See here for more information on what this is about.
Stream was here!
Note: I’m going to be pointing the camera mostly at myself, not because I have a huge ego (…!) but because I don’t want to freak anyone in the cast out. You might be able to catch part of the stage, otherwise it’ll just be more like a radio play. 
Last time I promised to talk about business… Oh joy!
One of the unfortunate side-effects of running your own little game development team is that you have to pay everyone. Not that that in-and-of itself is a big deal, but there is a lot of paperwork and procedure that goes along with it.
In our case, we have a bit more of a headache because we’re using “government funding”.
What Funding?
The fund in question is called MIDMF… the “Manitoba Interactive Digital Media Fund”. It has three sections: prototyping, development and marketing. We’ve been in the prototype stage.
And now for something completely different…
For the last 15 years or so, I’ve been writing/performing music in a series of amateur musical theatre productions put on by a local church. Over time, they have become more complex and original. One year we even did a musical “Star Trek” parody, for example!
The shows to tend to be entertaining, a little hokey and they usually run into more than a few amusing mistakes.
My family tends to be heavily involved in these shows, usually with my Dad writing the scripts and lyrics, my Mom doing stage direction and my sister and brother performing.
This year’s show is a little different, as all the songs are original. (in previous years we had done a combination of adapted songs and originals) I wrote the music for the (13!) songs, and I’ll also be playing incidental accompaniment along with the acting. Eileen and Chrissy are performing. (you may remember them from our other video blogs)
So we figured it might be a cool idea to make a “Pyjama Jam” out of this! One week from now, Sunday, April 25 at 2:00PM CST, you can watch my piano playin’ during our final live performance. It’ll be kinda religious, kinda wacky and hopefully somewhat entertaining.
Additionally – if you’re in Winnipeg and interested in attending the show in person, for a measly $10 – shoot an email to hello@infiniteammo.ca
See you on Sunday!
I’d like to explain a few threads of thought that have been milling about in my head for the last year or so. This may appear to be a bit more long-winded and entangled than my other “rants”, but I’d urge you to bear with me – if only for the selfish reason that I think that these are interesting subjects. (and you might find so too)
It’s also important to note that I’m going to be using a very complicated topic to explain a much simpler topic, and while this may seem counterproductive, I still submit that it is interesting enough to warrant the long walk.
Do human beings have souls? This question permeates our culture to the very core. I’d guess (and pardon my lack of scientific research in this regard) that most people believe to some degree that they are “special”. They probably also believe that the people around them, their friends and family for example, are “special”. They may even extend that belief to all of their fellow human beings. The concept of a “soul” is one way to represent this “specialness”.
For Marian Mondays today, we bring you a glimpse into the past… all the way back to one of the first concept pieces for the character. (by Katie de Sousa)
… from way back in the day, when we were playing around with building little physics demos a modified version of the Aquaria engine. (and thinking of calling ourselves “Bit-Blot North”) After many trials and tribulations, the game is alive and evolving in Unity.
Usually when you start something, it’s all smiles and hope. It’s thinking “this will be the best ___ ever!” You’re not worried about how it’ll all come together exactly, you’re just excited and giddy – ready to jump in and give it everything you’ve got.
But life can be a dick, especially where creative motivations are concerned. Working on a big (i.e. multi-year) project can be very difficult at times. Even if you’re working on something you care very much about, and you want to make it the best thing it can be – some days you have to dig really deep into your soul to find the motivation to carry on. It’s not just sunshine and giggles and then a game pops out!
If you want to finish something that’s larger in scope, you have to muster up a great deal of tenacity on a regular basis. There are times when you’ll feel like throwing in the towel – or just throwing up. It’ll start to seem like taking that position as janitor at the local McDonald’s may not be such a bad idea after all…
But in the end, you love your baby too much to just give up. You find a way to ride out the bad times and discover that you still love your project – but in a whole new way. You break down the parts that don’t work, and rebuild them better than they were initially (and naively) planned to be.
Hopefully.
Next week I’d like to talk a bit about one of the “least fun” elements of commercial game development – BUSINESS.
Game/music reporter extraordinaire Jeriaska posted a video of my Independent Game Summit talk on IndieGames.com. This is the first time any of my talks have slipped from the grip of the GDC lawyers to reach the public.
This talk relates to Marian in a couple ways: First there are a couple examples that reference experiences developing Marian, and secondly the entire development process of Marian is inspired by ideas of “storytelling” and holistic design.
This talk is actually a slimmed down version of one I gave back in September at Austin GDC. Originally this version was going to be just as long, but whoever organizes things over in GDC land ended up turning my slot into a 3-way talk with Adam Saltsman and Andy Schatz. Originally going to be an hour, it was cut to half an hour, then we were told it was going to be bumped up to 45 minutes at the last minute… When we finally delivered the talk, expecting it to be a 45 minute slot, we only ended up with about 35 minutes – unfortunately losing the end of our talk.
We were each going to wrap up our respective sections with a final message, and I think it’s a shame that we didn’t get the opportunity to do so… I’d like to post a rough paraphrasing of my coda here:
“Games are a vast, unexplored space – and this means not a single one of us knows all the right answers on design.
Find your own voice, explore your own creative process.
If it happens to be completely different than mine or Adam’s or Andy’s… or anyone else’s – that’s awesome. Experiencing vivid and diverse points of view is a beautiful thing.
I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!”
I’m really grateful to be in a position where I have the freedom to work on the projects that I want to – using the methods that I find most valuable. I also can’t wait til all you folks get to play the results! (hint: it’ll be quite a while yet)
