Global Game Jam 2010: Post Mortem

I had a great time at last weekend's Global Game Jam 2010. Team Mound of Awesome managed to pump out a Flash stealth game in the 32 hours we had UT. The final build can be found here. For more games from the Austin location, check out the GGJ site.

This year's theme at our location was Deception involving a Man, a Plan, and/or a Canal.

Flixel Jam Postmortem

Phil's second Flixel Jam has come to a close. It was a lot of fun and I hope to see everyone again for another Jam. In the six hours, we managed to pull together a simple game about falling from the sky. Dubbed Terminal Velocity, the game is far from perfect: it's too hard and it needs about a weeks worth of polish. However, that wasn't the point. In six hours we organized a team of ten developers- many of whom had never met before- and created a proof of concept for a simple mechanic. The result of those six hours can be seen here. For those interested, here are links to our source code as well as our current build of the game.

Here are some things we've learned:

Getting started with Git Part 2: Branching and Tracking

Part 1 of Getting started with Git can be found here.

Now that we've pulled and pushed code with a remote repository it's time get more advanced. One of the more elegant features of Git or any source control is the ability to branch code and work without fear of breaking the original source. With Git's local and remote repositories, the options become even more robust.

Getting started with Git

One of the toughest things to learn during this game project was actually our source control Git. Phil(our most experienced member) insisted we use Git because of its superiority to SVN and the like. Git allows you to create both a remote and local repository of your code. This means you can branch and merge code all you like on your local repository and only interact with the remote repository when you need to.

I've used SVN before so I didn't think much about learning Git. Ironically, after a week of trying to share code between the four programmers in our group, Phil was probably the least Git literate in our group. Git's cryptic interface can be pretty unforgiving, especially if you don't know Git's recommended workflow.

So I decided to write a guide to getting started with Git on Windows.

Listing Authors in a WordpressMU page

I'm trying to give my staff more of a presence on GamesPlusBlog. They need to feel ownership of their piece of the blog and their content within.

One way of doing this is recognizing when authors join the site. For awhile now, our About Us page only displayed the three founders of the blog - Tim, Mike, and me. Ever since we began bringing on new writers, Mike has suggested we list them on this page. Pragmatic programmer that I am, however, I didn't want to have a list to curate every time an Author joined the site.

The obvious solution is have PHP and Wordpress generate a list of blog authors and display them onto the About Us page.

Daily Routines blog

My sister passed me a link to The Daily Routines blog. Though it's currently stopped, it serves as a collection of interviews with professional writers about their daily routines.

It seems routine is the key to all creative endeavors. Here's what Michael Lewis has to say:

Is there any time of day you like to write?
I've always written best very early in the morning and very late at night. I write very little in the middle of the day. If I do any work in the middle of the day, it is editing what I've written that morning.

What would your ideal writing day look like?
Left to my own devices, with no family, I'd start writing at seven p.m. and stop at four a.m. That is the way I used to write. I liked to get ahead of everybody. I'd think to myself, "I'm starting tomorrow's workday, tonight!" Late nights are wonderfully tranquil. No phone calls, no interruptions. I like the feeling of knowing that nobody is trying to reach me.

See, even professionals have sloppy schedules. It's a comforting thought.

Motivation in the long haul

I apologize for any confusion, dear reader, that this blog's original mission statement and colorful banner may cause you. No longer is this a repository for my video game musings: those have found a new home. What's left is, well, everything else about my life.

I find myself at a crossroads of sorts. Or maybe I arrived years ago while deciding college major. I closed my eyes, pinched my nose and walked down my chosen path. Now, four years later, I open my eyes to find myself right back where I started.

In my quest to find my true path I've attempted to dedicate myself to long term projects. Yet how does one find motivation and discipline to achieve such long term goals? It's a challenge foreign to the typical day job. Where motivations come in pay checks and goals come from others.

I've noticed that independant webcomic artists are the epitome of this desire to break away from the infamous "Day Job." I stumbled upon this Webcomics.com forum thread about motivation.

Here are a few takeaways:

1) Have a goal. Maybe it's the ending to your story, or enough pages for a collected volume in time to print for the next big convention, or just the big party for yourself that you'll throw when you reach the 1-yr mark. Whatever it is, keep your eyes on the prize, man.

2) Make friends-- in real life, not just online-- with other cartoonists who are also just starting out, and keep each other motivated. Put up an ad in your local comic shop, for example. If you can't find anyone locally, then get to a convention (small ones are OK) and meet other artists there.

3) Be obsessed. Disturbing, but true. :-)

Advice applicable to any field.