GDD710 Development Practice Module - Week 0 - Development
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Myself
For a new chapter, I made the decision to study a Masters degree in Indie Game Development at Falmouth University. Being a year out of education, made me feel unbalanced in where to head next. The chase for job opportunities made it very clear in terms of further knowledge and experience, that I was not finished with education yet as I consider myself to be very academically-driven. Which is why I enrolled.
To kickstart this new postgrad adventure, each student was assigned to construct an online blog that records an individual's reflection and development throughout the course. This was all very sudden for newcomers like myself as my previous experiences with blogs involved a weekly diary to update and handover for peer review and feedback.
The recommended site was WordPress. This was not compulsory as my experience with WordPress has mainly been negative due to its interface template layouts without much ease of customizing. This lead me to choose tumblr which was lacking resources for presentation of content. I finally came to my senses and made life easier and thought "Why not use Wix?" I used Wix for my portfolio which links up to the blog manager system which was more appealing and user friendlty (Wix, 2006).
Figure 1: Websites chalk board (Pixiz, 2021)
I believe the reflective side of blogging will demonstrate how my personal development will improve as the weeks of the first module "Development Practice" take place. I hope to adopt a unique style in how my blogs are written to find myself, whilst reflecting upon my successes and failures as the course progresses.
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Why Indie Games Development?
I remember looking back in school where I wanted to go for a career path, not having a clue aside from an interest in technology, this foundation lead me to college where I discovered a mixture between website design, databases and most importantly, a taste of games development. That passionate and obsessive interest lead me to an undergraduate degree in Computer Games (Indie).
Working from small-scale projects to a large studio creation, Each area of games development became a nature and lifestyle to me, especially design and production which has become something I thrive upon. I love guiding a team being in it for the same goals and reasons, whilst putting my utmost creativity to the test. Especially looking back at my final major project Enchantress, an emotional user experience game that concentrated on story-telling through a surreal setting and compelling manner.
The majority of development with the game was approached using a designers mind-set. disregarding the other areas of being an indie games developer. Alot of this was down to being attached to a certain area and not giving myself the chance or change to adopt other skills such as programming, which is something to overcome.
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Long-term Goals
My main aim is to work as a full time lead in either production or design departments for a triple A company. Running a team and guiding them towards the best route of development possible. This would be achieved by applying for a small indie company to gain further industry experience and expand my networking skills. This experience would acquire enough expertise to apply for a triple A role.
Failing that, to focus on teaching video games development as a lecturer in higher education, sharing my knowledge through my own professional/personal development, whilst making games as a part-time indie developer to stay engaged with the industry and incorporate the latest tools and techniques, applying them to new teaching methods.
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Short-Term Goals
I want to improve upon my programming skills and gain the ability to develop games not just through design, but feeling confident in scripting mechanics, solving the maths and physics as I go without creating worry or self-doubt on how I get something to appear or function.
I'd like to better myself with realistic scheduling that mainly focuses on the scope, workflow and prioritsing of tasks within solo projects. This will allow me to be much more proficient in how my set goals are managed and how I can maintain a strongly systematic and stress avoidable pattern.
This it not an essential goal but all the same, I would like to improve upon my own research and analysis skills. This would determine the best of qualitative and quantitative data, as well as the reliability of sources that will backup any chosen hypothesis.
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References:
Wordpress Foundation, 2003. WordPress. [Online] Available at: https://wordpress.com/home/kylecornwell778013217.wordpress.com [Last Accessed 12/06/2021]
Avishai Abrahami, 2006. Wix. [Online] Available at: https://www.wix.com/ [Last Accessed 12/06/2021]
Kyle Cornwell, 2020. Enchantress [Online] Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1313150/Enchantress/ [Last Accessed 12/06/2021]
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