Recent Blog Posts
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Let's get physical!
June 2nd 2017
Hey.
I usually start these posts with a brief apology. I know it’s redundant now, but I’m such a gentleman I just can’t help myself.
Here we go…
Sorry.
I used to post more often on here, but unless I’ve got some exciting news it’ll likely remain about once a month for the time-being.
Perhaps once I move into other areas of development I’ll have more stuff to talk about, but recently it’s mostly been more of the same old graft which I’ve already covered on previous blogs.
As you can probably make out it hasn’t been particularly enthralling of late, but I have kept up a nice pace and workflow which I’m happy with.
There’s more areas to think about and concentrate on now that the world and all the rooms are established, but I’m still stuck performing a series of fairly tasks. Perhaps the next few weeks will be a bit more interesting and diverse.
There’s so much still to think about it makes me dizzy. Menus, character animation, interaction screens, minigames... I could easily go on but if I -
Anniversary Blog
April 28th 2017
I always struggle with beginning a blog post, so I consulted Google.
Yeah.
Oh hey!
Sorry as usual for the lack of updates, I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks.
Unusually I’m writing this blog in an uncharacteristically positive frame of mind. I think I’m at the point now where I'm almost ready to get stuck into the real meat and bones of the game, and I’m really looking forward to it.
Up until now, most of my time has been spent on things besides the game engine or interface. It’s strange to consider that a year into this project, it still feels like I'm in the preparation stages. That’s not entirely true, but that’s often how it feels.
This is due to the fact that I am still, relatively speaking, a bit new to this. Not just Unity, but game-development practices outside of Flash in general.
All considered, it has been a massive learning curve, there still remains plenty to learn (namely anything to do with graphics and rendering), but otherwise I feel significantly more at ease with this design -
Excuses
March 27th 2017
Hi there.
…
*cough*
…
*sniff*
So...
How about the... uhh, things. You know?
OK, clearly I’m long overdue my scheduled regular update, but I’ve got a very very good a reason.
I don’t usually go much into my personal life on this blog but, I’ve got to tell you...
I’ve been away on holiday.
My bum fell out.
I’m pregnant.
I’ve got cancer.
And it’s serious… which is why I’ve struggled to get much done since my last blog!
58 tumours in total. Apparently that’s quite a lot, but my oncologist said he can have them out by Friday! (He’s very talented.)
Yeah.
None of that was true, except for the bit where I admitted getting very little done.
At the time of my last post I was about to integrate the new ‘world’ with the rest of the project, but somewhere along the way I got lost in a mad whirlpool of my own design. It’s been a very circular, static few weeks.
The way I designed the world to begin with had some fundamental problems. I spent a very long time recently trying to resolve them, but with little -
Friday, Friday, gotta write blog on Friday
February 24th 2017
Sorry for the delay. Despite repeated promises I just haven’t been in a posting mood of late.
Everyday for the last 2 weeks it’s been on my to-do list, but somehow I never get round to it. But tonight I’m making a concerted effort. That’s commitment, folks, only 2 weeks later than my word.
It’s been a busy few weeks. I’ve gotten a lot done but as usual it’s a little short of my intended target.
I’ve spent almost all of my time in the 3D editor and photoshop - modelling, painting, unwrapping and texturing the static environment.
I’ve described in previous blogs how enjoyable and relaxing this I find this, but after so many weeks of performing the same dull repetitive tasks, I’ll be glad to move onto something else to put it mildly.
I’m a little apprehensive to show pictures as it’s not quite there yet.
The models have to exported into the game editor before I can finesse the look of materials and textures, however it makes sense for me to finish modelling before I bother with that.
So -
Greyprints
January 31st 2017
Hey.
I’m seriously overdue on my blog schedule, sorry about that. I’ll try to post more frequently, lately I’ve not had much material to blog about.
As any regular reader will probably gleam by my lack of presence, with regards the new Wasted Youth game, things feel increasingly troubled and depressing right now.
As ever, the list of things to do increases faster than I can progress, and it feels like I’ve been running on the spot for the best part of a season.
I hate to go on about the negatives in the blog as so often when I read it back to myself it reads like a dreary letter of complaint to myself. I’ll try not to focus on the negatives, but unfortunately, that’s largely the headspace I’m in at this moment.
Another reason I’ve felt a little shy of returning recently is that I keep flip-flopping on my approach to things and I’m a little embarrassed to keep flaunting my haphazardness.
For instance, my last post largely was about some of the game-editing tools I was creating for basic room -
A Change of Tack
January 3rd 2017
Sorry about the blog delay.
Christmas and New Year’s fell at an awkward time of the week, that’s my excuse anyway.
Unfortunately, I haven’t got nearly as much done as I’d like since last posting.
It’s a little dispiriting to think that the short video I made of the character walking around the school was 5 months ago now.
*sigh*
On the face of it, things don’t look massively different since that video, besides decor.
I’ve spent most of my time creating editors and panels and whatnot to assist design, instead of, well, designing.
It’s maddening to think I’ve been working 9 months or so on this now, and I’ve still not gotten round to some of the most basic aspects of the game engine.
I think that's just the nature of the beast though. When a custom game editor is involved, the engine seems secondary.
I hope the work I've done up until now pays off. The whole point of creating a game editor is to speed up game-development, but in my case I may have miscalculated the need for such tools. After all I -
Another Boy
December 5th 2016
Burp.
Sorry I’ve just eaten a pizza.
Apparently it’s been three weeks since the last post, it feels longer than that though... that’s a good sign.
Without going into specifics, I feel like I’ve gained a bit more focus on what I’m aiming for now. The countless decisions and what-ifs are better defined and increasingly answerable.
It seems the fog has lifted a little and I hope it stays that way.
That said, as ever I have to remind you that no matter how productive a week or 2 or 3 are, they represent a mere a pixel of the full image, but it’s better than it’s been for a few months now, so that’s something.
There’s a good reason for this increased productivity, it’s because the majority of my time recently has shifted from the logical side of things (coding, game-engine stuff) back to the aesthetic side (3d modelling, painting, texturing, etc), which I find a lot more enjoyable and easier.
There’s a sense of finality to graphic design that I don’t get with coding, and it requires little -
Walls
November 14th 2016
How’s everyone doing?
On the subject of Wasted Youth, things continue to creep along, but not at anything like the pace I’m aiming for. I’m feeling a bit better than when I wrote the last blog post, but that’s not to say things are going swimmingly.
Recently I’ve found I have to put a lot more forethought and concentration into coding, which over time induces a lot of mental strain. So often I get foggy-minded whereby a simple task becomes an ordeal.
I’d love to stick my head in an MRI and see what the hell is going on in there sometimes when I’m struggling. It’s got to be a mess in there.
Aaanyway… so be it.
Some of the problems I face are just so damn simple on the face of it that I feel a pang of embarrassment even mentioning them on here. I’ve covered some of the issues in previous blog posts, like the camera conundrum, but there’s one that continues to mock and torment me.
Walls.
Walls?
Yeah, walls.
As a game developer, constantly seeking answers for my own problems through discussion -
Fly
October 31st 2016
It’s been a while since I did one of these blog posts… Well, let’s get on with it then.
I’m not having a very good time.
It’s practically impossible not to entertain the notion on some level, that the project is heading down a similar route to past efforts - some sort of doom-laden abandonment bucket.
And it’s stressful. It’s become a genuine source of grief for me recently.
Lots of sighing, lots of rubbing the side of my head in contemplation.
Fortunately for you lot, there’s nothing else to avert my attention. This is it. Unlike other difficult periods there’s usually something else I desperately want to do instead. Not this time, for better or worse I’ve locked myself in.
And as if things couldn't get any worse, an overly excited housefly is currently occupying the strict no-fly zone above my head. It’s driving me crazy. I’ve made several attempts to kill it with a mousemat but it remains unscathed.
So why are things still shit?
(I just got that fly, I feel a bit better now)
The usual -
Stall Log #1
September 27th 2016
This blog has served a good purpose for me recently, it’s helped me get on with stuff and also functions a bit like a diary. It helps to organize my thoughts.
Today however, writing this blog feels like honouring a pointless tradition. Frankly I’d rather ignore it and post an excuse on facebook instead.
Recently I’ve found myself getting stuck in a groove, running in circles, a bit of an old habit of mine unfortunately.
A system I came up with to synchronize game assets between Unity and my 3D design software allowing for more functionality has become a massive, neverending chore, among other things.
This has happened to me time and time again with recent projects. I start coding with a vague goal in mind, but I end up digging a hole, a deep hole, and I keep digging, and then I realise I’ve spent 2 weeks digging a hole and I'm not sure why, and now I’m in a massive fucking hole.
So what’s gone wrong exactly?
It’s difficult to explain, but essentially I’ve started something that required more -
Wasted Youth Progress Report #14
September 13th 2016
Gather round, children, I’ve got an extraordinary, wonderful, fantastical tale to tell!
Come along... There we are, are you sitting comfortably?
CHILDREN: YEAAAH!
Ahem… Three Moons ago, I was sitting at my desktop writing untold amounts of COMPUTER CODE !!
CHILDREN: OOOOOHH!
But then I noticed a terrible problem, children... My computer code WOULDN’T COMPILE !!1!
CHILDREN: OH NOO!!!
It turned out I had made a grave and frightful mistake! It was... a SYNTAX ERROR !!!1!!1!
[CHILDREN BEGIN SHRIEKING AND CRYING]
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Sorry I can't just write a load of stale techy guff without showing on my part bit of self-awareness. I know some of you like to insist in the comments that it's not dull but I beg to differ!
Right then, let's get on with it. In the last 2 weeks I’ve achieved some things which are pretty cool from my point of view, but they’re mostly conceptual and possibly hard to describe. I feel I’m going to struggle to put it to words, but I’ll try.
I LOVE GRIDS
Firstly, I’ve devised a way of cutting the -
Wasted Youth Progress Report #13
August 30th 2016
Oh cock. It’s that time again.
an example of a slow news day
Slow news week I’m afraid.
Here’s the problem: I’ve spent most of my time recently working on some pretty ethereal stuff which is hard to write anything interesting about.
Just to clarify, this isn’t bad news, I've been productive but there's very little evidence which I can present here.
As I approach the 6 month mark (gulp) I can finally sense that I’m getting somewhere.
To make a pointless analogy for just a moment, it’s like I’ve been lifting weights for so many weeks with no noticeable results, and I'm just like 'what the fuck!?', but recently I’ve noticed a difference in my … uh, triceps? Nevermind.
Especially in the last 2 weeks I feel I’ve really got to grips with coding for Unity’s engine.
It’s quite an enjoyable process now since I’ve overcome the basics, I no longer need to resort to online documentation every 5 minutes.
I have to say the inbuilt Unity game engine is pretty excellent. Having spent years with Flash