GDC, Project Update

GDC

Another GDC has come and gone. I had an amazing time, and it went by far too quickly. I always feel refreshed after spending the week amongst such hard working, intelligent people. I'm ready to kick some ass now for sure. Congrats go out to Tag: The Power of Paint for being named as the Best Student Game at IGF, joining past winners Synaesthete (2008) and my team's game Toblo (2007). It is a great source of pride for me that DigiPen has won this award each of the three years it has been given out. I know the streak has to end at some point, but right now it feels like we are invincible. I'll be going by the school tomorrow to watch final presentations for the current batch of student projects. Hopefully we've got some more great games coming out for next year's awards.

Side Project

A pre-GDC push by Zach, David, and I resulted in a ton of work getting done on my side project, but unfortunately not quite enough to confidently start showing it off. We were mostly on track to have a GDC demo ready, but naively tried to implement a few new feature ideas with only a couple weeks left before the show. It still may have turned out for the best. I think our idea has taken a completely new and more interesting direction.

This is pretty much in line with how our whole project has progressed up to this point. Three guys making a game in their spare time with no real schedule in mind and making sure to experiment with any ideas we find interesting. Its a very different approach from anything I have worked on in the past at DigiPen, 5TH Cell, or Snowblind. I have always preferred and adhered to a more structured path: 

1. Figure out what it is that we will make
   
2. Schedule it
3. Make it

In this particular case I am really enjoying the free-wheeling approach. I don't have anyone to answer to except myself and my teammates, so why rush things? We'll just keep pushing forward and having fun with it.