Personal Blog

I've made myself a new blog to blog more about my personal life and my dj hobby

You can find me here: http://dj-dendrofeliac.blogspot.com/

Truth comes to light!

The club I mentioned closed a few months ago (Club X-Treme) was closed due to bad management.

Some of my friends where DJ-ing in the club and, to this day, didn't see their money.

While the organiser is working on new parties and wastes all his money on locations who later are canceled, the DJ's and bar staff still wait for their pays as far back as last november...

This has made me start thinking about my own concept, and unleashing it onto the world.
More will be said shortly ^^

(ps: Soon all my personal messages will move to a new blog. I'll mention it here when I have it set up!)

Personal message

On a personal note:

The biggest outdoor party of the year is coming 28 July at Groningen, The Netherlands:

Future smiles upon those who try...

... so that excludes me...

I've taken my desision and I'm going to stop my college course on Digital Arts and Entertainment. Because of the heavy workload and, in the future, even harder workload... I'm just going to say: "It has been a nice experience, thank you, goodbye!".

As a hobby, I'm still going to work with programming, modeling and the likes... I even still have 2 freelance projects running and an upcomming MOD project I promised to do...

I've been searching for work the last 2 days, looking for something with repairing computers, computer sales and stuff... I have a meeting with a small computerstore early next week and I hope I get hired.

It'll be a far cry from working WITH a computer, but working on them, giving people advise and putting together gamesystems will also be very fun to do.

Even if I don't get hired, I'm in no real rush, I'm going to keep searching for a month and if I still don't have any job, I'm going into the family business. Thanks to global warming (what's bullshit, its 100% solar activity and natural course of the earth, but méh...) drink markets will only flurish and make money like Microsoft and the likes did when computers started getting into houses...

I'll keep posting my freelance and hobby work, idea's and stuff on my portfolio (www.alvaron.tk) and on this blog, so you'll still be hearing from me!!

Also, on a side note, I'm thinking that I'll go for a second job after a year of work,... A cheap (sponsored) webhosting compagny for mod and indie developers (more on that between this day and next year ;) )

Looking into my future...

My second blog post today, a more personal note...

The last 2 weeks I have been thinking of my studies and a later job. Off course, like everyone I would like to make good money and have a the home I wanted, prefferably with a pool.

But these last 2 weeks I have been working on stuff for school, and I've noticed something...
Programming for something I like to do (hobby projects) goes very good, but assignments... Lets say that isn't going so good.

I just can't picture myself anymore, working in a game studio, being a code monkey... Getting handed a lot of paper and the words: these classes should be ready before the next milestone. I just can't do that I think...

Working on hobby projects is easy... Writting down how the game should look, working on the code and some placeholder models. But I when someone says: "This is what you are going to do"... I don't know where to begin, if it will be what is wanted, ... And imagining doing that from 9 to 5 (IF I get that lucky), 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month, 12 months a year... I just don't see the fun in that anymore.

I'm considering letting go of my studies and going into the family business. Doing manual labour for 2 - 3 years, office work for 2 - 3 years, and then I'm at the top with experience from all the people that are hired in the compagny. Because it's a family business, the money won't be bad... So thats another plus.

I'm very confused, don't know what to do...
But I have decided that first, I'm going to finish my freelance projects, go to at least 3 more weeks of school and hope I'll find an answer to my questions.


Off course, while working, I'm planning to maintain my 2 hobbies: Gaming and programming on a very small scale (small games and software tools). However, with a girlfriend that doesn't get what attracts me in games, I think that would also be a tough thing to do...


Time will tell, ... time will tell.

Back from vacation!

It's been 2 days already that I'm back home, thought I'd let you all know.

I've been to Dublin in the beautifull Ireland. Visited the St. Patrick's Cathedral and off course the Guinness factory.

Every night I would go to the Temple Bar District with my cousin who went on this trip with me, and every night we closed the 'Hard Rock Café'. We had a great time in Ireland, and I'm sure I'm going again some time.

No Luck At All!!

I just can't seem to get a break these days!

The club I've been going to since November, who plays my kind of music (hardcore house), wich I haven't seen for a month because of school work, has closed its doors!!!

This friday, I wanted to go back and say Hi to all my friends. But, as faith would have it, they just closed doors this wednesday. Figures... Just now that I have some money and time, I can't go anymore...

If anyone has funds/oppertunity/place/anything that would give Belgium (or just into Holland) a new club with my best friends as dj's, PLEASE let me know!


Monday, we got a mid term for C++ Programming and I wanted to unwind a bit between studies, now that's been taken from me... I guess there's nothing else to do then study and draw... again... with no tasks set... (except for the mid term...) ... ... ... I feel really bad now,... Seems as if a part of my life just died...

If anyone (Belgian/Dutch/Anyone) is reading this, and could offer a helping hand, PLEASE let me know: HERE

School

I promised I would write about GDC when we got feedback + pictures from our teacher.

Unfortunatly, it was not the big chunck I thought it would be. More info of this conference can be found on the conference site.

While I'm still burried in work, you might have noticed that I've added one of the schoolprojects has been added to my portfolio. Limited to a little "about" section, this project will be filled with screenshots and I will release the Visual Studio 8 (2005) project files if I'm allowed (will need to check copyrights & such).

I will post updates on my portfolio and here!

New Portfolio

I just uploaded a new portfolio website. It's also based on a free template because I'm not a great web development, so... ... there you have it.

I'll update with a new project(s) I'm working on later this/next week!


Visit my portfolio!!

GDC

I'm still here...

Updates will come more frequent lateron, just got too much work to do...

By the way, I have a lot of lessons cancelled. Almost all my teachers are going to the GDC to represent our school. It would be nice to be there, but no dice...


They are going to replace a lesson next week to give us coverage of GDC, that report will be sumarized and pictures will be put up on this blog (if I can get a hold of them...)

so... Stay tuned!

Update

I have slightly changed my mind about my comics. I will try to post them daily!

I have also made an other blog so that the comics don't bother anyone. This will stay a blog about Game Design, and therefor, you might want to have a look on my other blog: Castle Wonderstein

I'll be back in a couple of days, when I return from "Drawing Hell" where I must spend some time to get my grades up...

First Comic

My first comic: German Efficientie.

Click on the comic to view full size

Comments are apreciated!

Still here

I'm still here!

I've been bussy this last week working for school (drawing & 3D), so thats kind of the reason there weren't any posts.

I am working on a little comic. Here's the first panel of the very first episode:


I don't think I'm going to do a daily series, but expect updates weekly/bi-weekly!

Prototyping

I've been working on something for a few weeks now and I have come to a conclusion about my way of working. It's not good. Always waiting to do the code until I "feel like it", the graphics that need to be ready before I testdrive the project...

The best way to overcome all this, I've learned via GameProducer.net :
1) Make yourself work, when you see progress, you'll feel much better.
2) Use Placeholders!

I've taken the time to look at those 2 tips and to actually do them.
So, I finished the shooting and moving code to near perfection (could always be a little better, but it's good enough for now). And I've used some squares with different textures to be the ennemy/myself/meteors/... (I guess I told a little bit too much about the game... But you'll have to wait for the details a bit longer ).

Having done this, I completed what I thought to be a multi-day annoying job, in just under 4 hours and I had fun doing it. This just goes to show that those tips from other indy dev's are very valueable!

Server hard-/software ready!

A few days later, late at night...

I finally got my server up to the point that I wanted it!

Currently running:
* Windows XP Pro SP2
* StatBar
* YnHUB for DC++ (much easyer to share via a HUB)
* Nero (Automated to make a backup of the project files every 4 days)

That's about it at the moment.
I haven't encountered any serious problems with this fileserver appart from the little battery on the Motherboard being dead. Everything runs smooth with a inside temperature of only 36°C.

New Server

I just got myself a new computer to use at my dorm house.

It's a simple one, capable of sharing files at a normal/not-to-slow rate, containing a 900 Mhz Processor, 172 MB DDR Ram, HDD1 10Gb, HDD2 160Gb.

This system will be mainly used to share our project files and maybe , on a later date, will serve as a web-server for basic stuff we might need during vacations.

I found some decent software, mainly in the backup-ghosting area. DriveImage XML (google it, I forgot the link), is the best free, NON bootable tool I found laying around on the internet. This is very handy as I still got a 3 year old EDItoUSB cable wich I rarely used.

I've backed up the main drive of the fileserver, and I must say, it went quite of slow. 6+ hours backing up 9.31Gb. If I find a tool that works faster (gets me under 2 hours for a PERFECT disk image) AND is freeware, I think I'll switch. But for now, it's the best thing I found to date.

Carnival of Game Production

I send in my first blog article a week ago, to the gameproducer.net Carnival of Game Production

I've made it to the last few who are mentioned on the front page!
I wasn't sure I'd make it, because this is the first time I wrote something for a competition.

I was amazed to open the gameproducer blog, and see my name with a brief description of my article.

As you might see, the writingstyle of my first article is more like a daily-life blog, with comments and a bit of jumping from subject to subject. But I'm going to write a bit more about the things I learn in school, trying to refine my writing style & bringing my own thoughts and straight facts to this blog.

I hope you keep checking back! Also, please check my portfolio Alternative Link.
It's not finished yet, and I haven't removed my posts from my blog yet (I moved here). And a LOT of stuff I haven't put online yet, but I'll try and do that this weekend.

Valentines Day

Yes, it's here again. The day where we show our love to our partners (like we don't do that every day... *sigh*).

Xbox.com however, doesn't think that to be important but invites you to turn on your xbox to play with it all day long (link) .

I personally don't think Valentines day is special. I love my girlfriend and I try to show it everyday. I will buy something small, just because I know she'll like it (she likes to unwrap gifts). But still,... I find Valentines day to be too comercial.

Playing with an Xbox isn't what you should do today (unless you need to test your latest build of your XNA game). Just go up to the one you love and tell them they have a special place in your heart.

Interesting Schooldays

Last week was my first week in the 2nd module of my first year in Digital Arts & Entertainment.

I must say that I have enjoyed the week, learned a LOT of new things and there is more yet to come!

The most interesting things I've learned where drawing humans in the right proportions, animations in 3DS Max and off course modeling and texturing with 3DS Max and Photoshop.

Psychology is a VERY fun thing to do! Maybe it's just the way the teacher brings it, but I like it a lot.


So, now back to my drawings to finish my assignments.

New Blog

I have desided to move my blog here instead of keeping it on my own site.

Due to bandwidth issues, this is much cheaper than keeping it on my private server.

So, from now on, you'll read about my life here on blogger.

Psychology in Games

Psychology in Games

I’m in a course called Digital Arts & Entertainment. We recently got our first Psychology lesson and I must say it astounded me that it had such an impact on gamers. Here are some facts/thoughts and bits of information about our first lesson on this topic.

Most gamers don’t look behind the game mechanics. They play their games, have their favorite genre’s and are looking forward to the release of that new game.

But behind this tension and amusement lies something more, something game designers know about. Without influencing the costumer psychologically, he won’t play your game.

It might sound like a bad thing if you’re a gamer. “What?? He’s playing with my mind?? F**** him and his stupid game!!” is a reaction that would happen in most of the cases. But as a game developer/designer, you must think the other way around. You got to think and know about psychology to keep the player occupied and/or interested in future releases.

The most common way to do this is the reward/punishment method.

When the gamers passes a certain obstacle, he earns points, finishes a level or gets some nice looking graphics/animations (Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball). But when he fails to keep his health up, hits an obstacle or just doesn’t get the picture, he loses the level and/or dies.

Lots of games put this into context with a trial-and-error learning curve in their games. For example: Streetfighter 2. Most people who played this game didn’t read the full manual or all the button combinations, they just started key-bashing. That leads to frustration in the beginning but that also helps to keep the player playing. He wants to win the battle.

After a while, the player will start seeing that a certain button in combination with an other button gives a much bigger blow. The player has learned a new move, is rewarded for that because of the bigger damage he deals, and is happy about it and starts to be better in the game. This all leads to the player playing the game, and keeping him play. The player feels good about himself because of the points he finally scored.

These are just basic examples of what happens inside the mind of a gamer, but it’s all in this general direction. The human behavior in this is predictable (with a certain margin of error), and will give almost the same results with other people.

The main goal of every game developer (huge company/small indie) is/should be to get into the mind of the gamers and use psychological tricks to convince the gamer that it is a good game, they are doing good and the developer did a great job.

The margin of error on this does tend to make some gamers complain about the game, no game will be that good that every gamer in the world would buy it and be hooked on it. The margin just doesn’t allow it.

When speaking about gamers, I tend to use the male form. I know there are female gamers and I apologize to them. It’s no discrimination, just my writing style.

All products mentioned above are property of their respective owners. My views do not, in any way, represent the views of products/companies mentioned above/holding copyrights on any information in this document.