This blog was quiet for a while, but things were actually been hectic in real life.
Back in early April, I had the need to do game jam. I looked into Ludum Dare and was planning to do it solo, but tossed an invitation to Qicu, a friend I met in FFXIV. Somehow he and his friend Zel were interested to join the jam, since they never done any game jam before. Qicu tinkered with Unity a few years ago, and decided to brush up on programming. Zel wanted to work as a narrative designer for games, so he wore the writer hat. I decided to focus mainly on art and level design while helping the other two with learning game development. Our theme was fairly simple, but we got stuck on character controller. Unity added new input system and it was not easy to pick up in just 3 days, unfortunately. In the end, we decided not to submit the game, but it was a good experience. That was my first group online game jam, with someone from the other part of the world. (Qicu lives in New Zealand).
Shortly after Ludum Dare, Final Fantasy XIV held an online fan festival in May. At the end of the event, the lead developer Yoshi P. shared the news about the main composer, Soken, who was battling cancer during the current expansion. After the announcement, a bunch of artists who are players decided to show appreciation to the developer team by creating a fan artbook. It started as a small idea, but it turned into a big art community, composed of digital and traditional artists, painters, musicians, writers and many more. Since I’ve been learning taking some online courses on drawing background and characters, I decided to join the project by making a painterly art. At first I wanted to spend a week on it, but there were so many characters I want to draw, so the work ended up being 7-8 weeks. It was by far the largest piece I’ve done. It took from mid-May til mid-July to finish it.
Afterward, I went back to work on my personal project, the Japanese traditional house. In the reference book, there are some areas that are not accessible. At first I was going to leave them alone, but then decided to come up with my own layout design. Things were progressing smoothly, until when it was time to add the roof. For some reason, I just hit a wall and needed more time to do research.
Instead of researching, I got distracted by another game jam, Safe Space Game Jam, hosted by Code Coven and UN Women. Around this time, Activision Blizzard lawsuit by state of California was the big news in game industry. I was really frustrated, angry and depressed after hearing the story. When this jam was announced, I felt the need to get all the bad emotions out in a positive way. So when I heard about the game jam, I joined right away.
However, a couple weeks before this jam, I got a whiff of Hype Jam in late July. It was hosted by Seattle Indies, and it’s about making a trailer for a game, without making an actual game. I know nothing about making a trailer, so I joined with no expectation. I like to do game jams with Seattle Indies folks, since I’ve had nothing but good experience in the past. So during pitching session, I tossed a pitch based on a crazy VR rhythm gardening idea I have for giggles. Unfortunately, a lot of people liked that idea and wanted to be part of the team, so I somehow ended up leading a team. It started with 6 people: me, another artist, a UI designer, a video editor, and two composers. One of the composer was super social, so he recruited 3 other voice actors. Things got hectic in the middle of the jam, but things worked out in the end. We managed to submit a day early, and won Second Place for Out of the Box award. The award is for some idea that’s really original/never been done before. Below is the full trailer, and the project page is at https://chinniedraws.itch.io/space-garden I had a blast during this time.
A week after Hype Jam, around second week of August, Safe Space game Jam started. This time we had 3 artists, one UI/UX designer, one programmer, one audio and one writer. Half of the team never done a game jam before. I pitched my idea but I was hoping it won’t get selected, since I really did not want to lead another team right after previous jam. Thankfully Luna, the UI/UX designer, decided to lead. I did my best to assist others with support and Unity integration while trying to do my own part. As the week progress, I’ve had a bad feeling in my stomach, since I’ve never seen any game build. The programmer said everything was good, so I just leave it as that. I also got overwhelmed with doing support, that my own work got neglected, so I decided to take one day off support and just concentrate to catch up. The day before submission, I got nitpicked for small details to the point I got really annoyed, so I brought up the priority list of things to be concerned about, like.. the lack of any game build. Suddenly the team realized that we might have tons of game assets, but no game. To make matter worse, a few hours before submission, the programmer had a game-breaking bug that he couldn’t fix. He gave up and went to bed. I tried to pick up some slack, but about 3 hours before submission, I was too tired and decided to sleep instead. So in the end, we did not submit anything but a page, https://lunoche.itch.io/never-gets-any-easier Some of the team members decided to try to get a build, so this project is ongoing.
In September, I took a few days break after this jam, since it was really exhausting. I started to update my portfolio, rebrand my social media, and also got a business license. I started thinking about making game assets and sell them through online store. However, before I got to move forward with the idea, I got a phone call from my mom. My dad had to go to emergency room, and he ended up getting hospitalized for a few days. I stayed with my mom for a week until things look somewhat stable. My brothers decided to come over, so I had some time to go home and rest. Except I forgot about LightBox expo. I got about 2 days rest and spent a week in the expo, learning more about art and their industry.
Through Seattle Indies, I saw Tim, one of the guy I worked with before announcing a game jam he’s hosting in mid September, to explore African diaspora (https://itch.io/jam/culture-bytes-plantain-jam). With all the talk of BLM, and my previous project dealing with minority culture (native american), I got curious, since I really don’t know much about African culture. When I talked to Tim, he mentioned some of his friends wanted to do VR project. The jam supposed to be chill and lasted 2 weeks, so I figure why not. I decided not wanting to lead this time, nor to put any narrative design, since I don’t want to interject myself into the culture that I know nothing about. Coming out from the previous jam when everyone was communicating clearly, I had a hard time in this jam. My team did not seem to know how to work online through texts. Things were okay when we hop into voice chat, but due to everyone’s schedule, being in VC at the same time was difficult. Fortunately the main programmer and me were both used to work solo, so we managed to wear different hat and work on systems while the others figured out the design. Unfortunately, halfway through the jam, my dad had to go to urgent care, since his sodium level fell again. My mom demanded me to help her, since she got into crazy anxiety, so I dragged my work laptop along with VR system to their house. I notified my team right away and told them I might not be able to participate much due to my dad condition. I was hoping I’d lose maybe a couple days worth of work. Unfortunately, the day after Urgent care, Dad ended up in emergency room, and needed to be hospitalized again. I did some jam work for a couple hours at night, while accompanying my parents to different doctor appointments almost everyday. Two days later he ended up in ER again, and this time I had to call 911. I did not manage to get much done for the jam for the second week. Thankfully the programmer picked up the pace and churned out different builds. Dad seemed to stabilize a day before submission, so I decided to go home. We had a playable build by then, but nobody started on the project page yet. People kept talking about it but nobody actually sat down and do it, which seemed to be the theme for this particular team. So I just gathered whatever we had so far, set up a quick page and asked for everyone’s input. The programmer made a video of the latest build, which was great, cuz there always a chance the build was broken during presentation. Of course, that did happen.. but we have video!
You can see the post jam presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_aMLQcr60k
After this jam, I was still itchy for more game jam. However, after seeing my dad’s condition, and my mom’s mental state, I decided to drop everything I’m doing and help them out. It was a good call, since October was full of appointments. There were about 3-5 appointments per week, every week, it was crazy. I spent most days away from home, and barely even had time to sleep. Since I couldn’t block out a good amount of time to do my game development work, I decided to study art fundamentals in the little window of free time I have left. I really need the creative outlet, because turning care-giving is driving me crazy.
It’s mid November now. I’m hoping Dad will get more stable. I still had to go to my parents place every couple weeks to accompany them to doctor’s appointment. At this time, my own health has been affected pretty badly too, both mental and physical. Today, I finally manage to sit down and remember about my portfolio, game asset making plan, previous projects that I want to do, and updating this blog. In the next few days, when I’m back home, I will write down more about the game jams and project updates.