Ammunition > Heroics

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.