06.18.06
Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em…
“…and if you ain’t got ‘em, then you’ve hit rock-bottom.” –Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Smoke ‘Em
I’m gonna be honest here, folks. This is the lowest I’ve been in a long time. My biggest problem to this point has always been money, and the poor management thereof. Fortunately, with this new job comes a bit more inflow than before; I’m not taking this as an opportunity to blow it all irresponsibly, as I have before, but rather as a way to set things right and prevent me from getting to this point again. I’m calling this my Stabilization Phase– the time I’m using to get back on my feet and profitable again.
The thing is, whether I’ve explicitly said anything or not, it’s affected me. I’ve become humorless and depressed, and I’ve neglected other things which I shouldn’t have just because I needed to distract myself from my troubles without actually doing anything. It’s been a struggle to do any writing for Incon these past couple weeks, but hopefully I’ll be changing that soon.
I’m taking a little bit of time away from Netjak due to a lack of ability to review anything new, owing to time constraints (I have a LOT of work to do before I can get to a point where I can buy games again, so I’m occupying myself with stuff that doesn’t cost to use). Unfortunately, without anything to review, going to that site is too much of a temptation, so I’ve decided to just disappear from there until I’m out of the Stabilization Phase.
Also, this means that Otakon will not be happening this year, due to extremely poor planning on my part. I’m sorry, folks, but if I had smart enough to take this approach when I started my LAST job I would be able to go this one. Instead, I blew my big trip on E3 and I still haven’t entirely recovered from that (but I will this week). I comfort myself in the fact that Tekkoshocon was close by, and that I did get to go to at least one anime con this year; then again, that does absolutely NOTHING for you guys, who I’ve let down. Please accept my deepest apologies and know that I’m going to start saving for Otakon 07, in cash, with paycheck number one.
As for what I’ve been doing, I’ve had Java on the brain for the past week, in addition to making the most of my newly-rediscovered FFXI account. (Yeah, I know, I really ought to eliminate either that or CoH, but you know what? My budget does allow for them, and I’m 90% sure I can afford their upkeep costs. So yeah.) My big goal in terms of coding the often-rumored game is to create a sprite engine. That’s actually influencing some of my decisions in game design; the game engine will be considered ‘complete’ once I’m able to code a Pac-Man clone, and then I can move on to extending it for my real goal (a console-style RPG, probably to show off as a technical demo at GDC to see about getting a job in The Industry, or at the very least, selling the game engine and concept/story to A Studio and reaping the rewards). Actually, the way the engine is shaping up, it could possibly be used for any type of game, from a basic maze game to an action-RPG like what I have in mind. My pipe dream is to get the game ported to the DS– pfft, yeah, like that’s going to happen.
It might seem counterintuitive to write a game in Java, but there are a few factors to consider: First, I know Java and I don’t know C++. (They’re similar, yes, but C++ has all that mucking about with pointers and memory and all that.) Secondly, Java has a decent and usable API for graphics (all right, so AWT might not exactly be ‘decent’, but it’s usable), whereas C++ doesn’t outside of DirectX, and DirectX means no cross-platform capabilities (which is one of my major goals for the game– it has to compile and run under both Windows and OS X; if it’s cross-platform, it can be ported to consoles, or at the very least might be able to work with download-game services like XBLA or Virtual Console; come to think of it, I’d love it if VC had ‘Java VM’ as one of its options but I’m not holding my breath). Finally, I like Java. I’m all for the proliferation of Java as a desktop application language because of the simplicity of bringing people together. Java can bridge the gap between Windows and Mac, between PC and Console, can do a lot of really neat stuff. It just needs half a chance.
Don’t expect anything usable on the game front for a while. I still need to get the sprite engine to, y’know, display sprites instead of text placeholders. Hell, I need to get it out of text mode to begin with. Once it gets to that point, it’s going to have some fancy tricks like layered activity and transparency. The tech demo will show off a little bit of this. Like I said, it’s a ways off, but it’s now officially on the radar again.
I’ve also figured out what my NaNo for ‘06 could be– it’ll be the novella describing the story of the game. Of course, since I have no idea what type of RPG I want to write, it’s safe to assume that I reserve the right to change this.
I’ve really gone outside of the scope of this rant, but the point is I have enough to keep me busy and happy for the duration of my poverty. I may even come away with something more valuable than just money– a good game to my name.
Wish me luck, folks. I intend to write more and more often, but for now this is it.