Boy, it has been a while. I have been trying very hard to not feel incredibly guilty for not keeping up as much with personal projects and development. I know that sometimes people really do have to take a break because life just happens and takes up our time. I try to remember that I'm so close to being able to get back into development and get into a rhythm and routine rather than trying to get everything organized for the first time.
First big thing, I have moved back to Vermont! I have missed it so much, I haven't been back around campus since everything locked down last March. I have missed walking around town and it's so fantastic to be able to do it again.
The apartment I have moved into is lovely and it's been so awesome to be outside more and feeling productive again.
I also got a dog! I adopted a terrier mix from the humane society and she's such a sweetie. We call her Matcha and my favorite 3 facts about her:
She L O V E S tennis balls. She will sometimes just sit by herself and gnaw on them.
Matcha dreams a lot. She will kick and make little noises like she is chasing something.
She holds her feet when she is laying down and it makes my heart melt.
Having a dog around has been so awesome and I'm happy that we were able to bring her home.
I have received the opportunity to return to my locksmith job on campus. It's been awesome and I really love being back. The programmer definitely comes out when I'm doing troubleshooting work- the other day I figured out a problem in the software and cheered out loud in front of my manager. That sounds more or less normal, but my cheering is comprised of incoherent sounds and pointing at the screen. It sounds happy, but it can really throw someone off when it's so sudden. But- I found the problem and it was so fantastic to have that excitement again after being so busy with life lately.
I'm hitting the phase of needing to plan out my personal projects for the summer. I have ideas, but they are everywhere and I need to rope some together. For example, I would really love to remake some gameplay mechanics from other games to improve my experience base- like the swinging from Spiderman, the gameplay of Pokemon Snap, the phase shifting in Element4l, and a few more. I also want to try and do full projects (but designing is not my strong suit). I can come up with topics- but need help forming a game and mechanics from a designer. Sadly enough, no one seems to want to make a lizard game, but a friend of mine and I talked about a game with animals learning how to skateboard. I personally am a fan of a raccoon on a scooter for that one.
I have the two games from last semester to add to my portfolio as well. I'm trying to take time to really make demo videos that can portray the gameplay, especially for Hold Down the Shop which cannot be run unless we start the server at that time. I hope to be able to make an itch.io page for the bird game (I think I will call For the Birds), but I'll want to create the menus and take time to polish that a bit. I hope that I can get to these soon.
I hope everyone is well. I'm so excited to get back into the swing of things and I think this has been a nice opportunity to remind myself that life happens and I can't always be productive with my projects. I can't wait to start posting developer updates and continue doing what I love.