Ammunition > Heroics

Every good story has some kind of conflict. The end of the story, then, comes when that conflict begins to be resolved. Well, my story for the year is beginning to wrap up, and Paul versus college turned out to not be such a difficult struggle. This has definitely been a huge year for me, though. I've learned a lot, of course, but most of that learning happened outside the classroom. I've changed and grown more than I expected I would, and I'm really happy about that.

I could say a lot about this year, and I think the best way to communicate the important things is to fall back on a technique I seem to use fairly frequently: categorization.


Education
Obviously, I have been spending a lot of time learning things. Most of my classes were related directly to the Bible, and it was really cool that, even in the ones that weren't, it was apparent that I was at a Bible college. That really helped enforce the idea that this is not a religion. It's not just another thing I do; my whole life is about glorifying God.
My understanding of the Bible has really increased this year, and I feel like I have just generally become a lot more intelligent. I was a little skeptical at first, because I've spent a lot of time learning things just by reading on the Internet, and for a while I wasn't sure if the education I received at college was even going to be worth the money I would be spending. I've discovered, though, that reading is just generally inferior to a formal education. Granted, it's still really expensive (especially at a private school). But it's definitely beneficial.

Time
I have had to learn a lot of things about time management. I've always had a problem dealing with small amounts of things. Loose change used to bother me, because it takes up more space than I felt it was worth. I had the same issue with time; if I only had a few spare minutes, I never used them well. Being here, though, has really changed that. Between school, work, and other miscellaneous obligations, I haven't had a lot of free time. I still have a long way to go in improving how I use that time, but I feel like I'm definitely more efficient now. Now, when I am doing things that would be considered "entertainment" or "leisure activities", I willfully spend time, deciding why doing such a thing would be beneficial at the moment, even if it's just something like "I need a break from homework or my brain is going to cave in." I've learned that though it is definitely possible to waste time without thinking I am doing so, it is at most an extremely rare occurrence for me to think I am wasting my time and actually be spending it well. As soon as I decide something is a waste of time, it becomes a waste of time because I'm not applying myself to it anymore. Furthermore, wasting time is never a good thing.

Wisdom
For most of high school (well, the first two years in particular), I was a very foolish person. More or less a complete moron at times. People would give me advice, and I would ignore it. "These people don't understand the whole situation," I'd think. "I'm the one going through this, so I have the best grasp of what's going on. So doesn't that mean I can come up with the best solution?" This year taught me a lot about listening to other people, though. I've been specifically asking for advice on a lot of things, large and small, from my pastors, my parents, and various friends. I've heard a lot of really intelligent things, and it's helped make me a generally wiser person. Listening to my professors has been really good too. They really want to get to know all of their students (one of the benefits of a smaller school), and they all made it clear that they were available to talk at pretty much any time. I didn't really take advantage of that as much as I could have, but I got to know them a little better just from sitting with them at meals and such. Next year I should spend even more time around my teachers to see what I can learn from them. They're all very smart, reasonable people.

Friends
Speaking of smart, reasonable people... I've made a lot of really great friends this year. Of all of the subjects I'm bringing up here, this has been the most important. If it hadn't been for the people here, this whole year would have been unremarkable. I remember my parents and other adults telling me several times that the friends I made at college would quickly become some of my best friends and would stay that way for the rest of my life... I didn't realize how true that was, of course, until it really happened. Sure, I made some nice friends in high school, and I'm kind of close to some of them. But here it's been really different. I never really had to go through much before... Dealing with different things as an adult has resulted in me growing closer to the people around me. Up until now I didn't really need good friends, just people to hang out with. It's definitely true that most of the people I know here here aren't lose friends, and many really are just people I do things with a lot. But at the same time, there's a much smaller group of closer friends. There's a few people in particular that I really appreciate, and most of them realize that, but there are some who are probably still pretty unwitting about how much they really mean to me. Other people didn't used to be very important to me; I was pretty proud and self-centered. But now I've really started to rely more on others... I'm not sure I really expected this, but it's definitely my friends who have really made this year meaningful.

Communication
I've always been a pretty straightforward person, but this year has really taught me the importance of honesty. In the past, when people did things that I found to be hurtful, I just tried my best to spend less time around those people. Now, though, I have become a lot more comfortable with talking to people directly and telling them about the problem. I've really appreciated all of the opportunities I have had just to talk with people in general this year. I've gotten to know the people around me pretty well; I've learned a lot, even about the people I wouldn't consider to be really good friends. I've also met quite a few people who are particularly good listeners... A lot of the things I like to talk about don't interest other people, or they are things nobody really understands at all. But I've found a surprising number of people who will listen to me anyway. It's been neat.

Gravity
I will readily admit that I'm not a normal person. I have weird interests and a weird personality. But as people got to know me near the beginning of this year, I realized that my weirdness wasn't being taken very well. A lot of people began to see me, not just as odd, but as silly. Nobody really understood a lot of the things I said, so they just thought I was crazy and didn't take me seriously at all. Eventually I realized that by not being very reserved, I was actually encouraging those opinions. In the end, I announced as publicly as possible that this was going to have to be fixed, admitting that a good portion of this was my fault. Since then, I've definitely been working on that area... But even now, there are a lot of people who refuse to see me as a serious person. I have said things like "You know, I'm very realistic," and people just laugh. "No you're not, Paul," they say. "You don't make any sense at all." If they would just take five seconds to actually listen to what I'm saying some time, they might change their minds... I guess I still have some work to do. I definitely can't take all of the responsibility; it's clear at this point that this isn't totally my fault. But I think I can go pretty far just by being honest with people and trying to be a little more understandable.

Art
For some reason, after I made a lot of friends this year, I just assumed I had now surrounded myself with reasonable critics. I quickly discovered, however, that this is not the case at all. I don't often directly solicit feedback, but I don't really need to. I get a lot of very brief comments that are often difficult to interpret... I'm honestly not sure why I expected everybody to understand what I'm doing. Maybe it's because I spend a lot of time reading the opinions of people who are on the same page as me (this year I was even able to meet a small group of independent game developers in Ames, which was very cool). Whatever the case, I quickly discovered that people think a lot of what I do (especially the things I draw, since that makes up most of what people actually see right now) is really weird. Well, it is weird. That's intentional. But for some reason it bothers me when people react to it... I'm beginning to understand that the people I'm used to hearing (/reading) from are used to strangeness and love things that are unique. But out in the "real world", not many people like that exist. I still want to create things that are unusual, because, in my opinion, making things just like what everybody else has already done is a big waste of time. People have to have a reason to choose what I'm producing over all of their other options, and they're going to choose based on what is different. I feel that even the most relaxed, reserved, and "normal" person, somewhere inside, has a desire to see something new. At the same time though, if I go too far, I'm going to turn a lot of people away. So I've been working on finding some kind of balance.
Another issue related to this is the fact that people simply do not take games seriously at all. A lot of people treat what I'm doing as a joke, and often I have just played a long, because it seems like a waste of time to try to convince people. In the future, though, I'm going to work harder at trying to make my friends understand that what I am doing is serious business to me. I am, very honestly, trying to make art that will impact people. And I think it's completely acceptable that I have chosen to use games as one of the mediums I'm doing that through.

God's Will
This has been a crazy year as far as what it has revealed about the future. I went in not knowing what God had for my life... and I'm coming out not knowing what God has for my life. But there has been a big difference. I'm not at all worried. God is revealing small things, one at a time, and showing me that it's OK to not know where I'll be five years from now. I was really encouraged and challenged by going over Phil Vischer's book a second time (because I wrote a paper on him for English). In it, he states strongly that where he is in five years is none of his business, and he suggests that this is the way all Christians should live. I agree with him. I understand that God has shown a lot of people what their careers are going to be, but He never shows all of the details. Well, God has been showing me that for me, my career is one of those unimportant details. He'll let me know when I need to know. Right now... I don't need to know. That seems weird since I'm at college, but very recently something came up that could possibly explain the rest of my education, as well as the first few years after I graduate. This came up very recently, and as soon as I was given the idea, I also received a very interest feeling of peace and comfort. It's still too soon to say much else about this; I feel like I still need to think and pray about it a lot more before I'm certain. But it's been really cool to watch how God is showing me important things about the rest of my life; I'm really learning to trust Him, because His plan is much better than anything I could come up with.
In addition to what I've just mentioned, there's at least one other thing that has to do with the future, but not necessarily my career... something God seems to be showing me a very small part of. I'm not ready to talk about either of those things yet, because they're really just things I'm now considering that I had been confused about before. As they take more shape, I'll be able to share more. Until then... I'm just waiting and trusting God.



...I think I've covered most of what I wanted to cover.
Now, on to a new topic:

I think this post is a fitting way to close the school year... and also a fitting way to close this whole blog. This is going to be the last post you'll see here.
Now, that doesn't mean I'm done blogging all together. Through the summer and into next year, I plan on taking more time to share what I've been up to. But I want to make a lot of changes in general format and schedule, as well as in the content and purpose of the actual posts.
I'm going to label my next blog as a "development blog" for my projects. That's going to be its primary purpose, but it will definitely also cover what has been going on in my life. Some things that are more detailed or personal, however, will be left out. If I want to post about those things, I will use Facebook notes (if you're not already my friend on Facebook, you can add me), so people who won't really understand / don't need to hear what I'm talking about won't see them. Currently, the only people who really know about this blog are people who do understand what I'm talking about most of the time and are interested in hearing it. But that's going to change for this next blog, which will be considerably more public. I don't know if that means it will actually be read that much, though.
Now that I've brought that up, actually, I should address it, because it's a significant issue.
I read a lot of blogs. I like reading blogs. If you have one and you don't think I'm reading it, let me know, and I'll bookmark it. If you don't have one, but you read some that are interesting, you should show me those, too. Because I like blogs. Apparently, though, I'm part of a dwindling group. Not a lot of people read blogs anymore, it seems.
So I would really like feedback on this... If I start a new blog, will you actually read it? How often? Leave a comment.

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking of doing with the new blog:

1. I will post updates on what I am working on. Not just computer games, though! Expect to see other things... drawings, music, short stories, videos... whatever I feel like working on. Mostly you'll probably see weird sketches, stuff from whatever game I end up picking as my big project (because I really need to get one and stick with it), and odd bits of writing. I plan on doing a lot of writing over the summer; it's one of several things I want to turn back into a habit that will hopefully be preserved into the school year.
2. I will post updates on what I have been up to in life. These probably won't be very detailed, because I'll mostly just be doing work and school and such, but hopefully every now and then I will also relate a brief story... something weird or interesting that happened to me.
3. I will post pictures. Not just drawings and screenshots and the like, but actual photographs. I don't know what they will be of. Probably random stuff. But I want to make things seem a lot more personal and "real"; photographs are a good way to do that.
4. I will post regularly. I don't know how often it's going to be... it will depend on what I have time for, especially once school starts again. But I will definitely try to post less sporadically than I have been for this blog lately (where I will post three days in a row and then not post anything fr three months).


Well, that's all. And this is the last time I'll be saying goodbye from here... Hopefully I'll see you some time later in a new place!

Blogs and college don't seem to get along very well.

I've been pretty busy with my school workload; it gets a little frustrating at points. I don't have time for homework, my own projects, sleep, and actually having some kind of social life at the same time. I'm trying to alternate which ones fall behind (I obviously don't have the option of ever letting that happen with homework, though).

I've switched to a two year program here. There's a good possibility I'll actually be staying for four years, but I wanted the extra year to think about what program/major I actually want (I was only in for one year before, see). School is starting to puzzle me even more than it already did. I really don't know what I should be learning, but I'm pretty sure God wants me here... so I'm here.

Over the summer I'm going to need a job of some kind. I also need a job for next semester. It would be idea if I could get something soon and keep it through the summer and into next year... I really need to start looking if that's what I want to do, though. I'm still not sure; I also have an half-finished application to work at a camp in Colorado. I really need to devote some serious time to figuring out my summer, but I've been pretty busy with other things, as I have already stated. This week is kind of rough, but it's not getting any better from here. I worry that I won't have time to make definite plans for the summer until, uhhmmm, summer. And that doesn't really work.

Meanwhile, I've been having some serious struggles related to my game development career. The first issue relates to scale... I haven't really finished anything recently. (Well, I did wrap up !°µ1.53, but that was old, so it doesn't really count.) I want to get things done. At the same time, I feel really weird saying, "Yeah, I make computer games," and never having much to show for it. Continuing to release a greater quantity of small games isn't really going to help that. On the other hand, it gets really discouraging to work on larger things all the time when I basically do not have time to work at all. The second issue has to do with impact. Art is supposed to be meaningful; "raw entertainment" sort of has a place because of how it creates and improves social environments, but it's not very rewarding to produce. Many of my projects in the past have had some small bit of purpose behind them (though a lot of these are things nobody else ever ended up getting to see). Protestant Wind is about patience and inaction... Or maybe it's just about smashing ships into walls. Cold Sky, Dry Planet was fairly experimental; I wondered whether making a game that was intended to invoke feelings that were normally perceived as "bad" would result in a game that would be seen in itself as "bad". From the reactions I've gotten so far, it apparently does. !°µ1.53 was supposed to contain messages about rebellion and authority systems... but most of the deeper points are lost, because nobody is going to have the patience to play far enough through that they will see them, and a few things ended up being removed entirely because I ran out of energy and just wanted to finish the game.
I want to continue making things with points or messages, but I also don't want to make it look like "preaching" that was "forced" into something as an afterthought. It should be a core part of the work itself...
A third issue relates to accessibility. I have previously been focusing quite a bit on making the sort of game I would want to play... but I'm definitely not doing this for myself, so that's going to have to be moved farther down on my list of priorities. I want to be able to confidently talk about my projects in front of people in "the real world" without worrying that they won't be able to relate to it at all. As part of this, I think I want to move away from pixel art for my next project. I love pixel art of all varieties, in varying states of fidelity (meaning that I like the extremely detailed stuff as well as things that have more of an "old school" look). Not a lot of other people do, though. I draw a lot of stuff on paper, and I recently discovered that it isn't too difficult to transfer these drawings into nice-looking computer images. I did it with some robots I sketched out and they look pretty nice. Drawing on paper has an interesting advantage in that I have slightly more time to do it. I can just pull out a pen and some paper in between classes or during some other "down time" and start putting things together...
I'm thinking of doing something with a stylish, somewhat silhouetted look. Now I've started building up an entirely new project based on that art style, which means I am, once again, leaving behind other things that were fairly promising. I think that by carefully analyzing these factors (scale, impact, and accessibility) I'll be able to start something up that is more lasting.
It's still really hard though. Lately I've been bothered by the fact that most "normal people" don't really see what I'm doing the same way I do. I don't expect everybody to care about my work or the game industry the same way I do, but a lot of the time I wish people would at least treat it like something that is actually serious... There aren't too many people that see it as some kind of joke (though there definitely are some), but there are a lot who seem to view it as less of a career somehow... Like it's legitimate, but not as legitimate as being a surgeon or an engineer or something more "noble" and "ordinary". Because of this, it's really hard to get support. True, I know where I can go to talk to people with similar interests as me, but that's not really the same as having the encouragement of my really good friends... And encouragement, of course, is a key factor in building up motivation. I can't say for sure how much this actually affects me, but I think it's a definite factor in me dropping projects so quickly. I still have to blame myself, though. I really need to work...
I wish I had more time.

I also wish I knew how much this is actually going to have to do with my future. These are definitely skills God wants me to use for something... But to what extent? When and where will they be fully applied? I don't really think I have used them to their intended completion yet... I'm building up to some point, but I don't know what that point is.


Anyway, I'll try to keep everybody up to date with what's going on, but I can't make any serious promises.

I am very happy today!
This was my last day of classes before break, so I have a whole week of freedom ahead of me. Hopefully I will be able to get ahead on some things so it's not crazy when I get back to school later.

I just saw Up. It was fantastic.
Again, this is Pixar, so that's not really very surprising.
It's pretty interesting to see all of the wonderful new approaches they're taking to storytelling. In an age where most people are just getting worse over time, it's nice to see studios like Pixar who are consistently getting better -- and the stuff they were making was already amazing.
I didn't used to be a huge Pixar fan.
But now I think I can officially be called a huge Pixar fan.

...I may still be a bigger Hayao Miyazaki fan, though.
I need to see more of that guy's movies.


I thought I would be giving you some updates during the time between these two breaks, but I guess that didn't happen. Not many big things have happened, and too many small things have happened for any of them to be mentioned.

One interesting bit of news is that I released a game I started working on a year ago (I'm pretty sure I posted screenshots on this blog at some point). You can play it here, but you should be warned that I'm not necessarily all that happy with it. I'm just glad it's finished.
As you may notice, I have also changed the name under which I am releasing games.

I'm trying to keep working on things. I want to get something moving forward; I need to be more diligent. Work is never really fun... I'm not going to get anything done if I switch projects every time I get bored.


School has been good. I'm learning things. It's been a little rough at times, especially now that I'm working, too (I've decided, by the way, that I really can't handle more hours right now).
I really enjoy being here, though; even when I'm busy, it's very enjoyable.


Anyway, yes... I'm in a very good mood. I suppose I already mentioned that. There are a few different reasons for that, I guess. Lots of different things are working out well, it seems.

In the future, look forward to some non-news-related posts. I want to post the papers I've written for English this semester, and I was also thinking about making some reading suggestions (exclusive preview: "LOUIS SACHAR'S HOLES IS AMAZING!!!! SERIOUSLY! D:<"), but I'm not a very convincing person, so I doubt many people are going to pay much heed to my recommendations.

Until an unspecified later date, that is all. I feel like I should say more, but I can't really think of much.

...This may not be very interesting to read, but it's somewhat important that I write it, because I feel like I can't write about anything else here until I've kept you all up to date on what's going on.

Firstly, winter break. I won't go into detail, because there aren't that many details to go into, but I will give some highlights:
-I stayed at my brother's apartment, because I'm a cheapskate and didn't want to (/couldn't even afford to) stay in the dormitory building over break
-A lot of people from my church are in the nearby apartments
-We did a lot of stuff
-We watched several movies, most of which I had never seen before
-We played quite a few games, at least one of which I had never played before
-The weather decided it hates my car and refused to let it run most of the time
-I think I could use a new battery, but I don't want to buy one and once it warms up it shouldn't actually be an issue anymore
-When my car WAS working, I went around trying to get a job
-My search for a job was totally unsuccessful
-I read quite a bit
-I started Death Note, which is pretty incredible so far and very thought-provoking (for me, at least)
-Hopefully that only goes uphill from here
-Speaking of hills, we went sledding
-There was a bump/ramp thing that was almost certainly put there intentionally
-Whoever built it was completely mad
-I hit it (accidentally, of course)
-Witnesses are convinced I put fifteen feet (four and a half meters) between myself and the ground
-I am inclined to agree with them
-The sudden lurch into the air upset my stomach a lot
-The jump must have been just as sudden and crazy as it felt, then, because I don't usually have trouble with motion sickness
-The sled flew out from under me and I hit the ground... hard
-It hurt
-I did not receive any lasting injuries, but I'm sure I would have broken a limb if I had landed on one
-I did bleed
-My left ear swelled to 150-200% of its normal size
-My back was cut up pretty badly
-Everything is fine now, but it's been over a month, I think, and I still have weird spots on my back...
-I went home for about a week
-This time was spent doing more or less the same things, except with my family instead of friends, and all of the job searching stuff was done over the phone or the Internet


...So that was my break. Somewhat uneventful.
But there is good news! Since I've been back, some pretty neat things have happened. One of them is that I got a job in the cafeteria here. It's not enough hours, but I might get more, and I'll still be looking for more work if I ever get the time.
Anyway, I enjoy it so far. Sure, it's washing dishes, but I know all of the people I work with, and we make it fun... Or at least interesting.
It's been a little bit weird getting used to having homework to do again. I don't really know how much free time I'm going to have. I really want to be working on extra stuff, but I'm really pretty busy... I also feel like I already spend too much time sitting in my room. It gets depressing.
Speaking of depressing things, here's an update on GDC (try to ignore the fact that this sentence has been as ominous as a match in an oil well): I got accepted, which was exciting at first... but I ended up having to cancel my application because there was just no way I was going to get the money for travel and other miscellaneous expenses.
That whole situation, then, has been, as you could probably guess... really disappointing.

There is a possibility that, this weekend, I will be driving out to an event that involves the creation of games and hanging around the people who do that sort of thing. It's about an hour away. I don't know if I'll be able to afford the time it will take away from homework, though. Plus there's still the issue of whether or not my car will even run... Well, anyway. If I ever feel disconnected, I at least know where I can go now. Oh, that's right; I forgot to tell you about that.
Over break, I also got an opportunity to visit the office of some independent game developers who work pretty close to here. There's only three or four of them; they're a pretty small operation, but they're cool guys. I might go back and talk to them again in the future if that doesn't bother them.

...A few days ago it was my (nineteenth) birthday. It was pretty much the worst birthday I've ever had, but I'm trying not to take that too hard because:
1. One of the main reasons I didn't enjoy it was because this is the first birthday I've had when I wasn't home. There are a lot of people who don't get to celebrate stuff at home, so I've really been pretty spoiled. I hardly have any right to complain... It was still weird though.
2. It's sort of a random cultural thing anyway. It seems dumb to get upset that I didn't really celebrate it much.
Anyway, my brother made me cupcakes, so that's cool. And people tried to say "happy birthday" as many times as the possibly could, so that's... umm, something. I don't know.
It doesn't help that "happy birthday, Paul" was already a running joke that started a couple of months ago when somebody randomly decided to sing to me during lunch.
As far as the actual being-a-year-older part goes, I don't have any profound thoughts. Sorry. I'm just... a year older now.

I guess that's all there is to say, more or less. To summarize, life right now is basically just... school and work. And work is at school. So basically... school. That's about it, from a broad view of things. I'll probably share more random details as things happen.
And you can probably expect the occasional incoherent ramblings or bizarre essayesque things at various points in the future.
Until whenever next time is,
This has been
...Uhh, me.

So I haven't posted for a long time.
It's college.
I've been busy.

I'll try to summarize what's going on with a healthy measure of brevity, but this still might be sort of a long post.

Right, so the summer finished. I don't really remember what all else happened. We did record that video I mentioned earlier. It ended up being pretty great. Really weird and slightly ridiculous, but fun. I have had a lot of trouble trying to be able to upload the video to Facebook. I'm trying again right now; I think it should work this time.
I had a lot of fun working on this. It made me want to do this kind of thing more often.

Anyhow. In August, I headed off to school.
I'm at a Bible college, which means, naturally, that I am studying the Bible. It's exciting stuff. I wish I could continue for four years just learning all kinds of things, and I think it'd be beneficial, but it costs money.
Speaking of which, I started looking for a job as soon as I got here, and now the first semester is over and I still haven't found one. Things are looking pretty promising right now, though. I should have an interview soon, and if that doesn't turn out well I have a few other interesting options. For a good portion of winter break, I'll be staying in Iowa. I'll be at my brother's apartment until I can find somebody closer to campus to stay with... It costs way too much to stay in the dorms. This is the last night I'm allowed to be here without paying extra.
Anyway, a lot of people are praying I'll get a job soon. It's encouraging, but it also creates a weird kind of pressure.
I've just skipped to the present, though. Let's get back to how this semester has been.
When I got here at first, I loved it. I knew I was going to want to stay here for more than a year if I could manage to afford it. I felt like I was really going to be able to grow here. After a short while, though, I began to feel a little uneasy. I started to get really disappointed with the people here, because a good number are pretty immature a lot of the time. I thought I knew who the mature people were, but those were not the people I was around as much.
Things got way better, though, especially toward the last couple of weeks. There are some really great people here, and I've had a lot more time to talk to them. I know that this is exactly where I should be right now -- where God wants me to be -- and I don't think financial trouble is going to be enough to keep me out. (Ideally, however, I will get a job and will not be having so much financial trouble.)
Anyway, I'm getting out of the rut I was in earlier in the year and am trying to change and grow. I'm excited to see what God has for me next semester!

There are so many more things I could talk about, but it's hard to relate at this point. There's way too much to recall at once.
Hopefully I'll post more next semester so you can be kept up to date on what I'm doing.

Oh, and here's a few more quick notes about the future:
I volunteered to work at GDC (Game Developers Conference). If I am selected, I will get full access to the conference and will work twenty hours. It will be amazing. Still, I'll have to pay for food, lodging, and travel costs. I'm leaving it up to God. I may not be picked and it won't even be an issue.
I generally assume that normal people cannot understand or relate to my prospective career choices, but regardless of whether this is the case, you could be praying for me about this. I would appreciate it.
Also, there's a Christian camp in Michigan that I was thinking about being a counselor at over the summer, but I haven't asked about it yet. I heard they need people, though. Prayers regarding that would be nice, too.


...By the way, I'm still trying to work on a game. I have not had a lot of time, so things are going slowly. Still, any amount of progress is great and makes me feel like I'm doing things!
I started in October, and I still haven't gotten to coding it yet, but I've done some graphics and music.
Here's a mockup:


































It's called Wishes Above Clouds. I have a lot of things planned for it, but I'm going to have even less time to work on it next semester (assuming I get a job). Still, I should be able to move ahead slowly.

I feel like I haven't said enough, but I guess I'm finished with this post.

...Before I get to the main subject of this post, I should address some things I mentioned in my last post (over a month ago, I know) that needed following up on.

1. The third Pirates of the Caribbean movie did not, in fact, make a speck of sense. I was highly appreciative of this and have declared the whole to be an excellent film.
Meanwhile, I also finally got around to seeing Wall-E, which was brilliant. Though if I was asked what my favorite Pixar movie was, I would still say Finding Nemo.
...But, to be fair, that's a bit like asking me to choose the best five hundred dollars I've ever received.

2. I said I might give some details on what I'm working on these days, but that's a little hard to do, because I'm not currently working on anything solidly and am tossing around a lot of ideas in my brain... I realized that I don't have to be fully committed to something to work on it, so I now have a few interesting half-baked (more like eighth- or sixteenth-baked [perhaps better descirbed as "mostly raw"]) things lying around now. It would be fabulous if I could get to them all, but if I got back to everything I've ever started, society would rapidly collapse into dismal anarchy. It's not ready for that level of fabulousness, you see.
...What I can tell you, though, is that I've been doing some serious consideration about the kinds of things I want to continue spending my time on this next year, and how I want to adjust so that things won't be too hard to handle what with college starting and everything.
Something that I am more or less absolutely certain I will still be doing a lot of is making games. I'm not sure how any of you feel about that, but to me, it's not just a silly hobby. It's a God-given talent I have previously been reluctant to really hone. I've only been really serious about designing games for maybe a year... True, I've been making games of various sorts for my entire life, but I never saw it as anything more than just a hobby... I didn't used to be serious about much of anything; I was "just a kid", after all.
As I've said many times before, I don't know what career I'm going into, and I'm taking this next year to figure out what the best next step for me is. But even though I'm not certain of what my career is going to be, I'm fairly confident that game design is going to be a fairly big part of my life. (Oh, and for those of you who have been wondering when this would come up [and maybe worrying that it wouldn't]: Yes, writing will probably be pretty big, too. Another thing I want to keep doing through next year is writing bits of fiction, and maybe even a full novel if I can gather the diligence to follow through with one in earnest...)
So I want to keep making games over the next year... But because of school and a job and whatever else I'll be doing, I won't have that much time to spend on making games. So I've thought a lot about what kinds of projects would best suit working in an environment when I may not have much free time (and when the amount of free time I have maybe inconsistent). I wouldn't be able to keep doing small things, because if things went slowly, I'd not be able to stay focused... It'd be discouraging to have something small not get done in a reasonable amount of time. So initially I figured a huge project with no foreseeable finish would be a good idea... But there was a pretty big problem with that. I have a lot of trouble maintaining focus when I don't have support ant feedback from people... I wouldn't get much of that if I wasn't releasing anything, so I would lose motivation quickly.
What looks best at this point (I'm still considering things, though) is an expandable game. Something I could release and then update every once in a while, just like open source projects that are built from the ground up... Except with just me working on it. That way I'd be able to get feedback and adjust as I went along. I think it would work pretty well.


...Well, quite typically, I have wasted a lot of words on "preliminary topics" before getting to the subject mentioned in the title of the post.
So here's what my summer has been like so far... I think I'll actually go through it backwards (kind of), because the best parts were maybe at the beginning.

Last week was Vacation Bible School at our church. It started two Saturdays ago with a parade. We passed out those freezer popsicle things... You know, the rather bland flavored liquid stuff in plastic wrappers that you freeze and consume. I'm not very fond of them, as you can undoubtedly tell.
Anyway, it was a pretty big parade, and it was pretty crazy. We were trying to get a popsicle to every kid, but it wasn't possible... There got to be a point where the popsicles weren't separated from one another, and nobody was available to rip them apart, so we had to do it as we went (which slowed things down). Once when I tore some apart, one ripped open and splattered all over a girl's face (because it was partially melted). I felt bad, but... it was kind of hilarious.
Near the end, the only popsicles we had left were not melted at all (nor were they separated from each other), and things got even more slow and messy. Then we ran out entirely... Fortunately that was close to the end of the parade, so not too many people missed out.
The in the morning on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I helped with the actual VBS event. I worked with the 1st-3rd grade group. I also acted for a penguin puppet who originally sounded quite similar to Don Adams (as Maxwell Smart), but gradually became somewhat different over time.
On Friday night, we had a cookout thing, and people played games and stuff. I was making balloon animals the entire time, so I did not experience any of it (not even the food; I was pretty hungry by the end of it), but the kids and their families seemed to really enjoy themselves, and that's what mattered.

For half of the week before VBS, we were in Michigan for a family gathering celebrating my grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. The actual event is later in the year, but this was a better time to do it.
My uncle's boss has a lake house that he rarely uses. My aunt works for him some to rent it out, and he lets their family stay there whenever they want (or at least that was my impression). So that's where we stayed. It was very nice. And it was relaxing, which is good, because the previous week had been pretty crazy.

...It was what I have (in my typical restraint from mentioning many specifics here) previously just called "the national conference." It's not like I go to more than one.
This year was apparently better than previous years, but I could still see the stress it put on my dad and the people he works with. This year I was helping as well. I was supposed to be helping my dad with stuff, but I never ended up doing any of that. Instead I somewhat awkwardly attempted to get other people to give me work so that I could remain busy. This didn't work all that well, because most tasks were already assigned to someone and I was not, as far as I knew, officially present at all. Regardless, Ashlie gave my a name tag that said "STAFF" and demanded I wear it. (I did, mostly.)
By the end of the week things seemed more comfortable; I sat at the registration desk and did random stuff in a more relaxed fashion after I realized I wasn't going to be able to keep myself busy constantly.
The week was pretty crazy, but it seems to have gone well. I liked being around people close to my age, because this doesn't happen that much anymore except at church, and that's... Well, yeah. Anyway, it would have been really enjoyable, had I not been thinking "But when you get home you're going to feel comparatively bored and lonely" most of the time.
Nonetheless, I really did have a good amount of fun. (But, incidentally, I was right.)


...In two weeks, I'll be going to camp. For some reason I'm not as excited as I feel I should be. I think it's just because so much has been happening, and I haven't had time to be looking forward to things.

...Oh, and our youth group is going to be making a short movie to show in church; this morning Pastor Matt and I outlined more or less how it's all going to run. I think it's going to be pretty neat; hopefully everyone else will get excited about it too, because it probably won't turn out well unless they do.


:::Source expected
:::18.07.09
:::STOP