Website (Update #1)

 Re-Upload (original date: 11/11/2021)

I went off my schedule for about 2 weeks and have been working on finishing my website instead. I felt like it was reasonable to delay my regular routine a bit to get my site up and ready to present.

I was primarily just trying to recreate the portfolio site I made during my Associate’s Degree. This site was originally made using the GUI website builder, Wix (https://www.wix.com/). I think this is a reasonable tool, especially to present to a generalized group of game design students who aren’t necessarily all interested in learning much programming (though I do personally think all game design students benefit greatly from learning programming - how else would a designer or artist know what is practically feasible to implement in a video game - but that is a separate topic). However, Wix forces you to use their given domain name (‘username’.wixsite.com), as well as having a banner advertising Wix across the top, or pay them a monthly subscription to upgrade your account and allow you to use your own domain with their service. So, I had three main reasons to build my own site, rather than continuing to use my Wix set:

1. The domain name/banner was unprofessional, and to change it to my own domain, I’d have to pay more than I would like. I had already done some HTML in high school and knew it’d be worth it to set it up on my own rather than pay for the service
2. I wanted to have more experience with Web Design/HTML/CSS and to be able to advertise that skill on my portfolio
3. I would have more direct control over my website, rather than using the preset paradigms given by Wix

I purchased a domain quite some time ago. I then spent some time looking into hosting. I fiddled with Apache for a bit, using an IP provided by my ISP, but after troubleshooting with Apache for awhile, I ended up just using GitHub Pages to host my website. This ended up working pretty well for me as I had already started to use GitHub to backup my projects anyway.

I then started to recreate my website using HTML and CSS. I haven’t used any JavaScript here, yet, managing to get all I wanted done just with CSS. There are some points where I’d like to try implementing some JS in the future, perhaps for showing images in a slide-show format.

I learned a lot throughout this process and really enjoyed it. Each page basically had a new challenge for me. The major ones were, using iframes to embed pdfs/video so that they are readable on most browsers, centering div containers and making columned image sets, and the bloghome page was a good design challenge as well. A major point was, optimizing for mobile. I thought I may have to use JS to detect what device is being used, but I ended up using the @media{} tag. This effectively works like an if-statement, detecting what sort of media the page is being displayed on and running the CSS within the braces. So, I checked if it was displayed on a screen with a viewport width of under 1000px and if it was in portrait mode and, if so, the CSS would be changed to accommodate, generally increasing the size of elements so they could be more visible. If a mobile device is held landscape though, it just loads the default CSS.

This has been a very productive, fun, and informative project. Thanks for reading about it.

General Update #4

Re-Upload (original date: 11/11/2021)

I’d like to provide an update on what I’ve been doing on a regular basis. I’m going to break it down by my scheduled tasks.

First Week:

Text-Based Game Design:

I finished my first draft of my game and have been repeatedly editing it. I seem to always find something to change when I play through it. I also have dozens of notes about changes I’d like to make - some small some big - that I have been implementing. I’ve also been writing down a beta test set of questions/form to help when I beta test. I could start testing now, it is in a functional, feature-complete state, I just imagine it would be wise to implement my edits first so I’m not wasting my testers time (i.e. they may note something that I already have plans to change).

Physical Document Organization:

I finished scanning all the notebooks I had in queue (roughly twenty notebooks of varying sizes). In this process, I categorized the scans into folders – Writing, Images, ImagesWithWriting, and Game Ideas. Afterwards, I went through the entire folder of Writing and transcribed each of the scans into a raw document. Then, I categorized the text in these raw documents into their own categorized documents (e.g. notes to self, to-do lists, creative writing, etc.). Throughout this process, I didn’t transfer any notes that seemed of little use, as I have more than enough ideas and need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Next up would be to go through Images and pull out any drawings that stand out to me and set them aside, categorize the ImagesWithWriting, and go through my newly categorized Writing documents and review them/pull out useful info. I already categorized the Game Ideas as I went along.

Computer Programming/Computer Science:

I’m still working on my Unix/Command Line tutorials on YouTube. In the tutorial series, it mentioned this site (http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/). I took a detour to explore this site and found it be very valuable. I ended up spending some time reading up a bit about programming at a high level. I read about the fundamentals of how a computer/the internet works, specifically on a Unix system. I read about how best to find information when stuck on a programming problem and what sort of mentality/procedures are advised if one likes to tinker with computers (referred to as “hacking” in this early 2000’s post).

Drawing:

I’ve been doing a lot of drawings of wallpapers, usually video game art, alongside some drawing of the human form and environment drawings. I have some new ones to add to my portfolio.

Web Design:

I’m still going through my JavaScript course and look forward to trying some it out on the web. I took some time off that, though, to get my website up using HTML/CSS alone. It went pretty well – there’s more info on it in my dedicated blogpost.

Math:

I’m working through my Calculus review still. I also forayed a bit into linear algebra, as the game development textbook I was reading through started to mention it.

Second week:

Tabletop Game Design:

I’m still going through my book, Challenges For Game Designers. I’m on a chapter about randomness/chance and, as one of the exercises, I made a variant of Tic-Tac-Toe with randomness that worked out pretty well. I feel as if I may want to add some of these games to my portfolio even though they are all just simple prototypes.

Digital File Organization:

This overlaps heavily with my Physical Document Organization, as now that my notebooks are scanned, I have a lot of sorting to do.

3D Graphics:

I recently finished the texturing section of my Udemy Blender course and made a complete scene. They include all textures that I made, using mathematical noise generators and such.

Video Game Development:

Still going through the Godot Docs. I’ve made two more simple games through following the tutorials and have exported a game to Android. I’m also considering uploading some of the games I made during my Udemy tutorials. I imagine it’d be best to put some of my own spin onto them – making new levels, mechanics, and/or changing the assets – rather than just uploading a tutorial game.

Research:

Much of this task has spilled into my daily routine, rather than being set aside for one day. I’ve been reading through my Introduction to Game Development textbook. I’ve also been listening to old GDC audio segments. I’m hoping to go through all of the ones available on the GDC Vault website and have done all from 1997-2000. It’s really valuable to learn about how things were done before and there still is valuable perspectives and information that still applies today. Otherwise, I recently found out about The Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, which is associated with the Academy for Interactive Arts & Sciences. I’ve also been reading through a classic fantasy story, Phantastes by George MacDonald.

General Update #3

Re-Upload (original date: 09/20/2021)

Here's a general update about what I've been working on lately.

The past 4-5 months, I've been following a repeating bi-weekly schedule in which I do a different task each day. It's similar to a school schedule, in that I cover a lot of different ground of different subjects. What specifically I've been working on includes 12 different tasks over two weeks, one day spent on each. I've been using sites like Udemy and KhanAcademy, as well as books and tutorials/courses I've found on YouTube. My schedule is as follows:

First Week:

Mon: Text-Based Game Design:

Using Twine. Specifically working on my current game called Merc. (https://twinery.org/)

Tue: Physical Document Organization:

Scanning notebooks/sketches/documents and sorting them on my computer. Filing. Sorting through my to-do lists and other lists.

Wed: Computer Programming/Computer Science:

This is a variety of topics. I finished a Python book called Invent Your Own Games with Python (https://inventwithpython.com/)and am now digging deeper into Linux system administration and using command line. Many other topics planned for the future. Planning on reviewing some Vim tutorials. Planning to learn some more C++. I did a couple courses in college, but I'd like to finish my C++ text book, though I imagine I'd like to focus more on Python in the long term. Also some general comp. sci classes like Data Structures.

Thu: Drawing:

Drawing mostly with a pencil, sometimes using a tablet with my computer. Mostly doing reference drawings (gestures and contours) of human figures, portraits, animals, landscapes, and game characters. I like using this site for reference exercises: (https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing)

Fri: Web Design:

I've recently been reviewing HTML/CSS which I originally studied in high school, but I'm also starting to learn some JavaScript so I can make interactive sites. I've started porting over this site to my own domain. I've also played around with hosting using Apache and GitHub.

Sat: Math:

I mostly use Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/'). I took Calculus in high school and college, but I'm in the process of reviewing it. Next, I'll be doing Statistics and then planning on Linear Algebra. Personally, this is a good break from all my other creative work and it's nice to work on something with a logical substructure and concrete answers. Otherwise, this is good information to know in general, specifically when working on things like graphics engines.

Second week:

Mon: Tabletop Game Design:

I've specifically been using the book, Challenges for Game Designers (https://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X). This is an amazing book with some review about game design and several exercise to try at the end of each chapter. I've made about two larger games with tokens, cards, boards, and other game bits, and about six smaller, quick to design and implement ones on graph paper. It's just great practice for game design without having to spend time on art or programming.

Tue: Digital File Organization:

Sorting scanned documents. Managing and organizing my files (my phone, my computer, my two external drives, my google drive).

Wed: 3D Graphics: I've been using Blender and have a few different courses I have in the works, focusing on one on Udemy at the moment (https://www.blender.org/).

Thu: Writing: This is a broad category. I like creative writing, poetry and song-writing, and general writing about my life/journaling. Lately, I've been working on a program called "The Self Authoring Program" (https://www.selfauthoring.com/). It's a structure to help someone write about their past, present (virtues and faults), and their plans for the future.

Fri: Video Game Development:

I've been using the Godot game engine and I really enjoy it (https://godotengine.org/'). It's open source, which makes it a much safer bet for me, and is fairly feature complete. I recently finished a course on Udemy which involved me making five different 2D and 3D games. I am now reading through the documentation, which also has some exercises embedded into it. I've also started to make one of my own games.

Sat: Research:

This is a pretty general category, but it mostly involved reading; reading books or researching different topics on the web. I just went to set aside a large period of time for it so I can make some solid progress. I also spend this time watching lectures and interviews, specifically GDC talks, but also just about whatever subjects are important to me. I also spend some of this time learning about specific classic games/media, by either watching some game play or watching the show/film.

Some other updates:

I've started using GitHub for most of my projects and tutorials, just to back them up. I've also recently finished my first draft of my text-based game and am now beginning to edit it and beta test it. Things are going really well with this schedule and I'm making great, gradual progress across several different fields. I really view it as a sort of self-education.

Video Animation (update #1)

Re-Upload (original date: 04/15/2021)

Hello and welcome to my first blog post. In this blog, I will be discussing the process for some of my projects.

During the Fall semester of 2019, I was in a course called Motion Graphics. In it, we used the video editing program Adobe After Effects. Our final project was an open ended video assignment, aiming for between 1-3 minutes. After some brainstorming, I decided to make my project about the first few scenes of one of my absolute favorite games, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I soon came upon a stopping point for this project's scope, to stop the story when Link first leaves the Kokiri forest.

My initial idea was to have it look like an old NES or SNES game cinematics, looking specifically at Ninja Gaiden (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtOxZiizL4E). Though, as I began working on it, this idea changed and I realized I couldn't quite recreate these cinematics as I wanted. I still integrated some of the ideology with the the sizing of the text box and the sizing of the image. I also enjoyed the idea that in NES cinematics, simple 2-frame animations are the norm.

I reread the first view scenes in the LoZ: OoT manga ( https://www.viz.com/read/manga/legend-of-zelda-volume-1/product/1890) and watched gameplay footage of the first scenes in the game itself (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX8YkcOeOfQ), up to when Link leaves the forest. I noted the pivotal, plot-moving scenes - dreaming of Zelda, fighting Gohma, receiving the Kokiri Emerald, hearing the origin of the universe, etc. I identified which ones I wanted to use as reference, and began sketching. The research probably took between 1-2 hours. The sketches took maybe 5 hours all together, most of which I made fairly detailed to prepare for scanning. I had a little story boarding experience from a previous assignment in my game design course that helped. 

I've included some of my sketches below. 

Afterwards, I digitally traced my images, which took some time - maybe an hour for each of the more detailed ones. I can include those here in the future. I can also show how the editing looks in Adobe After Effects.

Once I finish the animations I have planned, I'd plan to add sounds. Beyond that, one thing I'm considering is adding more of a background to each slide.

To be continued...

Video Animation (update #2)

General Update #2

 Re-Upload (original date: 10/15/2020)


Lately I've been having fun with the development/programming side of things.

Some things I've been working on lately:

My Twine Game

Using the Godot Engine

Experimenting with Unix (Fedora Core 32)

I've been very interested in storytelling and writing lately, as well as sketching here and there. I recently finished a section of my Twine game and have been doing my usual minor editing and polishing. Using Godot seems to be a higher priority to me as it has much more implications than just text-based games, but working on that twine game has still been a wonderful design process. I am looking toward doing some Godot courses online and then trying to making some of the small-scope video games I've designed.

Sketches (update #1)

 Re-Upload (original date: 07/13/2020)

Hello,

Here, I provide a little context about the process of my sketches.

The two drawings of the woman were done with a live model, on large paper and an easel. They each took about 45-60 minutes in-class time and then another 30-60 minutes to finish the shading. The other drawings took longer and were focused more on contour lines. The rhinoceros took at least 6-8 hours over about 3-4 drawing sessions. This one was done relatively early on in my Intro to Drawing course. The other two, the set of hands and the Vitruvian Man were done in the later weeks of my Human Form Drawing course. I would estimate they both took at least 4 hours each. I'd also like to note that, though these are all reference drawings, I enjoy doodling and sketching from my imagination at times. I have done so since I was young, but I've been drawing more regularly since around 2015.

These are all my after the fact estimations based on my recollection.

General Update #1

Re-Upload (original date: 07/01/2020)

Hello. I would like to provide a general update on my life and game design.

On Game Design Goals:

I've been thinking one of my primary goals is to be able to scrap together my game ideas into 2d games with a minimal time loss between idea and concept/prototype. This is obviously a large goal and also one I've had a long time, but I've realized this would require of me deep proficiency with one game engine. Though I've enjoyed using Unity and GameMaker and I find Unreal appealing, I've chosen to focus on the Godot engine, primarily for its open-source nature. So, I've been trying to do tutorials for that more often. I'd like to do a couple in depth tutorials and then see how well I can put together my own game project ideas.

I've also been thinking about applying to schools for the Spring semester. I'd like to update this portfolio with some of the school projects I've mentioned, as well as potentially my Unity PlayMaker in-school project too before applying. There's also a design challenge for Champlain college that seems like it would be a good portfolio piece. It would be a tabletop game. I recognize that I could likely apply with my portfolio in this state, but I know I could add more to make it more appealing, and frankly, don't feel like I'm demonstrating nearly what I'm capable of here, yet.

I don't have any major rush to apply and find myself more inclined to work on these project for some real length. I partly want to see how much I am willing to devote to these projects in my free time before I overly commit to this career. Realistically, to get the Unity game and other school projects up as is and my other projects remain in the state they are, that would likely be good enough for Spring apps. I really seem to almost fear the prospect of ending up in this games program with a strong desire to simply be working on my own game projects, while instead I am spending my days learning specific tools I might not want or pursuing new projects when I truly should be finishing up some of my half-dozen half-pursued projects. I fear being rushed into the formal educational systems when I may feel my best education, at this point after having done so much research, lies in individual practice. I don't imagine this fear is totally valid, even if it is based on some important ideas, like trying it out on my own before committing. Realistically, a good bachelor's game program works around my educational goals or at least allows enough different classes/flexibility in projects and would potentially effectively allow me to continue my projects for credit.

I find it valuable to and hope to continue to have monthly, career/game design focused blog updates here. I also would like to allow myself to write about most anything on my mind or related here. Even if I have been focusing on other stuff, to update is a good idea. Even if it's "these are the games I'm playing and this is what I like about them."