I downloaded the Titan Quest demo yesterday at work and played it at home last night. (Our cable modem won't be installed until Thursday night, so I have to do all my browsing and downloading at work ^_^ ) It was actually pretty amusing. I was thinking about playing Diablo again for some time now and that demo gave me the Diablo style fix I needed. It's amazingly similar to Diablo which seems to follow the trend of video game design today. It is better to stick to designs that people love then to create some off the wall idea that no one will like. Innovation is challenging in this industry, but I did read somewhere that rather then 'inventing' new games, developers tend to 'innovate' and add new features to old concepts. Seems successful for TQ as I'm considering buying the full version. Maybe I could get into some modding with it and make some cool custom maps to further expose my talent. We'll see...
Still no word from Day1Studios... and I can't seem to figure out whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. I posted on a public forum where the HR rep had already responded several times, so you would think that if it was a deny, she would have posted something like "Sorry, we're looking for people with more experience." So technically, they haven't said no just yet, which is good! But I haven't heard anything so the 'no' could be implicit, which is bad. I've also got to get back to Firaxis sometime soon to follow-up, though I'm not sure they even looked at any of my materials yet.
Work at Westfalia is going ok... I'm burdened by a lot right now including a release, a formal spec, a design and code implementation and making several reports for a client. And this week, half the team is on vacation, so I'm in my psuedo-office alone, which is kinda lame. I like to be surrounded by motivated individuals that want to discuss and learn, but this week has been lacking in that area. Not to mention most of the discussions here are kinda boring because it's business or report logic.
The house project has gone extremely well so far. I can't believe we're already moved in and living in our new house! Yesterday April's parents bought us some straw, so April helped me spread it on the front yard over the grass seed. I also hung the final curtain since April picked up a new curtain rod from Lowes. I put a few holes in the wall though because I had no idea where the studs were and ended up drilling the dry-wall anchor holes into studs, which won't work at all, but I got them installed anyway. Oh! And we went to this Unclaimed Freight place and bought a sofa AND a loveseat for $675. What a deal, we probably saved like $1300 on that purchase and they match the living room colors perfectly. Apes spruced em up with a couple red pillows which was a nice touch. We're living well right now. I've got a good paying development job, April's teaching and learning (at the school district's expense), we got our dog, the house, and lots of left over cash to pay the taxes and buy the extra stuff we need. I feel spoiled, but I think we both deserve it, and we've worked hard to get where we are.
Now... if only I had that professional game development job... =)
Still no word from Day1Studios... and I can't seem to figure out whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. I posted on a public forum where the HR rep had already responded several times, so you would think that if it was a deny, she would have posted something like "Sorry, we're looking for people with more experience." So technically, they haven't said no just yet, which is good! But I haven't heard anything so the 'no' could be implicit, which is bad. I've also got to get back to Firaxis sometime soon to follow-up, though I'm not sure they even looked at any of my materials yet.
Work at Westfalia is going ok... I'm burdened by a lot right now including a release, a formal spec, a design and code implementation and making several reports for a client. And this week, half the team is on vacation, so I'm in my psuedo-office alone, which is kinda lame. I like to be surrounded by motivated individuals that want to discuss and learn, but this week has been lacking in that area. Not to mention most of the discussions here are kinda boring because it's business or report logic.
The house project has gone extremely well so far. I can't believe we're already moved in and living in our new house! Yesterday April's parents bought us some straw, so April helped me spread it on the front yard over the grass seed. I also hung the final curtain since April picked up a new curtain rod from Lowes. I put a few holes in the wall though because I had no idea where the studs were and ended up drilling the dry-wall anchor holes into studs, which won't work at all, but I got them installed anyway. Oh! And we went to this Unclaimed Freight place and bought a sofa AND a loveseat for $675. What a deal, we probably saved like $1300 on that purchase and they match the living room colors perfectly. Apes spruced em up with a couple red pillows which was a nice touch. We're living well right now. I've got a good paying development job, April's teaching and learning (at the school district's expense), we got our dog, the house, and lots of left over cash to pay the taxes and buy the extra stuff we need. I feel spoiled, but I think we both deserve it, and we've worked hard to get where we are.
Now... if only I had that professional game development job... =)
