It is about time I did a new post. I don't know how many people actually read these, but for those of you that do I appreciate it :)

2016 baby! New year, new me! ...Fuck that... Just saying that put a bad taste in my mouth haha But seriously, 2016 is going to be an awesome year for me. Or so I hope. I haven't completed a game since August of 2014, but I'm hoping to change that this year. School has been my #1 time sink in life but that is slowly changing as I am almost done with my program. Luckily, I still found time to work on improving my programming skills and build several prototypes - none of which were worth pursuing beyond that stage haha - but I so sorely miss working on a game from beginning to completion. 

Currently I am working on a side project currently called Harmony. It's a simple flash game and it is actually my first game to feature any kind of story haha Working on it has been a great AS3 refresher for me and a "wonderful" reminder of the issues that come with making a game within Flash. I recently finished wrapping up all of the story elements and key events and would say that 70% of the core engine is finished. Due to its simplicity the programming for the game should be finished relatively soon. The art assets....not so soon. I don't practice creating art all that often and I've never been very good at it. For this game I'm going to make my first attempt at pixel art...wish me luck! I tried finding an artist to work with but couldn't find the right one for this project. So for now... 

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL!!!  ....Ok. Fine. It is just placeholder art while I test code.

I was also recently reached out to by @DanielCotorogea with an offer to create a game with him. I think it is going to be a fun project and simple enough to manage with everything else I have going on. I've only worked with an artist one other time before and, while that game didn't work out, it was great working on a project with someone else besides Me, Myself, and I. For the most part, I'm taking a backseat as a game designer and will just be the programmer for the game which, honestly, will be kind of nice for a change. 

Lastly, I am slowly developing a small prototype for a 3D horror game in Unity. I've been using Unity and learning C# over the past year or so through my schooling and I do quite enjoy it. It's a lot of fun working on this project but one that I will be pacing myself on. I'm hoping to complete the prototype sometime between June and August....this summber basically.

Well... If you managed to read all of this you are awesome ^_^ I am going to start doing these blogs on a biweekly basis. I also started up some social media sites as well for my work because....why the hell not! So if you're bored you can go check them out and say hi if you want to. Or not. Either way I love you in that non-creepy kind of way.

It's been a long while since I've made a post and an even longer time since I've produced a game...

Tomorrow will mark the one year anniversary since I release my last game. Just typing that bums me out. Shortly after releasing that game I became super busy with school. I switched to a Game Development major so it was great still being greatly involved in learning how to make games but I miss having the time to make them. In what little free time I've had this last year I've spent my time improving my programming knowledge so that when I do make another game I can make an even better experience than that of my previous ones. At the start of this year I also made the switch from AS3 to Unity/C#. It's been a lot of fun and the transition wasn't terribly difficult due to my experience with AS3.

I was in desperate need of a break from school so I took the summer off. I started developing my first 3D game with a friend I made last year at my school. As fate would have it though his life became crazy chaotic and so this game is going to take a really long time to finish. On the upside though this means I have time to work on a new project which is where I need to make a decision....

You see I am torn on whether to make this new game with Unity or Flash/AS3. I am way more experienced with Flash so I could produce the game in probably 1/3 of the time. I really am tempted to make it with Flash so I can actually finish another game. On the otherhand I should make it with Unity so that I can continue to improve my skills with the platform I intend to use. If I go with Flash I will still be improving my skills with Unity because I will still be making the other game with my friend....but if I go with Unity that means I'll just be getting that much better at it at a more accelerated rate...

What to do....what to do....

Starting to realize how inefficient I am being at juggling multiple projects... 

I am currently working on about 3 main games, 2 prototype-esque projects, and strictly programming another game for a fellow newgrounds member. I work on on project for awhile and then switch to another game - it keeps things fresh ya know? Well....everything I go back to a project I have to re-read a lot of my major classes and see how they all mesh together. Like I remember what classes do what but I may not remember what every function does or what exactly all the variables are tied to. It's kind of annoying. It is also making it take so much longer to finish any one single game. 

Anyone else have trouble juggling multiple projects? Or is it just something you get used to?

I think I am just going to trim down my projects to 1-2 right now.

Ok so I'm a couple days late with the whole new year thing but hot damn it's 2015 folks! I'd love to hear what any of you have planned for this year - Resolutions? Projects you want to finish? Skills you want to aquire/improve? Tell me :)

I spent 2014 learning AS3 and managed to produce two games. It was definitely a fun year for me and I'm hoping to amp up everything this year! I want to continue learning more concepts with AS3 (I still have so much more to learn...) and I want to publish more games than last year. Sadly school gets in the way of all this - BUT - I'm learning to make games with Unity/C# at school so at least most of my time is spent learning/making games in one form or another. I really love Unity but I think I will focus on finishing my flash projects this year before fully focusing on another platform/language. This year I would like to dive into using FlashPunk (anyone think Flixel is better?) as it seems like a great IDE for making games (would be nice to move away from dealing with frames in the Flash IDE even tho I still love it).

I have 3-6 projects I am always bouncing from which is why it must take me forever to produce anything not to mention I'm still having to learn/understand more new code and make tiny games to understand it better. I'm hoping to pump out most of them this year ^_^ Hear is a small glimpse of one right now that I'm working on called The Gap:

Looks simple but it's going to be a very trial and error kind of game that will probably be causing people to rage and blam the hell out of it haha XD

Well, in short, in 2015 I want to do the following:

1. Publish at least 4 of my 6 projects.
2. Learn more advanced AS3 code and continue to improve my OOP knowledge.
3. Grasp working with an IDE outside of Flash (most likely FlashPunk).
4. Continue experimenting with mobile game development.
5. Create social media pages/sites for my game development - Live Life Games.
6. Make my own website (it's been years since I've done this).

Again, I'd love to hear everything you guys hope to achieve this year :)

I can't believe the year is almost over. It's been an amazing journey learning to program. I absolutely love programming and the process of making games. While I've only managed to make 2 games this year it was an amazing learning experience. I really wished I could have finished a 3rd game before this year came to an end but school has kept me crazy busy. I already have 5 personal projects lined up for next year that I'm currently working on, as well as strictly programming a game for a fellow NG member and making a Unity game over this coming summer with a classmate from school. Who knows how much time I will have next year to accomplish everything though.... It's about the journey and not the destination, right? Right??? Time will tell....

On a side note - I absolutely love playing indie games. I find them far more inspiring and fresh than mainstream AAA titles. I don't know how many people actually read my blog posts (maybe I should post this question in the gaming forum) but what are some of your favorite indie game titles (new or old)? Doesn't matter if it's for the PC or consoles - I love them all. Would love to hear about your guy's favorite indie game titles or ones that you found inspiring.

So glad October is over. It was a really busy month with a moving to a new apartment, a trip out of town to Vegas for a dance show, and school projects up the wazoo. Barely had a chance to work on anything of my own. November should be a lot less busy so I can now get back to working on my games ^_^

Hoping to have a Christmas themed game finished sometime during December for NG as well as a personal project. Lets hope school doesn't interfere too much and that I maintain discipline to spend my free time making games rather than playing them XD

Hope everyone's projects are going swell :)

Everyone be safe and look out for each other tonight ^_^

Progress is slow on my games in development... School is the main culprit. Probably doesn't help being sick this past week either. I would really love to finish one more game before the end of the year but I am not sure if life will allow that. We will see.... 

Decided to upload pics of my projects that I've made in my 3D-modeling class I'm taking this quarter. Never tried modeling anything before but it is pretty fun. I have family back home and a few community members here on NG that wanted to see what I make in class so I decided to post it to my account. Should be really fun to see what my projects will look like in 2 years for now and to watch my experience grow with each quarter at school.

Also, I may have found an artist to team up with which would greatly help speed up the productions of my games. We will have to see how that goes. I will have to test the waters a bit to see if we are a good match for each other. Whether it works out or not it should be a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

Welp....back to more homework and scraping away at my games bit by bit.

So many future games I want to make.....so little time.

Currently working on a very simple platformer type of game. Decided to use royalty-free art assets so that I could focus on learning new code for this project. Have another simple collect/survive for as long as you can kind of game which with the way I want to execute it I think it could be more entertaining than redundant.

Lastly, I want to make a game for Newgrounds Halloween Spooktacular. It's a simple point n click adventure game; however, the more I draft it out on paper the more I keep coming up with more and more ideas to expand the game.... Even for a point n click game I am starting to have doubts that I can finish it before October ends - even if I do scratch a lot of the cool features. Mostly because this happens to be a very busy month for me and I also started a new quarter at school. Such is life.

I'll have to decide very soon if I should attempt to try and finish this project in time for the Halloween Spooktacular or if I should just save it for next year and work on more manageable projects. I told myself after my last game I would take my time with future projects and just "relax" so doing the Halloween game would pretty much be the opposite of that.... We will see.

Just published my second game called Going Blind. It was a project very close to me as it was about my mother's dog, Jake, who is the protagonist in the game. It was a very simple, short game but I really enjoyed making it. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to connect with players or compel emotion out of them the way I had inteded, but it seems that I actually achieved my goal in doing so. This makes me happy beyond words :) 

I am still learning to code (AS3) and I have only been teaching myself since the start of the year, but it is my new found passion and I never plan to give it up. After making this game, seeing the response from players and those close to me, I plan to make more games that express myself :)

More importantly, I have found a way to immortalize our beloved pet Jake. He may be blind, but he is still the happiest dog I have ever met. Love you "best buddy".