Ok, so this week's post is pretty much a quick rundown of the ideas, ventures I'm currently undertaking:
>
Round the Block has reached a few quick milestones this week following my take-over of library computers as my own work station. With the quick implementation of 3 of my proposed 7 or so power ups for the game, I feel I'm making steady progress amid the myriad of other responsibilities I have going on. Stay tuned for this one. It began as a small stepping stone, and with all the experience I'm gaining through this and by working with
Kyle Bolton on
Bala, I think I'll be able to make this a bit better than my original scope intended.. but then there's the RELEASE SOMETHING stigma that is constantly haunting and drumming through my mind! D:
> This week began with the goal of making the Fire Demon for
Project Bala. The character is one of the various enemy types for the games and generally works as a living, angry fireball. Pour water on it, it dies; blow air on it, it grows! The creation and testing of this character has been pretty fun so far. For the coming week, I'll be refining and tweaking the Fire Demon ever closer to perfection and also implement the menacing Tu Spooky.
> Tennessee State University now has a game club simply titled "
TSU Game Programming Club". I'm about the only senior level student participating as faculty and club adviser
Dr. Erdemir has taken to establish it with mostly freshmen to promote longevity, involvement and commitment to the group. Since I am more experienced, I'm taking a leadership role with the Game Club by being lead developer in the A level group. Our game for the semester is a recreation of
Battlezone in the
Unity3D game engine. I'll be posting more updates with that as time goes on. After meeting up to discuss our first milestones and project set up, I'm setting up the
Framework that our codebase for the game will follow by learning and working from
Kyle's example.
> I've been in conversation with some guys about how to go about developing a "shmup" (SHoot eM UP - Space Invaders - Galaga - etc.) game. The idea was thrown around for using Unity, C#, or C++. I really want to get the experience and knowledge of getting closer to fully programming a game without a pre-built engine so this small game, might be something that is doable in C++ with a two man team. We'd have a bit of learning and prep to do, so we'll see where this pipedream goes...
> Employment! How do you even do that??
I've been looking for Developer/Programmer, QA, general tech support jobs in the greater area of Nashville, TN. I've been sort of freaking out from the anxiety of the real world and finding employment, so I've been searching and casting my net... So far, no bites or catches or whatever fisherman analogy fits here. This article, however, lifted my spirits slightly if most of my competition are incompetent non-programmers. This search of monetary gain and self preservation has also landed me on a few freelancer websites and the wealth of jobs that I could do (given the time, because if you're reading this, you clearly see I have TONS of time lying around. I'M STILL A COLLEGE STUDENT).
So, I'll definitely at least be a freelance developer! I still have street performing sax player as a fall back and cardboard house artist as a fall back to that.
To wrap up this post, I bid you good readers to ponder this question that's inspired from the esteemed artist,
Big Boi:
Do you have a #BackUpPlanToTheBackUpPlanToBackUpTheBackUpPlan ?
