I Love Game Jams!
Every last working day of the current month I publish a report reflecting on the previous month. These reflections exist to demonstrate my progress, share my experiences and help transfer what I learn to others.
The Past Month
During August I worked on my current flagship project Against Sahara, participated in the Zanga Game Jam 2018 and reviewed my work schedule to come up with something better.
Against Sahara – Current Status
I’ve bought domain name againstsahara.com for its future marketing website (nothing there yet), and I’m in the middle of finalizing the game’s design after building prototypes and testing.
I should be finalizing the design (concept/story/game rules/art/etc.) by 6th September next week.
Zanga Game Jam
The 2018th edition of the Zanga Game Jam happened from Friday 17th to Sunday 19th and we had a local site at Corporate Hub 9 in Amwaj Lagoon – Muharraq.
I joined in with a couple of new devs and built with them The Minimalist Lifestyler around the theme Minimalism.
This jam is the 4th I’ve joined in the past 12 months, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon!.
They’re an awesome way to meet and work with new people and play around with fresh ideas 😀 .
New Weekly Schedule for a Healthier Self
I felt like my growth was stagnating and my health was deteriorating slightly, so I decided to experiment with a new weekly schedule.
Starting from last work week of August (26th – 30th), instead of small blocks per day for various activities I separated the week into blocks.
On Sunday it’s Gym Day, when I focus entirely on exercise
Monday is Study Day, where I focus on improving existent skills and learning new ones (currently learning Houdini).
From Tuesday to Thursday is project work, which is mainly business activities for Z’s Laboratories and Against Sahara for now.
The effects so far are promising!, starting the week with heavy exercise left me energized for the rest of the week, and dedicating a specific day(s) for study and work made me more focused and ended up a bit more productive than usual.
But it might just be due to excitement of the change so won’t know for sure till I review results during next month’s reflection.
What’s Next: Learning Houdini & Building Digital Demo of Against Sahara
I’m going through Houdini’s official “Houdini Fundamentals” book at the moment, and plan to complete it by end of September.
I wish to make my own assets for my games and chose Houdini as my tool of choice, so this is in preparation for making Against Sahara’s art.
Once I finalize the game’s design, I’ll start building the final version of the game, starting with a story-less and art-less demo.
This ends this month’s report, hope you enjoyed and if you have any feedback please comment below 🙂 .