So far final project has been pretty damned hectic.  Our team, starting out as seven programmers and two artists lost one person in the first month due to financial aid issues that the guy was having.  We quickly forgot about him and continued at a pace that was somewhat decent until we quickly discovered that there were deep rooted communication errors in the team.  Starting out, I believe that GP Games picked all the quietest people and put them on a team with the loudest IP they could get.  In retrospect, maybe it was the best idea, ‘cause I don’t know how well these other IPs, IP meaning Internal Producer, would handle a team that never really talks.

After said communication errors were solved with a series of meetings and the discovery by Kodiak, one of the artists, of a website could use that offered a chat window.  This new form of commuication seemed to eleviate a lot of the problems we were having.  After a failed Proof of Concept we hammered on and powered into Feature Fragment one.  With the fear of failure looming and some developed comradery amongst the team, the fire had officially been lit.

Feature Frag one came and went, and we blew it out of the water!  The External Producers, also known as EPs, were blown away with the progress and loved the game itself, they even fought over who got to play it.  At this point, it was only about 50% done, so to see them loving it that much already raised our moral exponentialy.  So, the team moved on towards Feature Frag two and Alpha.

Now, at this point, we were pretty high as a kite on a bright sunny day with how well our game had gone over.  Maybe it was an excuse for some people to take it easy, or maybe the tasks were geniuinly hard as hell, to this day, I still do not know.  However, what I do know is that we hit FF2 with no animations and the EPs were not happy about that, but that was the only problem.  They figured that the rest of the tasks were far enough along to be acceptable and that our presentation was very well done.

So here we sit, on the road to Alpha, preparing to turn in our game at 100% feature complete with animations and a full blown scene.  While animations are still an issue, they are at least in the game and working somewhat and the scene is on the verge of being exported.  So, hopefully for Alpha we blow them out of the water just like we did for FF1 and FF2.

So, for anyone wondering what it is I’m working on, it’s a first person action game where you take the role of a thundercloud.  The purpose of said cloud is to wreck as much havoc as possible in a small city filled with robots. The robotic inhabitants are trying to fight back and escape in any way possible so you must strike them and and wrack up combos as fast as possible.  It’s a new mechanic that really hasn’t been done before but it seems to be playog out fairly well so far.

Also, my degree goes well, there are a few hic-ups here and there but things are starting to fall into place.  My thesis is sitting at just under passable at this point and my team is burning the midnight oil in order to meet deadlines.  While this isn’t the best way to work, it’s kind of a crunch in Final Project no matter how good you are at working.  Hopefully these guys can get some good stuff from this and grab at their degrees just like I am.

Last, but not least, there are talks regarding a studio being created.  Now, we’ve toyed with this idea for awhile, but never really had some good ideas or people to put behind it.  So far, we have Darren, James, and myself as dierctors in our specific areas.  There are also a few hand-picked others from other areas we’ve been looking into.  So far, the plan is to get started out around Irvine, CA, mainly because of all of the companies out there and our main publisher is located in San Francisco.

We will be starting development off in iPhone development as well as other small platforms like Flash and PSN.  We have a few really good ideas which I can not discuss seeing as we have now signed an NDA with our publisher, but what I can say is that anyone owning an iPhone is gonna want these games ‘cause we are freakin’ awesome like that!  Feel free to hit me up for what little details I can give, but as of now my lips are pretty much sealed.

There are still a few kinks that need to be worked out of the idea, mainly money, but other than that, everything else is pretty much a go.  So if anyone knows anyone that would be interested in investing, or possibly ways to get a hand on some small business loans that don’t require a lot of collateral, that would be good, ‘cause we have none.  We remain vigilant, however, that we can get this started.  I want nothing more than to see this studfo get off the ground.

As far as my personal life goes, I don’t really feel like discussing it right now.  I’ve got enough destractions and frustrations in my life right now to add personal stuff on top of it.  I’m already worried enough about things to have to worry about other issues like those as well.

Anyone who’s heard the story of this small town would feel a great deal of pride for them.  A town, destroyed by an F5 tornado, they are now rebuilding their small town to be the greenest city on Earth.  As noble a plight as this is, there’s one thing that these people seem to have forgotten about.  They’re building this amazing green city in the exact same spot, in them middle of TORNADO ALLEY!

No amount of green is going to save your ass from the next F5 that comes rip roaring through there!  What the fuck happened to common sense?!  Is it really that hard to go, “Hmmm…that’s a shame we lost the whole town to that tornado.  Maybe we should move it a couple hundred miles in another direction…or just move somewhere else!”  People, if a natural disaster rips through your city, destroying 95% of it and you survive, take that as a hint to MOVE ON!

What I’m trying to say here is, building a green city is nice, but for heaven’s sake, build it somwhere that isn’t guaranteed to happen again eventually.

My life has been rather hectic lately, and there have been people coming and going.  The ones I’m about to talk about know who they are and names will not need to be named.  Also, I guess I just need to get some things out, because I feel like there are a lot of rumors flying around behind my back that are unfair and biased.

First off, I do not keep belt notches, so stop spreading rumors that I do.  I get feelings that people who used to be friends are now spreading rumors that all I want to do is sleep around.  That’s not the case, and if things didn’t work out the ways that you imagined, I’m sorry.  Apparently I have some sort of amazing charisma with women that not even I was aware of, so if I didn’t fall madly, head-over-heels for you, then I’m sorry, but please don’t try making me feel like crap because of it.  I’m a very logical person, and sometimes, I just don’t see things working out.

Secondly, I’m done offering my opinions or advice to anyone, because no one seems to want to take it seriously, so why the hell should I waste my time?  “Go build your fucking rocketship,” seems to just be something I say that shoots over peoples heads until they hit the wall and have nowhere else to go.  On top of that the people who come to me, crying at night, begging for help with a problem, but when I offer the logical solution, “Well, the sex is too good to give up, so I’d rather live a shitty life doing coke with someone who doesn’t really care for me,” is the response I get back.

I’m not a fan of repeating myself, and I’m not a fan of apologizing for things that aren’t my fault.  People in this world need to learn to just be straight-forward and say what they mean and what they are going to do.  I mean, yes, I’m not 100% sure all of the time, but at least I have a good idea of what I’m going to do, and even when I don’t, I take peoples advice into account when they give it.  I don’t just beg for the advice and then completely throw it to the wayside when the time comes to make a choice.

Right now, I’m happy with things.  I’ve got a good woman at my back to stand by me, something that I’m sure a lot of others women that say I’m only in it for the sex wouldn’t have done.  I’m on the verge of a masters degree in a field I have a true passion for, which is something that only a very small portion of the world could claim.  Last but not least, I don’t regret a thing.  I’ve taken my lumps, and I’ve dished some out, but I’m not apologizing for anything at all, because I’m a good person, and no amount of hearsay can change that.

So do yourself a favor, how about, if you aren’t happy with me or how things went, then stop talking about me, especially behind my back.  Maybe then you’ll all be able to get over yourselves and start living the semblance of a life.