Phew where to start with this one. So much has happened in the last 2 years. Let's start with the game. I released "Arksync: Episode 1" in Early Access on Steam March 14th. Reception has been great, and for Early Access sales have been good; just not where they need to be to stay full time on the game. I'm super proud of the game though, and it's been so fun to work on. It's really setting the tone for future games in a universe that's a good mix of both dark sci-fi and some goofiness. It's exactly something that completely holds my interest.
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I'm at a point where I'm eager to move on from Arksync, and onto "Project 2". It'll be great to take all the lessons I've learned from Arksync, making the next project better designed and more efficiently built. I'm leaning towards building a TPS in a small world that I can expand upon. I'm not doing another one of these 6 year endeavors, and hope to get something online within 2 years of development starting.
In the last two years my personal life has done a complete 180. It's really wild. In August of 2022 I made the move to Texas. Met an incredible girl within months of arriving and now we're married with a little 1 month old kiddo. Man things happen fast when they do, but I'm more excited about life and all the adventures that await our family. I knew I was missing something, and grateful to have it now :)
Now life is about reigning it all in. Keeping the balance between my personal and professional life. One of these posts has been long over due, and hopefully the next time I check in it'll be about the development of "Project 2" and drawings from my then older son. It's gonna be fun!
Nothing will make up for the 4 years I've neglected the blog. I've let you down, I've let myself down, but worst of all I've let the children down. So much to say here, screw it, let's just quick fire this thing.
I continue to work on my game, it was called Three of June, but I renamed it to Arksync at the beginning of 2021. I officially incorporated my studio Dykom Software. I'm a licensed Nintendo developer. My game Arksync is listed on Steam. I worked on Apex Legends a bunch, helped design a cruise ship and amusement park, helped release another COD game, and my favorite, built some guns on Prodeus.
What else... Oh I moved to Colorado and have been living next to the the Rocky mountains by a lake for the past 2 years. I bought some fish and built them a cool little real habitat that looks like you stuck your head in a river. One of the fish, the beloved Charlie, probably killed his friend, and spent the next couple months hiding in shame behind the filter pipes. So I got him a new friend and he's been a lot nicer to this one. Oh shit, yeah beginning of this year I was in a wild fire, had to evacuate my home for a few days and everything. Dude that sucked. My place was surrounded on two sides by fire a quarter mile away. We lost over 1000 homes in the area. I'll tell you what, that changes ya.
Life has been a real blur the last 4 years for the most part. I mostly just work on my game. Life balance is pretty much out the window. That certainly hurts the most. I'm in my mid 30s now, and the thing I wanted most from life I don't have. My career is locked down, but my personal life is pretty fucked. Nowhere even near where I want it. Everything else is going really well though. I'm excited to wake up everyday and get to work building my own ideas. I'm exercising, getting to run under the rocky mountains every week. At least I'm failing in style now. I'm kicking around moving to Texas in a couple months directly related to what I just mentioned. I love being in CO, just don't think I'm going to get what I want here.
As of now the game's aiming for release in October. I'm working hard on this. This is the last time I work like this for the rest of my life. Succeed or fail, I'm not going to work like this anymore. Ever since that post in 2012 where I decided I was going to do exactly what I've done, I never really stopped working stupid long hours, studying weekends. I guess I knew even then I was behind schedule by about 8 years. I wanted my game studio before hitting my 40s, and had I not worked like this I wouldn't have this until I was mid 40s. So yeah worth it I think, just a real shitty price to pay. I'm going to fix my life when this game is finished, get the last piece of the puzzle, and then I'll have everything I ever wanted. Almost there.
As of last week I no longer work at Treyarch. After nearly three years I left in order to pursue my own goals and a more fulfilling life. It came at no surprise realizing just how much of my time and energy was being put into other ideas. For a person as self driven, with plenty of my own ideas there's no reason I couldn't restructure my time in a more balanced way. I will be continuing working professionally as a freelance concept artist for other studios, but with the advantages needed to pursue my plan. So what's the updated plan? It's pretty in depth as that's how I plan, so I'll give you the key objectives. Get back into doing freelance concept art and build my game studio.
There's not much to say about freelance except that I'm doing a portfolio push to get some extra traction, also my portfolio is already a year outdated. I mean that Infinite Warfare work is over 3 years old and it's supporting this whole thing. So yeah I'm pushing out new work every week starting this week with the first image of this post. Thank the concept art gods I can get these things done quickly and confidently these days.
Lets talk about my game studio. As of last week I started planning out and building my first game. Feels good to say that. I'm not ready to announce specifics quite yet, but in a month or two I will. I want to make a strong first impression so expect something special. After putting together some ideas, the game I'm moving forward with is very possible for me to build and I'm bursting at the seams to share it. Soon! :)
Well that sums everything up. Alright, take a deep breath... now get your ass to work.
Aiming System studies. Built from scratch without reference.
I've been pushing myself extra hard this past year to learn how to build a video game. This last year was about learning programming and animation mostly. I keep telling myself the hard part is almost over, as if the difficulty ends before a game is finished. haha. Something always goes wrong... always. I think I could sum up the last year with a lot of my life as "Close but no cigar". I wonder where that expression comes from? Anyways between what seemed like close calls getting dream jobs between two of my favorite studios, and wanting to get my own projects up and running, and most of my personal life it's been so much failure.
Health system studies, also built without reference.
Yeah I'm smarter and better than I was before but the frustrating part is knowing you have so much farther to go and not knowing that distance. Learning programming without any real training is such a bitch. It's like trying to learn Japanese in your English speaking hometown. Moral of the story do multiple hard backups of everything you do in UE4, the program is not bullet proof. Just the thought of how many simple lessons like this I have yet to learn is so daunting. Programming is so deliberate, there's not a lot of room for experimenting at the foundational level.
Here's to 2018, the year I finally get my shit together!
