Everything is Rockin'! [RML Thread 4]

[chee]

I think I'm starting to understand what the hell Nick Land was on about. In other news, I'm also now completely insaneweather crab, FLIPPIT zooooooooooooooom

[Monk Ed]

This should almost be in the video game subforum, but then it would just be a topic all about me.

Some of you may know I'm a grad student studying software engineering with a concentration in (to put it succinctly) games, and I've been working on a capstone project for the past 22 weeks.

Today was public showcase day. Every year, my university shows off to the public what its students can do, by having us present our capstone projects -- a game made by each of us along with a team of our peers.

The presentation that really matters, though, is the private showcase one week later -- open only to industry professionals. That's why, today, we were all ears and eyes watching people come by and try out our game.

And we got such valuable feedback -- like nothing any of us had gotten on our own nor from people we had playtest for us. The game had never been through such rigorous abuse, and it revealed numerous flaws in our code (because certain features broke and stayed broken for the duration of the runtime) but also our design (because users had way too much trouble figuring certain things out, or kept trying to use features in ways that were intuitive to them but "incorrect" from the standpoint of our design).

After an all-too-short breather and graduation (yes, the final showcase of our project happens after graduation), I'll be back on this wagon one more time, and then it will end -- hopefully in a job, and hopefully in a job I'll love.

[BobBQ]

Good luck!

[Reichu]

Within the past month or so I've begun at last combating my own obesity, after a sobering doctor's visit that made the alarming trends of the past few years quite lucid. I was hovering between 275 and 280, at times in danger of surpassing that. After making some adjustments to my diet -- which still need some tweaking, but it's a good start -- I've reached my first goal of 265. I've been surprised how effortless this has been so far, and I hope I don't plateau anytime soon, since I have a really long way to go.

[pwhodges]

Oh Wow! Well done indeed for starting. But be modest with your targets at each stage of your journey - it will definitely not remain easy, so be encouraged but not deluded.

[Reichu]

Yeah, I know it will get harder, and I'm not looking forward to that part since I'm pretty lazy. But going down a size and having access to tons of perfectly excellent clothes again is most definitely something to look forward to, something worth working for. (Almost no clothing manufacturers acknowledge tall fat women as a thing that exist.) There are also the health perks that will surely reveal themselves little by little. Already most of my acid reflux is gone. This used to be so bad I needed prescription drugs for it. Then I tamed it enough that over-the-counter sufficed, and now with the recent diet changes I only have to take antacids on 'special occasions' (i.e., mostly like a normal person). I expect to see gradual benefits for my back, knees, and feet. It will be especially interesting to see if my thick foot callouses are influenced by the excessive weight and start becoming less pronounced with time. These have tortured me for long enough I can't remember the time before them.

[Monk Ed]

I graduated.

Also, two days later (today), I led a meeting with my capstone teammates because we're still working on our project to get it ready for the industry showcase this Friday. It was 3 hours long, jam-packed, goal-oriented, and the most efficient meeting we've ever had. By its end, we had made all our design change decisions to the game, broke it down into specific work items (all the way to the individual asset level), and assigned every work item to a person.

Near the end of it, our nominal producer (who never formally relinquished his role) said, "I'm so glad [Monk]'s our producer now."

It's not the kind of work I'd rather be doing, but I can't deny, I'm enjoying being a leader.

[NemZ]

Glad to hear things are going well, Monk!

[IronEvangelion]

Congrats, Monk Ed!

[child of Lilith]

Congratulations, Monk Ed.

[Monk Ed]

Glad to hear things are going well, Monk!

They're not. Well, from a certain point of view. That I had to do this was a sign of a problem, but it's positive in the long run for my career to be able to say I did this.

It got worse since then, too.

That same guy? He's also our lead artist and responsible in particular for the UI. We are down to the wire now, one day remaining before the showcase, and he has completed nothing since that meeting. I declared the official start of crisis mode, and, when I get up (and I told him this), I really hope he's going to surprise me with a whole bunch of things suddenly completed. Otherwise, I've got contingency plans in place.

I barely got any of my own work items done myself, but that's in large part because of all the administrative work I wound up doing for the team today -- y'know, the stuff that he was originally supposed to be doing.

This'll all be such a great story to tell at an interview though. And the guy himself will totally back up the story, cuz he admits all his failings.

[Monk Ed]

It got better.

Yesterday, my team and I presented our game at a showcase open only to industry professionals. It was no E3, just a party in a few rooms at school where my classmates and I had our games set up on computers (and, in the case of our game alone, tablets) as industry professionals walked around with drinks in hands.

Our build was presentable -- barely. During our hectic scramble the previous night to get as much of the essentials in as possible, I had to make priority decisions for the team about what would get in and what wouldn't, and that meant some didn't make it. It's well-known that there's always "one more" little thing that could be done, but these felt essential enough that it was kinda painful to see players not figure out something about the basic mechanics that would have been obvious if we'd put that "one more" little thing in.

But what did make it in received a lot of praise. Everyone who played our game seemed to get pretty into it, which was satisfying to observe. One guy in particular had a really deep analysis of the game, which I liked because he saw the same puzzle game inside that I did, and his suggestions were ones I had made as far back as the beginning of the project (which doesn't mean I'm some kind of genius; one member of my team always points out ideas that he had "first" ("I said this WEEKS ago!") with no proof that it was actually a good idea).

My team has softly agreed to take at least a week-long break now, but more than one of us are fully interested in keeping working on the project and eventually releasing it -- perhaps sooner rather than later.

Myself in particular, I'm going to keep working on it immediately, because it'd be such a fantastic portfolio piece with just a little more polish, and all I'd really be doing are adding in things we already had planned but didn't have the time to put in.

[MAGI_01]

Well after a bit of a chat with my district technician at work today over the phone, I am now on now the installation team for our brand new playpass system for our games for our district.

Mid July I fly down to one of our flagship stores on the west coast in San Diego to be trained on proper installation and operating procedures. Afterwards, come mid August the roll out of the new system in our district shall start in the Seattle area stores, and gradually works it's way through the district until completion. (Our district spans virtually every store in WA, one store in OR, one in ID, two in UT and one in ND.) Lots of travel for me over the next 2-3 months and a lot of late nights, since all retrofits will be done at night, but the experience alone is worth it.

Super excited for this opportunity. Barring any sudden changes, this is pretty much a sure thing.

[Trajan]

Apparently I'm making significant progress with regards to my therapy. Or so I've been told.

[Sgt. Griff]

A average for my first semester. A- for the composition paper.

I was expecting lower for composition, my first four assignments were straight Bs and really bummed me out all semester, but the Semester work looks to have come out as 4 A+s which is pretty damn dandy.

[child of Lilith]

Good for you, Sgt. Griff.

[Monk Ed]

Tomorrow or otherwise soon I'm entering a mental health treatment program. It runs 6 hours per day, 5 days per week. Over the past couple years I've developed obsessive thinking tendencies that finally came to a head in the past week or so. I'm okay right now, but it could always flare up again, so even though I'm feeling better in the moment I know it could always happen again unless I do something about it.

[NemZ]

Well that's unexpected. Good luck?

[child of Lilith]

Yeah, good luck Monk Ed.

[Sachi]

My brother was in town visiting recently, and I started showing him Bojack Horseman in our downtime. He's since left, but I got hooked on the show again so I've been continuing to watch it. Well, I just found out today that season 3 is going to be released a week from today on Netflix, and the timing couldn't have been more perfect! I'm going to get a chance to see the new season with the prior seasons still fresh in mind, and I didn't even intend to have it work out in such a way!

I get excited over the small things.