Game dev timeline: 6 weeks (or maybe 7...)

Hmm yeah, getting myself a bit mixed up over how long is left (we excluded one week to get all the dissertation stuff finished off) so while I thought I was a week behind, I'm actually a week ahead of my schedule. Get in.

Anyway, went to uni today, walked into CVG2 and saw Lance had got a new build of Absence up and running :D Still a lot of placeholder textures and meshes in there, but it's really starting to come together. We've got the puzzle that I made working (phew) aswell as the water puzzle that was causing us some problems, but seems to be pretty much sorted now (phew again). Erm what else....oooh we're dropping some of the elements that were proving to be hard to programme, so hopefully now things should be more streamlined and simple. Maybe some screenshots when I get my hands on the build - we will have to see.

On a completely different note, discovered Shadow of the Colossus yesterday. How sexy does it look?!?!?!?!?!?! Time to try and persuade myself that I can afford a spare £30. Ahhh.

Small hour strangers.

Pink shoes and dyed hair - naturally blonde, you said. Swap stories, smiles, laughs and glances. What better way to fill the small hours of the morning than with sentences while the other tries to work out what is true, and what (if anything) is made up. Then it's time to leave, go separate ways out into the honest cold. Head to the trusty fast food place. Taxi home please. Get back, wash out the smell of stale smoke, and as the sun starts to come up fall asleep.

Unrelated sentences.

After many many hours my 41 page, 10,005 word dissertation is finished and printed. Got to go over to uni and get it bound in three hours. I feel like a big weight has been lifted. I don't feel too stressed at the moment. When I got up it was snowing. Now it's stopped and I could even convince myself that the Sun was shining a minute ago. My friend Paul's birthday today. Phill's in Birmingham. We are all going out when he gets back tonight. I'm in one of my moods where I'm gonna be a philosophical drunk. I found the song 'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley (Zane Lowe Radio 1 advert, 'I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind'). I found one of the pieces of paper that I scribble on when I feel particularly happy/sad/drunk/high/low. It said:

"Give me 2 chances, a chance to be myself and a chance to change."

Evos

Yesterday a couple of the good folks over at Evolution Studios (www.evos.net) came over to uni to give us a talk about various industry related things. I love going to anything like this, because I'm a geek and I think it's cool to be able to speak to the people who had a hand in making some of the games that I really enjoy. Similar to meeting your favourite writer/director/musician I would imagine. Anyway, most of the talk was giving us insights into how to get our first job in the industry and how to get noticed. Always good when you get tips from someone in the HR department - kinda like the teacher telling you the answers to a test lol.

It was also another reminder that I will soon be out in the world looking for a job, so as soon as I got home I finished off my CV, then spent most of the night rendering out some of the stuff I've been working on for Absence, THEN I sent my eyes crazy by staring at HTML for a couple of hours.

The result is that I finally have a website that might actually help me get a job. This is quite a major step for me because having owned www.pruvaloo.co.uk for over two years, this is the first time it's been put to real use. So if you want to see some of my recent models, see how well I did at high school, or find out what the first videogame I played was, head over there :)

Two hard copies of my dissertation, along with £39, need to be in Manchester at 2pm on Friday. Currently, there are no hard copies. The soft copy isn't finished yet. I haven't been to the bank, and I'm in Yorkshire, not Manchester.

eek.

La Jetée

I've just watched La Jetée. Wow. What a film. Well, I don't know if you'd class it as a 'film' per se as it is made up entirely of still shots - imagine a montage of photographs.



If you're into 1960's French experimental/cult cinema you may of already seen this, if not, then I URGE you to find a copy of it somewhere.



It's strange, it's dark, it's twisted and it's beautiful at the same time. Wow.

Game dev timeline: 8 weeks

Video games take years to develop. Literally years. They are made by huge huge teams (some next gen teams are well in the 100s) of people who are paid to spend all day making them.

For those of you who don't know (where have you been?) I am making a video game. True, it is only one level, a showcase of our talents and an appetizer to what could very easily be made into a full game - the story for the full game is already in place - the reason we are not making it into a full game is simply down to time limitations.

Our game is called 'Absence'. It's being made by a team of 8 university students who aren't paid to make games. We've had 8 months, during which time we have also had to complete a 6000-8000 word dissertation and all the research that involves and modules on law, industry perspective and portfolio. All in 8 months. If someone isn't pulling their weight we can't sack them. All we can do is bitch at them until they do pull their weight.

So, 'Absence'. In development for the last 8 months part time by 8 students who have also had the rest of their uni work to complete. We've got 8 weeks left before hand in.

And I'm enjoying every single f*cking moment of it. Yeah, it's stressful sometimes, but my God it's fun, to see our creation coming together gives you such a high. Imagine what we could do if we were being paid and had the backing of a company.

Every single person in the year is talented, it's crazy, really is. It's so cool being able to walk in though on a gloomy morning and see all the quality stuff people are churning out. Pure creativity. Watch out world, CVG 3 are nearly ready to burst into the world, and when they do, every single one of them will make a mark.

Banned Books.

Yesterday I got my order from The Book People through. 12 books that were once banned including:

George Orwell - Animal Farm
James Baldwin - Go Tell It On The Mountain
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
John Steinbeck - Of Mice And Men
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Federico Garcia Lorca - Poet in New York
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty Four
Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

Should keep my busy for a while :)

Mystery Message.

Ok so today I woke up to find I have 2 rather mysterious text messages. Even more mysterious is that they are from a number that my phone doesn't recognize. Even even more mysterious is I haven't had a reply back yet from said number.

Are you my mysterious messenger?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Last night I re-read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I'm averaging reading it once a year, it's a bit like a drug, keep going back to it to get topped up. I still find the ending sobering even though I know what's going to happen.

Fletch got to talk to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Jon, I wish you'd come and visit me sometimes.