Mid-Track Crisis

Today I spoke to Roger, Corrinne, and Bob about the feasibility of me changing tracks from an engineer to a producer. This post will kind of be a brain dump of all the things I'm worried about and considering for this transition.

First, I'll talk about why I wanted to (and am almost certainly going to) switch tracks in the first place. The original appeal of the EAE program was the promise of crafting any idea into an actual playable game that I could modify and re-craft to be even more fun. I've been doing stuff like this my entire life, and after being in the program for a semester it appears that although everyone has a say in what the game is, its the producers job to make sure that the vision is concise and clear, and I love that.

I just really love public speaking. The thought of giving game pitches to people about a game that I made and I've put all kinds of work into is so exciting. Looking back on my life, I've really put myself in positions where I can public speak as much as I possibly could, and I've never had any feelings but excitement before, during, and after any major presentations I've given. Producers give presentations, I love to give presentations. Great.

I love to see other peoples strengths and build teams around those. This is probably my favorite leadership skill that I have--the ability to recognize the utility of any person and play to those strengths. I definitely have weaknesses, too, but I feel that this is one of my strongest abilities. The ability to see the value in any and every team member. I've been a team leader of plenty of things that people were only half-heartedly interested in, and being in charge of something that everyone actively wants to be a part of is face-meltingly enticing.

Face-meltingly. You heard me.

Of course, changing to a producer has brought up concerns, as well. I talked with my wife Janice quite a bit about the change and discussed the pros and cons of changing tracks. The biggest concern was losing the degree that had originally attracted me to the program: the coveted CS master degree. I can't think of a more employable person than a mechanical engineer who also is a masters student in computer science. Switching tracks would lessen this ungodly employability, but as Zac Truscot pointed out, I could always get back into the engineering scene by using this experience as leadership training. If  I wanted to switch back. Game development is pretty insanely awesome.

With the biggest concern out of the way, the only thing left are minor issues. For instance, would I always be shuffled in to this role of "not-really-a-producer"? Would my peers think of me as a wannabe producer or would they actually see me differently? Would seeing me differently be a good thing or a bad thing? I don't want anybody to be weirded out by the transition, and it only slightly feels like I just asked to be everybody's boss and Roger said "sure". I could understand resentment at having me be your next team leader.

There's a lot of things to think about, but one thing that I know for sure is that there's definitely more pluses than minuses, and the minuses are worth dealing with to get involved in something that I'm absolutely going to love.

Unbridled Fun

Our new project is beginning, and its a large-group Indie-themed project where we're not allowed to use any AAA memes or themes from games. The purpose of the game we're supposed to make is entertainment.

Wow, you might think, Jake really lucked out! A large team making a game whose only purpose is fun?

Yes and no.

Yes, I did luck out because my team is totally awesome. Andrew, Zeph, Cody, Imaginary Jason, Broken Jason, Nick, Damian, and Yang. I don't think I could ask for a more baller team if I paid somebody. Everyone on the team is confident and hardworking, and I look forward to being a part of this.

No, I did not luck out because despite what you might think, large teams and barely any restrictions do not make the game design easier. They make it much, much harder. Every team yesterday came out of their brainstorming session with a hazy look and not much to show for it. Having a large team with no restrictions means that you have to slog through all the ideas that every member of your large team wants to and doesn't want to do before reaching even a beginning idea for what you want your game to be.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely added my share of unused ideas to the pot that we collectively discarded. It's just a hard situation. After about three hours we came up with a physics based Dynasty Warrior based game where you can explode enemies or push/pull them to do damage to them. It should be fun, and Unity looks really easy to code with.

...almost too easy.

I'm concerned about memory management with Unity after watching Triston make a ball jump around by simply dragging a ball into the game world and pressing 'go'. We'll see how things work out.

More on creating a custom path for myself through the EAE course later.

Converse...Video blog?

Even though I haven't written in a while, it feels kind of like I've been keeping up with this blog because I've had a camera in my face for the last month.

Week 1:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DRN8p6Nksc&feature=relmfu

Week 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhYbDOWAF8E&feature=youtu.be

Week 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN7e6ijJtfc&feature=relmfu

Week 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TQejNMgm9U&feature=youtu.be