Bestest game evar!!!11

I really should come up with something else to talk about instead of my usual rantings about how befuddled with life I am. Talk about a whiner, eh?

As I write this out I am currently listening to the song "Galileon" by Linde. The album which it appears, Lander, is a great bit of chipmusic released on the 8bitpeoples net label. The album before it, Trenchvent, is also just as groovy. Both make use of FM chips or synths that create FM sounds to a degree that makes you wonder, at least for me, what Sega Genesis game did these songs come from.

The reason I mention these, other than the fact they rock, is because I was messing around today with some pixel art in an attempt to make some vehicles for a Herzog Zwei type game I had in mind. After building a little tank or so, I loaded HZ in a emu and watched the demos cycle through a bit to get a better feel for the look of the game.

Then I searched teh internets a bit for some info on the game itself. I read the wiki and looked at a forums posts here and there and came across a mention of a game called Airmechs.

So, out of curiosity I checked it out. And in doing so, totally destroyed my idea for my own HZ type game.

Airmechs looked so amazingly kickass, I immediately threw my hands up in defeat. How in the holy hell could I compete with that? That was damn near the same game I had pictured in my head whenever I thought about HZ coming back from the grave and onto modern systems.

Ah, once again I am whining. Sorry about that.

Anyway, after having my hopes dashed from seeing that, I began to wonder if I could pull this off. Doubt and uncertainty again clouded my mind. But I was able to pull through it and continue my pixel doodles anyway. I still need to come up with something, and quick but I keep getting different ideas that shove each other around to get my attention. Sooner or later these battling thoughts will settle down at a table come up with a plan of attack, as it were, for a single and concrete idea.

Until then, I continue my best efforts to actually do some work every day toward the cause. Of course Skyrim comes out on Friday.

Crap...

...ooo look teh kitteh!

The worst part, I think, about beginning to write is trying to get the ideas that are in your head out and onto the page.

I'll sit and have these conversations and discussions flowing in my thoughts and never have the fortitude or even guts to put them down. I'll just let them run their course and fade away.

Am I afraid to write them down or is it just shear laziness? Hell, I joined a website that promoted writing by having its members write a 50k word novel every November. I want to get it a try but since signing up I've had not a single idea for it. I was going to rewrite a short novel that I had made for a class in high school where we had to actually made a physical book, bindings and all. I suspect that would have been cheating, so I scratched that idea.

To be honest my writing has taken a bit of a back seat to my desire to make a game in the coming months. That too is starting to become a difficult task as I am still unsure of what game I want to create. Sidescroller, shoot-em-up, RPG, or action game. Even the method is in question. UDK, Gamemaker, Construct 2, or Stencyl. Never mind that I am not an artist or a musician either. And programming? Buh...

When I first got a hair up my ass about wanting to create instead of just watching everyone else, I wanted to make a webcomic of some sort, but again ideas and the fact I can't draw well kept holding me back. It is my apparent lack of ambition keeps me from drawing everyday, practicing the piano tutorials on Garageband everyday, writing about anything everyday.

I just looked back at what I just wrote and have to laugh at myself. Three hundred plus words in already and they keep flowing onto the virtual keyboard.

Until a thought came and shut the valve off...

Anyway, I've been trying to free myself of distractions for a while now. Thinking that will help in my quest for a better life. Boxing up my games for a year. Taking only my absolute favorites with me when I moved as well as only a handful of movies. I brought a large chunk of my book, but barely touched them. I've done more book reading on my iPad than an in a physical book. I look at my computer and wonder if bringing it was a wise choice. Of course without it I couldn't be attempting game creation. Then again, I might not be in the situation that I am now currently residing in either.

I can only keep trying everyday, keep forcing myself everyday. If not, failure once again awaits me at the door. And quite frankly, I am getting sick and tired of his visits.

Sour grapes will still make the pill bitter.

Nothing like bitter disappointment and crushing defeat to start your day.

No sir, nothing like it. 

So, is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Was it ever there to begin with, or was it just a after image, of days long ago, slowly fading away?

Or maybe I just looked at the sun for too long...

Making makes the bills go away.

I want to create things. I want to create things that people can enjoy. Things that people can read, hear, or watch. Things that can make them smile. Things that make them happy.

Isn't that what we all really want to do?

To scare and make them giggle when they realize they are safe. To sadden so they think more about theirs lives and the ones around them. Or simply just make them laugh at the silliness before them.

To escape. That's why we do the things we enjoy. To escape from the dull, the difficult, the repetitive.

We create to escape as well. Perhaps even more so. Since we can't live in our dreams and visions, we create them the best we can with what we can.

But when something is in your minds eye, and you lack the knowledge, the ability, the skill to let it run free for others to enjoy...

It's like letting fruit over ripen on the tree because you cannot afford a taller ladder in which to collect it before it falls to the ground, rotted and sour.

Many plans and schemes are attempted to make the inspirations in our heads form into something tangible or sensory. Often, however, they are either left abandoned in boredom for another shiny vision or are aborted mid development because they do not take to the form that was originally conceived.

Alas the pit filled with the corpses of discarded ideas and thoughts is a sacrifice to the gods of creation that must be made.

Still, I try to create. Buckling down with a lesson or guide that promises to help show the way to the skills that I require to manifest my visions. Bits of knowledge are picked up here and there, slowly increasing the size of my bag of tricks. But it’s never enough to hone a sharp enough edge to cut through the clay and reveal the sculpture that was trapped inside all along.

Someday it be sharp enough. Sharp enough to cut through my own insecurities and doubt. Sharp enough to sever the parts of myself that hold me back from doing the most simplest of things...

Make people happy.

Idol hands are the Devil's competition.

A vista of emptiness surrounds my mind. In all directions, the vast of blanket nothingness spreads further and further. Even as my mind is wiped clean, my body is losing the ability, the will to create, to organize, to even move. I can only watch and listen, hoping all that I consume can fill this void that is slowly laying waste to my mind, body, and soul.
So many thoughts and inspirations swam within the oceans of my mind. So many visions and concepts towered and grew over the landscape of my consciousness. Encroached by the void, the oceans are drying up revealing flat, cracked, sunbaked planes. Views that before would awe and inspire are now lifeless crags of crumbling decay that molder and fill the air with putrid choking dust.

I hate writers block...

Pep at 2 p.m.

Brewing some coffee, waiting for a call that may never come, and wondering if I should get some creamer.

Decisions, decisions.

Cheap, crappy creamer, or the pricey, tasty kind.

Will it break the bank? Will spending a few dollars cause finances to collapse? Will it make the java silky and creamy or leave it clotted and gritty?

At least I still have some cinnamon left.

Hunting the elusive creature.

So, I've be hunting around for a different job for the last few weeks, and so far to no avail. Only the most common and skill-less ones are out and about. I have a snare waiting and ready for one that seems to be within view but, I think it sees me and and is wary about moving closer to the bait I've laid out for it.

The more common ones give even less that what I receive now and would just be a detriment to the cause. That or they are of such a degrading breed that only the young or the most in need would take on.

While my hunts have been fruitless, I have been attempting to breed my own. My skills in sector are limited, and any useful results wouldn't come about until months or (gulp) years of private study and training.

One can only hope for the best at this juncture, and press on diligently.

Tally ho and such forth.

I'll post when I have something worth posting...