hello world, again

So I’ve yet again remade this website. This time I’ve moved from jekyll to hugo, because I’ve had to reinstall ruby far too many times and there’s always some issue with it preventing me from just getting it up and running so I can update this site. Hugo is just a binary, no need to install anything to get it to run. It’s far less of a hassle.
If you for whatever reason want to see the old posts (which were […]

hello world, again

So I’ve yet again remade this website. This time I’ve moved from jekyll to hugo, because I’ve had to reinstall ruby far too many times and there’s always some issue with it preventing me from just getting it up and running so I can update this site. Hugo is just a binary, no need to install anything to get it to run. It’s far less of a hassle.
If you for whatever reason want to see the old posts (which were […]

1-year milestone. Part 2.5: After the project ends.

This is a small post with only a couple of thoughts that I had a hard time placing anywhere else specifically. I decided to just make a separate post for them because I associate them with the end of a production cycle. If there are things that you get to experience or notice when you ended a project, then please share!
 
Over-burn and the price you pay. There are many talented individuals who do other things besides studying game development. And […]

1-year milestone. Part 2.4 Imposter syndrome or an imposter?

You probably have heard of a saying “Fake it till you make it”. This saying is about something called Imposter Syndrome.
Here is a wiki link for a quick reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
I also remember this expression sticking with me after a certain TED talk, so go check it out too, if you haven’t seen it:
https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are
If you are too lazy to deal with any of this, then here is the bottom line – when you deliver what is expected of you, […]

1-year milestone. Part 2.3: Causes of the group disharmony.

So, what is the point of this section? I know that the motto of our education is “Fail fast and fail a lot”. But I personally prefer fair warnings about where I might fail so that may I pay attention to these queues, rather than stumble blindly around in the darkness. A lot of these things, if not all, can be predicted and foreseen. So instead of failing at the basic stuff, I would have preferred to avoid the potentially […]

1-year milestone. Part 2.2: Detection of the group disharmony.

This part is dedicated to something I was both unfortunate and fortunate to experience during my second project which is, as the title states, a group disharmony. You can also call this simply an unhealthy working environment. In retrospective, I realise that there were many things that I could have done about this situation, but I choose not to act or dismissed my thought as a product of a coincidence. This is the type of a failure that the teachers […]

1-year milestone. Part 2.1: Teamwork and the good stuff.

In this second part of my notes, I’m moving onto the territory of the interaction between us, the students and the team members, on a much more intimate level. As you can imagine, working with the same people for 8 weeks on a small project creates dynamics that are much different from the interactions of a big group of people. I’m going to tell about my impressions of the things that create a positive working environment or as I call […]

Designing our Critter

At the time of writing this, CritterFlux has already been presented at the Gotland Game Conference and we received a lot of praise over our character design and artstyle. Our critter was apparently rather adorable! Although I would argue that the animations and movements of the little creature also added to the overall cuteness-factor. So was the successfull appearance of our critter a fluke, or did we actually put some thought into all of this? You be the judge as […]

Animating Deino

It’s funny, because when I fist opened and ran the program Motionbuilder, I was horrified at what greeted me on the screen. So many options, so much to learn, so many windows… It was a daunting task to say the least. I’ll be honest, I didn’t do too well on the course that was meant to teach us animation in 3D. I had a difficult time keeping up and I was really struggling getting used to the software. Funnily enough, […]

One year mark. Part 1.3. Student interactions on the “big” scale.

I must say, that I didn’t think I will be able to even get this far in my train of thought, but it does feel good to continue making notes on my experiences. Okay, onward! This part is about us interacting with each other on a scale of around 100 people in the same lecturing room. I have never participated in an activity that would constantly maintain an amount of people that big (my personal record would be 30 people […]

1-year milestone. Part 1.2: Ideas and Concepts.

One of the most important things in this education, besides working in the groups, is how you handle the ideas. I have to say that being creative is something I missed during my time in linguistics. While an open mind was welcomed, the creativity was highly impaired. If you couldn’t support your train of thought by a reference to already existing works, you’d have some hard time. Only a tenured professor who is steps away from retirement was excused for […]

1-year milestone. Part 1.1: Education and The Calling.

So, the grand Post Mortem begins! I start this first post (excluding the introduction) with my opinions of what sort of education did I get myself into. Onward!
 
The 4 courses and their synergy. I am happy to have been one of the first people to try the new branched out program in Game Design at Campus Gotland. I have heard only positive things about the education in games on Gotland. The change of format was even more appealing to me […]