So I want to start by apologizing for the lack of blogs, see blogging is not just new to me, but life has taken a rather busy but exciting turn for me...
I've gone through an emotional time lately since as per my original posts I promised to share with you how it is to make small games for profit with Game Maker Studio (which is easy to do doable and for this you can follow the crazy dude TrueValhalla's posts at http://www.truevalhalla.com/blog/); while still having a full-time professional career. Unfortunately I realized I wanted more out of life than just that, and that my skill-set in making games (which is one of my life dreams still) need to level up a bit first. (I've played with GM8 and GMS for 2years now only) Also on this note, don't try to tackle HTML5 games if you are not ready to persevere through some bugs and having to deal with large optimization requirements in your code as well as limited use of functions you may use in GM, and don't bother making TDS or huge movement based CPU hungry games - until you master a game with a decent player base on Windows.
I did a lot of introspection and decided its time to take it to the next level and find the passion inside myself, find my inner child and nurture it again a bit. 8-5 grind at work can be dangerous for your health...so yes I resigned! I had a very successful career as a Senior Chemical (or Process) engineering position at a large factory, which I'm very grateful for - but I want to make games! And also not just for profit, and maybe in the same time make games more relevant for the "real life" or non-gamer world out there... I will probably elaborate more on these ideals in a much later post.
So here come the difficult news to my readers whom only read this because of financial drives. From now on I'm leveling my game making experience with game ideas I want to make and want to play. I do care if its successful, since time is precious and that gift comes expensive. I'd like to say I don't care, but that would be a lie. I can be a bit idealistic...so don't take too much offence or hold me to it...I'm sharing and if your inspired by it...that will make me happy. And if I sound down I will appreciate some cheerful or positive criticism from you for sure. If you still want to make money, and know how I could retire or take a year off at age 30 and support my wife also, well then just say so and I can easily give you that life secret in a 1 comment reply. (That's if you have a working salary, for the most part). Sjoe (Afrikaans slang for "darn" or "golly" ), I digress and get distracted fast...
So this life change explains my hiatus from the blog and mini game release world the past 4 months, as we packed up and left a small town Secunda, Mpumalanga (South Africa) to move to the beautiful entrepreneurial and creative (also tourist) capital of South Africa. The most south city in Africa, the continent. My close friends you can read those more personal and somewhat private adventures on the other blog my wife runs...
The good news, I've already set up and settled in a nice new 4bedroom 2bathroom home (renting) in Somerset West, Cape Town...only 5minutes away from large malls and creative produce markets and most importantly the Ocean in a town called Strand. I share this because South Africa is truly a land of milk and honey, and should be the next indie game dev equivalent to silicon valley. Yes here I work from home, and was fortunate enough to make use of Yoyogames offer to upgrade to the Master collection. Still however struggling a bit to get the new YYC compiler to actually show up in the product.
Also I must say, deciding to make game for fun and value instead of financial gain, has really liberated me. "So don't try this at home kids, ha ha." - I'm just joking.
Right, so please don't expect income reports yet, but rather game design ideas, etc. Oh, yes I came last in my first ever game JAM on GMC (wanted to neglect saying this, but in the spirit of honesty), man that really is embarrassing since I'm not use to failure! I really recommend it to you all. It made me feel like I leveled up once, and got me some much needed community reputation. It also taught me some hard lessons in the game development world, and that you must still think of the customer and not yourself. Thankfully in this blog I may rant as I please, well until I offend the wrong person.
Luckily I found some good friends in the South African game dev community here at http://www.makegamessa.com/ ! Please check it out if your a local. I hope to see this grow significantly for our country.
So on with my adventure to try and find willing and affordable game artists to make my dreams a reality, at least the pre-alpha technical demo I hope.
Thank you for reading my rant.
In my next post I will start by sharing my thought on the game(s) I want to make this year, with this new found time and adventure at hand, games genre's I like and do not enjoy and why, etc.
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