One of the last things I mentioned in my last post was that Road to Japan may not be so Japan-ey these days.  Disregard that.

In a drastic turn of events, last night, my friend Emma and I booked flights to Osaka in April – we’ll be going for 15 days!  Jetstar (a budget airline) held one of their 2-for-1 sales to Japan.  Emma, myself and my cousin Ian had been talking about a trip to Japan for a week or two and after we learned that this special was on, we were all over it.

Due to the nature of the 2-for-1 deal, Ian would need to bring someone, so he would be bringing his brother Daniel who is super keen to check out Japan too! However, Ian isn’t 100% sure if he is able to come along at this stage – I really hope he can!

Since booking the flight, Emma has been quite excited for this trip (according to the amount of “!”s in her text messages). Which is really awesome =) She has never travelled overseas before, in fact I think she hasn’t left the state, so this will be an awesome experience for her, and I’m glad I’ll be there to share it with her.

I’ve been really wanting to do a lot of blogging lately but, for reasons I’m about to explain, haven’t.  Various sources of inspiration combined with various events have made my life rather interesting lately, for the better or worse – and this is why i’ve been wanting to write.

Reason #1 for not blogging:

Lame reason, so I thought I’d get it out of the way: I’m currently looking into re-locating road2japan to another server with a decent testing environment so that I can experiment more.  What’s that got to do with not blogging? Well, here’s the lame reason: I’ve backed up the database already.  And if I write another post, then… It means i’ll have to back up the database again or do a copy/paste job – I know, lame, pure laziness, but the only reason i held off was because I thought I was going to set up the new environment sooner – but alas, time has eluded me, and that has nothing to do with procrastination! Really! But I swear, this makes up like, 10% of the reason why I haven’t been blogging.

Howdy all! Remember me? I used to post on this blog!

First of all, i’ll tie up loose ends.  The 48 hour game comp I entered didn’t go so well – we overscoped the project (ie. bit off more than we could chew) and as a result we ended up with a rushed, unpolished project, which is a big no no.  Bugger! There’s always next time!

I have been and gone from New York.  My time in NYC was a lot of fun! And really interesting considering that America was my first English-speaking country I have travelled to.  I would like to comment on the differences between Australia and America – but I can’t.  I haven’t been to “America”, i’ve only been to New York, and therefore I have nothing to compare it to and from what I understand New York isn’t an accurate depiction of America – It’s a big city.  I suppose I can compare it to Osaka and Tokyo, but even then I can’t really because the cultural differences between New Yorkers and the Japanese are near polar-opposite.  I mean, New York was grungier, and older looking than Osaka/Tokyo – but that’s all I can comment on.

I would like to mention that I found New Yorkers very friendly.  They have this reputation of being rude and all of that, but everyone I spoke to was very friendly and helpful.  I also found New York to be quite safe.

Just a quick post…

I’ve entered a 48 Hour competition where me and 5 other people take on a bunch of other teams in a competition to see who can make the best game in 48 hours.  We were given 3 words, and from those 3 words we have to design and develop a game, this year those words were:

• Dinosaur
• Revenge
• Bar
  

Not a bad list at all! There are a million things that could be made with those words.  We’ve already got a great concept and are currently developing.  I’m currently working on some Artificial Intelligence stuff, but i’ll go into more detail after the competition is over, and i’ll even provide a link for you guys to download our finished product.

We began about… 8 hours ago, so 40 hours left to go.  I’m already kinda tired, i’ve been awake since 7am this morning.  But, i’m gonna push through and work my ass off.

For those who don’t know, the JET Program (or the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme), grants successful applicants job placement in Japan, teaching English.  Applications begin now-ish, deadline being December 1, and successful applicants get their notification between May and August next year for departure in August.  It’s a pretty grueling application process. Well… I think so.  Remembering i’m a lucky Australian who didn’t have to take part in grueling University entrance applications unlike other countries.

So i’m seriously considering applying to the JET Program now. However, i’m very undecided about the whole thing…

The thing i love about JET is that, should you be accepted, you get guaranteed placement for at least a year! Which is great, safe, reliable etc.  However, there’s a downside: You don’t have complete control over your placement. You CAN request a region, but there are no guarantees.

Now… that’s a big issue for me.  I’m not necessarily a country-type person.  Should i be placed in a country town I would probably have to decline acceptance. I like the Japanese country side! It’s nice! But:

1. I don’t think the lifestyle is for me. I like buildings! And concrete! And ridiculous amounts of people! And riding my bike everywhere i go!
2. I’m allergic to NATURE… but maybe i could get some sort of special consideration being allergic to trees/pollen/whatever it is exactly…?

Ever since i arrived back in Australia, i’ve done nothing but suffer from allergies, to the point my doctor has told me that to get rid of it i’d either need to go through an allergy desensitization course (which may not work) or leave Australia.  And i would like to feel healthy again.

This is just a vid for those who are interested in what Cloud 9 is, but don’t really want to download it.

Ok so last week was awesome/epic/tiring/awes0me/productive/stuff.

So, as mentioned in my last post i have a couple game projects going – one of which, “Cloud 9″, is a University project and is sapping up all my time and energy – but i am VERY proud of the project.

Cloud 9 is steam-punky, fast paced racer game for the PC – think Mario Kart meets F-Zero.  And last thursday was our deadline to publish the game! EEK! And if there is one thing developing video games has taught me, its that actually FINISHING the game, to the point that you would even think of letting it see daylight, has got to be one of the hardest things you could possibly do – and i’d vote that it would be the most important thing you could do as a game developer/software developer.

It’s really easy and fun to play your role when developing a game. You know, as an artist just design and draw/model your assets, draw up your textures, design create a level in the game engine, and as a programmer you program your features to the point that you can demonstrate them – fun and challenging!  But, in my opinion, to pull everything together so that it resembles a complete game requires the least technical talent, but is by far the hardest and most taxing thing a development team could possibly do. You gain so much more insight in developing games by taking those last few steps to tie the game together than you do doing all the other crazy stuff during the development process.

Ok so as for the new direction i’m taking myself, this blog, and any virtual gremlins attached to it.

My short term goals include:

• Study my butt off and really build up my game dev skillz!
• Study Japanese
• Go to New York
• Go to New Zealand
• Get in shape for said travel locations

Now my long term goal is, as i mentioned in my last blog post, to try and migrate to Japan and start working there, and really get good at the language – which is gonna be tough since i had a really hard time doing that before.