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Smiling

Not really sure how many people actually read this thing, but considering the VAST number of posts that I seem to write, I kind of consider this to just be my own little portion of the Internet.

Today, I was assigned as project lead on one of our program’s three Thesis games. That’s actually pretty awesome. At the time, I really didn’t think a lot of it, especially considering I’ve been a a lead in all but title for three prototypes so far, as well as the lead designer on a game for the Utah Natural History Museum. (If you haven’t seen it, I would highly recommend checking it out. We’ve been told it’s the most popular part of that exhibit.)

In any case, I was speaking with a colleague of mine who happened to see me in a behind the scenes shot of Unicorn City, which is an independent gaming film that’s soon to be coming to theaters. (Hilarious stuff, by the way.) He asked me what I had done on the film, and I explained my previous work as a grip and electrician, which he thought was so interesting considering where I’m headed now.

But as a friend of Bryan Lefler, (one of the producers), my colleague asked him about my work. He mentioned who I was and that I was in the program, and the related response was so interesting:

“Oh, you know that guy?”

“Yeah, he’s the EAE program.”

“Have you ever seen him smile?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, he was a super hard worker, but I don’t think I ever saw that guy crack a grin.”

“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him not smiling, actually.”

Unicorn City

When my friend relayed that to me, I laughed, but the comment kind of stuck. Considering that I was filming that movie a year and a half ago, I guess I didn’t take into account the way that I was being perceived.

When I talk to my friends now, especially those who’ve only really known me since I started the program, most of them seem to see me as a generally positive guy who’s rather easy-going. I don’t like to think that I’ve really changed all that much over the course of just a year, but could it be that my personality was so dark?

I keep coming back to it, trying to figure out what it was. Was I just annoyed with the heat? Was I annoyed with the work? Was it the wage? Or was it something else? I just can’t really put my finger on it.

Perhaps I just wasn’t going in the direction that I should have been. Maybe I needed a change, and my face recognized it before I did. I don’t know.

In either case, that was then, and this is now. Time to move forward, and keep that smile on my face. Try to avoid the apparent scowl that was a permanent fixture in 2010.

New project, new responsibilities, and hopefully some awesome results down the road.

Here we go.

February 23, 2012 | Categories: Gaming, Game Design | Tags: , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Wound-Tight, Burned-Out

There are just two more weeks until the end of the semester, and I find that I’m almost forcing myself to get through them. It’s not so much a matter of physical exertion, but more a sense of simple mental exhaustion. So many projects with so many different responsibilities at once, and despite my efforts to organize everything, new tasks and items seem to be continually cropping up, especially from items that I’d already checked off of my lists.

I think, though, the biggest problems that I’m currently having are that there is a lacking of coherency. Because this Master’s Program is essentially a part of the film department, we’re required to take additional courses outside of our program to fulfill school requirements. While that’s a great idea in theory, the problems arise simply due to the lack of communication between the two schedules. With our projects being heavily under the gun for the past while, some of my other studies have suffered a little, and I keep looking at things, trying to decipher how to better utilize my time.

I’ve just got a sense of overall burn-out that’s getting to me. I’m trying to keep from being too worn, but it’s hard to put up a smiling face just to keep people from realizing that you’re really getting to the edge.

But that’s just what I’ve got to deal with. I keep telling myself that there’s just two more weeks. 14 days and I’ll get the chance to hit the reset button. A chance to use winter break to breathe a little. That will be nice.

Alright. I better get to it. Just needed to get some things down on paper. Or on the web, as it may be.

Two more weeks.

December 4, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Dealing with Multiple Projects

So, I had honestly thought after we’d finished Aquaducks, we were done. I figured that we’d be able to move on to the next prototype and just let the museum run the two games for the next month. I didn’t realize that I’d be continuing to manage my old team while at the same time keeping track of my new people as well. Maybe this is all just on my head – It’s been a busy past few days.

Pace and Christian took the time this week to get all the ducks ready to go, removing the vector images in favor of rasterized ones so that the bunch of ducks will play nice with Flash and Actionscript instead of bogging down whenever all the targets are moving on-screen.

From what I understand, our game has been quite the hit. Even though there are a number of minor improvements that the workers have noticed and even recommended, overall they are still quite pleased with the response. The pick-up-and-play nature of the game really seems to resonate with the kids whom the museum chiefly caters towards, and so I’d consider that a marked success. While I’d like to take the time to revisit the game a little later, I think it’s in good shape for now.

But we’ll see. Pace has got the latest updates up and running, so hopefully we can let it be and get the rest of our work going on prototype 4 before we need to go back to the old game. Just got a lot of things coming up in the next few weeks, and though that may look like a lot of time, I’ve been in school long enough to realize how deceptive a calendar can be. Work to do, not much time to do it in.

December 1, 2011 | Categories: Game Design, Gaming | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

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