all feels so chilled and refreshing, and it has this California-summer-y feel that vaguely reminds me of the Beach Boys in a really great way.

Now, let's be straightforward and realistic about this: Somewhat stunningly, this song, despite its fun sound... is about a very disturbed kid who dreams of shooting up his school (or, if interpreted more extremely, is about a very disturbed kid who is shooting up his school). Don't think I'm so cold that this didn't make me rather uneasy about liking the song. It bugged me, so I went to go read some interviews with the band.

The strong disconnection between the mood and the content is not because the subject is being taken lightly. Mark Foster had some nice, interesting things to say about the topic brought up by the song:

"To me the epidemic isn't gun violence; the epidemic is lack of family, lack of love, and isolation -- kids who don't have anywhere to go or anyone to talk to and that's what makes them snap."
(from this interview)

This song intentionally takes a different angle than the traditional "this is a sad song; it's about the victims of a tragedy" route. It's written from the perspective of the troubled child, which puts an interesting spin on things. It's all done very tastefully; it's narrative, but it doesn't talk in detail about the kid killing people; as I alluded to earlier, I feel like it's ambiguous enough that it could reasonably be interpreted as a yet-unrealized fantasy. Meanwhile, the music video has absolutely nothing to do with the song's story (instead it just features the musicians performing), which, again, I found to be a tasteful treatment.

Overall, I honestly find the ironic contrast between the lyrics and the music to be very clever. The song brings up a serious issue, but that doesn't seamlessly fit in with the music, so it doesn't automatically invoke a particular reaction to it. Sad songs about sad subjects generally do one thing: They make you sad. What's that going to accomplish, exactly? It might move some people to try to take some kind of action to reverse the problem, but what's that action going to be? In this case, we're telling a story of a kid who is experiencing problems brought about, apparently, by loneliness and depression and the like; is making you sad about that too going to help you keep stuff like this from happening?

I hear this song and I think, "Go out; brighten a kid's day. You don't know what it could mean." No, it's not straightforward. There's irony here, and it is pretty quirky and unsettling that it's a happy song about a kid who wants to shoot his classmates. A lot of people aren't going to be comfortable with it; I get that.

But as for me, personally... Well, pass me my hipster glasses. I don't feel guilty liking this.

...and Other Complications

2011-04-13T23:03:00.001-05:00

My mouse seems to be dying. It's sometimes entirely unresponsive, and it likes to click repeatedly when I hold the button down. It's slowing things up... I don't have a tablet, so I paint with a mouse. (This is after doing linework in pencil, which I love; the tactile aspect is so comfortable to me that I'm not sure I would like a tablet if I did have one.) ...And that hasn't been working out too well with what I have going on here. I guess I'll have to buy a new mouse. In fairness, I have had this one for over a year, so it's not unreasonable that it should be dying now.
It's a little bothersome, though; I also replaced a pair of headphones this year. I'm not buying this stuff in the expensive, quality range, but I'm not made of money, and even if I was, would I be willing to wound my own body in order to gain more purchasing leverage? Yeah... I may have taken that idiom a little too literally.
Anyway, also: my mouse is an adorable pinkish-purple color. It may be impossible to fully replace.

Frustrations

2011-04-12T22:17:00.003-05:00

Today was an interesting day for development.

Previously, I had assembled sprite sheets for A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines by using a script I found for the GIMP. Basically, I had all the animation frames in one many-layered image, and this would dump them all into a file, all lined up in a row. Well, this was obviously a rather large image... too large, it turns out. Unity won't support an image that big... and resizing it would make the characters too small to be displayed at high resolutions. Obviously, I would have to shrink it some and put it in multiple columns.
It looked like I was going to have to manually place the frames, which would have been a pain... Thankfully, however, I was able to find a different script that allowed me to form rows and columns! This was very relieving. God has the little things covered.
I think work is back on track now.

Don't give up, pilot man!

2011-04-08T22:15:00.000-05:00

A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines now has a devlog thread on TIGSource. Go there for a playable prototype! It may not be super exciting yet, but it does show off many of the game's core mechanics. Tobias did a great job with the grappling hooks in particular... His prototype made me want to work a lot harder on this to keep up!

Milestone reached!

2011-04-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick note to let you know that the music for Beneath a Frozen Cloud is more or less complete.
I say "more or less" because I may still end up going back and tweaking a few things, but it's definitely all wrapped up. I think I can tell you all to expect the album some time this month with a whole lot more confidence now! (It's still not a guarantee, though...)

News from the Planet of Crawling

2011-04-05T21:49:00.001-05:00

...This sounds like the title of... something. Not a blog post, for sure.
Well, anyhow.
Everything is coming along quite well, if slowly.
I have made marvelous progress on my upcoming album. I've been telling people that, if all goes well, they should be able to expect it this month. I hope that turns out right! I am very, very close to being finished with the music, but there's a fair bit of work left beyond that before I'm ready for the official release.
Tobias has been making much more progress than me, it seems, on A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines, but I have been getting some work done on it as well. I don't have a lot actually finished and presentable at the moment, but hopefully I'll get it together fairly soon... because, meanwhile, Tobias has put together a new prototype. It has grappling hooks. They work, and it's totally awesome. If that's not progress, I don't know what progress is.
...Actually, given my history of late, it is entirely possible I really do not know what progress is.
I blame "real life". It tends to get in the way, of course. I have to admit there are days when I envy my peers who are already full-time artists (I try to happy for them; I am on the other days!)... Alas; eventually, one hopes! At any rate, my point is that my job eats up a lot of time that could otherwise be spent on my projects. I'd still have plenty of other "real life" distractions without a job, but life would definitely be easier to handle much of the time.
Not all of the blame should be put on my situation, though! I definitely could be doing a better job of managing the time I do have. Lately I've been trying to work on that, and I think I'm improving, but I still have quite a ways to go; I still find myself wasting time during unfortunately sizable portions of my day.
Meanwhile, however, I have been trying to spend time away from the computer... Which, yes, is counter-productive, in a way, but overall, I think it's helpful. Sitting at the computer all day is rather draining, and I come to points where I'm barely accomplishing anything at all, and am just wasting my time. At that point, it would be much better to be off the computer entirely!
Along these lines, I have been working on some knife-related projects. Details and pictures will be coming eventually, I hope.
Well, that's all I have to share today. The schedule I set up for myself demands that, whenever possible, I post to this blog every day... but I don't think I'll be able to get into that habit right away, so it would be better if you don't expect me too.
Have a good week, all!

If they asked me now...

2011-03-24T20:22:00.000-05:00

Adults seem to have trouble in starting conversations with children. The general "small talk" questions can't be applied. It doesn't really work to ask "What do you do for a living?" or "What are you studying?" ("where are you studying", "where did you study", etc.) like it does with people in other stages of life. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is kind of a lame question, and I think people understand that nowadays. I don't recall getting it much when I was a kid. What I did get, though, was "What kinds of things do you like to do?". My response was probably something close to "Umm... I like to read... and play games...?". That's about when people must have realized that this question wasn't going to start any conversation, either (I don't think it works with anybody; it's just as bad as "What do you want to be when you grow up?"). Then there was the next question, which could, I suppose, be either a follow-up or a second try, depending on how you want to look at it: "Do you have any hobbies?"
I can't be completely sure, but I think this is why I started the coin collection.

I was never interested in coins that were old, rare, or in any way genuinely valuable. I was more interested in diversity: I wanted coins from all over the world, or US coins that were in some way unusual (for instance, I have a penny from the Depression that is made of steel).
Now, the best part about this hobby was that I didn't have to go anywhere or give any particular effort to seeking out new pieces to add to the collection. When people asked me "the hobby question", my answer often reminded them of bits of currency they had lying around from some international trip, and they would happily offer to add to the collection. It was a fun aspect of the hobby; every coin had somebody's story... although I remember very few of them now.
My coin collection hasn't grown much in quite a while. I realize that this is because I don't actually talk about it anymore. That's how it grew: I told people about it and they wanted to contribute. Otherwise it just sat... so now it sits.
It's kind of a depressing thing nowadays, to be honest. I get sad looking at all the different currency and thinking about the places it came from. I would love to travel, but I can't afford it, so I've never left the country.

The reason my coin collection came to mind recently is because I have been considering those "small talk questions". Now, of course, I get things more along the lines of "What are you doing with your life?"
In some ways, I wish people would still ask me about my hobbies. I think I'd rather talk about my knives (pictures of which, by the way, will eventually be coming to this blog) than my career path. I love what I'm doing, but it's far more difficult for people to understand that than it is for them to hear about the stuff I do with my free time and occasional spare bits of cash. Conversations tend to start out well enough, but they deteriorate at a specific point, something like what follows:

"Where do you go to school?"
"Oh, I'm not in school right now. I'm saving money so I can afford to finish my AA degree."
"Where do you work?"
"Oh... umm... I have a part time job... baking pizzas and stuff... yeah..."

...This, most of the time, is where people ask if I want to pick up a second job or if I'm looking around for better work. Occasionally, it seems they'd feel bad about asking something like that, so instead they just adopt a look to their faces that tells me just as much as a question would have: They don't get it.
My life is on a path that's different from what a substantial majority of the rest of society is on. It's not about going to college, learning how to do a job, and then doing that job for the rest of my life. It's about getting good at something until I can make money doing it. And to get good at it, I have to do it. There is theory, of course, but the theory can be learned through practice, and the practice can't be had through theory.
The plan, for any of you who haven't picked up on it yet, is to keep working on my projects and, over time, work less at small-but-stable jobs like the one I currently have. Ideally, one day I'll be able to abandon all other forms of work and continue doing what I love full time. It's exciting stuff, but it's not easy to explain or summarize.
This, primarily, is why the questions people ask can be a bit difficult... That, and it's a bit sad to define a person simply by where he plans on getting his paycheck. I often wonder whether people with "ordinary, real-world" jobs exactly like what I will not be doing with my life are upset to be put in the "career box". People are interesting and complicated. In some cases (hopefully not mine), what a person does for a living is one of the most boring parts of a very interesting and exciting life.
On that note: I think the next time I am given an opportunity to concisely introduce myself to someone, I'm going to opt for: "Hi. I'm a Christian, a starving artist in several mediums, and a hat-wearing knife enthusiast. What are you doing with your life?"

Of Brains and the Curious Things They Do

2011-03-22T19:39:00.001-05:00

A couple of nights ago I had two unusually vivid dreams. They both exhibited a high level of detail, and, uncharacteristically, I remember much of it; usually specifics slip away pretty quickly after I wake up.
Both dreams took place in settings that could be described as more or less cyberpunk. Both also prominently featured technology that augmented reality to nigh-virtual (but not entirely fabricated) levels. They were quite separate and distinct, however.
The first dream was far more morbid and twisted than the other. People who entered a house became trapped in its self-contained world and were forced to abide by its rules. Inside the house was a fantastic, dark fairy tale type of place, with swords and monsters and such. Certain individuals were apparently relaying instructions to the denizens of the house regarding how they were to behave. With these instructions came weak promises of privilege and vague suggestions of an eventual opportunity to escape for those who obeyed most readily and completely. These instructions were varied, but they came on a regular basis in the form of demands for the death of particular residents of the house.
At some point, a few bold souls rallied to escape the "haunted house", as it were, by their own means, which resulted in successfully shutting down the power of the house... but, shockingly, quite a bit of what was going on was apparently not virtual, because it remained even after the haunted house was powered down. I remember being impressed with the idea that these elements had indeed been illusions at the start, but they had somehow, over time, manifested themselves in reality. Around this point I woke up. I don't think I was awake for long before I fell asleep again and had the second dream.
The second dream apparently took place in some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario in a future ruled by machines. The artificial intelligence oppressing humankind created a false reality that all people were perceiving. They were still apparently moving about in real space, but much of what they saw and experienced was entirely fabricated. Very, very few humans were left alive, and only by the will of the computer(s) controlling the world. They were keeping the humans alive for purposes of observation, and the false reality in which the humans dwelt was supposed to be to the advantage of the computer(s); it was an ideal environment for them to learn the details of the human brain. Apparently, the purpose of the artificial intelligence was to mimic humanity as exactly as possible. This may have been because the AI was originally created (by man) with the goal of preserving the human race, and it continued to do so, but in an abstracted fashion untainted by care for humans as individuals... Regardless of reason, though, the AI was definitely seeking to improve itself to a point where it could act exactly like humans. It sent out fake humans, existing only as software (but perceived literally in the false world of human experience), to interact with the true humans in order to learn their behavior in practical situations.
All the real humans had somehow become aware of what was going on, but it was extremely difficult to tell the difference between actual people and AI programs. People generally lived with resigned attitudes, trusting others, but keeping an understanding that any time all their friends could turn out not to exist at all. The common knowledge seemed to be that the AI fakes far, far outnumbered the real humans, of which there were only a small handful left in the world.
The critical flaw in the AI was that it was unable to accurately reproduce deep human emotion, so it was the goal of the humans (and, consequently, the claimed goal of the software beings, which attempted to act just like the real humans) to forge strong personal connections with others until they reached a point where they could comfortably affirm that they could only be genuine humans. Presumably, the goal was for all the living humans to find each other and band together so they could find a way to remove themselves from the false reality and take down the computer system controlling the world... However, it did seem some did not have such lofty aspirations, and they pessimistically hoped only to forge true friendships and fall in love with real humans as some sort of comfort from the harsh reality that their entire lives were under the control of machines.
I don't remember much from the second dream eventwise, but as you can see, I do recall the setting. Shortly after I arose, my waking brain began piecing the dream together and filling in holes so it could actually be a story and not just a setting in which a story or stories could take place... While the two dreams both have great potential for becoming short stories or something (even full-length novels, really), the second is probably the one I'll be more likely to end up doing something with, because somehow, it just came together really naturally after I woke up, and now there's a lot of potential for a good story there. It'd be really great to write out both these as short stories someday, and I already have an idea for another from before (also based on a dream I had)... but I have a lot going on right now, so we'll have to see when and whether it happens.

I don't know if that was interesting to any of you, but I figured it might be for somebody, so I thought I would share it.
I'm trying to post more regularly; sorry for the slow pace.

Time is a problem.

2011-03-11T20:56:00.000-06:00

It's interesting how I used to wish I had more money to buy the games I wanted to play. Nowadays, I make enough money to buy things every now and then, in addition to the great number of great things that are available at no cost whatsoever... and yet I'm not even able to keep up with all of what my peers and colleagues are making.
Much of the second Humble Indie Bundle still lies largely unexplored on my hard drive, and I recently picked up an excellent DS title on sale for ten dollars. I'm not able to give any of this much of my attention, though. I'm too busy making games to spend a lot of time playing them!
Time management can be a curious thing, really. I suppose I'll never have enough time to do all of what I wish I could. I feel like there are a lot of gaps in my day, though, when I'm not doing much of anything at all. I think a lot of this time is spent poking around the Internet somewhat aimlessly... checking sites for news, et cetera. I should work at cutting back on such things so I have more time to actually do stuff.

Anyway, the album is still progressing well enough. I should be posting a little information about it in the next couple of weeks. I'm not too far away from having the actual music portion of the project finished, but there will still be much to be done after that's over. I need to put together cover art and start working on publicity stuff (setting up a page on Facebook and the like). Eventually I'll need to get some photographs taken for that; if anybody who lives nearby is willing to help me out with this, let me know.
I've been wondering how I'm going to get word out about my music without spending too much money... it'll be hard, but hopefully I'll find a sizable audience somehow.

I've been working more with animations for A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines. Things haven't been moving along all that quickly, but they're definitely moving along at all, so it's good. I want to get this thing done; it's obviously taken much longer than I thought it would, and things still aren't looking that great (at least on my end)! I'm going to have to cut down on some of my goals; they were a little loftly, and I don't have the motivation to see them through anymore. I'm definitely still into the project overall, though, and I do want to finish it.

A post within which is a picture of a spider in a jar

2011-03-07T21:13:00.000-06:00

Here is a picture of a spider in a jar.

gAMES Jam: Winter 2011

2011-03-01T11:42:00.000-06:00

[Above is the poster I made for the event. I didn't take any photographs, so that's all I have to show you. Ted Martens has a few on Flickr, though.]

I promised I would blog about this eventually, so here I am.
This jam had significantly lower attendance than the last one I attended, and at first I worried that it might turn out to be a little disappointing overall. I quickly learned, though, that there were a lot of good things about the smaller scale. Since there weren't as many people, I felt like there was more socializing and interaction, and it was generally a more relaxed and comfortable environment.
Something else that was different about this jam was that I actually worked on a team. Last time, most people were working in 3D (there was a bit of a Unity focus to the event overall; several teams and individuals used the time as an opportunity to learn the tool). I wasn't very comfortable working with 3D (I still am not), so I decided to work on my own project.
This time around, however, I joined up with Ted Martens and Ken Kopecky. I spent much of the jam working on music, but I also drew a few images. The jam was in association with the Global Game Jam, for which the theme was "extinction". The concept for our game was inspired by cladograms and subway maps. The idea was that you follow the progress of a species and are occasionally given opportunities to choose from a few options for adaptations; the goal was supposed to be surviving for as long as possible. At the end, we wanted the game to zoom out and show the whole chart/map, which would hopefully look pretty interesting. We didn't really get all that far, but it was fun working on it, even though I got sucked into the music thing exclusively for quite a bit, especially toward the end. I uploaded the track I produced for the project so you all can hear it. I think it turned out pretty well, and other people seemed to like it, too.
I enjoyed seeing all the things other people were working on. Josh Larson and Evan Balster started an interesting project based on the idea of glitch art, and Andres Reinot worked on a game he had already started; it's sort of a real-time, roguelike, hexagonal minesweeper with a mode for two players. Someone (I don't remember who, sorry) prototyped a "black hole rodeo" game. There were other things going on, too, but I don't remember / am not sure all of what they were.
I also got to see an iPhone game Ken and Ted are working on, which was especially neat because a teaser image for it recently launched a silly meme on TIGSource (which won't make much sense to you unless you're also familiar with a different silly meme). I had watched that happen (and briefly participated in the fun) on the forums just before the jam, so it was cool to see the project the picture was for.
I liked hanging around all the new people, not only because I just like meeting new people, but also because it meant I got to find out about some new things. For example, I ate at three places right here in Ames I had never been to before; furthermore, I had previously been totally unaware that one of them existed at all.
There's probably more I could say, but I can't think of anything at the moment, and I think I've covered my experience with the event pretty well. In summary: I had a great time, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Game concept for today

2011-02-24T17:58:00.001-06:00

I have decided that some day, later on in the future, I should make a Contraesque action platformer starring Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, who are on a mission to save America from an army of vampire lawyers.
I'm sharing this idea now in case somebody else makes it before I do. Now I have something to confirm that I thought of it first.

Delays

2011-02-21T18:23:00.000-06:00

Tobias has been very busy with his real job, and I've been working on the album... progress on A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines has been quite slow. We no longer plan on finishing it in time for the TIGSource compo, which is very sad... but don't worry too much, because we are still working on it!
Keep watching the competition, as there are some really great things coming out of it.

Meanwhile, I've been messing around with sound: importing miscellaneous files into Audacity, clipping out interesting parts, and using them as digital instruments for music. It's fun stuff!

Progress is a gradual thing.

2011-02-10T21:12:00.004-06:00

I'm still working on animation for A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines. I'm not going for high quality stuff, as you can probably see above (the number of frames is pretty low, and that is visible); I want to be able to do as many characters as possible. I think the level of niceness I have is acceptable; it's not really anything above mediocre, but at least it's not bad. The character with the fur-lined hat and scarf is finished, but I still have quite a long ways to go on the character with the mustache and classy shirt. Things are moving pretty slowly, but at least I'm moving ahead. Remember that you can get a more specific grasp on how things are coming along by checking here.

Meanwhile, the album project has not been moving all that quickly these days. It's kind of interesting how sometimes It's coming along really well, and I feel like it might be finished in a few short weeks... and at other points, things are moving at a crawl, and it seems that I might still be at it for at least a couple of months, and maybe longer.

My point here is that it's really difficult to say when I'll be finished. I have a completely unrelated track you can listen to, though; here's a link!

I made that for the project I worked on with Ted Martens and Ken Kopecky during the recent jam. It's has kind of a weird, noisy sound; I don't point that out to communicate that I don't like it -- I do think it turned out quite well -- but I just want you to be aware that it's not necessarily a great indication of what sort of things you'll hear in the upcoming album.

The following is fairly obvious and obligatory, but:

I need to update this blog more often, at least with short updates. If there's anybody actually reading this regularly, don't be afraid of reminding me to post every now and then.

Rest in peace, Lou Henry Hoover.

2011-02-02T22:57:00.000-06:00

Yes, I realize Madam Hoover has been deceased for quite some time... Lou Henry Hoover is also the name of my late automobile.

I did promise "details on" the accident, but honestly, there's not much of a story... Basically, somebody ahead of me was turning, so I slowed to a stop... and the person behind me did not. He hit me pretty hard, but aside from mild spinal aches that lasted a couple of days, I was fine. The car, as you can see from the picture, was not fine.
Since it was the other guy's fault, his insurance is paying to replace my car. It's not a lot of money, but it will be enough to get something else that runs. I never had a particularly nice car; it just got me around. So whatever I get next will be about the same. I still need to mail my title off to the insurance company before they can get me the check; I need to buy envelopes... Fortunately, I can take the bus to work, and I work right next to a Wal-Mart, so shopping for such things isn't too much of a problem.

Anyhow, here' a view from the side, where it doesn't look quite as awful:

Also, when I was trying to get into the trunk to salvage anything I may have left in there, the glass broke:

I'm still working on that artwork I mentioned earlier... it's pending.
Also, I'll certainly be posting about the recent game jam (which was pretty great) at some point; I don't know when that will be or how much I'll have to say, but there will be something.

A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines

2011-01-24T19:43:00.000-06:00

A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines is a collaboration between Tobias Wehrum and me for TIGSource's Versus competition.
It will be an airplane dogfighting game for two players (local multiplayer only; nothing will be online). The goal is to shoot down the other player's plane and force him to deploy his parachute... but since this is a gentleman's pastime: If you kill the pilot himself, you lose the match!
You aren't restricted to the plane's cockpit, and you're given a grappling hook for performing dangerous acrobatics in the air while leaping about outside your craft. This will enable you to carry out bold feats such as throwing the other pilot from his plane and commandeering it yourself. You shouldn't abandon your own plane for too long, however, or it will sink to the ground, and it's also more vulnerable to enemy fire, since there's no pilot to keep it out of the path of bullets.

I'll be blogging with updates, but also check here for the latest status of the project.
Things have just gotten off the ground*, so it's not necessarily all that interesting yet (most features haven't been implemented yet)... but we're excited about it; hopefully this will turn into something pretty nice!

*Yes, I did just use a flight-related metaphor for this. =P

coming soon:

2011-01-22T22:07:00.000-06:00

-Details on my recent car accident
(I don't want to share about this until I can show you pictures, or it won't be as fun!)
-A moderately exciting announcement about a new project
(This may not entirely be news, especially if any of you are getting here from TIGSource.)
-Miscellaneous thoughts
(Whether or not these are actually interesting may depend on who you are.)
-Art
(I have something I started and meant to post quite a while ago; maybe talking about it here will motivate me to finish it.)

...Stay tuned or whatever!

Moving ahead

2011-01-14T00:32:00.007-06:00

I don't necessarily have a lot to say today, but I need to get back into blogging and there are, in fact, new things to tell you, which is good. The reason I want to blog more is so I can keep people informed about what I'm up to, and if there's nothing to write about, that means I'm not up to anything... So the former is just evidence whereas the latter is the actual problem.
At any rate, I don't know if I'll remember what all the news is, so I'm just going to say there are ten things. Then I'm going to list off some numbers, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten, and I'll have to come up with some kind of news for all of them.
uhh...
Yes.
Continuing onward, then.

1. I got a job.
I'm working at a restaurant making pizza and washing dishes. It's not fabulous, but I enjoy it as much as one would be expected to enjoy a basic job... it should be enough money, but if it's not, I can pick up something else, too. I just hope I can save enough free time to get what would ideally be my "real work" done as well. Additionally,
2. I have a place to live now.
This means I don't have to keep bumming around my brother's apartment. It's been a bit nasty sitting around feeling jobless and homeless, especially since I really have been both jobless and homeless. But this is the past now! No need to worry about that; instead...
3. I'm looking forward to this year.
I really needed a break from school; never mind all the financial problems that were attached to my decision to step away for a while. I'm glad I'll be able to put in serious work on game development, as well as art and music composition as separated mediums. I'm going to work at being more diligent and actually accomplishing things instead of just throwing in a bit of effort at odd times whenever I feel like it... It was hard to focus consistently when I was tied down with college, but I don't have that problem right now! It's nice being free from all that. Nevertheless...
4. I miss my friends from school,
So be sure to add me on Skype if you haven't yet, and be on there. Bug me on Facebook or through text messages or whatever to make sure I get on regularly as well. I would like to talk to friends more, but I can't waste too much of my time relaxing; there's work to be done. And on that note...
5. I'm still on track with the same game idea.
Hopefully this will become my one serious project... it's hard to stay focused. I want to see results, and when I'm working on my own, that doesn't happen easily. I'm hoping I'll be able to work on some different, smaller things as collaborations with other people on the side. Meanwhile, the plan is to stick with one thing as my solo project for as long as possible. Hopefully I'll be able to relieve the stress and boredom and what have you by putting together some other random art occasionally, and I've already had a good time putting together music. Speaking of which,
6. The album is coming along very nicely.
It's moving along more quickly than I had thought it might, so I'm hoping to have all the tracks in a listenable state by the end of the month... I'm not sure that will happen, though. If it does, you should be warned that I don't mean to say the album will be released at that point. I still have to refine things, do the cover art, set up a means of distribution (probably Bandcamp; it seems like a really sharp site), put together a Facebook page to help with promotion, etc. I'll try to keep you up to date on where things are with all this. Right now I have seven of twelve tracks done. I'm hoping I'll be able to get more feedback on some of the music soon, because
7. We're having another game jam;
It's going to be in Ames, and I'm pretty excited for it. I'm drawing a poster to advertise it, and hopefully I'll be finished with that this weekend. I want to get it done soon so it can be hung up places in time for people to find out about the event well enough ahead of time (it's happening from the 28th to the 30th). I actually don't know for sure whether or not I'll be able to attend myself, because I haven't gotten confirmation that I'll be able to have work off... I will be pretty sad if I don't get to go. I think it should work out, though. I loved the last jam, and I'm looking forward to seeing people again.
I think I've run out of coherent transitions, so:
8. I'm thinking of redesigning the blog.
It would be cool to base everything off of nice pencil drawings, the way most of my good art these days works... but I don't know if I want to invest the effort, so we'll see.
Additionally,
9. A pot at work gave me a "fun", bubbly burn
and
10. I feel like watching a movie some time soon,
What should it be? Is there anything new that's good? Or a classic I'm still missing out on?

...And I shall leave you with that question. Good [if hour>6 and hour<18 whattosay="day" else whattosay="night"]!

Hello, Internet.

2010-12-30T22:55:00.005-06:00

It's been a long time, hasn't it?
Yes. Yes, it has.

A lot of things happen in five months. Needless to say, most previous posts about projects I may have been working on are not really relevant anymore. I'll get you all up to speed on what I'm actually doing, but first I figure I should share what's been going on with life in general for those of you who don't know.

I just finished a great semester of college. I learned a lot and had neat experiences. I made some great new friends, and grew closer to some people who were already my friends. I would have been looking forward to going on to another semester and finishing off what would have been an incredible year.
But college costs money. Especially when you're going to a smaller private school. I can't afford another semester without taking out loans... if I can go through school without taking out any loans, I'm pretty sure I'll end up happier than if I had.
So I'm on break from classes of any kind, probably for a full year.
Beyond that, I don't have a lot to tell you. I'm trying to stay in Iowa, but I still need a job.

So, let's talk about projects, shall we?

Writing
The novel I've talked about (covered in the previous post, in fact) hasn't come together much. I realized there's a much better way to go about introducing some background information I was having trouble with... a way that won't require a prologue of any kind. That means it's time to start over! But I'm not really sure when I want to do that. I do want to write; I love it. But it might be smarter to have a writing project that's substantially different from my game development projects... having something different to work on to take a break from another thing is very valuable to me; it helps me keep interest in everything. I have two other novel ideas that have been floating around for quite some time... I can't work on all three projects. I'm going to give it some thought before I pick one.

Game Development
I'm pretty sure I gave TIGsource's "A Game by its Cover" competition a broad mention earlier. Well, our project for that is done, and I'm pretty happy with it. I feel like some things were rushed to the end; there's definitely parts I wish I could have finished in more detail... but what we have is nice. You can play it here, although it should be noted that at the time of writing it's rather broken. It should be patched in the near future, though; I'll try to let you all know when that happens. Meanwhile, I'm not going to say much about the game; if you have any questions at all, ask them and I'll tell you what I can.
I worked with a fine gentleman named Nicholas Feinberg. I provided art and "creative input", and he did... most everything else. Music was composed by Kevin Bennett.
I may be providing art for another future PleasingFungus game. We'll see what happens; I'll keep you posted.
As far as my own projects go, well... I haven't done anything even vaguely interesting. Over the last few months, it's mostly just been concept sketches doodled in the margins of my notes during classes. Most of my real free time was spent with friends doing normal fun things. I'm hoping once I find a job I'll be able to get a proper time balance going with projects and leisure activities; now that classes are over, bothersome issues such as homework are totally out of the way, so that's good.
I definitely have "the idea" as far as what my current project is supposed to genuinely be, but I'm being patient with it, because it hasn't been in its current state for a terribly long time, and in the time since I last shared news, the core idea has changed several times. I'm trying to mash together the bits I like so I can assemble something solid that I'll really be able to work on earnestly for a reasonable amount of time without suddenly becoming interested in something completely different and losing track entirely.
For the foreseeable future, I'm going to be playing it loose and careful. Months might still go by without me having made anything that looks like even the most twisted semblance of a completed game or even a single concept, but I'm going to be OK with that. As long as it still looks like I'm headed somewhere, I've made some kind of progress; I imagine the payoff (id est a real, solid project) will come upon me suddenly enough when it's time.
I'll try to keep you up to date; the good news is that there's plenty of sketches and drawings in even the most raw, early stages, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of things to show you.

Music
Crazy stuff here, really. Not something I necessarily expected myself. My skills in this area have been developing pretty well lately, I'd say... to a point where I'm going to be ready to sell an album not too far off in the future. I'll probably go with the "pay what you want" model, so don't worry about not being able to afford it.
It's all electronic stuff. Largely bubbly. Still a bit of a niche thing, admittedly...
It's what I can do, and I've not come anywhere near having fully explored it, so I don't feel too bad about not experimenting very much with other things.
If I ever come up with tracks I decide shouldn't be on the album, I'll throw them up here for you to hear. But I don't think that's likely to happen, so you probably won't have anything to listen to until the album is finished.
I have posted one track on Facebook. It's not going anywhere else, so if we're friends on Facebook, go to my profile and find it. If we're not... add me. That pretty much fixes the problem, doesn't it?
Otherwise, the track will be on the finished album, and you'll all be able to hear it.

Well, I don't think I have anything else to say.
I don't really know how to conclude this post.
I guess it's over.

Introduced!

2010-08-03T12:24:00.000-05:00

I finished the prologue to my novel.
Of course, when I say "finished", I just mean that I wrote it out from start to finish. That doesn't mean it won't go through any revisions... This, naturally, is a long process.
It's actually only around 560 words long at the moment. It seems like it should be about twice that, but I covered pretty much everything, and I'm not sure how to extend it. The prologue has almost nothing to do with the rest of the story, but I feel like it's needed, because it gives important background information. I'm still not convinced about it, though. It seems pretty serious and even boring compared to what the rest of the story is going to be like... It's supposed to be a contrast, but it might not work out well.
After I finish the first chapter or something, I'll share both it and the prologue... but that will be through a mailing list. If you want to be on it, you should leave a comment to let me know. I'm going to add some people automatically, because they're interested in writing or just because they read a lot of fiction, and I want to hear what they think. If you end up being one of those people, you're certainly welcome to opt out... But if you are interested, don't assume you will be included; please tell me you would like to read it.

Not a lot is going on.

2010-08-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

I'm still working on the whole TIGSource competition thing . The deadline was extended... After this week, I should be able to start something interesting.
I've still been working on that novel.... slowly. No part of the story itself has been written yet. I'm still thinking about characters, setting, etc. I really need to get started on the actual writing part, though; I can make revisions as I go along, obviously.

I think near the beginning of summer (it might have been just before summer started, actually), my goal was to have something interesting and playable to present before classes started again. I don't think that's actually going to happen, but that's how life works, I suppose.

Meanwhile, I've been working a lot (at my paying jobs, I mean). I'm still barely going to make it through next year (if I make it at all)... I'm pretty sure I'll be graduating (after two years, for those of you who weren't aware or had forgotten) and jumping straight into "real life" without a useful degree. Ideally, the point is that I'm saving money so that I can go back later and get my other two years done, but I don't know how long it will take to get to that point.
Anyway, as has been traditional with many of my posts so far, I will declare that I need to update more often. This blog is still skeletal at the moment.

Hero

2010-07-22T07:13:00.001-05:00

I don't feel like I have the time to make the game this character was intended to be the protagonist of, but maybe some day....

The Folk Process

2010-07-17T03:08:00.000-05:00

Sorry to keep you waiting.
That was a joke. Nobody was waiting.

You know about folk tales, of course. They're interesting because, since nobody lays claim to them, they get retold in different ways. People tell the stories the way they want to tell them. They change whatever details they want to change... After much time has passed, it can even come to a point where there are many separate stories floating around that are substantially different from one another.
I find this process to be very interesting. It results in some tales that are boring and ridiculous and others that are more appealing and exciting. If you don't like one version of a story, you can wait and hear it from somebody else... and it might be more interesting to you.
In modern times, people are very protective of their intellectual property. Once they're done with it, it's finished for good. Borrowing ideas is often frowned upon, or, at the very least, seen as inferior to coming up with new ideas. The problem with this kind of attitude is that, in reality, originality isn't about things that are completely new. Civilization has developed over thousands of years, and by now, all of the stories have been told. Even in the past, stories were inspired by real events. People certainly have the ability to be creative, but total uniqueness does not exist. That seems like a grumpy and depressing thing to say, but it's the truth, and it's really not all that bad.
Now, I do like to see things that look fresh and new. But at the same time... When I really like something, I want to see it again. It helps if there's something different about it the second time, so it doesn't seem old. That's why I feel like retelling stories isn't necessarily a bad thing (although it can certainly yield bad results). As I said earlier, modern storytellers don't generally like it when their stories are changed by others, but we do see exceptions to this idea today.
It's very common for a book to be adapted into a movie. Every once in a while, these adaptations become amazing greatness. The movies based on The Lord of the Rings are widely praised as being excellent. Their quality is high, and though the original story had to be abbreviated significantly, the movies don't diverge so much from the events in the book that it's something confusingly or frustratingly different. Holes, one of my favorite works of fiction ever, was adapted into a movie in a stunningly faithful fashion. There are very few differences between the book and the film, and because of that, most people who enjoyed the book also enjoy the film.
Now, here is the interesting part... Sometimes things don't work like that. Sometimes movie adaptations are radically different from the original books. And usually that doesn't work out very well... But once in a great while, it does. I love A Series of Unfortunate Events. (If you haven't read it yet, you should. I promise it will be one of the most clever and engaging things you ever have the privilege of reading.) It was made into a movie, which I also love. And yet there are huge differences between the books and the movies... Even if we were to ignore the serious disagreements on major plot points, the general mood or tone of the film is very different from what was in the original series. And yet... both of those moods are very special and unusual, each in a different way. The books have a lot of character. And the movie has a different character. But that's not bad... it just isn't the same. It's odd the way that worked out, isn't it?
As you can see, then, even in circumstances that would generally appear frightening (and here I mean things like movie adaptations of books, in case you have not been paying any attention), this "folk process" can be constructive.
I approve of it and I would like to see more things benefit from it, but our culture seems to be squashing it... It's a shame, really. Some stories are good enough to be told more than once. And there shouldn't be anything stopping people from telling them a little differently the second time!

Plan revisions?

2010-07-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

I'm already having second thoughts about the schedule I set out for myself... Haha. I tend to do that a lot. It used to really bother me, even though I did it all the time, but I've been trying not to let it get to me so much. Everyone I have talked to says I have plenty of time to think through things, and I shouldn't feel rushed into releasing something interesting.

Some of the ideas I mentioned before (the RPG thing in particular) are still very recent. I still think they're great and all, but they might be pushed into the background.
That said, this month will still be the same. I'm pretty happy with how it looks, and I can't really back out anyway, because of the contest thing.

More posts pending! Hopefully I'll have something interesting for you to read some time tomorrow.

Stuff that is up

2010-07-07T14:37:00.002-05:00

I haven't posted in a while... Sorry about that. Hopefully this blog will actually get started (to a point where I'm posting more often) at some point this summer so I can be in the habit of maintaining it once life gets busier during the school year.

Anyway, today's post is basically just a "what's going on" kind of thing.

During this month, I'll be working on two projects, neither of which are all that exciting. Next month, though, one of those will be finished and the other might be moved to the background. I'll be starting work on two other new things. It's a bit bothersome that none of the projects that I just mentioned are my "big project for the future". I really want to get started on that some time, but I'm afraid to, because as its description suggests... it is big. I'd rather get a few smaller things out of the way first. I don't have a lot to show people at the moment, and I want to develop something that looks faintly like some kind of actually intriguing portfolio.
Well, anyhow. If you thought I was just going to leave things off that vaguely, you have been mistaken! I am indeed going to provide more details on what all of these projects are.

JULY:
Project #1-
I am writing a novel. I have been writing fiction for years, but I rarely even finish short stories. This time I want to work seriously on making a real novel happen. It's going to be pretty crazy stuff... I'm trying to incorporate many ideas from other works I like... And not many of those sources are other novels. I'll be picking up concepts from comic books, video games, movies... Oh, and I don't mean I'm just stealing stuff, by the way. This is definitely something new. But existing fiction is a vital resource! I need its help. Everybody does; it's rather foolish to say you don't.
Project #2-
TIGSource is currently running a competition based on the idea of making a game inspired by fake box or cartridge art. I wasn't planning on entering, because I had too many things lined up already... But I decided contributing to something might be a neat experience, so I'm providing graphics for one of the entries.
TIGSource competitions are typically not about rewards (other than recognition, which is pretty cool by itself, especially for people who don't usually get much of it). They exist primarily for fun and motivation... and they work. A large amount of incredible stuff has come out of these... The contest based on procedural generation gave us Rescue: The Beagles, KrebsWelte, and Dyson (now Eufloria). And those are just a few examples of the greatness that has come out of these competitions. (By the way, if you haven't played those games, I would strongly encourage you to look them up.)

AUGUST:
Project #1-
I will be continuing to work on the novel I mentioned, but probably not as hard or as often as in the previous month.
Project #2-
I have an idea for a game about rocket ships called 26.1 yoctoliters. The concept is pretty simple, but I want to add plenty of features to give it more depth. It's typically pretty hard to fully describe what I'm trying to accomplish with any particular project, but there a few of mentionable things that I am trying to accomplish with this game:
I want this to be a game that appeals to a wide range of people. I'm trying to make something I can happily show to all of my friends, no matter who they are. It's going to have a nice style that is cute and positive, and it will hopefully be very fun and easy to understand. One of the key points in all of this is the notion that, while it will involve rockets crashing into each other and exploding, it will not focus on traditionally crude violence. It's not going to have any shooting or stabbing or whatever. I hope it ends up being relaxing, but, simultaneously, exciting. I love fun, action-filled games that have all kinds of bullets, swords, bombs, and laser beams, but that kind of thing appeals to a limited demographic.
The point is for the game to be simple, but effective... and fun enough that it doesn't get boring quickly.
Project #3-
I have a cool idea for a traditional role-playing game (more of a "storytelling game", really, as players will be taking on more than just the one role), and I'm pretty excited about it. For quite some time I have been pondering the fact that I haven't done a lot of game design outside of interactive computer stuff recently. I made a lot of board and card games when I was younger, but when I realized I could do things on computer, I used that almost exclusively.
With this, I will probably still be using the computer as a platform (running the game in an online forum), but it will still be quite a bit different than the other stuff I've been up to. Still, at some point in the future, I do want to try board and card games again.
This game will require a lot of preparation, and hopefully I will be able to draw interest before its completion, because it will only work if enough people are willing to play it. In other words, development will be a moderately lengthy process, just like it is with my more virtual endeavors. You definitely will not be able to play this game for a while. (Assuming I finish it at all... I hope to, but that's not always the way things work.)

SEPTEMBER:
Project #1-
I will continue writing my novel. By now I may have something substantial for people to read.
Project #2-
I will probably release some kind of playable build of 26.1 yoctoliters, and I will continue to make improvements based on the feedback I receive.
Project #3-
Work on the RPGesque project will keep going. I doubt it will be finished at any point during this month, as I will be kept busy with work and school... and my development attentions will probably be on 26.1 yoctoliters.

THE FURTHER FUTURE:
It's hard to predict what kind of work I will be able to handle while I am at school again, but hopefully it won't be too long before 26.1 yoctoliters is finished. After that, I will be able to work more sincerely on my novel and "project #3". At some point down the road, I will start real development on a game I have been poking away at slightly for a little while (and will continue to do so in the months up until it becomes a serious project). This is the "big project for the future" that I mentioned earlier. I won't say a lot about it, but conceptually it is basically a platform shooter, and it will be called American Brimstone: A Weekend Fable. Once again, it will be something "cute and positive"... But this time, yes, it will involve guns. I'm pretty sure it's not that hard to do both of those things at the same time. I'm very happy with the monsters I've chosen, but I don't want to say what they are at this point. I also think the general format of the game is a nice concept, but, again, I'm not saying anything else.
This project is going to be pretty big, and if I ever really get started on it, it won't be for a while. A few of you who have seen my notebook will know more details, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't share them, because I would like to reveal specifics on my own schedule. I figured this was worth mentioning, but I don't want anybody to be too interested in it this early, so that's why I am not saying a whole lot. On the other hand, though, I may have just made things worse for people who are naturally curious...

It's hard to say firmly what is going to happen in the future... It's possible you will never see any of the things I talked about, but I do hope to work on all of them... Time will show us! Whatever happens, I'm sure it will be something cool, even if it's just crazy "real life" stuff and not any projects.

Scope

2010-06-19T03:37:00.001-05:00

It turns out "this week" was a bit of an early estimate for when I'd put up those posts I talked about. At least I'm posting this one, though!

Today I'll be talking about why small games still matter.

I have a lot of friends who consider themselves to be "gamers", and yet I always feel uncomfortable telling them that I make games. It seems like they wouldn't be interested in what I'm making, because they're used to games produced by large teams with huge budgets. They probably see those as "good" games, and see anything else as "bad" or at least "worse"... Because you obviously can't make anything really good if you're an indie developer working in your free time with no budget, right? Well, no. Wrong. Several people have already disproved this misconception through time, love, hard work, and perseverance.
At the same time, though, there are people who still care very much about their projects, and they put a lot of effort and time into them... But they tend to produce games that are much smaller in scale. Are those games worse than huge commercial games?
I'm going to argue that they're not. Large games fill a certain role, and they're fun. Small games fill a different role, and they are also fun. To illustrate this principle, I will remove the electronic element, which will hopefully help you see this from a different angle:
Go and Monopoly are two widely played games. People enjoy both of them a lot. When you think about it, there's a pretty large difference in how complicated the games are. Even someone who knew nothing about either game would be able to tell you that just by looking at the materials required to play the game. Go uses a plainly marked board and stones that are black and white. Monopoly, on the other hand, uses a much more complicated board, multiple sets of cards with detailed information printed on them, two six-sided dice, paper that represents money, and numerous pieces made out of plastic and pewter fashioned into a variety of different shapes. The rules of Go are not especially difficult to explain. the rules of Monopoly are more difficult to communicate, and when you purchase the game, it includes a fairly lengthy booklet of instructions.
So is Monopoly a "better" game than Go? People are certainly allowed to have preferences, but an objective answer cannot be given.
Is Monopoly more well-designed? It certainly involves many complicated elements that work together efficiently... But Go is also beautiful in its a simple, elegant way.
Is Monopoly more fun than Go? Does it last longer without becoming boring? Again, these are things that should be left to the opinion of each individual.
The most interesting thing about all of this is that, if anything, Go is considered socially to be a finer game than Monopoly. This usually seems to be the case with physical games. Chess, for example, is a game of nobility and class, whereas Settlers of Catan is seen as something a bit more casual.
It seems that in the realm of material gaming, things are revered for their simplicity. The elegance of the older games makes it obvious that they are well-designed, and they have continued to be played through many generations.
Why is this not the case in the world of virtual entertainment?
Everyone thinks fondly of Pac-Man, Snake, and Minesweeper... But this usually has a lot to do with the "retro appeal" of those games. For most people, it no longer seems to be because the games are excellently constructed and fun to play. The typical view nowadays seems to be that as games get more deep and complicated, they also get "better". The modern game development industry is strongly influenced by the views of consumers, but it's a dangerous cycle... The consumers are also strongly influenced by the actions of the developers. This all spirals slowly downward, and that process can probably take a substantial portion of blame, both for how people view games and for why we aren't seeing much creativity in the mainstream industry anymore. For example, if I use the phrase "good graphics", you probably think "realistic 3D rendering", because that seems to be what everyone wants now, and it's what they keep getting. The more like real life it is, the "better" it looks. That doesn't make sense to me. I want my games to look nice... and that doesn't necessarily mean I want them to look anything like real life. Claude Monet is one of my favorite painters... His work is not revered because it is similar to reality. He was an impressionist. His work was revered because it was significantly less similar to reality than the mainstream art of the time.
Even though people's minds have been influenced in a negative way, I still have hope... Because actions are proving to contradict ideologies.
I've been noticing that quite a few of my friends are playing a lot of smaller games, primarily through online portals for work made in Flash. These games are a lot simpler, and a lot of them are very poor in quality and are really not worth anyone's time... But there are many really excellent things out there, and more often than not, I see my friends playing good games. Curiously, these games are often made by some of my favorite independent developers... But my friends don't really think so much about that, because they aren't involved in the scene, and they just want to play things that are fun.
It's interesting, because when they talk about playing games, they never mean something you would find on an online Flash portal. They mean something you would spend $60 on in a store. In their minds, there is a clear distinction between the two, and they don't really see the former as "gaming". I won't say too much more on that concept, because it bleeds into the topic of a future post (probably my next post), but it is still interesting to note for the current subject.
Even though my peers don't give much thought to the notion that they are playing smaller games, it is certainly still happening. And, now that I'm in college, I think I'm going to see a lot more of it. Students don't have a lot of free time, and lengthy commercial titles require a lot more chronological investment. But people still want to play games, and there are legitimate reasons for doing so (though some people seem to be willfully wasting their time, which I don't exactly understand). We all like games; they're a good way to distract us from stress, and they're a nice social activity. And, in our modern culture, we spend a lot of time on computers. Playing games on computers just makes sense... But many people (students especially, it seems) can't spend the time or money required for big commercial games.
That's why I think the independent scene is very important. We're making games that are a lot more affordable and a lot easier to get into.
I really want to get more of my friends to understand what the indie community is all about. I want to convince them that while, yes, there is a difference between playing a small game and playing a large one, it's still the same basic idea: they are playing games. And if they like to play games, they shouldn't feel weird being interested in them or excited about them, even when they're small. I have a lot of friends who talk about how they are "serious gamers" and whatnot, but they only talk about big, mainstream games. They do spend a significant amount of time playing simpler games, but they never discuss them, as if they have no genuine interest.
Hopefully, in time, this will change.

TIGJam Midwest!

2010-06-15T07:40:00.001-05:00

Recently (June 4th, 5th, and 6th), I had the opportunity to attend a really incredible event called TIGJam Midwest. I'll provide a (hopefully short) explanation for those of you (most of my readership, I would imagine) who are not aware of what game jams are about or how they work.
Basically, a game jam is a time for a group of game developers to get together and work on projects. It provides a motivating atmosphere, because it's a lot easier to get things done when you're in a group of people who are all doing the same thing. The idea/format is pretty loose, so things can vary depending on the particular event... but in general, they tend to not have specific plans, so people are free to just... work on stuff.
TIGSource -- arguably (or maybe it doesn't even need to be argued about at all) the biggest website devoted to independent gaming and independent game development -- regularly (annually, I believe) holds game jams (hence "TIGJam"), and several groups organize more localized events for those who aren't able to make it out to the "official" ones. TIGJam Midwest is one such localized event, and it owes most of its organization to Josh Larson (who is notable in that he is also a Christian game developer, which I think is pretty cool).
TIGJam Midwest actually occurs pretty frequently (once every few months instead of once a year). So far it has always been in Iowa; this time it was in Des Moines, which is quite close to where I live at the moment. I heard about the event quite a while ago, but, time after time, I was unable to attend. I was very excited when I was able to confirm that I was free to go to this one, because it seemed to be the best yet.
Quite a few people were in attendance... The number that signed up was somewhere around 40, although not everyone was there all at once. The event featured lots of really good catered food, which none of us had to pay any money for. This is because the state of Iowa backed us financially. I thought that was pretty amazing, and I made it a point to thank my friends for "unwittingly supporting independent game development". A lot of them were unhappy about the government throwing money toward something like this... But I figure that if the government is going to be throwing money around, I should be benefiting from some of that, right? Anyway, it was really neat to actually be taken this seriously. To me, being supported by the state is no small thing.
Additionally, Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo came down from Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) to deliver a talk about "Finding Meaning in Games". He was pretty interesting to listen to.

I had a great time at the event... I could go into detail, but I didn't want this to run for too long. Basically, it was a really exciting experience, because I got to meet a lot of people "in real life" who are doing the same thing as me... And yet, at the same time, they're not doing the same thing at all. The projects that were worked on were very diverse. It was cool to see a sizable group of people all doing their own things. The results were pretty cool to see, because there was a lot of variety and personality.
I found the game jam to be very motivating, and it helped get me out of a pretty deep rut I had put myself in... I probably made more progress during that one weekend than I did during an entire month (or more) prior to it.I did manage to finish the project I prototyped during the jam (it took a little over a week of additional work), and you can download it from its page on Game Jolt. It's an interesting, moderately experimental game called Hazardous Surface. So far, people have been somewhat confused by it, and they find it to be pretty difficult. I'm happy with it, though. It wasn't necessarily intended to be anything that would keep people engaged for any significant length of time. It was just supposed to be a new idea that actually got finished. And I accomplished that, so I'm OK with it.
At the same time, though, I still really want to finish another project pretty soon... something accessible, that people will actually have a lot of fun playing. I also want it to be meaningful, though. I have an idea, and I've started working on it (just a small bit, though). Hopefully it will get finished... I also have plans for a larger project, because I really want to try doing something bigger than anything I've produced in the past. Before I do that, though, I do want to release a game that I will feel good about... And I want it to be something I feel good about because people actually liked it, not just because "Hey, I finally finished something. Good job, me!"

(By the way, the photograph in this post was taken by Chrissy Chubala, who also visited from Winnipeg. Her album of pictures from the event can be found here.)

I already have subjects planned for a few more posts; hopefully those will go up some time this week! Have a good day, everybody!

A moderately brief introduction:

2010-06-13T07:19:00.002-05:00

I woke up at 5:00 AM today, and I feel glorious.
...I felt like I needed to share that for some reason.

Well, this is my blog. Its primary focus is to keep you up to date on my projects. This won't be limited exclusively to games, because I work on a lot of different things... Games will probably be the primary focus, though.
I'm notorious for being unnecessarily verbose, so I'm going to try to keep posts in this blog short and readable. I don't know how well that will work out, but I am going to make an attempt, at least... I also want to post pictures (screenshots, artwork, photographs, etc.) regularly, so you aren't just faced with boring walls of text. I don't know how often I will update, but I want to make it fairly regular. I won't just be talking about what I've been working on; I'll also be sharing my thoughts on other matters. Some of them will be related to independent gaming / game development, and some of them will not be. If there's anything interesting or important going on in my life, I'll tell you about that, too. Basically, if you read other blogs, you probably know what to expect already.
I want to make this something very interesting to read. I've seen a lot of blogs that are boring wastes of time, but I've also seen some very cool blogs that are a joy to read even if I have little interest in the author or his/her work. I want to try to put this in that second category... Although I hope that over time people will become interested in what I'm doing by reading this, even if they were not at the beginning.

If you aren't familiar with my work, I would encourage you to visit my profile on Game Jolt. I admit that, at the moment, there isn't anything particularly impressive there... But it's all definitely worth playing. I would greatly appreciate it if you would spend a few minutes with each of my games, give them ratings, and post comments with your thoughts. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback so far, which has been pretty depressing.

...By the way, how do you all feel about the appearance of this blog? The basic layout and all of the "foreground" box images are not my work, but I have added my own background, icons, colors, etc. to make it more distinctive. The color scheme may strike some people as being a bit feminine; I don't know why, but I've been liking grayish purples lately. In my defense, however, Jesse Venbrux's website is pink and white. And he's a pretty cool guy.
If he can get away with that, I figure I'm more or less safe. But that might be assuming that I am also "a pretty cool guy", which is probably open to much debate.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy reading this blog. Remember to post comments; I find that very encouraging. =)