Hype | Gamedev Brain

You, Yes You, Never Stop Amazing Me

Posted on August 3, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I used to get up as an indie game developer and start coding my game. Now I get up and start marketing my game. When did that happen? When did marketing win as the leading task of the day? Seems like it was a smooth transition because I did not notice it until now. I think the community might have fueled the move though.

Let me explain. I get some awesome responses from people about our game that is in development – Violent Sol Worlds. I think that feeds the want for my brain to get more, so I have slowly turned into a marketer first and a programmer second. Never in a million years would I have seen that coming. It is wonderful though.

Before now, my interactions with people over the internet has been basically them yelling at me about my mother. You know, the XBOX live crowd. But now that we are building a community around a title we all love and want to see built the interactions are much more loving. I truly hope we keep this up and you all keep motivation high for me to keep engaging on this level.

All your praises, follows, and general encouragement have been amazing. You all blow me away, and make me feel like I can do anything, even knock out a shark.

If you have not seen our game – Violent Sol Worlds check it out.

Our Game Project – Top down, survival, Action, Shooter with vehicles, crafting, and an AI overlord.

Posted on July 24, 2015 by magicrat_larry

We are so close to explaining our title and unleashing it on the world. We have been painstakingly putting together the feature list and starting to commit to what we will develop for the title. It is fun, but it is a process I cannot wait to be done with.

I wanna tell you that our game vehicles are amazing physics modeled action joys to drive, and our character runs around and shoots laser guns at enemies. I want to tell you that We will have an AI overlord that will continually keep your game interesting. I want to tell you that you will be able to do all of this with your friends. There is so much I want to tell you, but can’t.

Well, the truth is all of this is speculation and rumor, but it would be cool if I could tell you. What if I could tell you tht you could craft weapons, cars, and possibly even planes? What if I could tell you about the game and start to get you fired up? That would be awesome wouldn’t it?

I wish I could tell you something about it, but I hope you will stay tuned to hear more from me about it in the future. I wish I could say building too.

Take care.

If You Aren’t Doing the Happy Dance, Do Something Else

Posted on July 21, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Life is not easy, being a creator makes it harder. Make sure that you are happy with what you are doing. Game development is creation, you take nothing but an idea of an experience and start typing code that to a normal human being would be unrelated and, BOOM, experience comes out. If that doesn’t make you do the happy dance, do something else.

I mean it, if you are not jumping out of your chair and dancing, or at least holding your hands in the air wanting to shout…

I’m the greatest programmer alive!!!

If it doesn’t, then maybe you have the wrong hobby. It gets rough, it gets terrible even. You will think you cannot do it. You are wrong, but only if success makes you do this…

See the only reason game development is so rewarding is because there are times where things all fall apart. It crushes you, and makes you feel very small.

The thing is, directly after that, if you make it through, you hit the highest of highs. You defeat that crushing moment and feel like king of the world. You take down what seems like a dream killer, and you elevate yourself to seemingly one of the best in the world at problem solving. You stand up on the mountain and you simply dance, mostly alone, but you dance none the less. For a moment you are in game developer heaven.

So if you are in it for anything other than this, get a different goal. You won’t make money here, unless you love it. You need to understand the highs and lows, the crushing defeats, and the elevation of the successes. Really think about game development, do you love the lows? Can you get through to the highs? When you get there will you dance?

If the answer is no, get out. 🙂

No Pressure, It’s Just Your Dream

Posted on July 20, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Well, we are getting very close to the moment where we actually unleash what our project is to the world. It is not done or anything, but up until now we have just been talking in general terms. We will be posting our full list of features and description of the game.

We think it is a wonderful idea, but it is our baby. What if the world hates it? Or worse, what if nobody ever sees it? The latter is my biggest fear. I have taken it upon myself to get the word out about our work. I’ve invested a lot of time building a foundation to help us get the word out. I would be crushed if we still couldn’t get anyone to notice that we are making a game. The pressure is on, I hope my creativity and time pays off.

It would be far better to be told that our game idea is terrible and the concept looks bad than to have it just sit there with no interest at all. At least if you hear the truth you can move on. In any case, please wish me luck in the coming days and months. I’m excited and nervous all around.

Feeling Like Awesome Is Coming

Posted on July 19, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So I am sitting here today, feeling like awesome is coming. I’ve been working very hard on this project and putting a lot into it and it does feel like it could pay off with a load of awesome soon. I have no idea what that will look like, but that feeling is cool none the less.

We have a lot of things building up to a moment where we put our idea out to the world in a larger cohesive manner. Where people can be brought into the fold of what is truly being built. It will be both amazing and scary to ask the world, hey is this great or what? Not sure what’ll happen, but it does feel like a giant delivery of awesome is about to arrive.

What I learned along the way though, is help others promote their projects so there is a vibrant community for yours to live in. So I do take time every morning to find something that deserves a delivery of awesome and do my part by giving them feedback. It is rewarding for me and them because we are all better for it. It keeps projects moving, it fuels greatness, and makes passion thrive.

So all you game developers out there, or others with great projects, keep it up. People are watching you. If you bring it to the world, eventually the world will bring the awesome to you. In the beginning you push your project, your passion, after a while it pushes you.

Stop the Excuses

Posted on June 30, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Let me say this up front, you can make excuses for your entire life and do nothing, or you can change the way you live and accomplish things.

Yes, I’m saying it, the problem is you. If you ever stop and wish your life was different, it is because of you. You think you don’t have the time, or energy, but you do. See, something like developing a game takes a massive amount of commitment. That commitment has to be unwavering. If it wavers you are back to wishing your life was different again.

Stop the excuses, get out of bed, or off the couch, and just do something. Pick anything, and do it. There is not that much time to live here on Earth. Do you really want your final moments to be filled with excuses of why you could not do anything? If every one of you started to work 1 hour a day, we would be living on Mars, using warp drives, have peace on Earth, and have a better mouse trap.

Start working people, it’s easier than coming up with the reasons why you didn’t.

The Glamorous World of Game Development

Posted on June 29, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I think there is a misconception, game development is such a great job, all the fun, all the excitement, all the joy of Christmas every day. I’m sorry, that is not true. Let me explain what game development is like for me, and remember I love it.

You get up early, look at your task list, if you are lucky there is a task on there that sounds fun. You begin working on that task, it expands to a large programming mess. You stop programming and design a better system to fix or create whatever you were doing. If you are lucky once the task is complete the game still compiles and nothing different is displayed.

I know there are some days where you create that awesome effect that changes the look and feel of everything, but most days are debugging, tweaking, or designing. If you throw in marketing you got a real nice day. See, game development is one of the hardest programming jobs you can have. It is not like business software, you actually care about memory usage and display rate.

The next time you are sitting at home playing some game, and think how great it would be to be a game developer, stop and think of the massive effort, stubborn commitment, and tears it took to put that game together. Then smile and keep playing.

Hand Waving Visionary

Posted on June 27, 2015 by magicrat_larry

This morning it seems I am creating animations. We need a few more for our game demo and I’ll be putting them together. I play an interesting role on the project, one of many hats. I am an animator, a lead programmer, and I believe most critical, hand waving visionary.

What is a “Hand Waving Visionary?” It’s the person that keeps life and the project exciting and on track within the context of the game. It’s not something that you learn to be. I think it is just something I am. I can take a small thing, and hype it up and make it important and likable.

Why do you need that? Game development is hard, it is not the glamorous thing you thought of as a kid. You need the small things to seem grand and impressive to keep going at times. It really is about creating a team that feels every part of the process is fun, energetic, and lovable. So I wave my hands, talk about warm fuzzy things, and watch in amazement as my teammates and I put together an amazing interactive world.