42:31

Finally completed pokemon an hour ago. The dream team lineup, in no particular order was Terror the Totodile, Pulch the Ninetales, Tyrant the Pupitar, Fart the Gengar, Queenie the Beedrill and Frightney the Lugia. 42 hours and 31 minutes in and BOOM. Lance the dragon trainer, champion of the pokémon league and best trainer in Kanto was defeated quite resoundingly, though his Aerodactyl was an utter bugger. Pulch showed her stuff and defeated the majority of the elite four on her own, but the praise of the hour goes to Farty for her stalwart performance and use of Curse to take down those pesky Dragonites. Anyway, onto less serious matters.

So today I got in there at half nine. Later than usual because I just couldn't be bothered getting out of bed. Thank you three hours worth of travelling time every day. Think that's being the main killer for me at the moment. Making me so tired I can't even sleep at times. But the good thing is, once I got in, I got down to the gritty bits and bashed out a few more mini game design ideas, as boss told me I was likely not getting anything solid till next week. However after the big wigs had a meeting and I moseyed on over I was met with,"Right you've done fuckin loads of these. Lets get you to design the level for " That were round about the words. Minus the ofc. That's me and the old confidentiality business (Y).
So, excited? Well I damn near shat myself for one as it's making the entire level. From scratch. On my own. Fair enough I'm not modeling any of it or doing any texturing, but an entire level of the game is likely going to be down to me to get finished and ready to pass onto one of those pesky artist types to make. Until now I thought I'd been a bit wasted in some ways, though I thought the last few bits I've been doing since tuesday have been more to my sort of way of working. The whole making it so one of those "making things work" guys can understand how to get it going. Now I've got quite a bit of a project to do, seeing as it's desiging up the equivalent of three main levels to go into a game (imagine making the dead farm map, item placements, openable doors, switches, that sort of stuff, just three times over). A little bit of a daunting task but I'm very ready for the challenge and after last nights little stray into the emotional no go zone of EMO, I think I can safely say I'm back on top of myself again.
On a side note I think I merrily managed to show my strange inner mind workings to several of the staff and I might just be the bloke who when I walk out of a room everyone says "does he seem weird to you or is it just me?" Curse my poor drug addled brain. I must be going demented before my time. Possibly again. I'm not sure if it's not happened a few times already.

Final note for the night before I go to sleep after just over an hour at home, I think I've got a bit of an idea for writing. Seeing as I've been doing a tonne of reading up on Star Wars recently, while getting distracted on wookiepedia, I started thinking of some of the general lore and stuff around the extended history and in particular the species 'Yuuzhan Vong' have grabbed my interest. Not writing anything about them like, it's just piqued my interest and got a bit of a development going on inside my mind and on my phone atm. This weekend there may just be something up on my writing blog ralzielswords, so I think altogether the experience here is making me think a bit more about everything and giving me back that drive I've been lacking for so long.

Another day

Got the last finishing touches on three of my projects today but I'm unsure of how to handle it next. Still nothing solid I'm supposed to be doing, though something might come up next week, so I'm thinking of writing up coherantly some of the ideas I've had that haven't been put to the probably pile yet. Not quite sure what to make of everything at the moment. I'm enjoying it alot but the lack of something to do has me stumbling just a bit.
I don't think this would be a huge problem if it was in a different period of development for the game, or if I'd gotten a grasp of the fact I'm meant to be coming up with finalised ideas to be throwing at the "let me make this work" men earlier. I have however been told I 'might' have something proper to do next week, though it's sort of feeling at times I'm just doing these things for the sake of it. Sort of bashing out the four weeks till they're rid of me and don't need to worry about me asking anything any more.
Don't want it to end and I'd love a job out of it but at the same time I can't wait for it to be over. Doesn't feel right now like an involvement in a team so much as doing substitute work if anyone catches my drift. There's plenty of communiication but not so much to do with work except the occaisional chat I have with the boss. Not that I want it over my shoulder the whole time but working in a project and coming in this late on isn't really making me feel quite as needed? Not sure if that's the right word or not. I suppose it has only been three weeks and it's joining a new team and all.
Would've loved to have been here in the beginning during the first development stages of the project, but I guess we can't have it all. Here's hoping I'm doing enough to show my work and effort. Different with modeling where I'd have a bunch of assets and stuff to show off, but here it's all getting condensed down more and more and looking like less and less work. Making me feel I've not done enough as much as anything.

Tuesday coz I were gettin stabbed on monday

Righty, daunting prospect of the write up and diary business aside for the time being, I've been given something to get on with today. So far I've written up two of the mini game ideas with things for the actual makey people (them wot speaks binary) to be given so they can extract the players into some of the nice hum ourous setting. 2 of the ideas I've got have been ok'd seeing as they've got some humour in, and a third has but unsure as of yet it's goingt o be used, but cracking on anyway.
Writing these up as design documents are a bit different from how I've done it before, need to actually get stuff in that those binary people can look at to determine how the games will actually work when being implemented. Not what I'd call my strong suit, but at least I can write it all up in english (Y)
Two done so far, and going to have to bring my comp in again on the morrow to actually make some general layout designs, which may be a combo of modeling and photoshop, which I've had a bit of a dabble in here but this should quite suit me as it's going to be showing the actual look of how the levels will be. With regards to the process here being different to how I've gone about it before I'm actually enjoying it. Seems to be more and more while I'm here I'm actually interested in it and pretty sure this is where I want to be at.
Had a good session this morning throwing a couple of ideas about and looking through a doc for the only other approved mini game, sort of to get my head around a general layout, even though the boss said he'd have preferred his to be in a bit more detail. To me it looked fine for what he wanted to achieve, but I've tried to go into that much more detail on stuff like point scoring and spawn times and other crap that makes about as much sense to me as bot pathing does (which, just incase your wondering, is still well over my head).
All said he thiks the general layout and the stuff I've covered is about right in this new doc. From what was said this morning the other set of thirtyish ideas I originally came out with should've all been to the level I'm doing them now, though I think that might've been a bit of a wasted effort tbh as I've done two today, and with trying to compile some of the ideas I haven't got passed, which is probably alot of coding and random stuff, again that I don't understand, is going to be alot of work, though I guess I'm getting the hang of when it's working and when it's not.

Mini Games

Right, been using sketchup to make a few general layouts for the games I've done. Think I'm proficient enough in it now to have a go at modeling something with it, however need to figure out this exporting malarky at some point as it's a major ball ache. So got about 7 concepts for stuff done up, 2 of which won't be getting used, and i did another one but I stopped when I figured it wasn't going to work at all, so think I've actually learned something there and managed to stop myself before spending too much time on it all.
Other than that, everyone get your arse on L4D2 this weekend and we'll crack on with some realism versus and try out this new expansion. And Bob. By the pain I see in others. NO EXCUSES!

More sketchup

Just been learning this today. Hopefully will be doing some level design tomorrow or friday which should be nice. Maybe get my filthy hands on the editor, but for now I've just been making the imperial city in Cyrodiil of OBLIVION!!! Started on the waterfront andI'm going to go from there (Y) This program is loads of fun so far. Has a few odd quirks, but i think it's coz it's for making pictures rather than 3d models, but for making 3d there are some very neat tools. Something like boolean that is for making all the nasty little cock ups you get with all the odd edges and verts coming from nowhere. Also soemthing alot like the lathe tool which works better than I've seen it done in any program I've used, which is what I did that light in earlier. I might do a bit of a tutorial over the next few weeks if people wanna know how, seeing as some of the toots are a bit crap, or rather advanced for just learning. So far, as I've said to Adam today, it's a bloody brilliant little program. Just don't expect splines, that add on costs money :( However the lathing tool can be used to make a spline in no time flat.

Sketchup

fannying about with some tutorials for this god of a program while waiting for mark to sort me some stuff, seeing as i might be needing to use this. just made a lamp. this program is pretty brilliant. i'd recommend everyone to get a go on it. really easy to use. can't find any quad views as of yet, but i think that'll come with time. got a shortcut pdf if anyone is interested i'll send it over.

Also

you might like to know the first thing I've found with safe search on is a japanese woman, hogtied with a guy rubbing her leg and another over her head doing god knows what, and what was typed in is, including the quotes, "shooting range nes". Was looking for screens of a game and got more than i bargained for ;D
Again I ask though, how the hell is that in anyway related to a hog tied japanese woman?

GAH

Finshed hammering out my lists of mini games today. Got quite a few. Not sure which will work or be 'fun' in game or not but i think some of them should be pretty decent. Just waiting on my boss to look through some of the stuff now to see where abouts I'm up to in it
Good to see all the stuff on Dead Farm. Is looking neat as hell. Can't wait to see it all up close and proper on monday.

End of week

So far ending up being cracking. On a computer finally and come up for about 30 or so mini games, some of which I don't think will work too well, seeing as they fit the far too much. However there are some they were already considering which I'm going to have to get up and try to start running properly so the people in the know can make them work.
Also been given a BIG task. Though it's not something that can be definately input in this game itself, it is something i can show my ingenuity on as it seems it's not been thought of thus far. So I'm going to have to do a fair bit of researching to try to get it right and hopefully passed through them there designers.
Something I'm really liking so far, MY TEAM IS SICK!!!! My boss wants an mmo where now and then you randomly abduct a player and give him a good bum raping. But you can only abduct the ones who have a warp core, such as our lovely ashley, so that they can see every slimy ripple. Am I liking the sound of this game? TOO BLOODY RIGHT!! We're wondering how long it would take before people believed it was going on, seeing as it would be randomly taking people and only one would be complaining at a time. If you're wondering why, it's come about after finding out about the new WoW mount which costs $25 and it hasn't got a limited supply. Blizz got something along the lines of $500k in 4 hours. So with luck I'll be taken on and that'll be the next game I'm working on ;D
Cracking this many ideas out at once is quite good. Giving me a chance to really flex my ideas again. Involving playing alot of games alas. When will my plight end :O
I'm looking froward to next week rather alot and can't wait to find out what else I'm going to be doing after drawing up some proper ideas for these mini games. Photoshop and Sketchup here i come :)

GEORGE!!!!!

Well, what a day. Didn't expect it to be as fun as it has been. Soon as I got in got told "Play this." and "You're coming up with mini games." Right, so fun plus thrown in at the deep end. Sounds like a right lark :D
Basically I'm working with the design team, right next to the kitchen (people will rue the day they left me near tea), on which I'm actually quite excited about after watching/researching on the for about six hours or so. Sat in with the rest of the motley Jakes while we're waiting for our computers to be set up and sorted so we can get raring to go.
Started the day off with Mr Burrows, looking at which he is working on, which is an upscaling of a Wii game being brought to the PS3 for the new wand thingy by the looks of it. Had a look at what I assume is called the Fusion Engine, seeing as all the script triggers are called Fusion script or something, though I may be wrong. It looks ALOT like max, which is nice and seems I might be using it a bit from what Mark, my nearest boss guy, seems to be doing with it.
Saw some brilliant animations while watching , a few of which really reminded us of the infamous jump of Chris'. Forever etched into the memory, much like gay tuesdays with Wayne.
I'm going to have to hammer some of these DS games so I can see what is achievable within what we have to work with, which I'm now rather excited about. Hopefully computers are up and running tomorrow so I can get on this tortoise and have a look around at the general stuff we're working on so I can make some decisions about what kind of mini games I can put forward to develop.
Hope everyone else is having a cracker. Speak to you all soon :D
ps. Wilmslowites not in TT seem to be a little odd shall we say. Swiss near enough got flipped off for being in a car near a woman with a pram :S