by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings, Uncategorized1 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Business Development, Change of Mind, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
It has been almost a three years ago that I made a commitment to spent time developing coding skills and I’m providing an update about my efforts. . . Thanks to Procrastitracker I am able to share these images of my progress when I started October 1, 2023 up to September 30, 2024: This past year of work on Heropath was limited to design and story research. In addition, some Procrastitracker data is missing and Heropath development was restricted due to: . Chris Zuchowski gave a YouTube talk about being careful about the genre of game you create for and that you should not try to make your first game your masterpiece. I am going to follow his advice by switching to a ‘prequel’ that is placed in the Heropath setting but will be much simpler, allowing me some momentum and easier skill development. This new Heropath-related game will be known as Mythway. In summary, I’ve spent about 41 hours working on the game including research, writing, and design. I’ve done no actual coding so at this rate it will take me years to get to 1,000 or 10,000 hours. This past year has not had the direct progress that I had planned for, but […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings0 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Blogging, Business Development
I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year for 2024. May the new year bring you peace, good health, and good fortune. There is not much to report as far as my projects are concerned but I continue to plug away at them and do find myself inspired for periods of time. . . In summary: . As I’ve said previous New Year Days, I am thankful for the privilege to pursue these projects and wish that everyone could have the same opportunity.
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings1 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Business Development, Change of Mind, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
It has been almost a year ago that I made a commitment to spent time developing coding skills and I’m providing an update about my efforts. I can say that it has been a real joy to feel a sense of progress since I’ve undertaken this new endeavor. . . Thanks to Procrastitracker I am able to share these images of my progress when I started October 1, 2022 up to September 30, 2023: This past year of work on Heropath was fraught with some challenges and issues. Some Procrastitracker info is missing and Heropath development was halted due to: . As I mentioned in my Heropath blog post I have decided to re-write the codebase which got me into playing with 3D in Godot to explore that as a way of expanding the immersive aspects of Heropath. 3D is really challenging and I can see why sticking to 2D is logical for beginner game developers. But I am going to continue to explore 3D as my concept is meant to be a surreal heroic adventure-strategy game and First Person would allow a more surreal experience. In addition, I am continuing to work on my Design and Logic of the game. This is pretty […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings1 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Business Development, Change of Mind, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
It has been almost a year ago that I made a commitment to spent time developing coding skills and I’m providing an update about my efforts. I can say that it has been a real joy to feel a sense of progress since I’ve undertaken this new endeavor. Here are the details Here is a pictures of what I’ve spent time at. Thanks to Procrastitracker I am able to share these images of my progress when I started October 11, 2021 up to September 30, 2022: In summary, I’ve spent about 41 hours watching videos and reading about game development, 54 hours planning and writing, and about 63 hours doing actual coding. I’ve done less than 2 hours a week of actual coding. At this rate it will take me years to get to 1,000 or 10,000 hours! This past year has given me six insights: I feel validated about my initial conviction to avoid GameDev because it is engrossing, allot of work, and will take 100s of hours to accomplish anything of merit. While it is a huge undertaking, it is possible to do this in small increments. I now see GameDev skill development being acquired by carving out […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings0 commentstags: Playstates, Summarizing a Business Organization
With my intention to being doing coding and game development, I got thinking about the definition of being an Indie Game Developer. Indies are distinct from AAA & AA level game developers which are enterprises that do game development so to develop profits for its shareholders. They are value creation machines, driven by passion to create great gaming experiences for the marketplace. Indies also are driven by passion but they approach it differently. I think of them being the single ‘A’ level game developers, with the ‘A’ meaning Amateur. Yet as the game development industry has expanded, so should the definition of what an Indie is. So I believe that ‘A’ level game developers should three sub-categories: A-I, A-II, and A-III. Basically the more money and resources available determines the level. A-I is an Independent effort, A-II is 2-10 people working together, and A-III is 11+ people working together. All of these A level game developers start off unpaid but as they build their product they may carry-on unfunded, self-funded, family-funded, or crowd-funded depending on the scale of the game. AAA The largest sized game developers in the industry employing 100s to 1000s AA The medium sized […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings1 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Business Development, Change of Mind, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
It has been just over four months since I made a resolution to start learning how to code. I slowly began to introduce myself to coding concepts using Chris DeLeon’s course ‘Code Your First Game’. I am really enjoying coding! I can see its appeal and how it forces you to get to know how your own mind works. Errors and mistakes are a reflection of perception errors 99.9% of the time. I’m making a concerted effort to stay open and not get frustrated when things do not work. The course had me build some very basic arcade games and culminated in a limited, simple puzzle demo demonstrating the first steps of Heropath. I am really pleased how having a project to work on has given me a focus that I did not have previously. I am now able to take the research and theorizing I’ve been doing and apply it to the roots and definitions of Heropath. Now is the time to adopt a game development engine. I’ve done some research and listened to the feedback of some of my Twitter follows and I’ve come to a decision about which engine to work with. What I’m looking for […]
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