Roll a Crit at GenCON

Game Update

Spending the week at GenCON and doing a lot of traveling took me away from working on the game. There were a lot of new games at the convention. It made me think about some of the other things I can create with my IP. Maybe I’ll create a card game or something someday.

I tried to pull the files from my dropbox, but the wifi at the hotels wasn’t working. I just moved on from that to focus on the convention.

Personal Update

Working the convention this year was pretty crazy. I worked for the Roll a Crit booth selling GenCON tee-shirts and other convention souvenirs. It was super busy as soon as I arrived there. I spent my shifts re-stocking merchandise for the store. It was quite an experience working a booth where I didn’t have to actively sell the product. People were very disappointed often when we ran out of our quota for the day or when stock ran out for the weekend.

I got food poisoning during the convention and it freaked me out. I was worried that I couldn’t work the job I was there for, I would miss the convention, and that I would have a hard time driving to pick up my kids. Luckily my friend told me exactly what to get so that I could get medicated and get well fast. I was back 100% in 24 hours and made up my time missed on another day of the convention.

I spent a little more than I planned to, but I’m happy overall with the games I got for the kids.

Our GenCON haul

• Dungeon Drop

• Catapults and Crossbows

• Ultimate Treehouse

• Robot Quest

• Freeblades

• X-Treme Dungeon Mastery

• Middara Models

I saw a lot of industry people that I know, and there were plenty of people that I wasn’t able to connect with. It was a very busy convention. Given that they removed the masking requirements from the COVID era it felt like things were back to normal. That contributed greatly to the size of the crowds which were record breaking this year. The craziest thing was the crowds on Sunday. Usually it’s the most chill day of the convention but people were lined up down the hall for tickets. It had to have been a record breaking year for attendance and a really good year for vendors as well.

GenCON Bound

Game Update

What a difference this new difficulty setting is making in the gameplay. I find myself to be more engaged than I have been in the past with this simple change. A lot of the things that I really wanted seem to be facilitated by the change of allowing some troops to permanently die during stages.

Here are the benefits that I discovered:

1. I find that I want to move troops around between stages, create new troops, and engage more with the army screen.

2. I think about the game more when I’m away from it. It’s similar to what happens when I’m away from other strategy games. My mind is finding new solutions to problems.

3. I’m more aware when troops die during battle and sometimes I will avoid combats to spare some troops. I retreat them to less combat heavy areas.

We will have to clean it up a bit as there are times when it’s difficult to know who was lost. There is a lot of polishing that will need to happen in the game. I’m also becoming more aware that some troops will need to have notifications on what actions may be taken. Often I spend time clicking on classes the troops can’t change into, or I am looking through troops to find upgrades.

I need to re-install my windows to move away from an older version to something more up to date. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do a push with the all new difficulty settings. I want to get it out soon, because it’s a real game changer.

Personal Update

GenCON is next week and then I will pick up my boys and start the new school year and it will be off to the races again. Strangely, I feel like I will be more productive when them around than when they aren’t here. There are a couple of new challenges at the house we will have to overcome as well.

It’s been difficult having the boys away for so long. I’m hoping that we will settle into our normal routine quickly and easily. I wonder how they have changed over the summer. I’m really hoping that my youngest has mellowed out a bit.

The last time I was at GenCON was in 2018 which is so long ago now. I’m happy to have picked up a job with a reputable company. They even had us fill out forms to provide food for the convention. I hope that I will get to see a lot of old friends there that I haven’t seen in a long time. I’ve also reached a place in my life where I don’t buy so many games when I go to GenCON. I primarily want to earn money to keep building my personal investments.

If you see me at the convention I’m giving away steam keys for the Six Aspects. Just ask for one when you see me… maybe get me a drink.

I’m pretty excited to check out the new RPGs made by Darrington Press. Candella Obscura and Daggerhart. I hope they have something I can bring home with me. It sounds like they aren’t in full production yet. It’s the only game that’s really on my radar at the convention. I watched a top 10 anticipated games at GenCON and didn’t really see anything to exciting.

Who's Plan am I Following?

Game Update

Implemented the new difficulty system starting with allowing troops to die permanently after stages resolve. I need to spend some time playing the game to see if this actually makes me feel better or worse about the gameplay experience. There is a lot of content still to build and so I will likely spend my game development time with my mentor focusing on that again. Maybe we will do a gameplay night as well.

With the change to deaths in the game I’m wondering if I need to do more with the troop duplication system. I’ve thought about creating a system that would mash up 2 troops to make one, but this concept might be a bit messy in practice. I know I’m not supposed to get to wrapped around the axle on game mechanics resembling “real life” but it is a small concern. I suppose the question is, “should the player get the feeling that this society isn’t much different from real life, or should it be more fantastical and not worry to much about the details?” Either route is viable as this is not a historic game, it’s fantasy.

A couple of weeks ago I ran a quick one shot D&D module for some friends in the world of Six Aspects. The players were working for the Zeltaris empire and were presented with a dilemma. They went to a lumber camp which wasn’t producing for the empire and after some investigation found that they weren’t able to due to some mysterious force in the forest pushing them back. When they arrived they discovered that there were some tree spirits that were protecting their home. After some dialogue with the tree spirits, they discovered that they were protecting their home.

Things like this would be great to incorporate into our event system. Although it might be better as a stage specific mission for the player to complete. We could also create outcomes which increase or decrease the players reputation, or create other effects.

Personal Update

Having more issues with my Air Conditioning at home this week. After receiving the initial quote it looks like it’s going to be rather costly. I’ll be investigating it more as the time goes on, but for now I’m living without it. Growing up we didn’t have AC at our house and I feel it’s more of a luxury than a necessity. I have a couple ways forward on it.

In doing some of my research I was interested to find that quotes could vary widely from company to company. In some ways this isn’t because it costs a company more to do something. Often it’s because they are seeing what they can get the customer to pay.

I was struck by this after reading a lot of self development books and remembering what they said in the books. Robert Kiyosaki talks about this in his books “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, and “Cashflow Quadrant". He talks about making the sale and whispering the magic words, “easy monthly payments” to the borrower. That’s exactly what happened in this case. Often we become indentured servants to this practice and in some cases it can be preditory.

Knowledge is the best way to make a solid decision in my experience. Months ago I lost my hot water heater and the quote I got was $7k and they also wanted to put me on a payment plan. Thanks to my Dad’s connections I managed to get it taken care of for $2000 which is an enormous difference. If I’ve learned anything by living here it’s not to trust people initially. I’ve never encountered more scams in my life than I have living here.

Tony Robbins talks about the concept of making a plan for your life in his book “Awaken the Giant Within.” He says, “everyone has a plan for your life so make sure you have one because if you don’t then you will simply get taken along for the ride.” This couldn’t have been truer in this situation. The AC company has a game plan, and it has their best interests and bottom line in mind. This is generally true of company’s and commercials in general.

They have a plans like “if we show them a commercial, make them emotional and create desire then they will give us their money.” When I don’t have my own plan then I can easily be swayed. I need to focus on what I want, and my plan even when it’s difficult, uncomfortable, or inconvienient. I just keep remembering “Think and Grow Rich” and I don’t want to stop what I’m doing just short of finding my gold because I listened to someone else’s plan for my life.

On the flip side sometimes a situation is mutually beneficial. It’s always good to listen and understand what people want, and decide if that fits into my plan. I don’t think that everyone is out to get me, but I do know that everyone has an agenda, and it’s not going always going to be compatible with my goals. If I follow everyone else’s plan and not my own, then chances are I will wake up one day and wonder where the time went and why I didn’t accomplish what I wanted.

Changing the Game

Game Update

We managed to fully implement the new difficulty mode which will sometimes allow the player troops to die permanently after each battle. I need to spend more time trying it out to see how it changes the feel of the game. It should make for more interesting decisions. I also want the player to spend more time on the force organization screen and this should accomplish that.

I’ll return to working on levels soon, but for now I need to see how this will change the game. I have some other ideas about creating invisible enemy squads that are not part of the enemies army. I keep thinking about the book “Think and Grow Rich” as I am having a harder and harder time wanting to work on the game lately. The story of the gold miners stopping just short of goal keeps echoing in my mind. I will continue to work on the game of course but it’s not easy to keep going sometimes.

Personal Update

Some household trouble this week as my air conditioning is acting up. I’m a little worried about it because it might end up costing quite a bit to fix it. It’s constantly dripping loudly and that’s becoming a little distracting while I work in my office. On top of that I’m still trying to get my garage fixed. I’m getting hit on all sides with this house lately.

I can’t believe that the summer is going by so fast. I was thinking today that the last few summers I had a specific goal to work on, and I wasn’t sure if I had actually accomplished something like that this summer. There’s mostly been a lot of stabilizing of finances and generally improving things. I suppose I’ve been working on my health and fitness. Maybe I’ve got more done than I originally thought.

I’m disenchanted with X-Com after trying a base mission and feeling like it wasn’t the most fair mission with a lot of attacks coming without warning. I moved on to spend some time with Stoneshard this week and after talking to my mentor I found out that it is kind of like a medieval fallout shelter. I hadn’t played the game and so that got me interested in trying it out sometime as well.

Stoneshard is pretty unforgiving. I find that when I die in the game I get up from the game and go to do something else. I don’t typically want to play it again right away to try again. That’s a different experience from other rogue like games like Slay the Spire and Faster than Light. I find with those games I’m more ready to start over when I die. I think it’s because in both of those games they ramp up with some early easy victories before they kill you. That way you can get some random rewards.

New Features!

Game Update

Super excited to have just finished creating a harder mode for the game. It took the last couple of weeks, but I think it will really change the way that players approach the game. On this harder mode the player troops will sometimes die permanently after a battle if their HP has been reduced to zero. This should make the player think a little more about throwing their troops into the enemy. This will also make the player spend more time on the force organization screen as their squads will change over time with dead characters being removed.

I have to do some play testing for it , but I’m excited to see how this goes! We also created a situation where the player can change the difficulty at any time. That way they can try it out and if it gets to difficult they can step it back down. This is similar to how other games handle it. Once a player has chosen a difficulty it will be set for at least one battle however.

Personal Update

I made a purchase of a couple of items on the Steam sale. I bought Stone Shard, SRPG Studio, and Tactics Ogre:Reborn. I’ve been meaning to play Stone Shard for some time. It’s a medieval survival game that has a unique mechanic of having the world move when you move. It’s interesting in a turn based/real time sense which is meaningful for me to look at with my idea of “Same Time Strategy.” It does very similar things.

I’ve been meaning to try out SRPG Studio to see how it works for making turn based battle games. It seems very similar to RPG Maker in the way that it’s set up. Having made my own tactical RPG game I can really appreciate the engine that is already set up to track a lot of data related to player troops, enemies, items, and save states. It should be fun to play around with something that has a lot of those logisitcal things handled.

I mostly got Tactics Ogre:Reborn so that I would have it if I wanted to play it. I already own it on original PlayStation, and I picked up in Japanese cartridge form as well at a convention. I owe a lot to the developers of Ogre Battle, as it is the inspiration for my game Six Aspects. I wanted to see if there are some things to learn from this one that I wasn’t aware of. I also hadn’t finished the game yet and so I’m hoping to find some time for that as well.

I’ve been enjoying playing guitar for church lately, and I’m not sure what that will look like when my boys come back. On the one hand I feel that it’s important for my older sons to have a strong youth group to plug into. On the other hand this could be a stepping stone to have them in music.

Happy 4th of July!

Game Update

I’ve taken a small break from working on stages to implement a difficulty setting on the menu. The primary reason for this is to add certain modes to the game that I feel will improve the feel of the game. The most important one being the ability to have troops sometimes die and get removed from the roster completely. Right now when troops are defeated they can simply be healed and it has minimal impact on the player.

I’ve gone back to play X-Com 2 and I can’t get over the fact that I get pretty emotional when my troops die in the battles. We don’t have that right now in the game. There are no stakes for the player and they can simply smash their troops up against the enemy over and over with little to no consequence.

My mentor Chris is a little worried about this, but I’ve been very adamant that this is something that will be very important to implement. We made the difficulty system scalable with a number that the player can push up and down. One thing we didn’t do is lock in the difficulty when it’s chosen. It can be changed any time in between stages. We might do this in the future however.

Personal Update

I will be working GenCON this year which is very exciting for me. The last GenCON I attended was in 2018. I had made a conscious decision not to go in 2019 as I had expected to retire and move to Austin but that didn’t work out like I planed. Thank goodness it didn’t go the way I thought it would. I love Austin and still do, but I think the job might have been unsustainable, unlike the one I’m in now which allows me to live the lifestyle I want to live.

I missed a lot of blog entries this month. Many times I was busy on Sunday with friends and family. I did manage to get my first paid D&D session and I’m working on the next one. I’m becoming more and more business minded with ideas about advertising my company with tee shirts etc…

I also have had some time to relax and play some new board games as well as improving my board game area with some new matching cube shelves. I’d like to start streaming again, but there is a part of me that realizes that I may never get around to making video content on twitch and YouTube again.

The Magic the Gathering Lord of the Rings set was released this month to great success. I’m not surprised because LOTR has such a big built in audience. I think that the fantasy theme of LOTR fits well with what people want to see on their magic cards unlike some of the other universes beyond sets which are a bit jarring. They’ve really shown that anything can be a magic card now.

There was also a worldwide chase for the one of one “One Ring” which seems to have concluded two days ago now. Estimates were upwards of $2 million which would make this the most valuable magic card of all time. Pretty crazy times we’re living in for sure.

For me the set was pretty good and I have a couple of cards I think will work well in the Modern format that I typically play now and then. I was also able to put together my first commander deck using Tom Bombadil. I’m sure it’s not going to be overly competitive, but I’m excited to see it work, and I can finally play with my buddies that have been begging me to get a commander deck together forever.

Limiting Beliefs

Game Update

We are still working on the final stage. We have mostly been making the stage look good right now. We’re really interested in the look and feel of the stage. It should feel very industrial, like a capital city for the empire that is more focused on power and corruption than taking care of its citizens.

This week we talked a bit about how the player may not be spending enough time in the force organization screen. In a lot of cases the player can simply heal their squads and start a new battle. We might add a graphic that can alert the player when new classes are available. I’m still thinking about creating a “hard mode” that will allow the troops to die sometimes, and be injured other times. This should make it more interesting when playing stages as the player shouldn’t want to run squads in and just sacrifice them all the time with no repercussions.

Personal Update

I was struck by something this past Friday when I was playing a modern Magic the Gathering tournament. I had just finished a close match and after the match I mentioned that I had seen a deck that he might check out. His response was very telling, he said, “ I don’t net deck, I only play all original decks.” I let it go and didn’t continue on with the conversation. What he stated was a belief system that he holds very close as part of his pride and identity. It wouldn’t be wise to attempt to change that in the limited time between rounds. This belief means that instead of leveraging all the experience and testing available the persons pride would rather start from square one.

We are all the main character in our own story which means that we don’t like being corrected or shown a different way. Part of self development is giving a real consideration to the possibility that there are better methods for the things we do. These limiting beliefs keep us from our full potential in many ways. We must always be ready to challenge our presumptions which can be mentally painful at times.

I also had the chance to help out a couple friends with their own personal problems this week. It reminded me about my idea of writing a book. I’m not sure how I would do it right now though. I’m worried about what it would mean and the impact it could have on people’s stories that would be part of the book. I suppose I would have to find a way to write the book without any of the stories that I’ve experienced.

I had a thought this week that I might have spread myself out to much with my hobbies. I may not be focused enough. I might have to put some things down. If I don’t focus then I might look back someday and be disappointed. I used to spend so much time thinking and working on my video game. Somewhere along the line I think I lost my passion. I used to work on the game during my lunch hour. I blocked out a day to run game development club. I used to listen to GDC talks every morning. I think somewhere along the line during my separation, divorce, transitions, and self development I changed. I still want to finish but it’s not as easy as it used to be.

Maybe I don’t believe that I can finish. Still the book “Think and Grow Rich” talks about how some excavators stopped short with some mining. They sold their equipment and went home. Later the person they sold the equipment to went back and found a fortune in gold. I’m worried that if I stop now I will have sold the mine before striking gold. I need to believe in this, I need to bet on what I’ve put all my work into for so many years. I need to get my passion back, and that might mean taking some more chances and building some more features. Features that I have thought about for a while now. First thing first though, I need to finish these stages and then add those features on.

MomoCON 2023

Game Update

We are really zeroing in on the final stage to make it something special. We are working hard on a lot of the aesthetics of the stage. I want to both push the player and reward the player with a challenging and interesting stage. It needs to be something that is going to push the player and make them think a little differently about how to use their army to defeat the empire.

I’m a little worried that there isn’t enough for the player to do between battles. It feels like once you have your squads set up there isn’t much need for thought when you move from one stage to the next. I want to make sure to push the player so that they can keep adjusting to the challenge in front of them. I’m not sure if that will mean more options for the squads, items, or some sort of command squad like in Warhammer.

Personal Update

I had a great weekend working MomoCON again this year. I’m so blessed to have found some work with Japanime Games. We had a hiccup at the convention with one of our workers but luckily it worked itself out. I feel like I’m getting a lot of important experience and it is making me realize that I might apply this to some time in the future when I am running my own booth at a convention for the completed video game someday.

I’m also preparing for my first paid Dungeons and Dragons session in two weeks. I’m a little nervous about what it will mean and how I can make this into a valuable business that’s profitable. Of course just setting up the baseline is where I am right now.

Game Update

This week we reached the final stage for the game and I started laying down the typical groundwork for it. I really want to push the player a bit and build in some sort of surprise or something that will make the player have to think a little differently about the way they do business. It may call for a new mechanic or something similar.

I listened to a couple of GDC talks recently and one in particular peeked my interest in the idea of focusing and making sure that I am building my game for the audience that wants it. It makes me think there is something else that I will need to add to make it more engaging. It’s likely that will be more options when building the squads. I will probably need to add items, relics, standards, musicians, or something else as an option to make things more interesting.

Personal Update

The boys are away for the summer now, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss over the past week before I took them to be with my ex-wifes family. These exchanges are becoming more difficult for me. I thought to myself, “how many more times will I do this?” About twelve more times came the answer. I’m just hopeful that they will grow up without to many issues, but it’s difficult to know what effect growing up like this will have on them.

Turning my attention more internally, I need to focus and make sure that I am productive while they are away. I’ve already set in motion some extra work to build my investments. I’m very excited about my first premium Dungeons and Dragons game. I need to make sure that I perform at a level that will make them feel value for the price. Who knows maybe it will grow into something even greater in the future.

Next month I’m going to try something new with my fitness. I have been running more lately, but I also want to start being more strict with my diet. That might not be easy, so I’m trying it out for a month. I’d like to get under 200lbs and build up some more muscle in my arms. It’s kind of amazing how my running pace has picked up in such a short amount of time. When I started I was running an almost ten minute mile and now I’ve managed to work down to just under nine minutes.

I had an idea to start writing a book about some of the things I had to go through after my divorce. It would focus a lot on self development, social dynamics, and dating. The issue I run into is that there is other peoples privacy to think about. Still it would be nice to put a lot of the lessons that I learned over the years into something that might help other single dads out there.

A Quiet Week

Game Update

This week I had a lot of things that didn’t go as planned and so that threw the week off quite a bit. I ended up skipping my game development all together. It feels bad to have missed a week, but I’m not to hard on myself about it. Still thinking about some simple things to make the game play more engaging. I had an idea to add something akin to standard bearers (flag people) and musicians. The idea comes from my time spent playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

Personal Update

I’m pushing forward with my business idea to teach and run Dungeons and Dragons games. I have my first paying clients already which is crazy because I just started doing this. Maybe there is more of a need for this service than I originally thought. I’ve set up ideas for the business plan. Now all I have to do is try things out and start ramping things up.

Still thinking a lot about the boys and what it will be like this summer without them here. It’s always a bit of a transition to not have them in the house. I never seem to get the things done that I say I will get done when they’re not here. I get about one third of the things done instead. Still the most important items get prioritized. I suppose I should get around to doing some house repairs over the summer.

Another School Year Comes to a Close

Game Update

Continuing to work through the stages for the game and trying to think about some things I can do to make it more engaging. I can’t help but feel there are some small things we can do to make the stages more engaging. I’ve been playing a lot more Slay the Spire and I like the idea of relics that have world impacting effects. I’m also noticing that the number of button clicks when I’m playing gives me more a sense of control. I feel like there needs to be some other interaction for the player to keep their attention during the stage. The trick will be keeping to our first pillar of ensuring that the stages play quickly.

Learning more about business economics as I record all of my expenditures this year. It’s amazing how many things are related to my business. I rather enjoy the bean counting nature of doing work like this. I’ve always liked tracking a lot of numbers.

I’m attempting to do a service based Dungeons and Dragons business in my local area as an extension of Lancer Entertainment. I’m hoping it takes off so that I can look into hiring other people as a professional Dungeon Master service. Dungeon Masters will always be in short supply, and so this makes sense to me as well as providing a premium experience that will be a cut above what other DM’s can provide. I also have the idea of creating modals that will be part of the Six Aspects universe.

Typically most groups run a module once, but I’m using the idea of instructing the same content over and over again in order to get better at it. By doing this the hope is that I will improve and be able to deliver a better experience. It’s the idea of “getting reps in” just like it talks about in “Atomic Habits.”

Personal Update

Preparing for the boys to leave is both a relief, and a time that makes me feel a bit lonely. This month that is coming up will be really busy. I’ve been making more of an effort to spend time with the boys while they are here. I feel like things have really started to get good as the boys have learned enough skills to be able to take care of themselves. They don’t do things as well as an adult, but they do take care of chores.

I need to create good habits while the boys are away to become more productive. I suppose that I say this every year so I might actually spend sometime to create a plan this time. It feels like everything is getting faster in life. I’m starting to focus to much in the future. I need to remember to stay present as much as I can.

Thrill of Victory, the Agony of Defeat

Game Update

This week I will be moving back to day shift which will allow me to work on Tuesday. The last 2 weeks my night shift has interfered with my habit of working on Tuesdays. I’ve been putting effort into different places unfortunately. Still planning to build out more random events at some point.

Next month will be fairly busy, and I’m hoping I can start building better habits to work on the game outside of my game development time with my mentor. This year I need to get better about time management and have better habits than I have had in the past. I’m thinking about streaming my game development which should help.

Personal Update

Every time that the boys go away my life swaps modes which is both good and bad. The energy in the house is completely different. I only have a couple more week with them, and I know that next month will be a busy one. My job has been good about working with me on the weekend that I need to travel. I will also be working MomoCON again this year which was a great experience last year.

Yesterday I ran a local 5k and I was reminded what it was like to have an extremely competitive spirit in something. I used to be this way when I was playing games competitively. It didn’t matter if it was a competitive card game, video game, or board game. I invested a lot of who I was as a person into winning, sometimes at all costs. Things have changed for me now. I look at competitive games as a way to be social with other people. I win by exchanging social energy with my opponent, not by defeating them. I suppose I still enjoy winning though.

Recently I had the chance to experience someone who is more competitive than I have ever been, to the point of becoming distraught when they didn’t do as well as they wanted to. I find the quality to be admirable. To be so focused on something, and want to be the best it means that the person has to give up some things.

I guess I could say the same of a lot of the work that I did to get the game where it is now. I’m proud of how it turned out, but there was a lot of time and money spent to get it to where it is now. Who knows if it will ever make it’s value back or not. The experience I gained by working on it was very valuable.

Whenever there is a contest, most everyone goes in with the same belief. That’s the belief that they will be the number one winner. This Skinner box idea holds us captive to keep rolling the dice, pulling the lever, and generally trying our luck. We may lose a thousand times, but the taste of victory that one time is what we search for. As long as that possibility exists we will run headlong after that chance no matter how small. It’s an idea that can be taken to far and become dangerous. The agony of defeat is ever present, but the thrill of victory will always entice.

Focus on Good Things

Game Update

This week and next I’m on night shift so I won’t be able to work on the game with my mentor. I’m getting to a place where I might start trying to set times to work on the game during the week. I’m becoming more comfortable with my life situation which is opening me up. Still I don’t feel the motivation that I once had and that makes it difficult to want to work.

I might start working on some more random events soon. Some of these might relate to some of the events that I’ve personally experienced over the years. I suppose that’s true of most writers. I recently had an idea resurface again that I should start writing a book.

Personal Update

Finishing taxes last week was a big deal and I’m glad that I got it all done. It was pretty amazing the way claims related to my business worked out this year and I look forward to taking more advantage of that next year. It makes it a lot easier to justify business expenses as I go through this year. I am having a hard time spending money on more games though. It feels like some customizable card games in general are trying to ask to much of their customers that want to be competitive players. After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad I focus a lot more on assets that make me money. It’s more exciting for me to invest in stocks that pay me over time.

I can see over and over how God is working in my life to help me and support me. Things have really turned a corner lately. I see so much good ahead of me. I can’t wait to work some of the conventions I have coming up. I will be playing bass for church this summer. I’ve reduced costs to a point where it’s much easier to do things with my boys and provide for them.

Still though I can’t help but feel a little sad for the things that are going on around me. More than one person I know is going through a divorce. Others are dealing with loss of time, money, and resources. Children are not supporting their parents. Children with special needs. I wish I could do more than I am able. Some are confused and not sure of what decision to make. I suppose I am still there in some ways.

I think back to a time in my life when I could have really been down about my situation, but those were some of the best times. These times are really good too, but I think a lot of my life has been about having a good attitude and taking calculated risks.

As I search for more meaning I’ve started to focus more on running, and last week I re-downloaded World of Tanks. My office is clean now and so I might finally be in a place where I can stream video games again, and possible even stream board games or D&D. I have a lot of motivation to run right now as I have someone in my life that is really pushing and encouraging me. I’m very thankful for that. There is a lot of good to focus on, so I choose to look to that.

Happy Easter!

Game Update

Still plugging away at building stages. I’m starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel on all of the first pass items. Those items being primarily landscape related. Things like where the towns, and roads are. We also have to name all of the towns. Finally we create a bunch of invisible zones that the players squads move through which trigger different movement speeds as well as different combat scenes.

The next pass will likely be creating the enemies for each stage as well as the story elements for each stage. I might just stick with creating the enemies only and do an additional story pass later. I would also like to make more random events that the towns can spawn. Maybe I can focus minimally on story-telling with the opening dialogue, and the boss dialogue while leaving the rest of the town dialogue random. It’s a thought for sure.

Personal Update

Time keeps moving faster and faster. It feels like it was just last Easter already. I’m starting to see facebook updates of my kids when I lived in Texas and it is amazing to see how much they have grown already. I suppose it’s important to stay focused and involved so I won’t miss to much. My boys had their typical Easter Egg hunt, and we went to see the Mario movie this weekend.

I really feel lucky to have the life that I have. There are times when I do get down about some things, but there’s no real reason to. I suppose no matter who you are, you aren’t immune to that part of life. Today at church the pastor asked everyone what they were thankful about. I didn’t speak up, but I was thinking to myself. I’m thankful for all the times when God protected me this past year. There were some real close calls, but I’m in a really good place now.

Last weekend I missed my blog entry as I was working MegaCON in Orlando. It wasn’t an easy decision to go work the convention but I’m glad I did it. I was able to spend some time with the president of Japanime Games and some other industry types while I was there. It was nice to pull the veil back a bit to see how ordinary the people that run things are. They just made a different choice from other people and decided to really focus to get something done. I was happy to be a part of what was ultimately an experiment to bring more gaming to the convention.

Improvements

Game Update

Started working on a special stage this week with a neat water geyser feature. There are a few stages on the map that have a volcano feature, but this map had an indentation which seemed more appropriate to be a water geyser much like “Old Faithful.” We spent time looking at reference photos and working on some of the basics for the map. About twenty minutes was spent playing with two separate particle effects to make it look nice. One with some bubbling and churning and another a spout that would shoot off intermittently. I’m not sure if we want to make a special combat map for it or not. I’ve also considered making a special combat map for the bridge portions on a couple of the stages.

I think that very soon we will be looking at elements to build out the enemies, and plot lines for the stages. It’s just kind of something that we keep chipping away at and eventually it gets done. If I can keep this momentum going then I might be able to finish all the stages this summer and start tightening things down for full release.

Personal Update

Boys have come back, and I have to say I’m happy with my productivity this week. It’s possible that setting down what I wanted to get done helped out a lot more than I thought it would. Things did get a little simpler this past week overall. There are some items that I have been putting off that do need attention before the boys leave for the summer though.

My treadmill died this weekend which is super frustrating given the cost of it. I’m still baffled how Nordic Track can dare to say that this is the “commercial model” and it stopped working after only 200 work outs. I would assume that if it was in an actual gym it would be breaking down every two months. What’s worse is that I can’t get someone on the phone to help with it. I had to submit a support ticket through their website and it was very minimal as far as the information it asked for. I’m really not to happy with it overall. I seem to remember more problems with it when I had to deal with shipping. The customer service has been pretty abysmal overall. They typically try to make you happy by giving you “3 free months of ifit” as compensation. There were other issues too with the system and now it seems there is no help.

Work has been going through some changes. It’s strange for me to be in the civilian workforce now and see people come and go whenever there is a better opportunity in front of them. I’m to used to the military model of sticking with a job. I’ve been told that is typically the way people get a raise is by moving around like that.

I continue to work on my office area and it’s become a lot more tolerable to sit in now. Sometimes it’s important to understand that cleaning up your desk is also “game development”. I need to encourage myself to do the work and sit in here. Speaking of things that aren’t making games, I’m also doing my taxes this year for the company for the first time. It’s crazy because the cost of internet, website costs, and phone have far outstripped what the game has made this year. That means that the profit made on it is actually negative. There were other negatives money totals to look at too like contract work etc… I wonder if it will ever be profitable.

Empty Nest

Game Update

Sometimes game development is more than just making games. I would say that I did spend some time this week getting something important done, I cleaned my office enough so I can feel OK sitting in it again. Going back to “Atomic Habits” it’s important to create a place that encourages the activity you want to do in that location. When my office is dirty I don’t want to be in it which hurts my development time greatly. At least having my mentor pushes me through those times.

I feel like this week it will also be important to get my taxes done. I have the same personal taxes I always do, but this time I also have money made on my video game which wasn’t a lot but it still counts. The stock market was down so I’m hoping my losses there will help push me into a lower tax bracket this year. It’s been interesting getting better at learning how to handle my finances better. Still there is plenty to learn. The costs of game development were higher than what the game made this year so I expect that I shouldn’t owe anything still I’ve been wrong before.

Personal Update

My boys are away this week which does tend to throw me off a bit. It’s kind of crazy to think that not having them around makes me less productive. I suppose it’s good to write about the things I should get done in this blog entry. I’ve heard that writing things down makes it more likely that a person will follow through with their tasks.

I had an opportunity come up to work a lot of conventions this summer. If I work all of them it will be more than I have every done in a year. Maybe this will lead to something in the gaming industry. I don’t know if I’d be able to do that without having more assets feeding my finances though. I’m pretty comfortable where I am now, but this does feel like I’m pushing myself enough. Maybe this is “my edge” that I’ve been looking for. I still haven’t heard anything back from the local homeless shelters so I need to call them.

Stalled Out

Game Update

Things are at a standstill right now and last week as my job has flipped me to a schedule that has interfered with my normal game development time with my mentor Chris. This isn’t an excuse however as I have had time to work. This is one of the reasons it is so important to have a time to do what you said you would do, and someone to be accountable to. We will return to work and double up some sessions soon however.

I have thought off and on about fleshing out some of the random events in the game. Possibly creating some continuing plot lines that will unlock and randomly show up. Maybe something that is 2-3 levels deep, nothing to crazy. The problem might be that a lot of the characters I think up for these roles would be based on people I really knew in real life. Maybe that’s not as big an issue as I think though.

Personal Update

Last week I missed my blog entry because I had some more pressing matters to attend to. It was quite a trial but I think that I am through it now and everyone involved is in a better place now. I can’t say much more about it.

Life sort of snuck up on me and I didn’t even realize that spring break is this month. I missed a deadline on a camp for one of my sons so he probably will not be able to go to it. It makes me feel bad, but I also feel like he shares some of the responsibility to remind me too. It’s crazy how time flies. I’m seeing Facebook memories from just last year and it reminds me that I was in a much different place back then.

The Dwarven Forge Kickstarter closed out at the end of the month last month. A lot of my focus was on that and I think I know what I want to do. I am also looking at a Wyrmwood gaming table as they just re-launched that Kickstarter too. I’m really trying to focus my finances more on buying stocks and building up assets, but I have been waiting for these campaigns for quite a while now.

I went from working zero conventions this year to possibly working up to three in this past week. One is at the end of the month. It feels pretty good getting back into the groove of that again. I wonder if this is the next thing that I will want to do to push myself a little. It does seem to fit well with my overall plans and I do feel like I’m pushing myself when I do it. I have thought off and on that I might like to fully retire when I don’t have to worry about my kids and just travel around working various conventions throughout the year. Once I have enough to exit the rat race that might be possible.

Meaning

Game Update

I’m not sure how many times I can say that we are working on levels before it starts to get really old but that’s what we are doing. Still I am chipping away at them. It’s a lot like taking inventory at a really large facility. The work is pre-determined for the most part and it just needs to get done.

I guess a lot of the jobs I had when I was younger led to this. One of my first real jobs was cutting nails to make crosses for a local pastor. He ran the business out of his basement. The work was mostly uninteresting and repetitive. The pieces were later soldered together. I used the money for my first major purchase which was a 20” TV at $230 so I could play video games in my room. Even then I had a passion for video games.

Personal Update

I turned 41 this past week and I think I might be in a bit of an existential crisis now. I asked my father if he had a mid-life crisis at my age and he told me that he didn’t because there wasn’t time to think about what he had accomplished. I’ve set myself up so well that much of my life is automated and I make good money now so I have more time to think about what I should be doing to push myself.

More and more it feels like my passion for making games has been pushed off to the way side. I guess it’s good that I didn’t become a commercial game developer after all. Although back in 2019 that was all that I wanted in the world, well that and something else.

I find myself looking around and I often say that I am very blessed. That’s very true, but if I really got down to what I wanted my life to look like now it wouldn’t be exactly as it is. That feels pretty bad as I know that I have a real abundance that other people at my age don’t have. It’s a real circular logic moment of “I feel bad but I shouldn’t feel bad which also makes me feel bad.”

So how is my midlife crisis going, assuming that I am having one? Well I’ve narrowed down my focus to 3 items which are working with homeless/disadvantaged people, working out to build the body I want, and making more money to build up stock passive income and exit the rat race.

The one that’s the most uncomfortable is working with homeless. I feel pretty helpless in this area. This would really push me. I submitted a form to a local shelter to help out, but that was last Friday. I’m not sure when I will hear back. I like to think there may be something bigger than working for a local shelter that I’m uniquely suited for, but I need to understand the problem better first. I keep thinking that with my skill set maybe I can build an app that will leverage gamification to shape behavior of the homeless. I’m not sure how many of them even have phones, but something tells me the answer is more than you would think.

My fitness journey has hit a fast brick wall as I was sore for 4 days after my first real lifting session. I have been losing weight however and so there might be light at the end of the tunnel. The book Atomic Habits talks a lot about having habits that will eventually produce a lot of positive outcome all at once. I didn’t do as many treadmill sessions as I wanted to last year but I still had around 200 which is pretty good. I think I finally started to see the windfall of that this past week as for the first time in maybe 5 or 6 years my weight dipped below 210lbs. Being sub 200 would be great but I’m not sure if that will be possible at my 6’2 height.

Making more money is in a word, boring to me. I need to find a better way to energize myself to do it. It’s another situation where I just need to save properly and put the money away to make things happen. I picked up a job for Momo Con and I might also go to GenCON this year for work. It’s been so long since I have been there I can’t wait for the opportunity. Hopefully a lot of the mask restrictions will come down this year. I’d like to get my D&D premium idea running as well, but it hasn’t really taken off since when I first started working on it.

I had a great couple of dates this past week. This girl is much more of a slow burn of passion. She’s probably just what I need to be successful right now. She was so thoughtful with our time spent and her gifts for my birthday. I’m thankful to be in a place to have someone so special in my life. I promised myself not to cave in on my convictions and stay on my path this time. I feel like that’s going to be the best thing to do in order for this relationship to have a chance of becoming something long lasting.

Romantic Cities Untold

Game Update

I continue to plug through the level development. I’m still letting some ideas for the stories run through my mind as I work. It gives me some good time to connect more with my mentor Chris during out meetings. I’m not sure when the updates will get a little more interesting. Then again there are mundane parts of every job.

Personal Update

Boys are doing well still as we work through the second half of the school year. Last week they asked for a game night so I did that yesterday. I really enjoy entertaining, so I think I’m going to start looking at that more often. I still need to finish up a Dungeons and Dragons game that we started last summer.

Speaking of Dungeons and Dragons there was a new Dwarven Forge Kickstarter for some town structures. It’s called Cities Untold, and I’m excited to pledge on it of course. I’ve been trying to make some sort of Dungeons and Dragons premium experience for a while now. I’m also waiting on a dungeon master screen from Wyrmwood.

It’s the week of Valentines Day and I’m lucky to have a special someone to spend it with this year. I can’t wait to show her what I got her for the holiday. It feels really good to be with someone I can really feel trust in. Looking forward to allowing this slow burn into a raging fire.

Red Roses

Game Update

Not much to say as I keep progressing through each stage with the task of creating all the invisible zones, landscape, and name all of the towns. Still toying around with some ideas for dialogue but for now all the new towns will leverage the random dialogue system.

I’m starting to play more Slay the Spire, and I keep asking myself if there is something I can learn from that game that might be applicable to my game. One of the interesting things about Slay the Spire is that each class has multiple strategies of their own that only work for them. It’s a flavor of sorts. It would be interesting to have more flavor for our 6 different aspects in the game that is more than damage coefficients in different terrain types. I need to think about this a bit more to figure it out.

Personal Update

Getting ready for Valentines Day this month, and my birthday. I’m so blessed to have met someone so amazing so quickly. At the time I didn’t think my heart could be open again, and yet here I am almost four weeks into this relationship. It’s nice to be with someone dependable, supportive and stable.

I’ve started reading/listening to the book “The Way of The Superior Man”. It is “uncomfortable” to read to say the least. It is reminding me about a lot of areas I could do better. Many of the concepts in the book would be difficult to prove, but I am entertaining them.

The primary thing that is speaking to me right now in the book is the idea of “being on your edge.” Pushing past the things that are comfortable to do something that you don’t want to do. I inspected myself, and am continuing to ask myself what is my edge? I am leaning towards getting involved with the local homeless in some way. Probably volunteer at a shelter. It is an area where I would be pushing myself, and I have some fear about it. It’s not to far beyond my capacity right now though. I am entertaining other ideas but this is the one that is the most uncomfortable for me.