Saved Game Progress

Hi everyone. E3 has come and gone. Not without leaving an unhealthy amount of news on its way to next year. Today  wanted to talk about something that I noticed reading twitter the other day: The perceived value of digital content, DLC and expansion packs.  All of this comes from a discussion about the pricing of all the Smash DLC. While most of the people I've talked seem to think it's overpriced. I have my doubts. Mostly because the arguments they are using is that of the price of the base game and the number of playable characters it included. If we view it this way, the game shipped with around forty characters and its price was around 60 dollars. This left the perceived value of a character at around 1,5 dollars. But I think this is a twisted and superficial way to think about this topic. And fucking naive if you ask me.  Thinking of it this way, in my opinion, means that you don't have any clue of what means to create a new character for a fighting game. ...

We won. You remember I wrote about a contest called Three Headed Monkey Awards? Well it was last weekend. And we won in the category of best UPC game. And it felt good. But I also had some friends that deserved recognition and left the building without an award. It was also refreshing to meet with some people again and chatting and drinking and making a party from nothing. But the thing that, since then, is always in my head is something I said. Yes, not something the professors or my flatmates said. Something I said when I got to speak, briefly, after getting the prize. So, what I said is something like: "This does not come without effort. A lot of it. But we continue to doing it because its our passion and we love it. So <P'alante>!" And P'alante is an expression that means moving forward with intention and without hesitation. After this all I could think about is that, essentially, winning is just a reminder of the time and effort you put in wha...

Hello everyone! It's been two weeks since the last time I wrote anything here. And a lot of things happened. Like always. That's what life is about. Things happening without stop. I don't even know where I was going with that so... Anyway, the project I've been working with some friends from the master I took is almost done. It's not pretty, it does not have good music or brilliant particle effects. But we have to leave it. It was a one month project, and that time has passed. So, we have to ship it.  As much as it hurts knowing there was so many improvements we could do. We have to walk away from it. It was an exercise and hopefully a trend for us. We needed more experience and we got it. It also brought to light many things about our personalities, commitment and ability to stay focused and accompany that focus with work. We have many issues to think about but it's been fun. Hopefully we'll continue doing this kinds of things.  For me persona...

Hi everyone! Today I want to write about how I find myself trying to juggle all my project without losing my mind in the process. Everything started when I wrote a design document for a game. It got shelved and since I wanted to make one more game besides the ones I was already making, I started another project. So there was one time I was making 2 projects inside the company and two more outside. And I think that was good enough. Not comfortable, but manageable.  Until. That project that got shelved, rose from the dead and was handled to me as maybe the most important project I could participate this year. That was the moment I started worrying about my ability to handle the art and design of multiple little and enormous projects at the same time. And the truth is I'm not.  I'm blending things from one project to another. And I feared that was a terrible mistake, but I think maybe it isn't. It's proving to be an interesting experience and a source for creat...

Hey everybody. It's been quite some time. And I have a feeling that every time this happens I come here and I write something like "sorry for this, I won't happen again :(( ". And what I've realised is that I need to stop apologising and say the things up front. So here it goes: I don't know how many times per week/month/year I can update my journal anymore.  The amount of work I have is that big. I also moved out of my parent's house recently and I'm still adapting to the new daily routine. Anyway, today I wanted to talk about how something clicked for me and my new flatmates. So, we were playing Smash Bros for the WiiU before unpacking anything else for the flat. And we kept playing for the rest of the afternoon. We played normal smash, omega, smash for 8 and party mode. But for a few matches we decided to switch the rules from "time" to "stocks". Until we played with and against amiibos. And the inevitable happened: the...

Hello again everyone! Lots of stuff happened this week. And hell of a lot more are going to happen the next one. I've been acting more as a project lead on one of the project. And we have our first member that decided to leave. Also, we had kind of major problems with one of the team members that had some issues with the way I suggested to work. Although he had no other suggestions for change. This really bothers me. Anyway, I've been finishing some personal stuff for next year (let's hope it becomes a reality!) and I've been working on other projects in which I was falling behind the schedule. And this was because last week I went to a wedding that took all my weekend... :S Although it was kinda cool to stay away from any kind of screen for 48 hours. Also, I've been catching up with the Double Fine documentary recently. And I have to say I totally get where they are coming from. Even with my little experience. It's a great documentary, even if you...

com•mit•ment .  n.   a firm promise or pledge: a strong or firm belief shown by one's actions; loyalty a responsibility that takes up or occupies one's time For most of my life I've been driven by commitment. Towards my friends, my family or my company. I haven't been able to fulfil it a lot of times. But as stubborn as I am, I will never stop trying to.  Since I got the job I have now, I've been doing whatever I could to give something in return for the opportunity it was given to me. Sometimes I think about what could have happened if I could not get a job. How frustrated and angry I could be.  But I got a job. And I wanted to show my commitment. First with my work time and production in a crunch environment. And after that I thought that wasn't enough. I needed something not for me. I needed for the team. Something physical. So I decided I would not shave my bear until I finish one project. I did it with the first project. I did it with the se...

So, I was checking my twitter feed the other day. Just like everyday when I walk past the grocery store and before the bus stop, just after getting something for lunch. And I saw a fellow dev started tweeting about how damage is represented in games. I continued walking towards the office and when I arrived I checked again. There was some really interesting answers, game suggestions and interesting debate overall . so I tweeted my way into the conversation. Although I've been thinking about this particular topic for about 6 years now, I always put it aside because I wasn't able to come up with core mechanic, an environment and a theme to complement it and make it feel  complete. But because of that conversation I felt like I should investigate into it again and try to document or prototype something. So, because of the time constrains and the volume of work I have, I've decided to have some free days and write down something about this: So, a few years ago I was a b...

Hello everyone! It's been 3 long weeks since I last wrote something here. And now I realise that the last post was about how a friend got fired. Such a coincidence, because a few days ago another friend decided to leave the studio for another job (although it was a great opportunity). The reason I haven't been able to write more posts in a steady stream is that I had A TON of work to do lately. It's no secret I'm helping in other projects, but they all decided it was time the artist had to do a lot of things at once. Well, that's not true. Most of the times they let me organise the way I please. So if there is someone to blame, that is me and my disastrous ability to schedule my week. To recap, I'm involved in a project with some of my classmates from the master. I'm also involved in a work side project, and inside the studio I've been working in two project I can't talk about. But now I'm already designing another project, as well as cl...

Hello everyone. It's been quite a few weeks that I haven't been around here. And a lot has happened. First things first. I'll be able to continue working where I am now at. And that is great. But there were times I was not so sure about it. In fact I was considering other offers. And some friends and partners offered me a role in their development group but I took too many time thinking about it and lost the opportunity. Meanwhile I also started the application for one of the most important scholarships here in Spain. And I also changed my approach to the leaving my actual house. I will, but in an different way. The thing that shocked me the most though is how one of the coworkers was fired this Friday. After all this months working there, there was the sensation that we started to make a solid group of friends. And this tears it apart. The decision has it's logic. The projects we're about to develop don't need that role in the team. But still, it'...