Yeah, didn’t write a blog post yesterday, but i did work! I downloaded a bunch of progrms that I’ll need to do the course, including Jupyter and Anaconda. Today’s videos were on the same topic so I just watched them to make sure I was doing it right. Spoiler alert: I was.
Day 2
Date: 9/17/2016
Time spent: 2 hours
tODAY i SETUP ALL MY LOGINS AND FIGURED OUT HOW TO GET INTO THE SITE. Then I fixed my Capslock and familiarized myself with the textbooks and the videos, of which there are many. This course seems to mainly be a series of videos that you watch, much like Udemy, and assignments are, now that I’ve actually started, less time-focused than they led me to believe. I would have preferred a little more authority, to be perfectly honest. I’m also a little ticked off at the part where they explain “you’re going to need a compiler. Specifically Microsoft Visual C++.net which is a hundred dollars.” This flies right in the face of their assurances that everything you’d need for the course was included for free.
Bullshit.
The other part I love is right here:
Not that I’m surprised or anything, that sounds a lot more realistic than the lofty promises they were making me, but of course we don’t get to do anything actually fun until you buy Course II. This was a total mistake, but I’m financially invested so I don’t have much of a choice.
It really sucks that I’m hitting D2 of the situational leadership model on my very first day, but I think most of it is buyer’s remorse. This was a fucking stupid idea to buy this course, it wasn’t even what I actually want. What I actually want is to go somewhere with human beings and learn how to code in a brick-and-mortar institution with homework and study groups, not be stuck yet again in front of this computer with nobody except Parker, my programming assistant. My major personality flaw is self-motivation for non-writing shit; I do not work well when its just me berating myself to go do my work, I want deadlines and humans expecting me to do things.
No offense Parker, but I made this mistake before, and for a LOT less money. And now they’re changing the rules immediately, and I don’t see how I’m possibly going to learn to program from this monotone female voice droning on about matrices and shit. Seriously, she’s giving me unpleasant memories of Mavis Beacon from my middle school years.
New Course, New Accountability
My game design course starts soon, and I’m going to get back on the board of posting on this blog every day. I spent real money on this course, I’m not interested in floundering and eventually falling off the wagon like I did with the Unity course. To that effect, every blog post will start with the following data:
Date: 9/16/2016
Time spent: 1 hour
What you did: Familiarized myself with the Game Institute website, watched some of the tutorial videos, waited patiently for somebody to email me the starter packet which arrives within 24 hours according to the email.
To reiterate; I’m hoping that a more regimented course with professors, assignments, and failstates will help motivate me to get the course done. This course is also far more in-depth, leaping right into C++, Blender, and Unreal. Unreal has a number of perks over Unity (and visa versa) but the fact that it’s free to use is a major plus point in my favor.
“next few days”
Hi old blog! Here’s what I’ve been up to last few days. (Did wordpress change something massive? Everything’s layout is stupid):
- Just got back from Scotland. Was fucking awesome. We saw sites and sights and suites and I think even Dad enjoyed himself since we did a guided tour for once, meaning he didn’t need to drill sergeant us everywhere. There’ll be a long article about my trip on the Daily SPUF soon.
- Speaking of which, I’ve ported EVERY post of mine from the Daily SPUF (and Lambda Generation) to a backup blog https://aabicus.wordpress.com/ so that if the main blog goes down again (like what just happened with the Daily SPUF, scaring the crap out of everyone) I’ll at least have my work.
- Electra City is done except for music, which a musician friend of mine is doing. Says they’ll be done in the next few days. All righty…
- I’ve enrolled in this and I’m fucking terrified. It claims to be for beginner/amateur game developers, but look at that syllabus! C++, trigonometry, Blender…they’re not fucking around. But summer’s over, now we’re in sink or swim territory. Wish me luck.
PANG is live!
Post Apocalyptic Nuclear Garrisons is now playable in-browser at itch.io! My first time using my new html5 exporter, I can’t be happier with the resulting product. But there’s more where that came from! My other goal is to finish Electra City and get that out there within the next few days.
Hey man. I think we would have started an open relationship.
Special thanks to my phone’s auto fill suggestions for providing the title of this post. Lord knows I had no better ideas.
In 48 hours I’ll be on a plane to California. I’ve spent 1 year plugging away at Austin, Texas, and while I’ve learned loads of new skills and earned certifications from online classes, I just can’t seem to make it stick, and I’m switching pastures. And in particular, I have my sights on Overwatch. The Blizzard team designing that game lives in Irvine, so if I want to become a part of Overwatch from the inside my living options are quite short. In order to earn enough to afford an apartment in Irvine, I’m swallowing my pride and moving in with my parents so I can build up an income without losing rent and food money.
But I cannot make this decision without admitting that it terrifies me. One of the few things I had was my forward movement, and this move isn’t nearly as cut-n-dried as the one that brought me to Austin. I cannot deny the obvious elements of convenience and shirking of responsibility that come with living with my parents. We all know that guy who coasts through life, never advancing and coattailing on family and friends indefinitely. I need to be absolutely sure I don’t fall into that rut.
But it honestly might be too late. I don’t have nearly enough of a plan to justify this move. I’m leaving hundreds of dollars of furniture and electronics that I couldn’t fit into my duffel and carry through the airport. My friends in Austin are going to miss me, and I’m pretty sure I killed a serious opportunity with one who’s more romantically compatible with me than anyone I’ve ever met. Am I giving up too soon? What exactly is my plan to attract Blizzard once I’m in California? Why aren’t I applying for them right now, here in Austin, so I could maybe get the job and move then?
I dunno. But the tickets bought and time moves steadily onward. My guts telling me this is the right call. I’d grown complacent in Austin, scraping by via nude modeling and an underpaid customer service job, and with Lyft and uber departing the city I don’t have the transportation options I need to travel throughout this city. The extremely sensitive line between forwarding myself and becoming a stagnant NEET might be the mental trepidation I need, and my parents house will keep that thought constantly on the forefront of my mind. On July 1st I unpack, and July 2nd I start jobhunting. I will continue my classes, I’ll continue shoutcasting Overwatch scrims daily, and I’ll apply to Blizzard every opportunity I can.
In other news, the Steam Summer Sale finally gave me the chance to buy the Clickteam Fusion HTML5 exporter. I’m excited to finally upload some of my games to Itch.io. I finished my most controversial Flora story yet and got great reactions from my readers, it’s called “5 Stages of Flora” and you can read it in the codex I linked last article.
I’ll miss Austin. I’ll miss my exercycle. I’ll miss this period of my life. But I never expected it to be permanent, and while friends can hypothetically lead to career advancement opportunities, it’s pretty clear these arent. Onward and outward.
Into the Black Codex
I need to get a new post up so that goddamn picture of sourballs stops appearing every time I open this blog.
I have done a lot of writing in the Into the Black universe, which up till now has not really appeared in this blog in any fashion, which is more focused on Darwin’s Soldiers. By and large Into the Black has been my universe of focus, as I really see the Darwin’s Soldiers story as mostly completed. I told the tales that needed to be told and almost every character has had their history completed to my satisfaction. So in case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been writing all these days, here’s a one-page codex containing links to all the fiction I’ve written starring Emilena, Flora, and the other characters in this second flagship franchise of mine.
Insert Title here
There’s this weird dichotomy with me where I’m totally down to post in this blog if I have something to show for it. Then its like “its okay I’m not doing all those things I said I’d do, look at this thing I actually did!” It gives me an excuse. For example, today I finished three character sheets for my tutorial quest and am now writing said tutorial quest, so i feel like I can justify not having touched Clickteam Fusion or Unity in over a month.
I’m also worried about my funds. Rent just happened and fucking zapped my savings account. Course, I still haven’t gone and donated blood, or picked up my three weeks paycheck from the University Coop so I guess there is money out there, I just have to go grab it. Amazing concept, that is.
saw a bag of these delicious fuckers on sale and I didn’t buy them because I gave up candy. That’s going on my list of accomplishments.
Accomplishment is a weird thing. I suspect almost everyone feels like they don’t have enough of this. There’s this tendency to downplay what you’ve already done and only think of what you haven’t. It doesn’t count that I’ve survived financially for 3 years since leaving college, what matters is how broke I am at the moment. Don’t count all the completed projects, 339 published articles and the fact that I’m a nude model who only recently found myself weighing the correct amount on the scale; what matters is my stomach could be flatter and I don’t have any books published. It’s a vicious cycle and the best way I know to keep ahold of it is just remember that we’re all in the same boat. I have a lot to feel proud of, and I’m making progress towards even more. Being alone is nothing to be ashamed of when it was a tactical choice.
Hell, I think I deserve something of a gold star when it comes to tactical choices. Not many people have saved their own life twice by 25. I’m only sitting here typing on this computer right now because I’ve managed to drop my cost of living down to almost nothing, letting me scrape by on oddjobs and nude modeling. I should visit the doctor more, though, especially because my healthcare runs out December 8th.
On the other hand, mindless backpatting doesn’t do anyone any favors. I should install photoshop and start learning it, maybe take drawing lessons. I’m missing some fundamental understanding that bridges the gap between “empty canvas” and “now you’ve got a drawing”, there’s just so many other things to do I’m not completely clueless at.
Shift in Focus
We’re doing a shift in focus. Namely, from a blog that doesn’t get posts, to one that does.
I’m starting a “once a day” blog post requirement. Literally doesn’t matter if I did nothing of value, if I was a lazy lagomorph with nothing of value to report for the last 24 hours, than that’s what I’m going to report.
That being said, I did damn good yesterday. Applied to 6 jobs, all of which are writing and so actually in my field of study. Perhaps it wasn’t the wisest choice to focus for so long on video game jobs due to my Literature degree, but I was hoping to roguish good looks and charm would carry me through. They did repeatedly get me to the second-stage of interviews, so I can’t fault them.
Today’s big job is to write this quest for Legends of Equestria. I haven’t worked for them for months, but they need someone to write a big tutorial quest and I guess my starship was the only one in the quadrant. Plowing through updated literature so I know what I’m actually doing, and holy god do their modern writers have it easy. Back when I wrote the two dozen quests I did, my only available mechanics were “speak to stationary NPCs” and “add or remove items from inventory”, and now they can spawn mobs, walk NPCs around, initiate combat with unique NPCs, spawn items in the world…basically the shit a real MMO gets. This tutorial is going to break the fucking bank, I hope their gigabytes are prepared.
1119
For some reason I feel more like using this blog as an actual blog, where I discuss things I’m thinking about. God knows why, maybe its the fact that my nonexistent audience can’t actually lose interest and unfollow. I can’t believe I’ve been regularly referencing and acknowledging you nonexistent readers since 2012.
I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty dejected by Blizzard saying no. I thought I had that one in the bag, it’s a customer service position to work for Overwatch, which would be a fucking dream come true for a cartoony FPS fan like me. I also thought the interview went great. I’ve been debating focusing exclusively on Blizzard because I know a workable if niche job-getting strategy is to just hound one company until it hires you simply out of name recognition. But with Lyft abandoning Austin, it has suddenly become difficult for me to even reach Blizzard. My roommate is working the current gig so had I landed it I’d have carpooled with him.
I’m so unbelievably jealous of my roommate. He has zero game development projects under his belt, he has never worked in the industry, and this was his first time applying for a gaming job. So of course he gets it (Overwatch! He gets Overwatch!!!), and my four years of experience gets me the door. It’s pretty clear I was considered overqualified, and its far from the first time. I appear to be in that sweet spot where I’m not qualified enough to hire for a decent game dev position, but I’m too qualified to hire for a shit gave dev position.
What to do, then? The obvious answer is to keep plugging away at volunteer/indie projects and find one that’s worth the time and will pay dividends. After all, with the internet and endless tutorials/training at my disposal I (and everyone else, to be fair) have no good excuse not to. It would just be so much easier to drive to work, do a thing from 9 to 5 and then come home and get paid. And then get a nice sizeable refund on tax day instead of kicked in the nuts by Schedule Cs. It’s so stress-free. I’ve been doing it entry-level for under $10 at dead-end customer service jobs for months now. I guess I just hubristically feel like I’m ready to advance to something better. Consider this blog post my Disney princess song.
Luckily I’ve worked out a completely separate source of stress, that of my lifelong singlehood. I guess its around 25 that my biological clock finally started whining about how it was sick of being lonely and to start looking for charming gals and gents to spend nights with. And I may have wasted a few nights in bars wondering why the fuck I wasn’t at home writing or playing video games, and then ultimately going home eventually and doing just that. But me and my eros had some long conversations and eventually convinced it that I’m just not ready to spend time on another person right now. I want a steady job and a satisfactory level of content-creation skills under my belt before I can afford to try and balance my life along with someone else’s.
I have to remember that I’m incredibly lucky with where I already am. Not only am I a white decently-thin male in a first-world country who lacks any physical deformities, I’m doing something most people can only dream of. I’m risking everything and toiling in a self-chosen city following my dream. When I look at someone and feel jealous, I remind myself “Would you trade lives with them?” And the answer is always hell no. I’ve got my priorities straighter than anyone I know my age. And I’m going to succeed.
Darwin's Soldiers 