So when do I become a programming super saiyan? I'm already blond and blue eyed, perhaps it's when I reach Gabe status of physicality? I'm well on my way #sittingdoesnotaskinnymanmake
I'm just excited, because I'm remembering so much of what I use to know and applying it. Ordered a new Zip Disk drive so I could grab my old FPS artwork from the 90's. Figured I'd make a free little demo game for GameJolt or something, using the old art assets from my High School project, since I've made a crude little sprite based FPS system. :P
Oh and I finished another crash course in C#... I learned nothing. So I guess that's good! The beginner courses have nothing new to show me, onto the intermediate! I took a course on Programming concepts, which is more about logic and theory rather than code. It was informative, but most of it was just review. I also did a quick 1 hour JavaScript course as a refresher. Yep, still know enough Javascript to be dangerous. :D
I'm currently 28 hours into my beginner to pro C# unity course called, "Learn To Code by Making Games". It's 45.5 hours long and I have to say it's taught me a lot. After that I'll be going into an 6 hours advanced C# Unity course and then a 3 hour course on procedural generation (since that seems to be all the rage these days).
I'm happy to have the time to learn / re-learn all this stuff! I'm just very worried about my future.
Well I heard back from the two jobs that passed my resume onto their hiring leads. I was past by both companies, so I'm back to square one. I wish I could just focus on deving From Beyond, but that simply isn't possible without something to live on. I also was denied unemployment, because they won't include the most recent quarter, and the 1st quarter they included from last year was terrible, due to a mill shut down. So yeah, I have no income and am jobless. This isn't good. I have 14 days to find work that pays at least 35k or I will be in a dire situation. I am capable of relocating, since I am not tied to a lease at the moment, so please, if anyone out there is hiring (or wants to fund a revolutionary video game ;) ) let me know.
Over the past few days I've plowed through series of certifications, just to refresh my skills set (since I thought I was getting a job that would require them). I am almost done with a course on SQL and another on Javascript, but as of this posting they both sit around 50% completed.
Danielle will be out of the house until Monday, so I will take this time to finish getting my certs, applying for jobs, and cleaning the house. I'm just so severely disappointed about not getting either of those jobs. They paid 55k and 70k, which to me would have been an entire lifestyle change. Even the woman who interviewed me said I was more than qualified, I have no idea what happened.
Well I cut together a new trailer for Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus in time for the Steam summer sale:
I lost my day job as Simpson Lumber was liquidated, because the new owner (the great grandson of the founder) didn't want to run the company anymore. :( He has single handedly killed a community and caused over 300 people locally to lose their jobs (without the mill running Green Diamond loses it's biggest timber consumer, Simpson Railroad has nothing to run, etc. etc.)
I've been applying for jobs like crazy for the past few weeks and currently have two interviews setup.
I've been programming a solo project from scratch, called Defend the Earth, it's a simple arcade mobile game, meant as a way to buff out my programming skills. Traditionally, I'm more of project manager, builder, designer, animator, sfx, kind of guy. I can program, but it's not my strong suite. My current goal is to change that. Forgive my alpha art, it's based off Ed Wood and Earth vs the Flying Saucers. It is still very rough.
Other projects I'm working on?
Escape from the Salad Kingdom, a graphic adventure game for tablets is still being developed. With all the job stuff going on, Danielle is too busy to just sit down and pump out the artwork, but the design doc is ready and slowly it's coming together.
and finally...
From Beyond, my largest most ambitious project to date. The ultimate game. The one game that is actually me trying to do something different, in terms of gameplay, story, interactivity, co-op, it's Danielle's and my game concept that attempts innovation. It's not an adventure game, an FPS, an arcade game, it's genre is unique and it will appeal to role-players, VR enthusiasts and horror fans on a very real level. We've produced a detailed pitch document and I am currently working on the prototype. It's just a very large endeavor and will require at least 30K in coin to get to a presentable level that could be KS'ed to completion. This is my dream project, it's not unobtainable, but it will be difficult. I will share more info as things progress. We've shared the pitch doc with several publishers, one of which showed interest but needed to see a prototype, before committing money. So that's our next step. It may seem to be on the back burner, but all of the above it just preparing myself to undertake this masterwork. Yes we have two other programmers on the team, who would be willing to contribute and probably will, but this is something I want to be involved in and understand from inception to completion. I don't want to compromise, because I can't communicate the AI properly to the programmer or have corners cut in the design, because it makes something easier. I'm damn proud of Dungeons, with everything that went wrong during production it was sheer force of will that we pulled through, but in the end it fell short of our initial vision due to compromise. That won't happen this time, with the needed skills to do the work that's necessary to get it to completion as it is envisioned.
