What are you building?

A model from something I'm currently building

Every once in awhile someone who has seen/heard/ something that I've made will send me a nice message- every time I get one of these messages it reminds me as to why I started creating things and releasing them for free most all of the time-

I've been in some dark places in my life and it was manga/anime/music/films along with a lot of self work that helped me get through things-

So I'm happy and proud that I've been able to make and release a few things in my life so far- I threw them out there and whenever I get some nice message about them it's the energy I put into to them comes back to me-

This is a key

Speaking of energy and putting stuff out there-

I've made some crazy things but my major works all have hope in them- they have heart and soul- I built funky little houses that may look scary and strange on the outside but there a fire inside to keep you warm should you choose to visit-

I think its important to build things that say/share/express something more than just nihilism/snarkiness/degeneracy/popular thought

Those things can never help lift someone up when they are down- yes, you have to get dark to go there with people as they may be there or have been there BUT you need to show them a path- to lead them out of it IF you value what it means to be a creator-

Works that wallow in nihilism/snarkiness/degeneracy/popular thought/endless cynicism take you to a dark, empty place and leave you there- I think this is irresponsible- it's EASIER, YES but in my opinion it's irresponsible and weak-

It's easy to shove people into a dark place- it's much more difficult to then light a path and show them the way out-

What are you building?

A dead end? A long winding road into a dark pit with no way out? Why?

Is that how you feel? Is that how life looks to you?

If you do finish the thing that you are building and release it out into the world- what will it send back to you? Is that something that you'd like to receive?

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A few years ago my wife and I were watching one of my neighbors daughters- she must have been 10 at the time-

I was acting like a weirdo adult like I often do with kids and she looked at me with a puzzled look for a second then said " You should work at a haunted house " 

I think she said that because I was being very theatrical and sorta creepy at the time-

One of the things that really got me into making video games was when I was watching a documentary on Walt Disney and he said that the amusement park exhibits were extensions of their movies- and I was like... video games can be extensions of my movies?!

So back to the haunted house thing-

After working on it for a few weeks I just realized today that my current game project is a little bit like a haunted house- I enjoy freaking people out-

I've been doing a lot of study and practice with different AI systems/tools and I'm %100 confident I can create an AI system to freak people out for hours and hours ^_^

For the past two weeks I've been working on the procedural world generation part of the game so that it can build unique rooms with unique layouts etc- so far so good- I never thought I'd be getting into procedural generation but learning a little about code architecture goes a long way with helping create complex things when you have endless public github repo's to explore-

The photos in the post are objects from the game- nothing too exciting to look at yet as I won't allow myself to get pulled into the trap that comes from adding art too soon to a game-

Now that I feel like I have a solid understanding of what a game is +  have some practice making small games + have studied game design thoroughly on my own + greatly upgraded my programming skills the future seems very bright ^_^

I can't wait to go crazy and make/release tons of crazy games/interactive experiences- I'm doing this full time and taking it seriously just as I did with animated film production-

I'm building my interactive dreams one unseen prototype at a time- you might see this next one though- then I'll be cool like this guy inside of a box inside of a warehouse in San Francisco-