Honest post. I don't know what i'm doing... learning, progress...

     Happy 4th of July everyone! I'm a day late I know. Anyway, I always try to at least get 2-3 blog posts out a month (sometimes I only get one) so the blog doesn't have that abandoned feeling to it. There is nothing new with me. As usual, I am still working on my next game. Just grinding day by day. Some days I make really good progress and other days I make no progress at all or get stuck on something for a couple of days.

I mentioned this before but, "Potato Thriller" was the last game I published and then I started working on my next title (which is my current project). So it has been over a full year since I put anything new out there. Part of me is disappointed with myself because I am taking so long to make something new and at the same time I feel like this is better because I am making an overall better quality game with more polish. I have been doing a lot of research and learning over the year and improving myself as a game developer to deliver the best content I could because I really don't want to rush a project and put out something just for the sake of putting something out.

I have had ups and downs with the current project I am working on and throughout this year. It has been kind of a confusing journey so far because one second I would say I am working on a certain project and then the next second I would lose motivation and say I am working on a smaller project or something completely different then switch back to the other project and so on and just cause a bunch of confusion for myself and on the blog. It can be hard to stay motivated and attempt to be creative or create something everyday as a game developer and I am sure many other developers, artist, content creators, etc can relate. But, I always find myself eventually coming back and putting in the hours because of my passion for creation.

As I have been doing a lot of learning and improving over the year I have also been working on this very abstract game project originally named "Samer Hills" at the same time. This is the project that I was referring to that has been giving me ups and downs and causing me headaches. I feel like I have been saying something different about this project whenever I talk about it on the blog. I constantly change its name and say it's going to be this or that. So just to be completely honest, I sometimes have no idea what I am doing or what I want to do. Often I can't make up my mind about something and I lose motivation (I know I already said that) but it's such a common thing and I think we all have those days sometimes. Personally, something that I want to stop doing is coming up with release dates or setting deadlines for my own projects. I feel like this is something that contributes to making me lose motivation to finish something and it would just add in stress because I feel like I would need to keep my promise and meet that deadline. I know many people actually use this method of setting deadlines for themselves and it actually keeps them on track, but for me it just doesn't work. I hate when I say something like "I'm working on a new game and I will release it in a month from now" or "My new game comes out July 17th" and then I end up missing my deadline so I come back on here and say that I will have it out by [insert new promised date here]. It just doesn't work out for me. I've learned my lesson. And i'm not just specifically talking about my game projects but everything. YouTube for example, I make a "developer video update" after months of no activity and say that I will do daily video updates each week or each month and then I just kind of disappear from my YouTube channel for a long period of time. From now on I won't set dates or promise to have something out at a certain time. Whenever I finish something i'll simply just put it out. Or if i'm super close to finishing something and am really confident that I will have it out by a certain time then I will definitely set a deadline for myself because I know for sure that I would be able to reach it in time. Other than that, I just don't want to specify certain dates or make promises.

Anyway, sorry to get off topic. I know I am rambling on now but I just wanted to make an honest blog post and talk about some things I have had on my mind. As for the actual game project (formerly known as Samer Hills) I am still working on it. Slowly making progress. Constantly making changes and trying to decide how the game will play out in the end. I still have a lot to do but pretty much this next game will be my biggest game. I want to put in all my ideas into it and just make something really unique to put out there in the indie gaming scene. This next project will be my ultimate masterpiece! ...that is if I ever finish it of course.

I don't really have anything to show at the moment but for the past couple weeks I have mainly been working on building mechanics for the game such as Enemy ai's and weapons. I can confirm 2 things that will be in my next game. First, Nosey Nose enemies (from Potato Thriller) will be back and second, the toilet plunger will also be back as a usable weapon. Not only that, it will be the strongest weapon in the game and deals the most damage.

Here are a bunch of screenshots from prototype levels and development.

I'm going to end the blog post here for now. Thanks for reading. Bye!

Never Give Up On Your Dreams.

So, recently (as of this post) I created this forest pond/swampy type scene in the Unity engine to accompany my "Frog" character. I created all the assets with Blender3D (of course I use Blender for all my 3d asset creation) Anyway, the final scene turned out so much better than how I thought it would turn out. It actually looks like a real forest type of setting. See:

I think this is one of the most beautiful scenes/levels I have ever created actually. The lighting, atmosphere, colors, placement of trees and other details etc. It all just turned out wonderful and I am really proud of it. Okay okay, chill out you professional environment artist, 3d artist and photographers. I know it is not perfect. I know many AAA and other indie games have done similar scenes better. And I know there is room for improvement. There is always room for improvement of course.

I know that what I am about to say is going to sound very egotistical of myself but, when I finished working on this scene and saw the final results I couldn't help but just sit back in my chair and stare at my pc screen for 20 minuets. This scene is awesome and I believe that most of my recent stuff is some of my best work yet! I mean look at this stuff! (I know that I have already posted most of these images on the blog in the past but JUST LOOK AT THEM!)

Looking back and comparing myself and my older work from 6 or 7 years ago, or even looking back at how much I have improved since Potato Thriller (one year ago as of this blog post) makes me realize that I have come such a long way and learned so much as a developer and artist since I began this wonderful journey (sorry for the long sentence). I never thought that I would ever be able to create anything even close to what I am able to create today. I never thought that I would be satisfied with my own work. However, I always knew from a young age that I just wanted to learn how to make games and how to create 3d content. This was something I have always been very passionate about. Being a game developer has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember and actually pursuing that dream has consumed nearly a decade of my life now. But it doesn't matter to me because it is just something that I love doing and I am still constantly learning and trying to improve myself as a game designer. I am really proud of how far I have come but mostly, I am really proud that I never gave up.

I know that this entire blog post is coming across as really narcissistic and makes me look like the dev who just likes bragging all the time because I am usually really bad at wording these kinds of topics. I even cringed at myself a few times as I typed this up.

What I am trying to say and the point I am trying to get across here is that you should always believe in yourself and never give up on your dreams. If you are passionate about something, always pursue it. When I started out I didn't know anything at all and it took me forever to understand even simple game development concepts. I wasn't able to go to school to learn game development so I had to teach myself. There was a lot of trial and error and still to this day there is. However, I think that if I can learn how to make games then anybody can. Keep working hard, keep trying and never give up.

Okay?

Anyway, this has been a very weak attempt of me trying to write up a motivational blog post but hopefully the message gets across. I truly do believe in all of you and you can accomplish anything that you set your mind on.

What's beyond these vast virtual worlds?

     Absolutely nothing. Video games are all lies and illusions. The curse of learning how to create and design your own video games is that it takes the magic away. As a little kid I always liked to imagine and think that there where places beyond the in game worlds that you could explore. Areas that are hidden. There is this sense of curiosity when you are thrown into a big game world for the first time to explore for yourself.

    You look at high mountains and think to yourself "is anything on the other side. Can I climb up those mountains and see what is behind them?" Later you find out that it is nearly impossible to get even half way up these in game mountains. That is because they are designed to act as game barriers to prevent the player from going beyond the boundaries of the game world. Why? Because there is nothing left in the game world to see. There is nothing behind those mountains except for an empty infinite space that will just go on forever and ever. Those mountains aren't even modeled/detailed from the backsides most times. They are just awkwardly cut and empty and you could see through them if you look at them from that side. 

     But the player never sees the other side of the mountain. Because the player isn't meant to see the other side of the mountain. That would ruin the experience and break the immersion for the player. The game developer on the other hand sees the game from every single possible angle. They are the ones putting it together after all. The game world starts out as this empty blank space that is then filled up by the developer to create this illusion that this tiny little world has some sort of life to it. But the developer knows that its all illusion. The game world is all fake. So the magic and excitement of being able to imagine that there is something more there is none existent to the developer. 

     Back to my earlier point, as a kid I would spend hours in front of my TV screen with my N64 constantly playing Zelda Ocarina Of Time. I was fully immersed in the game world and I always wondered if there was anything beyond Hyrule. Was there even a way to get out of Hyrule? The game felt so magical to me. I was sitting in my tiny bed room, yet I was exploring this huge lifelike world through my TV screen. I eventually learned about a glitch that lets you go past the boundaries of Hyrule. There was this area in the Hyrule castle section of the game. If you angled and positioned Link just right, you could have Link walk up this area that is not meant to be a walk-able area for the player. It was designed as a barrier to hide the ugly truth of what is behind the beautiful game world. 

     I climbed this area over and over again and Link constantly fell back down to Hyrule grounds because of the game physics as if the game was trying to tell me "No! you aren't suppose to see what is beyond this point! You can't go here!" (it was a pretty hard glitch to do) Determined to see what was beyond these flat mountains, I finally got to the top. What I saw when I got to the top broke me. As a child, I was crushed. There was nothing behind these mountains. I could see the games skybox moving around. Rotating almost as if someone glued a picture of clouds on this cylinder shaped lamp shade. I looked down from those mountains only to see a dark empty void of nothing. I could see other parts of Hyrule castle rendering out from the distance, but everything was flat. There was nothing at all. I moved Link forward and he fell out of the game world into the empty dark square pit of darkness. He fell endlessly. I could see Hyrule castle and the rest of the game world start to disappear because of how far Link fell. 

     Everything in the game just felt so fake at that point. I felt like someone just took Link and put him on this movie set with all these fake props. Video games have been ruined for me ever since I had this traumatic experience as a kid. I never looked at them the same. The magic was gone forever...

     Of course, I am only joking about how this ruined video games for me. Actually, when I saw this I was like "woah cool! This is so awesome!" because it gave me an idea of how games are made. It let me see for the first time ever a more "behind the scenes" look at video games instead of just seeing the game world for what it was suppose to be seen as and to me that was super interesting. I actually tried to see if I could glitch out of other parts of the game later on. And I think this is something that all gamers try experimenting with as well. They try to break the game, they see if they could create a situation or do something in the game that wasn't intended for the player to do. I have even seen some people trying to do this with my own game before such as "Potato Thriller" and I think it is hilarious. Watching someone else do that to your own game is very cool actually. Because its like "hey thats not what I wanted you to do. No! you aren't suppose to go there! you aren't following my game rules! I knew I should of blocked off this area..." So it is really interesting to see someone essentially rebel against the rules of the game world you created. You see the player play your game in a completely unexpected way and that is because they are curious to see what lies beyond. That, or they just really want to break the game because of how board they got from playing by your rules. But either way, it is really cool to see and a great feeling.

      I am starting to just ramble and even switch topics at this point so I will end this on a short note. In all seriousness, if you are thinking about becoming a developer, going into game design, learning how to make games, becoming an indie dev, doing it as a hobby, working in games in a professional AAA studios, etc. I say go for it! Learning about how game worlds are created, what goes into them, how they work, etc - is all very very interesting stuff to read up on. It is very fascinating to see the hard work behind everything. I always loved seeing behind he scenes stuff in movies and games more than the actual game, movie, etc itself.  Seeing the tricks used to create an illusion for a certain moment or scene in any kind of medium is really satisfying because you have that moment of "ahhh! that is how it was done. I was wondering how they did this". You then have that realization that you could do something similar. It is a very awesome feeling to be able to create your own games and share those experiences with others. I forgot where I heard this saying but it went something like this: "It's fun to play video games, but it is even more fun to make video games."

     PS: This is the first blog post I do in a long long time that isn't about me or the current game project I am working on. It feels nice to change things up every once in a while. I might do more posts like this in the future. Definitely more development blogs on the new game coming up as well.

More updates coming soon!