Disaster Relief!!!

Well this weekend was both a disaster and a learning experience all in one.

First the Garage Sale was pretty close to a bust. I managed to sell all my retro games, comics and older game systems right away, then sat in the chilly air waiting for people to show up. They never did.  So we were now left with pretty much the exact same amount of crap we needed gone.

That's when I realized that part of my garage sale was intended to get us out of the stone age on a few things.  So I went to kijiji.ca and craigslist.org to start trying to sell what was left. It's been working, though a few people lack commitment in actually coming to get a few of our items for sale. Most important has been find a buyer for our daughters clothes. Which thankfully we managed to do.

So why do I bring all of this up on my game development blog. Well between the Garage Sale and Mothers Day, our apartment is something of a disaster area. It needs some love. Thus resulting in another day of me having my jimmies rustled by something thus taking me away from my Adrenal Studios work. Monday is usually résumé day so if I can get the office/home cleaned quick enough this will only lead to delays, not a full blown cancellation of the days work.

So I'm going to get started on my cleaning, then attack my résuméing (I made that word up), then hopefully some work can get done on my game.

Overall counter productive day that I hope I can turn around.

That said until tomorrow: WIRED in...... out....... I'll let you know later

Been a rough week so far.

The schedule I had planned is going to have to get thrown out the window it seems. I had initially planned on spending two days this week working on a project and the other two days working on learning how to be a better graphics programmer. Time to change some things around I guess.

So having actually purchased the Gamemaker Studio master license on a Steam Sale, it seems best to use it to release my first game or two to try to afford a non-student copy of Visual Studio 2010 and maybe a legitimate Unity license. The only issue I have with this has been coming up with a game I want to make with Gamemaker that makes sense for mobile.

I tried to do some research yesterday on my tablets but comfort caused sleep as I was somewhat deprived yesterday. So maybe today I can try out a few games and get a few ideas.

Overall this week has been something of a write off.

On a personal level, me and my wife have been preparing ourselves for our garage sale this weekend. We're hoping to earn enough money for the kids to get some nice stuff. The twins are starting to sleep through larger parts of the night so it's time to start considering a crib for them. As well our older daughter has been growing like a weed and needs some new clothes BADLY. The hard part of this garage sale is going to be saying good by to years of my video gaming life as I sell my old NES, SNES, N64, Game Cube, Xbox, Dreamcast Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance. I feel like none of those are going to last particularly long at the sale, but we'll see.

We're just generally making room in the apartment seeing how right now we have almost no room, and the job hunt has yet to cash in. But my hopes are still high on that one seeing as how it's only been two weeks and the video game industry is a ruthless industry to deal with. But I would like to congratulate a few of my colleagues from my graduating class, Max, Curtis, and Nikita, for all finding jobs in the industry. I wish all three of you the best, the industry knew what they were looking for in the three of you.

So today's docket - come up with a game and power prototype it!!!!!!

Until Tomorrow: WIRED IN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday. Maybe it's about time I got some work done this week!

For 2 weeks now I've been blogging and talking about how I'm going to get some work done on a game while I look for work. Seem to be an easier said then done situation.

Had a late night with my sons last night, ended up waking up and getting started 30 minutes late. I'll probably have to make up for it at the end of my day now.

So coming back to my issue of minimalism. Or rather my issues with having a complete lack of minimalist thinking. One of the issues I think could be causing this is my interest in 2 movies of late. The Social Network which tells the tale of Mark Zuckerberg creating Facebook, and Minecraft - the story of Mojang. See these movies document (or take some artistic direction) with the creation of a major project. So how do I as a person fall back and think small?

The best thought I have is to pull out my old Nintendo collection and see what's in there to find out what type of game I can make. I don't have that option long though as we're having a garage sale this weekend and on the sales pile is my old Nintendo. I'll get nostalgic later I promise.

That said I am happily accepting suggestions on small game ideas.

Other then that, not much to say other then how much I enjoyed my day off, and how much I equally enjoyed Iron Man 3.

Well that's the weak adrenal blog for today. I leave you with this weeks Extra Credits dicussing Mexico as a possible player in the games industry. I'll probably start sharing this on Wednesdays. mostly because these guys are good at what they do and a lot of what they say makes sense.

Until Tomorrow: WIRED IN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes, You Need a Break to Think!

Today is a lazy day. No work will be getting done in regards to Adrenal Studios current projects. A few notes on my day yesterday though.

1. Toronto's game industry really knows how to hide. It is hard to find the jobs to apply for in a lot of cases. Along these lines though Toronto has a very independent game industry. Meaning most of the teams that exist will either hire me because they know me or because I met them at one of the many game jams or events. 
2. I don't have a minimalistic design bone in my body. I'm working on ideas for a neat little mobile game to release and my brain is feature creeping before I even get the chance to build the project. 

So why do no work today? There are a few reasons but let's just say, if your mother offers to watch your 3 children while you go watch a movie you say "thanks mom" and hit the road.

That said I remember say I'd give you a quick tour of my tiny office so here ya go faithful readers, the little corner of heaven I call Adrenal Studios.

 If you blinked, you missed it.

All in all this will be a much needed day off and work will continue tomorrow.

Good Day All.

Wired OUT!

The Return of Adrenal Studios Continues!

So here we are entering week 2. The week after the last blog post, which, after reading need both proof reading and broken promise fixing.

Unfortunately due to the nature of the job hunt, interviews have been messing with my self employment schedule so the blog had to be one of the first things to take a hit. But let's get my loyal reader(s?) caught up. 

Adrenal Midnight Oil Toolkit

Last week in a nut shell was about getting my office organized and getting the Adrenal Midnight Oil Toolkit set up. The toolkit looked a little weak when I was done my day's work on it Tuesday and plans to continue on Wednesday got thrown through a blender when I received a reply from a job I applied for, replied and set up an interview for that Thursday. For whatever reason, my anticipation of that interview caused a complete lack of focus and inability to get my work done due to my excitement. So as you can imagine, once TOJam came around I was a little skeptical about the toolkit. 

Job Interview Thursday

Not sure how much I'm supposed to say with regards to this so lets keep it simple. I felt the interview went very well, they seemed legitimately interested in my work and my abilities. So we'll see.

TOJam May 3rd - May 4th

TOJam is the shortened version of Toronto Game Jam. A personal challenge to make a game in a set amount of time. So I took my trip to this a little sceptical in the Adrenal Midnight Oil Toolkit's ability to get the job done. It went better than expected. I went in thinking the first modification I needed to make to the kit's code was going to be the first of many problems. I was sorely mistaken. Me and my artist partner Ashley Proctor managed to bang out a playable game by 6pm on the Saturday. I have a few things to workout for portability of the Midnight Oil Toolkit, but it should go up soonish. Until then here's a short video of the game we worked on


Final product video got a little messed up. I'll put it up soon enough.


So what's on the Adrenal Studios docket this week. Well Monday is Carpet Bomb/Design Day, where I apply for every game job in the Greater Toronto Area I can find and come up with game ideas for the next project. The next one is going to be made in Gamemaker I bought licenses on a Steam sale, might as well use them right? I will work on that game on Tuesday and Wednesday and spend Thursday and Friday working on making myself a better C/C++ opengl graphics programmer.

That's my week to come and last week in a nutshell. Hopefully my schedule this week allows me better access to sharing my time spent and week with you guys. PS. Office Images next post.

Thanks and until Next Time: Wired In!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Self-Employed or Unemployed. The difference is you.

With school done we look into the future. Adrenal Studios can become active again, at least for a little while anyway.

Our work from the last project was an excellent learning experience and I can't wait to hear if we'll be able to get the final touches on the project to get that game out.

In the meantime, the office is the next focus of Adrenal Studios, it needs some tidying. As well we need to get to work on the next project. Something I'm tentatively calling the Adrenal Studios Midnight Oil Kit. The goal of this current project is to create and open and free tool kit using XNA to help programmers get the boring stuff done quick and easy, so that they can get into making gameplay and possibly levels. The intention, for programmers to use during game jams. But if they want to use it other places, who am I to stop them.

Today is mostly about organizing for the first hour and a half. Getting the office organized to the way I like it. Then getting my user stories together for the game tool kit. Any work accomplished towards the midnight oil engine today, will most likely be in the graphics and level creation end of things.

Come next week, the sky's the limit. Also finding a neat place to put the tool kit. Git Hub is probably a safe bet.

In the meantime let's talk about the title there. One of the tricks in certain industries is to keep working. In the case of game programming, you really want to focus on constantly making things and staying busy. This career is one where you don't actually pound the pavement and knock on doors. You carpet bomb the industry with résumés electronically and hope get called. If you don't get called wash rinse repeat. So with downtime, you really have nothing to do. My goal with Adrenal Studios is to continue to produce while I look for a job in games. If something we create happens to do well, bonus!

That said thanks for reading, tomorrow, and update on the Midnight Oil Kit, and a few pics of the tiny closet office!

Until then: WIRED IN!!!!!!!!

What happened?!?!?!?

Well what did happen indeed.

Well it seems a few things occurred between my last post and right now.

In all that time I've been working on a game for an actual studio with ACTUAL bosses and NDAs. Whoops. As a result I've been unable to discuss any progress on that particular project.

That said where does the future of Adrenal Studios sit.

Well Adrenal Studios in it's current iteration, is not so much a place as an idea. It's the name I use for my personal projects that may or may not get released for money.

On that note, I have a few personal projects that will be worked on, and that time will be soon. Come May, this blog will be active again with my musings and progression my personal projects one of which I hope will be started this weekend at Global Game Jam.