A personal Game Development story
(very lazily updated)
Living with Covid (literally)
Tis been awhile since I’ve visited this online journal, that’s because I’ve had a full time job since the new year (which has been taking up waaaay more than full time hours 😅 oh games industry)! Once an NDA’s involved all the neat and interesting things I look at on a day-to-day basis run into…
Keep reading“Ideas are a dime a dozen”
Game development is a space rich in creativity and ingenuity – after all, you get to imagine and create entire virtual worlds, the limits really are the imagination… provided you’re willing to negotiate with your idea and certain realities. Yes a “metaverse” sounds amazing but perhaps jamming a bunch of people in a networked high-graphic-fidelity…
Keep readingMy Roblox Experiment
I started writing this online journal post to procrastinate solving a bug that only rears its head with multiple people playing in my Arena Defense Roblox project, not to discuss the bug or much around it really (after a shower mulling it over in the shower I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on and…
Keep readingAgendas are everywhere, disempower bad faith
It’s election season in Canada! If we hadn’t already been inundated with everything happening these last two years this would be bringing in a smorgasbord of bad faith arguments over every imaginable topic. Instead it’s the year 2021 and we’re living in a dystopia where bad faith arguments are consuming enormous amounts of energy and…
Keep readingProblem solving for hire? Sure!
After nearly two decades of workin’ in the games industry no two job-hunt stories I have would be alike. The most recent evolution is with recruiters, companies seem to be leaning more and more on third-party recruitment services… and it’s very telling those services aren’t terribly familiar with the wonderful world of game development. Recruiters…
Keep readingIs the customer always right?
Sure! Usually, unless they’re saying something dishonest hoping for a specific outcome, then they’re intentionally misleading – but when that’s not the case, the customers feelings are definitely valid. That doesn’t make them the best problem solvers, though. Maybe I’ll take a step back, maybe some people who are reading this haven’t heard the phrase…
Keep reading“Bad Actors” should not be ignored
I’ll admit – I’ve been stuck in a bit of recursive doom-scrolling behavior. There’s a lot going on, and I’ve been capturing a small small fraction of it in a goofy digital scrapbook as I continue to shelter at home (in my best effort to prevent myself from being part of any chains of transmission…
Keep readingWho needs a bridge?!
I figured my neglect of this online journal hit an all-time high so I thought I’d do it while Angel investigates Roblox Studio, a tool used to make games for Roblox. “Who needs a bridge?!” was just triumphantly shouted as a bridge was blipped out of existence in a game anyone in the house right…
Keep readingSomething of a personal nature
I’m writing this while procrastinating calling the coroner’s office. It won’t have much if anything to do with games or development, but seeing as I’m pretty sure the majority of people who end up reading this are friends and loved ones this feels like a more appropriate space than a social media account. Words I…
Keep readingGenre Agnostic Systems
Todays online journal topic was inspired by Angel, my lovely wonderful partner who couldn’t give two petrified rabbit droppings about the benefits of bit shifting. Hilariously, as I’m writing this Angel sits down beside me and all interest was lost in what I was doing purely from the title alone. Speaking of that inspiration… so…
Keep readingIgnoring Stigma
My general plan for January was pretty simple: Take some time off around Christmas, take my concepts and initial idea-proving work and come back at it refreshed and full of energy and pep! Things did not go as planned. I found myself just as exhausted as when I decided to put a proverbial pin-in-things in…
Keep readingNew year, new game!
I’ve now registered for my third copyright! The second one will get used later, thanks to the beauty of creating games for myself I get to make that decision without many an hour spent preparing presentations then selling them both inside of outside of meetings. It’s really quite refreshing. I took a stay-cation from creating…
Keep readingI released a game! I’m making a new one!
Not just released but it already has its first update! Read Play Game is available on itch.io, and my entire experience with itch has been fantastic. If anyone reading this is ever considering working on a game to share with others I highly recommend it as a starting ground. I plan to migrate it over…
Keep readingWhen to take a break
The political weaponization of social media means that some habits I’ve developed over the years to relax are now doing the exact opposite. It’s a rough time; a collision of poor governmental policies (regardless of political party in power) and some real serious immediate global threats is leaving everyday life a little extra tense. Except…
Keep readingRead Play Game: So Close!
I feel I’ve tied up the most dangerous and experimental ideas for Read Play Game (feel free to try the Demo!), so I feel the risk for my small first independent project is nice’n low. That feels good! Experimental like the interplay I wanted between the Standard (coming soon?!) and Demo version, taking advantage of…
Keep readingUnexpected but lovely consequences
Words/phrases can get adopted as jargon and begin to mean many different things depending on who you ask. I tend to be more verbose than catch-phrases (ex: Data-driven Design) cause I hope to keep what I’m tryin’ to say clear. When it comes to game development in my brain I’m rooted in the catch-phrases of…
Keep readingAlways Learning
Throughout my professional career I’ve tended to gravitate towards the experimental and new, I was jumping on the weird new projects that the more experienced developers tended to shy away from. Work on the mysterious DLC for Dawn of War 2? Sure! (that became The Last Stand). Convert a traditional RTS (the first game I…
Keep readingBirthday presents!
While Gilroy Games has transformed itself from an online journal into a solo-game-development effort, that doesn’t mean the family isn’t excited along with me. Thus far they’re my top source for feedback (and bugs reports, a knack my partner excels at while I embarrassingly watch’em get found haha 😮 ), but as a special birthday…
Keep readingDemo, where are yooouuu?!
Since I decided to make a thing I’ve decided to stretch out my savings to potentially make more than one thing, so I’ve opted rather than throwing something out there and asking for money… that I would make a demo. If the demo gets any love, then I know that’s where I can put my…
Keep readingWhimsical Indulgence
One of the neat things about doing something on my own, as opposed to working for some corporate entity, is I can share whatever I want! Even ugly screenshots, even spoilers 😉 Here’s a snip of how this weeks roughly lookin’ like for new project I don’t plan on doing regular updates or anything, I…
Keep readingI’m making a thing!
I’ve made a couple small personal projects before (one was when I got my first Android phone, made a simple native app with smiley faces that you could have bop each other, gradually making them become sadder and sadder emojis), but nothing outside the scope of a simple weekend-or-two. I thought I’d take the opportunity…
Keep readingGoodbye, Soulite Monsters
Several weeks ago our small team was informed that funding has been withdrawn and the company paying us will cease to exist at the end of the month (yesterday). I’ve put together something I wish I had done on my previous project, a memorial to look back on in the years to come.It was a…
Keep readingPlanning and Ownership
Many people over many projects have tried to quantify costs or estimate time of having something done. Rarely do the people who are (or feel) responsible for this measuring agree on the best method of measuring. I once was on one project separated by 5 “Scrum” groups, theoretically fully-autonomous smaller groups of people on a…
Keep readingLaunching during a pandemic – weird feels
On one hand: I am so, so grateful to have stumbled on an industry that I can easily work-from-home, and thus have no worries about making rent next month. On the other hand: I had a multi-hour discussion today about how we need to up our revenue numbers by a specified date, and strategies to…
Keep readingCOVID Isolation Day 1 of… ?
So that happened. A general message of “hey, don’t worry about it too much” switched to “… so maybe don’t leave your home please” over a weekend. It wasn’t unexpected yet reality vs. (un)expectations is still a thing that needs reconciliation. Development wise this is hardly a hiccup. We work out of an office-sharing space…
Keep readingShip it!
Shipping a game, it never happens the same way twice. My first experience was when the game earned its “gold master” label. Ride of the Valkyries blasted over the company speakers and celebration drinks ensued. This evolved to the insanity just several projects later of a “0-day-patch” based on reviewer feedback. Fast forward to modern…
Keep readingCommutes
One hour to office Another hour back home Eight percent of day Welcome to the height of my poetry, which of course needs to involve numbers and patterns. During today’s commute I started reflecting on the things that don’t… spark joy. 10 hours a week in crowded transit is definitely one of them.Loosely reminds me…
Keep readingWho am I, what am I doing here?
Hi, I’m Blake. I’ve never owned a journal or diary, I tend to share my stories synchronously over beers at the complete absence of any asynchronous sharing. Had an idea to start putting down my thoughts on Game Development that aren’t theoretically owned by whatever corporate entity I currently work for. It’s been a lovely…
Keep readingEnjoy reminders?
If you want to read words as I put them down you can ask this automated service to give you a heads-up
Gilroy Games 