Final Game

Hey folks, this is a little late, but here is a link to the final demo reel for our game. Please let me know what you think, I'd love to hear some opinions!

Observations On Management

Senior Show, the event where we will showcase our final game (my huge Capstone project), is happening Friday. Everything is a complete mess, half of our game is broken with no hope of repair, and the question "will we be done in time" is still up in the air. My team has collectively put in over 3,000 hours on this project over the last eight months, all while taking four other classes, working at jobs or internships, and trying to figure out what our lives will be after college. We have been trying to create something beautiful, meaningful, and functional out of nothing, all while trying to create the same out of ourselves. Will employers want us? Are we ready? Are we going into the right field? Will we be happy? These and a thousand other questions swirl around in our brains as we beat our heads against the computer screen, trying not to freak out and scream "why won't it just WORK?!"As the producer, there is only so much I can do to help. I am the manager, not the creator, and so when we realize that Player 2 can only move objects two feet before they snap back to their original position, all I can do is encourage, pat a back and say "just keep trying, I know we'll find a solution soon." The inability to ACT and do something constructive that can directly assuage the problems we are having makes me want to tear my hair out. All I can do is wait, and watch, direct, and pray.

I always thought that being a manager sounded like a pretty sweet job. When it comes down to it, what do you actually DO? Well, I'll tell you. You stress. A lot. And you inwardly panic but have to outwardly appear calm, cool and collected. You have everything riding on other peoples' work - something I find extremely difficult - and you have to trust that they are going to deliver something awesome, on time. Believe me, this doesn't always happen. You have to keep the team together through setbacks, burnout, exhaustion, sickness and disagreements. You have to keep an eye on dozens of moving parts all at once, all while trying to figure out why so-and-so is working on Thing B, when you asked him to do Thing A two days ago and now he's saying "oh, I just thought this was more important." Deep breaths.

Me, keeping calm like a boss.

Being a manager means being 'on' 24/7. I remember things while I'm at work and covertly text a question about that hugely important thing that I haven't checked in on in three days, all while my heart is beating fast at the thought that I've ruined the entire project with my ineptitude. I jump out of the shower with shampoo still in my hair to write down the idea I just had about the trailer. I go to the school dance and boogie down the whole night with my phone in my hand, in case there is a criss. I carefully balance shielding the team from the executive producers and letting them know of our struggles so they can help us.

The mental strain of managing is something that I never expected. I didn't expect to become so invested in this project and these people. To care so deeply about their joys and sorrows, their pains and triumphs. I didn't expect to feel like I was on tenterhooks, lying awake at night, unable to turn off my overly stressed and underly sleeped brain. I didn't expect to be up until four am only to get up at eight am night after night, desperately trying to fix problem after problem with no time and the words of my executive producer "effort is not rewarded, only results are" ringing over and over in my head.

Here's a picture of an adorable ferret
to make it all seem less dire.

This has been, without a doubt, the hardest thing I have ever done. I have spent almost 200 hours on this project this semester, in addition to my other classes and my job. It's all coming down to one night next week, when I will have to walk out onto a stage in front of hundreds of people, with hundreds more watching on their computers at home, and try to make our game sound as good as I can. There will be nine industry recruiters watching me, judging my every move, and deciding whether they should circle my name on their ballot to indicate that they would like to interview me. My parents and Brandon's parents will be there, expecting I will make them proud, believing that I will be awesome. The pressure is crushing, the stress all-consuming. I hardly know what I will do with myself after this project is over, indeed I find it difficult to imagine a time when I will not be thinking about this, worrying about it.

But at the end of the day, I have my team around me. I know they have worked their hearts out, and I know that they have come together in ways they never thought they could. They have faced problem after problem, faced getting cut multiple times, and some days realized at midnight that the game as we know it is not going to work when we needed x, y, and z done by 9:30am. They always found a way around these problems. They discovered fixes that have never been done before, pushed the technology farther than it was designed to go, and now are able to present what they've learned to the gaming community at large. I couldn't be prouder of a group of people, and I couldn't be more honored to have worked beside them. For better or worse, we will hand in that build on Wednesday at noon, give the best presentation we can on Friday, and finally be able to look back on our memories of this project with fondness and relief.

Some teasers of the epic game that is to come:

Gemini XIII

Solar Panel

Hydroponics

The Common Room

Our game poster. Not going to lie, I get a
little thrill when I see my name on it.

In The Middle

I am familiar with being in the middle. Born the middle of three daughters, I am of the opinion that the middle is a great place to be. At the very time that I was driving my older sister crazy, I knew exactly how she felt because my little sister was doing the same to me. When I was a jerk to my little sister, I knew what she was going through because my older sister had treated me the same way. This has given me a unique perspective on life, and I feel it has made me better able to see different points of view, and has made me a more compassionate person. However. Being in the middle is not always the best thing.

Anyone who has ever undertaken a lengthy project can attest to this: the middle sucks. You've already figured out how to accomplish what you need to, and now you've lost interest completely. You've already put hours/days/weeks/months of work into it, with the same or more left yet to do. What once was exciting and new is now boring as hell, and the idea of stabbing yourself in the eye with a spoon is preferable to spending one more minute on this stupid godforsaken project that you never wanted to start in the first place.

I have now been working on my Capstone project for two months, and we have two months left to go. And it shows. Morale is low, motivation is even lower, and the stress and craziness of finishing school and finding a job is sucking up all the time and energy we have, leaving none behind to work on our project. As producer, I am tasked with getting my team out of this bog, while I'm drowning in it right alongside them. I'm in it so deep it's hard to see the way out, and harder still to drum up the motivation to start the long, hard slog. So what's a girl to do? As with most things in life, I turn to knitting.

Looking around my apartment, I see a dozen projects that are waiting patiently for me to finish them after I put them down for 'a short break' during that boring middle section. Here's my wall of shame:

The beginning of a sweater.

A scarf I started last week.

A scarf to match some fingertip-less gloves I made.

Detail

A lace scarf I started in high school.

A lace shawl started several years ago.

A lonely mitten.

A silk scarf for my mother.

Same scarf for my mother.

Musical gloves for my mother - sorry Mom!

The sleeve from the Sweater from Hell - look for this
again in an upcoming post!

Had to bring knitting to see Star Wars
Episode 1 in 3D, and this was it.

I only got this far because I ran out of yarn :(

So clearly, I have been defeated by the dreaded middle a time or two in my day - this doesn't even cover the projects sitting at my parent's house! So, here are my three tips for getting over the hump and actually finishing projects, knitting and otherwise:

1. If you can afford to, give yourself a break from it; however, avoid giving yourself an open-ended break. Set a time or date when you will get back to it, and make sure you stick to it.

2. Try to remember the things that you loved about the project in the beginning - make yourself fall in love with it all over again. Staying enchanted can help you finish it!

3. Try looking at it from a different angle. Sick of that stupid cable running up the front of your sweater? Put that part on a stitch holder and get cracking on those sleeves you've been dying to try. Getting bogged down in paperwork? Switch to a more hands-on part of the project for a bit until you're refreshed and ready for another go. When becoming bored and/or frustrated, working on a different part of the same project can help to keep you interested and sane.

How do you guys get over that hump in the middle of a big project? I'd love to hear your ideas!

How Close Is Too Close?

Brandon and I do a lot of things together. As far as couples go, we're pretty tight; he is easily my best friend, and I his. So when we are going places or doing things, we want to include the other, even if it is an event where someone would not normally bring his/her girlfriend/boyfriend. When the guys were all going to shoot guns a few months ago, I was practically begged to tag along, despite my complete lack of knowledge pertaining to guns.

As exhibited by the way I'm holding this AR15

That look of pride in his eyes as he watches you load
your first cartridge

Brandon, who knows nothing about weddings and had never been to one personally - and in general is afraid of and confused by the huge event that is most weddings - has been to two family weddings with me. In the same summer. Where he had to dress up. Both times. Which he hates.

Brandon looking uncomfortable at my sister's wedding.

More comfortable at my cousin's wedding.

And a few weeks ago when a friend was celebrating her birthday by having an ugly sweater party, guess who jumped on board?

That would be us.

But how close is too close? Being the kind of couple that enjoys spending time together is a good thing almost always, but sometimes it gets into shadier territory. At the end of last semester, as I was trying to decide what I should do for my Capstone project (a project that sums up your college career, essentially), I was offered a great opportunity. The game majors at our school have a year-long Capstone project called Senior Team, and their job is to produce a fully functioning game by the end of the year. Brandon is a Game Art and Animation major, and luckily his team was one of five out of the original nine teams chosen to move forward into second semester. I had been toying with the idea of asking to join one of the teams in the role of Producer for my Capstone, thinking that it would be good management experience before I got out into the real world. Brandon and I discussed it and both agreed, it would be a good idea - but not for his team. A few weeks later I got a call from a Game Designer friend, asking if I would be Producer for his game. Which is also Brandon's game. Meaning I would be his boss.

Clearly this is a decision that was fraught with danger. What if we disagreed about how best to handle a problem? What if I had to ask him to do something he didn't want to? What if we ended up hating each other? What if we broke up and died and the whole world exploded in a fiery ball of passion and despair? After a (very) long discussion, Brandon and I decided we could do it, and I accepted the Producer position. So far, it has been one of the hardest and most rewarding things I have ever done. 

Making the decision of where to draw the line between being involved in each others' lives and being TOO involved is not always easy, and it's always important to have your own space. But if you have great communication and feel that you can be professional with each other even when tough things come up (like when he tells you that a major art asset is going to take six of the nine remaining weeks to complete, which it cannot), then you may just be in for one of the coolest working experiences you'll ever have - with your best friend.


Where do you draw the line of "too close" with your significant other?