Get in the Game

Mondays suck. Maybe not all of them, but a lot of them. I think Mondays at the Guildhall suck worse than normal. Instead of adjusting to the work week after a nice relaxing we instead adjust to the work week after working thorough most of the weekend. I will apologize in advance for this post as I'm in a pretty sour mood. Not for any reason other than there's a lot due this week and I'm not sure how I can get it done. Probably not the worst week I've had here, but certainly closer to the hardest than the easiest. Also, all the work I have to do this week is more documentation, not really building anything. This can be exciting and I imagine it would be if everything wasn't under the gun, but when you have to come up with the documentation for two complete levels (not to mention the methodology for a Thesis) over the course of a few days it becomes more stressful than anything else. I know that being a Game Designer involves a lot of documenting and virtually no "building" but I imagine it's a bit different than what I am experiencing now. Either way, I suppose I should at least consider it when choosing my career path.

Now I am the first to admit I did less work than I could have (and probably should have) this weekend. In fact, I think I admitted it in my last post. Rick and Sharon seem to think that I made the right choice resting up this weekend instead of working myself silly, and while that may be true it doesn't make my current predicament any easier. There's just a mind boggling amount of writing and "creating" that I have to do over the next few days, and I'm really not sure I can do it all. I'll give it my best try, as always, and I guess what will happen will happen. Not much more I can do than my best. It just keeps getting harder to pull the sort of long hours I did in Term 1 and 2. I mean I think I did like four all-nighters Term 2. I'm not sure if its actually physical exhaustion or a sign that my devotion has somewhat lessened since coming here, but however you want to describe it, I've grown weary of the constant toil and I can't force myself to do it anymore. Like I said, sour mood.

Anyway, things aren't all bad here. We find out our teams and games tomorrow, and we have a sort of UE3 crash course on Wednesday, which should be fun. Outside of that, I've got an LDD and Thesis Proposal draft due Thursday so wish me luck! For now, I'm off!

I Guess I Can't Complain...

Or at least I probably shouldn't. Admittedly, I did more work this weekend than most outside of the Guildhall probably did, and yet less than I had intended or probably should have. If this week looks like it does on my calendar there shouldn't be any significant fallout, but the syllabi this term have been less reliable than they normally are. The big piece is that we have a Level Design Document due on Thursday that I probably should have started. Actually, I probably should have tried to get most of it done, but that's beside the point. I haven't even started it yet and looking at it now, that probably wasn't the best idea. I'm not sure why we need to spend a week writing a 20+ page document for a level that we only have two weeks to work on, but that's just me.

Anyway, that being said, today was otherwise productive. I finished writing my Thesis proposal, though I still need to include a level abstract (another documented level design). Which means that will probably still take another night to finish. The LDD shouldn't take more than a couple days provided nothing else gets in the way, but I've probably bought myself at least one long night this week. Documentation is a slow, but unfortunately necessary process.

I guess I feel like I could have done more this weekend, but at the same time, I needed to recover from last week's exertions. It's a vicious cycle. I don't do as much during the weekend because I need to recover from the week, which only leads the next week to be harder, and so on and so forth. Oh well, as I said, I guess I can't complain too much, we're already moving into week six of our eight week term (well, like 8.5 this term). Of course, that just adds more weight to everything I am supposed to get done before then. Still, I've never failed to meet a deadline thus far, so I'm sure I'll get it done. Alright, well, I'm tired and this is going to be another long week, so I better get some rest while I can (and maybe just a tiny bit more MGS4).

A Day Of Rest (Mostly)

Well, I've been out of contact for a few days, but with good reason. The last few days of last week were pretty fierce. Trying to coordinate our pitch/mod for Game Design, and trying to write up my proposal outline for my Thesis proved to be complicated tasks. In truth, the thesis outline wasn't that bad and most of the time I spent on it was really trying to figure out what I was actually planning to do for my thesis. Now that that is basically decided I have to actually write up the proposal which is far more time consuming.

The Dissonance pitch went pretty well I think, it probably would have gone better if I'd had more than two hours of sleep, but I guess you can't have everything. We find out Tuesday what the games and teams are, I'd say I'm a bit worried, but it's firmly out of my hands so I'm not sweating it. I'm hoping that in the absolute worst case my professionalism will outweigh my dislike for a particular project. If I don't end up being game designer on one of the projects I'll be pretty upset, but if it means I get to work on one of the projects I'm really passionate about, I'd probably accept it.

Given I was running on two days on nearly no sleep, yesterday was a lot of napping and relaxing (after the pitches of course). I played the crap out of Age of Conan and finally got out of Tortage (the newbie area). I must say that game is really quite enjoyable, it has the sensibilities of singleplayer game for its storytelling (at least as far as I have experienced) and the action oriented combat of a dungeon crawler. Of all the MMOs I've played thus far, if there was one I was going to get deep into, it would be this. I'm still not sure if it will be manage to keep me entertained enough to get all the way to the "end game," but for right now I've been enjoying it very much.

Today I woke up and played a bit more of Age of Conan, watched the Battlestar Galactica mid-season finale, and then finally did some work on my thesis. I revised the Field Review to be more focused on my actual project and started writing up the methodology. Then around 7:00, I decided to go out and reward myself for all the hard work I've been doing lately. I went to Best Buy and bought myself a couple games: Metal Gear Solid 4 and Ninja Gaiden II. I don't really have anything to say about NG2 as I haven't even tried it yet, the reason being that MGS4 is simply fantastic.

I've only played a few hours of it, but it's been amazing thus far. Both the stealth and action gameplay have gotten a significant upgrade (particularly the action). The gunplay is, in fact, so much better that it has turned my Snake into more of a hardcore killer than he usually is. Usually I try to play the game the sneaky "tranquilize everything" way, but with so many different guns that are so fun to use, I couldn't really handle resigning myself to just using the tranquilizer pistol. The story seems very well put together, tying well into the series's long and circuitous history. The graphics are simply mind-blowing, it may simply be the best looking games ever. In real-time the game looks better than the pre-rendered cutscenes you'd see in most other games. Even when you are sitting in a cutscene wondering if you'll ever be allowed to pick up the controller again, you can't help but marvel at the visuals.

I could go on and on about the game (and maybe I will in a future post), but this post is already getting long enough. What I can say is, it's the most fun I think I've had with an MGS and that's saying a lot. If you're a fan of the series, you probably already have it and aren't reading this anyhow, but for everyone else, I'd say this is a title that any PS3 owner should own. The graphics and gameplay are amazing, and the game is polished to a sheen. I think the PS3 finally has its first true system-seller. Anyway, it's late and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow (due in no small part to the extensive resting I've done today), so I'm going to end here. If you own MGS4 you should go play it, and if you don't you should go buy it (and a PS3 if necessary), you won't be disappointed.

No Time for Chat

Sorry I missed last night's post and tonight's isn't going to be too stellar either. I'm currently buried in work and I'm just trying to dig my way out. It's not simply grunt work that I just need to invest time in and it will be done, it's creative work like drafting sections of my Thesis Proposal and improving the gameplay section of our pitch for Friday. There's are a lot of thoughts, ideas, concepts, etc. rolling around my head, but I'm having trouble bringing things into focus which is making everything take much longer. We also have another writing quiz tomorrow which I need to study for. Anyway, I desperately need to get to work before my energy completely tanks.

Sorry I Missed You

I got wrapped up in the scripting the mod for our demo on Friday and I completely lost track of time. Now, I quickly need to get to sleep so I can wake up bright and shiny for tomorrow's Game Education Summit. Night, all!

How is it 10 :00 already?

I'm not sure where today really went. I woke up, played a little Age of Conan and then it was suddenly 10:00. I spent most of the day working on finishing up my scripting assignment which regretfully took much longer than I had anticipated. I also did a few household chores that have been sitting on my to do list for quite some time. That's really about it, nothing really exciting to report on. Apparently my experience over this weekend is it takes somewhere between 10 and 20 times as long to document something as it does to actually just go and do it. I figured out how to set up the scripting for my assignment within probably about an hour, but I took me more than ten hours to document all the steps. Anyway, it's done and the extra time didn't have a huge effect of my schedule so I guess I should be thankful for that. I meant to do more work on setting up some scripted elements for our pitch on Friday but I can start looking at those tomorrow.

Oh, I guess there is one "big thing" coming up this week. There's this big Game Education Summit this week at SMU. All the students have been asked (read: are required) to attend, but most of the sessions seem more geared at educators than students (which makes sense for an education conference. Still there are some good topics that should be interesting, and it gets us out of class (well, one of them) so I can't really complain. Overall things are pretty comfortable, I'm busy but not overwhelmed and I think I have a pretty good handle on everything I'm trying to do, which is pretty amazing considering the term is already half over.

It's actually surprising how quickly (and non-traumatically) things have gone this term. It really does reaffirm my belief that the worst is over. Also, as the internship gets closer I continue to get more excited about actually getting to do some real work. I still need to give myself a crash course in Unreal 3, but given the rate at which we learn engines here, I don't imagine it should be too bad (fingers crossed). Anyway, that's it, off to enjoy what little weekend remains. Later!

Saturday Bloodbath

Well, it's been a long day, maybe not in hours I've been conscious, but in hours of grueling labor I've put in today. To be fair, this isn't even close to the hardest Saturday I've had, but that hasn't kept it from feeling particularly grueling. I got a bit of a late start today as I stayed up too late playing with Age of Conan and then after I woke up late I continued to play with it until about 3:00. I am very much enjoying it thus far, and I think the action-oriented combat really adds a lot to the game. I'm still trying to figure out what class I wish to be, so I've played a number of different characters for a couple hours a piece trying to get a feel for their playstyle.

My two current favorites are the Herald of Xotli, a sort of Cthulu inspired spellsword (uses swords and sorcery) and the Tempest of Set, which is a mix between a combat mage, a soldier, and a healer. I've also tried the Necromancer which really didn't suit my tastes, the Dark Templar, which is somewhat interesting, and the Bear Shaman which people say starts off kind of crappy but starts to get pretty awesome once he hits about level 15. I'm still playing around with them and probably won't have it completely figured out until the end of this weekend. The game is beautiful though and my new video card is pretty beast, which is awesome.

Anyway, as I was saying...grueling work. We have this scripting assignment for Level Design which is sort of like our midterm project. We basically had to come up with some sort of scripting challenge or task and then write a step-by-step tutorial of how to do it. While that may not sound like a lot of work (as I thought) apparently writing a step-by-step guide of how to do basically anything is far more time-consuming than I had originally imagined. I'd say I am most of the way to finishing it, but I spent a good seven hours on it today and I'll probably need to invest a few more in it tomorrow as well. Then I've still got some other work to do and I need to prepare to present my scripting tutorial to the class on Monday. Well, I'm done for tonight though so I think I'm going to go bash some Hyborian heads in and let off some steam. I think I've earned it.

I almost forgot...

I thought a couple times that I needed to post something, but I kept getting distracted by this, that, and the other. It was a good day, so I can't complain too much. My last level of LD has some weird bugs crop up, so I stayed up later than I should have last night trying to iron them out, but Thesis prep was canceled this morning so that let me make up at least some of the lost sleep. We spent the afternoon critiquing C8s DFSs for LD. On the whole they were very impressive, which is cool. Some people were doing some very interesting stuff with Source, some stuff I didn't even realize it could do (or at least I'm not sure how people did it). I helped a few C8s by being guinea pigs for their Thesis tests and I lent my PS3 to a couple C8s who have upcoming interviews at Insomniac. Apparently I am one of a handful of people at the Guildhall who own one. Anyway, they were very grateful and I figure it couldn't hurt to give a favor to someone who might be employed at Insomniac in the near future ;-).

Other than that I spent tonight organizing my thoughts for tomorrow's concept discussion with the Dissonance team and I've been researching my scripting project for level design. Things are going pretty well right now and maintaining a relatively low level of intensity (relatively is the operative word there). Anyway, I'm gonna work a bit more on my scripting project so I can have some more free time this weekend. Later!

Lost in Level Design

Well, I'm finished mourning my lost game and I've gotten back to my happier professional attitude of doing the very best with what I have. I've been soliciting feedback from students and faculty and trying to understand where our initial pitch was weak and how we can improve it. I got my Field Review back and my supervisor had only one sentence I needed to work on so I take that as a pretty good sign. I also got notice that a couple packages are winging their way to me (gifts from me to me). Gears of War should be here in the next couple days and I also ended up buying a new video card. I hadn't really planned on that second one, but a friend here just did and was talking about how the prices on Newegg were really good right now so I had to check it out, ultimately I ended up buying a new 8800 GT. Now I just need something to really push it. Gears should somewhat, but I've been thinking of picking up Age of Conan since I know a bunch of friends at school are playing it, and I can think of worse ways to spend my time. Besides, after a frustrating day of game development I imagine bashing in a few skulls would be pretty relaxing.

Oh yeah, I should probably explain the subject before I have to take off. I have been marveling the last couple days at how much I really do enjoy this work. Right now, I am specifically referring to level design, though I really enjoy all of it. It's hard work with long hours, but at the end of the day I really enjoy it. Even when I tell myself I am going to stop working on my level at a certain time, I always end up running long as I keep trying to improve it and add in little details. I think I ended up overscoping my most recent homework assignment somewhat for that reason. I'm not really sure how it happened as it doesn't seem that complicated of a design, but I know I have spent a significant amount of time on it. It's coming along really well though, so I'm pretty happy with it. I realize I haven't posted screenshots in a while which has probably made the blog a little less exciting so I'll try to get on those over the weekend. Alright, well I've got lots to do, so I better get to it!

My Robot is Dead

I sadly mourn the loss of my remaining game idea. I still think that it would have been a really fun game to play as well as to work on, but I guess my classmates, for one reason or another, did not agree. I guess I've been a bit disillusioned with the whole process we've been going through this term to determine our next projects. I'm not entirely sure why, I'm sure that my games not making the cut is a big part of it. I mean, it seems like we aren't really voting on games as much as we seem to keep voting on themes. The games selected tend to have cool themes that still need gameplay defined before they are actually games, and while a cool theme is all well and good, I get more fired up about exciting gameplay. That might be a bit unfair in some cases and surely the pitches from last week helped define a bit more of the gameplay in most cases, but it just seems like its much easier to sell a theme than it is to sell a mechanic, so that's what people are basically doing. As I said, that may be the bitter ranting of a would-be game designer whose idea just got the ax.

In all actuality, I'm probably just tired and things will seem a whole lot better in the morning. We had our interviews for the lead positions today and I think mine went really well, so I think I would be surprised if I wasn't chosen as one of the Game Designers for this project. So that has made me think about the different projects still on the table. I think Dissonance has a lot of potential, but I think it is surrounded by a number of rather large "if"s that would need to be handled correctly. Mostly if we could do the game as it has been described thus far, I think it would be amazing. The real question on everyone's mind is: can we?

To be honest, I'm not sure, I'm torn between being the sort of gung-ho cheerleader for the game and trying to be more realistic about our time and level of expertise. I'd still love to work on the sky pirate game (duh) but beyond that I think my interest level starts to fall off. The next (and final) round of pitches are next Friday and from there the teams and projects will be selected. From that, a large portion of my next two terms will be decided so its a little tense. Not nerve-wracking biting-my-fingernails tension, but more just a feeling of something heavy approaching. Anyway, I am no doubt thinking about things too much, and if I know myself at all (which I ought to), I know I'll be able to get behind pretty much anything I'm on. Right now with things up in the air, its easy to poke holes in things and then be a bit sad that none of our ideas are perfect. Once things are settled, I think it will be much easier for me to get fully invested.

As for right now, I am the main designer on Dissonance for the final pitch, though our team has grown to include the original person who came up with the concept (replacing an artist transferred to a different pitch) and an additional programmer. Now we need to actually try and mock up some very general things in Source (mostly to get the programmers and artists used to the engine) and polish up the concept document/presentation for the final push. It should definitely be interesting. On the whole I think that this process has been at least moderately successful in getting people's creative juices flowing. I mean, most of the concepts that remain have seen rather significant development from their initial concept and some have been drastically revised. As I said, most of my negative energy is probably mourning the loss of My Robot and will dissipate as I get focused on the next project. I'll let you all know how things develop.

Calm Before the Storm

Well...not a great deal really happened today. I spent the morning finishing up my Field Review so I could send it into my thesis supervisor (a term I still haven't gotten used to using since we also have a thesis advisor and they fill entirely separate roles) for revisions before it is due on Thursday. We had level design class this afternoon, but it was a work day and the professor had to step out for a doctor's appointment, so it was really just a few of us sitting around working on our levels for Thursday. I went out to get groceries and ordered some stuff from Best Buy. What I really needed was Gears of War for the PC so I could start learning the Unreal 3 editor for the internship, but Best Buy was having like a $10 off deal if you preordered one of a couple PC games (and bought one over $30), so I preordered Spore as well. It said it was coming out in September, though still have my doubts. I also did a little research into my character for the Homestar Runner LARP tonight. Now I'll probably spend a little more time working on my level before I head to bed.

While today wasn't particularly eventful, tomorrow is chocked full of important events. Tomorrow morning we find out the next batch of game design assignments, there's an executive luncheon on learning in games, I have my lead interview for our capstone project, and then right after that I have the Homestar Runner LARP. Somewhere in that big mess I should also try to work on the new game design I've been assigned or attempt to get some work done on my level. Now that the field review is done, I think there's a little bit of a break as far as thesis is concerned. There are milestones for the thesis proposal every week, but the proposal is not so far beyond the field review that it should pose to much trouble. Though I've no doubt jinxed it now so I'm basically screwed ;-). Anyway, that's about it, I should try to get some work done. Later!

Academic Writing = :-(

Well, I've been writing for a long time today, and I really don't have nearly enough to show for it. I mean, I guess I haven't been "writing" the entire day, I've been organizing, thinking, occasionally putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard as it were). I think it's coming out pretty well, though the requirements are loosely defined so I hope my advisor doesn't completely tear it apart. It could be worse I suppose, but it's one of those sad things where you have to put in a lot of effort to get remarkably little done, at least that's how it is for me. I'm sure Rick could write this kind of thing in his sleep, but it's just never really been my thing. I'll do the projects, I'll do the research, I'll even do the analysis, but it always takes me forever to do the write-up *shrug*. Anyway, I better get back to it, later all!

Working Weekend

Well, putting in a 10+ hour day on Saturday never feels particularly good, but I think I managed to get a fair bit accomplished so that's something. I spent most of the day reading level design and environmental psychology articles doing background research for my thesis and then I've spent the last few hours working to get a little ahead on our next LD assignment. Tomorrow I've got to actually take all the research and turn it into a written Field Review for submission to my advisor on Monday. I also have to "research" my role for our the Homestar Runner LARP in my Special Topics class on Tuesday. Yeah, I'm serious, I'm playing Bubs. I think it's supposed to help us understand social games or something like that. The example precedes the lesson so I'm not entirely sure, but it should be fun regardless. The special topics course is definitely all over the place, but just talking with Sandy is interesting so it's a really engaging course.

My LD assignment turned out nice and the Dissonance pitch went pretty well I'd say, but I had to pull two back-to-back late nights which ended up leaving me pretty drained so I spent the rest of yesterday recuperating in my apartment. I also think the My Robot pitch went over pretty well, so hopefully it will make it into the top 5. I think there are plenty of people that dislike it on face, but there are enough people that are really passionate about it that a great team could be put together to work on it. My only worry is that the faculty are looking more at the averages than the actual scores so some of the other pitches may have higher averages, but no one is particularly excited about them. *Shrug* Nothing to be done about it now, just gotta hope for the best. If I get to work on My Robot, Dissonance, or Skies of Lanadia (the sky pirate game) I think I would be pretty happy with how things turned out.

In other news, I officially decided to accept the Gearbox internship yesterday. Shocking, I know. I thought about the alternatives, but the pros were just so heavily in favor of doing it that it ended up being a pretty simple choice. I've been itching to try my hand at real work as I imagine many of the other students have, it's a great opportunity for learning, networking, and some professional experience to put on my resume. I also think it will be, you know, fun, and could help reinforce that I can actually do this job. The project we'd be working on is still in pre-production so we'd get to have a big hand (well...somewhat big) in how the thing actually develops, which is sweet. There's also some modest compensation, which is a nice change of pace from the Guildhall as well. Anyway, I think it's gonna be good for me so I decided to go for it. It's going to take away from time I could spend on my thesis or building portfolio pieces for Bioware or Blizzard, but it feels very much like the right course for me.

Alright, that's it for tonight. Gonna veg some before bed, later!

Too Busy, Need Sleep

Almost forgot to post. Still working on presentation for tomorrow. Will update later.

No Time

It's been another semi-eventful day here at the Guildhall. I got some work done on my HL2 level (though there's still a fair bit to do) and we fleshed out the concept for the Music RTS (now called Dissonance, though there's still more to do there as well). Now, I have to study for a writing quiz tomorrow morning before I can get back to work on my HL2 level lest I fail that assignment. On top of that, I think we might have a quiz on HL2 optimization techniques in LD class. Not sure, but I'm not sure I have anytime to study for it anyhow, we'll see what I can scrape together. Then tomorrow, I need to work to create the gameplay sections for the Dissonance concept doc, and prepare the presentation. Can Friday come any faster?

In other news, I actually got offered the Gearbox internship today. I believe four out of the six level designers were chosen and three out of however many artists applied. I didn't see any programmers listed, but considering they had a second round of interviews they might have done something different. Anyway, I got the internship which is pretty cool, it doesn't explain really anything about the job except the pay and the start date. I haven't decided exactly what I want to do with it. I'm still itching to start trying out my skills in the "real world" and this is a fantastic opportunity, but I'd sort of given up the job as lost so now I'm a bit confused as to how to react. I'd already started thinking about how I want to use that time, and my thesis adviser has encouraged me to use it for thesis so I can get ahead of schedule before term 7. *Shrug* I don't know. In all honestly, I'll probably end up taking it, just so I can get a sense of really what the job is like and what I'm looking for, but I think it deserves at least a couple days of deliberation (when, of course, I have the time for deliberating).

Anyway, that's really it, I'd love to talk more about it, but I have tons of work and a powerful need to sleep sometime this week. Later!