It’s funny thinking about the last week. From both an entertainment standpoint, as well as from a developer-ish standpoint.
I guess, when I think about it, with the vast majority of my time this year being spent on delivery and support of a project which was purely a doing-it-for-the-money exercise, I guess it wasn’t entirely feasible to be thinking of my own projects until more recently.
Some of those, no doubt were fuelled by the gestalt of awesomeness which was the resulting combination of GCAP, PAX Australia and the large numbers of developers & friends which it brought out into place.
But there were quite the few takeaways for me, which in no particular order are:
I need to play more Tempest. Or its sequels (real or spiritual). Just when I thought I talked myself out of wanting an Atari Jaguar too ;)
Pivotus as a project is going to be put to bed. Thinking about it a lot, it was a game I wanted to play, but really struggled to make. Jettisonning it really feels like the right idea right about now - I just my design sensibilities aren’t up to the stage where I could really design a minimalistic blaster that well.
Nothing is more inspiring that seeing a pavillion of ~40 indie developers surrounded by amazing crowds, away from the monotony of the modern multiplayer free-to-play extravaganza. It does show that we have a rather great scene down here, and that it’s one to be amazingly proud to be a part of!
Despite prior feelings, I think I actually did happen to make a pretty decent first game. Yes it’s flawed. Yes very few people played it, but having it released, is still something to be bloody proud of. Especially getting a print-write up as well :) Even if it took me a long year to realise that it was the case.
I guess it’s a sign that I belong doing games stuff - being able to catch up with a lot of people I know over the week was an uplifing experience (even if it led to the dreaded Post-PAX-Blues as a comedown). Especially as the pressures of networking aren’t as high as they are in other software fields.f