It’s a pretty obvious sign that I’ve gone crazy already, because I’m seriously considering keeping this in as it is:
Isn’t everybody a mirror, at some fundamental level? Isn’t it worth to – ahem – reflect about this possibility a little?
Maybe we should have a character in the game that only says I AM ERROR. Hah, hah. Crazy idea.
This post is all about other blogs. You know, after you’re done reading every post here twice, and then commenting thirty times, you may want to read a different blog. Not too different, mind you, but still, just a little, maybe a fresh take on something, a new perspective.
Well, well, how convenient that you mention it now! Guess what! Blogroll-time!
First of all: Kiyaku/Kihaku has started blogging. AGAIN. Will it work out this time? One can only hope. This time, it has the title of, uhm, “$Kiyaku.set.Torque(love);”, which is… not really romantic, and it also doesn’t quite roll off your tongue, but hey, who cares, its a blog, its made by Kiyaku, thats all that counts, right?!
Click these words to be transported to his blog, a process thats done via magic.
As the name suggests, its all about Kiyakus newfound love: Torque. After working with Acknex for a while, he has now decided to move on and try his luck with new engines, in this case, Torque. The blog can only be understood as a diary of this truly exciting journey, and the first posts are already a sign of great things to come.
On an unrelated sidenote, how come I always think of Trauma Centers stupid “Kiriyaki”-virus-thing? The one that cut the victims organs all the time? And also making them depressive, somehow? That got so incredibly hard so fast, untill they were at “Extreme” in the extra-levels, in which I cannot survive half a minute? Yeah, I told you it was unrelated. OR WAS IT?!
The other blog that we all should look at today is only written in german, so sorry for our non-german-speaking friends! That one won’t be found in the blogroll to the right – I’ve tried entering it in there, but it doesn’t work, for Pappenheimer – the author of said blog (which isn’t really a blog) decided to have an umlaut – you non-german-speaking-people probably know them from certain bands who think adding those makes them, for some magical reason, more awesome (Which raises an interesting point – would you visit this blog more often if it was called “Experimentäl Blög”? ) – in the URL, which makes the thing not work with the blogroll. Aww. 
It might work via something like tinyurl, but for now, no Pappenheimer in there.
So now that you know that you cannot visit it later, you must do so now! CLICK THIS!
That one seems to become very interesting in the very near future – unfortunately, for now, the amount of content there is sadly not the amount of content you’d want to read – because its, as I’ve said, really interesting and could become a treasure chest of thoughtprovoking mixes of philosophy with video games, all also focused on paedagogics and the unique way of looking at things when you are not a gamerkid, but the parent of a child and curious as to how – and if at all! – videogames may benefit your child.
Also, he is creating a very cool game, that while also aimed at children, manages to make them interested without dumbing down its content or interface – he really found a nice balance there, and I’m really looking forward to see more of that project.
That was the “game development blog”-blogroll-update. There are, of course, hundreds of blogs about this very topic in the internet, but maybe, you find the time to check those two out, because they deserve it.
-E
There are, basically, two ways to look at the ongoing project. And it’s fascinating how differently you can look at these and what difference this makes. For smaller projects – minigames, say – this doesn’t apply in the same way than it does for “bigger” ones. And certainly, this is also just my personal obversation, and as such has a high change to be totally useless for most people.
But I still find it interesting. The first way to look at the progress of your project is “how much more do I still have to do”. That is, of course, a good way to look at your project if you want to see how much time you’re likely going to spend on it until it’s done. If you haven’t done it already, create a To-Do-list, as these things really help. However, there is a pretty big problem with this type of observation.
It leads to the depressing thought that all this stuff that still needs to be done is pretty overwhelming. “I’m never going to manage that”, they say. “This is impossible”. True, one can try to think along the lines of “oh, it looks like much, but this and this and this just doesn’t take that long, and we’ll be done in no time.”. Yeah, that may happen, but for many projects – at least, many of my projects – looking at to-do-lists can also be pretty sad, especially if you don’t use the “cross-entires-out-when-you’re-done”-approach and that can be a problem if you have troubles staying motivated anyway.
Then there is the other way to look at things: What you’ve achieved already. Sure, that doesn’t really help with the planning and the question on how to continue – but it’s a surefire way to get motivated. If you can, try to save screenshots from any phase of the project, so you can always compare them to the current state – if you see that huge difference your work made, that is pretty motivating. Maybe quite a part of your game is already playable? Think about how this very part may very well be enjoyed by MILLIONS OF PEOPLE when you’re released the game and be all famous!* Sometimes, a little look back can boost your productivity more than a good bit of planning.
For me, its always amazing to see not what I have done, but what our team has achieved. A few days ago, I basically stopped to look at things and thought “my god, all of this wouldn’t look nearly as nice without their help”. It’s fantastic to see our group of people work together to achieve a vision, and the fact that a big part of that vision is actually my vision, and that those people help me to achieve that is simply mindblowing. So with that, I say thank you! Thanks T, thanks D, thanks Shinobi, thanks everyone else who has worked on this and helped us with this (you know who you are!). You are amazing, and I couldn’t do this without you.
-E
*or, maybe, three people. Something inbetween, probably.
Let’s make it clear: we`re not having any kind of April Fools joke.
We won’t have any other updat, probably, but at least we won’t have a stupid April-fools-update.
