It's been a very long time since my last post. It's been about the same amount of time since I've done any game dev. I find it a little depressing, but this hiatus has been necessary. I'll start out with an overview of my life for the last few months.
In November of 2015 I took a new job. It's my first gig as a “real” developer where my code will actually have an effect on someone else’s life. From November through early February I crammed in about 6 months worth of training, and since then have started doing the actual work.
The new job has been great. A downside is that I live 40 minutes away on a good day, but most days are not; thank you construction. This has left me with even less time to work on Zero Hour stuff.
Did I mention my wife and I are expecting our third child in May? There's that too. We are both anxious and excited, but that too leaves less time still.
“We get it… You're busy…” I know… I'm sorry…
Before starting the new job though, I was able to have a state engine pretty much developed and working on my asteroids clone. I've been debating on starting a new game, but I'm thinking I'll go back and finish this one off first. It would be nice to have a finished game under my belt.
I've also been playing a lot of games too. It's fun, but I also have been using it to see different mechanics, hypothesize how they are done, and think about interesting tweaks. That's been fun.
Allow me a minute to get all “long and winding road” about it. When I look back at my life and how I hit this major milestone in my life, it's a bit crazy. I'll start with my catalyst(s); my children.
I spent a decent part of my immediate time going with the flow at my first job. I probably had hung around there a little too long, but I didn't really have any drive to do anything different until after my children came into my life.
I looked at what I was doing. I knew I was settling. I thought about future conversations I would have with them. I didn't want to be a hypocrite telling my kids not to settle when I had already resigned to a job that I didn't want forever. I wanted to be a developer.
So I jumped in with Adam and Shane. I committed time to it. Then I got a new job in QA in Madison. After settling there, I started developing games more. I was solving awesome problems and proud. It gave me enough confidence to try for developer job, and I got it.
This lead me to another realization. “What is next?” I still don't know that answer. I'm still just getting started at my job. I want to be good at that first, and learn as much as I can. My ultimate goal would to be able to be an indie game developer and be able to sustain my family and enjoy life. That's another big leap.
I do have confidence that I will be able to get there. What I found is that these things are achievable. Yes, it's a big leap, but a big part of design is dividing up the whole process into tiny parts. You can then put all of those parts together for the complete package.
