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 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 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 […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings1 commentstags: Business Development, Change of Mind, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
I’m a conceptual thinker and because of such I can get caught up into ideas and concepts and believe that understanding something is the same thing as doing something. Such ignorance is typical of thinking types. So I’ve made a resolution to start taking up coding to 1) fix/build my own websites, 2) build my own video games I’ve avoided developing these skills because I’ve always felt I didn’t have the time, but I’ve matured enough in my self-awareness that I need to stop with the self-limiting thinking – the scarcity mentality that plagues so many of us – and just be open to possibilities. The self-limiting thinking that I don’t have enough time to fit it all in is poisonous to getting started. I’m now okay if I don’t finish or accomplish anything since I am going to approach this skill learning with a beginner mind and just enjoy the journey. I’m going to track my skill development, not put any pressure on myself to learn a certain amount of skill by an arbitrary date, and try to find the way of combining intention with spontaneity. Starting today I am going to make a resolution to practice this. Today […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller0 commentstags: Business Development, Self Analysis
This post is a bit of history, a bit of product promotion, and a bit of diary. I am pleased to announce that over on my main game development website, that I have released CreateOrConquer.com Version 1.5. Now a Version 1.5 is not usually something to write an entire blog post about, but this time it is. Why? Because it took me a decade to get from Version 1.0 to 1.5 which is an absurdly long time to do so little. How did this happen? I’m not a coder. I don’t have the time to take on coding as a sideline. I work full time in a health care career, have a family, and like to tinker around with lots of different things. I am not the kind of person with a singular laser focus. I typically will have five plus books on the go at one time, plus numerous projects. I spread myself around intellectually and interest wise. To be competent at coding there needs to be dedicated attention and I hope to one day apply myself at it, but currently it is not possible. I acquired CreateOrConquer.com back in 2010. Though it was in development from 2006 to […]
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