Week 28 : Save the Cat

Wow week 28, that means I have been at this for seven months. What do I have for you this week you ask?

Well, I decided to pickup a book on screen writing, don't worry I haven't given up on my dream to make games only to decide to move to LA and be the next big screen writer.

I did however spent the weekend watching some classic movies and began dabbling with a movie idea myself. Yes, I did attempt to start writing a script. I quickly came to the realization I don't have a clue on how to write a movie. Sure I have watched plenty, and read plenty of plays in my youth, but I never really attempted to write one. Heck 110 pages should be easy to bust out, boy was I wrong.

So I found a book 'Save the Cat', it is a very good read, nice and light. Most importantly it gives you the right questions to ask. What is the one line that describes the whole story? Who is this story about? How is he/she growing through the story? What is the demographic? What is the time frame?

These are all great questions that help you refine your idea. Although I am not planning on writing the next big budget movie I do think these questions help in game development. At Plastic Games we have been working on a game for a while. The game play is solid and fun but the story. . . the story isn't fleshed out. So why not use the basis for solid story telling, the movies, also for game development? It seems like the natural thing to do.

As we know, Tell Tale Games is all about story. Story drives the game. I would bet most of the story writers at Tell Tale have written scripts and plays themselves. It is not only good to learn how to write better for my personal knowledge, there is a language to script writing. It is better to become familiar that language now than to have a blank look at my face when I am asked about 'log lines' and 'act breaks'.

I actually have a book on writing for animation, that one will be read next, and perhaps a book on writing for comics. I have looked into books focused on writing for games, but I am hesitant to read them. The authors have plenty of games in their pocket but many of their credits are sports game related. I don't ever recall be captivated by the plot line in Fifa or Madden. Let's face it, good story writing is few and far between. Perhaps it is a result of the infancy of games or maybe there isn't a target audience to justify publishers creating such a niche book.

In any case a good student can take the fundamental solutions from one subject and reapply them to new problems. That is what knowledge is all about.

See you in thirteen weeks

Week 27 : Unlikely Events

Last week was very interesting, first off it snowed down here in Florida. It was an ice storm really, there was a little dusting of snow on top of the ice. Nothing that a northerner would be concerned about but this is Florida, and Florida doesn't have salt trucks. The town pretty much shut down, the University closed, the stores closed, it was sorta odd.

Then last Friday I was researching for my assistance ship, I found some interesting articles about NASA's continuous planning systems called ASPEN and CASPER. I was put on this task because the school wants to build a system for 'smart' houses using planning. ASPEN and CASPER use iterative repair on their plans so there is no conflicts.I had initially heard of their systems when I was researching for my Master's project. One of the dilemmas with planners is making sure the generated plan is still good after that small window when it is generated and executed.

Long story short I read the articles and said hey I wonder if there is any jobs for this tech. Low and behold there was a 'entry' level position in NASA's planning and scheduling department. Now I love games but  this job would be the only job that would superseded my passion for games. So I applied.

It made my top three job opportunities:
1) LUA Scripter at Tell Tale Games
2) Software engineer at NASA's Planning and Scheduling systems.
3) Developer for IBM's Watson supercomputer

It is nerve racking putting these applications out now, knowing there is probably a six month turn around before I even hear back. In fact all weekend I was a bit distraught worrying about what my future holds starting May 3rd.

 Then I told myself 'Anything could happen. Heck it snowed in Florida!' That seemed as unlikely as my ex wife contacting me . . . . until she did.

I think God is reassuring me.

See you in Fourteen Weeks

Week 26 : Renovation Complete

So I am stepping off topic a bit this week. If you have followed this blog you know that in the process to get ready for a new career and life I have been putting my 'ducks in a row'. Specifically I have been getting my house in Kentucky ready to be sold. I really live in California if I have have property in Kentucky, not to mention the money will go a long way. When I started this adventure, twenty six weeks ago, I decided that I needed to sell my house. If you recall in late October we had a disaster happen, a leak in the slab set me back in my timeline and budget. Well I am happy to say that this weeks concludes all the renovation. We added a new kitchen, improved the porch, oh and re plumbed the whole house. But it looks like we will be re listing the house this week and better yet an old neighbor is looking to move back to the street, with any luck I'll have it sold as soon as it hits the market! I have been blessed that my mom has taken the reigns and kept things moving.

I guess this shows you that anything is possible is you keep focused on a single task and work at it each week, like this blog.


Well, time for a morning run and then hit the books. I'll miss school, but I am getting excited to make some money with theses talents.


See you in Fifteen weeks!

Week 25 : Rock is a Moving

So it last week I was able to get all my reading done and do a round of coding on all projects. The network project was a bit frustrating because the instructor and graduate student didn't inform us to use port 50000 and higher. So I was pulling hair for a bit just getting the client and server to talk to each other.

The compiler class is fun I believe I have my Lexer working properly (spitting out tokens for string formals, ints, and floats).  I already have my BNF ready now I need to work on my parser. Tangentially related I downloaded a LUA interpreter and have begun learning that language for my potential new job.

In my AI class, my partner redid the GUI framework, which looks sweet. I added IDA* to our options, it is slow and the path it not optimal, AND in actuality it isn't pure IDA* because that takes too long. So this is a modified IDA* with open closed lists. Regardless it is cool to look at, see my Facebook account for a video.

Finally, I finished the published books of Game of Thrones very good stuff. I guess now I have to hurry up and wait for Mr. Martin to publish the next book.

See you in Sixteen weeks

Week 24 : Spring Projects

Well this Semester is shaping up to be rather interesting. It looks like my AI project should be fun. I will be working with Brett Henne a super talented engineer. We will explore dynamic navgraphs with A*. Essentially an agent will have a proximity sensor. This sensor will tell the agent which parts of the navgraph are visible. The agent will then try to go to the node closest to the target location. As they move the nav graph will become more visible. If an agent encounters another Agent they can converge and share map information. It should be neat.

Brett showed me C# toolbox on Saturday morning and by Monday night I have built a primitive prototype for the A* algorithm so cool. It is funny how much you can do when you set your mind to something.

In the meantime I need to start researching Visual Programming languages for my compiler class . . .  better start reading.


See you in Seventeen weeks

Week 23 : The Beginning of the End

It is working! Maybe it was the last week's topic, or perhaps that last week was the first week people were back from holiday. Regardless of the reason I finally got what I have been looking for, hope. Last Friday Tell Tale contacted me saying I was a suitable candidate for their Game play Programmer / Lua Scripter! Kahzahh! They plan or setting up an interview sometime in March as to accommodate when I will be graduating. All very promising.

I guess I will continue reading the Song of Ice and Fire, hoping that I get hired and posted on that project. I am a quarter of the way through Feast for Crows, I really love this series.

Now it is time to focus on school. Today denotes the final semester, I get to master the network layer, AI and build a compiler. I must admit I am excited.


See you in Eight teen weeks

Week 22 : Instructor

Funny thing, I have been applying to game companies for two months now and have not heard any word back. So over the break I decide to apply to game schools. Not only have they all replied they replied quickly, like under 24 hours. So it makes me think. . .  what chance does a student of game design actually have if the companies they want to work for won't even respond to their instructors? It is dis heartening to say the least. Are the requirements for game jobs too specialized? Does the game industry just recycle the same programmers over and over? Won't they run out of people?

Many of the positions I see require specialization, for example optimization. Which in layman's terms mean 'can you write algorithms which will be executed on parallel processors?' Well I have read the Open CL  specification, I know the concept, but never had the opportunity to build something my self. So I consider what gaming schools teach. They teach the basics, what are the tools, what is the process. . . . I doubt very much that the students of game schools build a game engine little less designing them to work in heterogeneous systems.

I once believed it was experience the industry wanted so I worked with Indie companies. Then I realized it was a piece of paper stating I knew computer science, which is why I am wrapping up my Masters. Now I fear it is the name of the school which gets you hired. I have know people who have come from highly recognizable schools get jobs in the industry right out of college but fail because they don't have the competitive spirit. A spirit I have, why else would I hold on to this dream without the slightest encouragement from the industry?

Perhaps I am being impatient, maybe I will get that interview today. I hope so, I feel I deserve as much. In the meantime I am applying to other instructor positions. I figure if I find my self teaching again I should choose a school where I can get a PhD while I teach. Though I'd rather be building games.




See you in Nineteen weeks