Hi all,

Been an awfully long time since I trawled 64digits, and even longer since I posted (I wonder whatever happened to me actually keeping a blog…)

It's really good to see 64d is still here. It was always a great idea that pulled together with a great community. I figure now is as good a time as any to start bloggering away.

Since this is essentially my first real post, I may as well start with the basics. Some of you may know me from the GMG, where I once was reasonably active, and plan to be again.

3 years ago I finished my qualifications in Games Design at university, whereupon I was promptly scooped up to teach at said uni. So for the last few years I've been on the mind-moulding side of the whole equation. I primarily taught game design, character design, story design, and all those little bits that people tend to overlook in favour of technical knowledge.

While all of this was going on, I've been honing my skills in GameMaker, occassionally posting up an interesting project on GMG. Most of these projects fell by the wayside, as is wont to happen in our community (I'm sure many of you agree).

I suppose now would be a good time to impart some wisdom from the indie dev-cum-teacher vault'o'knowledge. Letting a project slip away from you is not necessarily a bad thing, at least in my opinion. At the end of the day, making games is something we love passionately. We don't necessarily love the games themselves, rather the challenge of putting new ideas together.

I think I've come to terms with this. The projects I've started always seem to be centrally focused around a concept I'd never dealt with before, whether that be strong characterisation, an interesting art style, an interesting gameplay mechanic, or a programming technique. So, for the first part of the project at least, everything is challenging and interesting. It's all going so well. Then I master that new thing, and suddenly…

I'm polishing my new skill with a bunch of skills I've already mastered.

And the thing is, while I've been developing this new project, my skills have improved so drastically it feels like I'm adding code onto something a five-year-old coded with a broken crayon (yeah, don't think about that metaphor for too long). So the whole project becomes uninteresting.

This is a good thing. Don't think that you've failed, because you haven't. On the contrary, you've achieved exactly what you needed to achieve. And someday, you may fall in love with a game idea. You may bring it to completion, and people will love or hate it. The point is that, when it comes to hobby game development, it is always the journey that is most important.

More rantings to come. I'll also be posting some development info about my new project soon, so keep an eye out.