Ammunition > Heroics

...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