The Last of Posts

Hey everyone. It's been a super long time since my last post. A ton of stuff has happened, both good and partially bad. I will say this will be my last post on this blog and will explain later in this post, but first things first!

ONE

The game I've been working on for over a year now, Disorder, was recently entered into the Student Competition at the Captivate Conference. WE WON FIRST PLACE!!! This really boosted the teams morale and let us know that people actually enjoy playing our game.

During the competiton we decided to make a Greenlight page for the game. You can check out our Greenlight page HERE. Please help us out by giving us a thumbs up. Additionally you can visit the game's Facebook Page HERE. Disorder has been long in development, but the team and I want to see this game get done. We've put so much work into it that to give up now would be pointless and a disappointment.

TWO

I made a game for the Indie Speed Run called Secret Formula. The Indie Speed Run is a game jam competition where you have two days to make a game based on randomly given theme and element. We received "Secrecy" as our theme and "Vines" as our element. So naturally we made a game where you swing around on a vine and avoid armed cameras while finding out about your origins.

Play Secret Formula

I did Art and Level Design on Secret Formula. I couldn't have made this awesome game without the incredibly talented Frank Force (Programming) and Jerry Yuan (Muisc / Sounds). I'm not sure if public voting has officially been closed but if it hasn't you should play and rate our game!

THREE

I'm not working Get Dat Swag: The Secrets of Swag Island. I realized I learned what I needed to from the current state of the Unity port and that I wanted to work on a new project. I might come back to Get Dat Swag but for now I'm more excited about new projects and finishing Disorder. 

FOUR

On a personal note I moved back to Houston during the month of August. I'd been applying for game design positions at several studios. I felt like I was in an odd position where I couldn't work on new projects because if I did I would have to abandon them if I was hired. The whole situation kind of stunted me creatively and caused me to be a little depressed. Then after several weeks I received emails that I had been rejected from several studios I had applied to. Being stuck in Houston, which didn't have a huge game scene and the fact that most of my friends were in Austin added to that depression. Graduating from college is weird. Through out most of my life I've had everything planned. You go to school, then college, then you get a job. So when I graduated I felt odd not having this next step to go to. It was super weird waking up and feeling like there wasn't a huge responsibility I needed to be a part of. After sending out emails and resumes over the past couple of months I didn't really feel like I was being myself. Putting on a professional persona felt like I was trying way too hard to be somebody else. After a couple of weeks in Houston I decided I wanted to move back to Austin. I felt that it would be better for me to find a job and network with people in Austin. Additionally, Fantastic Arcade was coming up and I really wanted to help out and have a good time. I ended up winning a Spelunky Tournament against one of the top players, which ended up in an article online for the Austin Chronicle. Moving to Austin and being a part of Fantastic Arcade really made me feel like I had found a new home. Then I started working on games (like Secret Formula) and other projects I just wanted to work on. I find that I'm being creatively satisfied just by waking up and working on games. At the moment I feel pretty content with what's going on. I'm not sure if I'll get a job at a game studio in the upcoming months, but I know that making games is still what I want to do and it makes me happy. With that said the era of this blog is over. I won't be posting on this blog anymore, but I'll be moving to a Tumblr blog which I'll update occasionally. You can check out that blog here. I wont be deleting this blog because I think it's a great to see my progress throughout the years and I hope people that are currently entering a game development program or going through some of the same things can check out this blog. 

FIVE

I recently started a podcast call The Loading Screen podcast and the first episode is out today! I wanted a chance to interview game developers / people involved with games. I feel like most game podcasts don't talk about the people behind their games or how they grew up with games. Austin has a huge amount of developers so I thought it would be the perfect time to start it. 

You can listen the Loading Screen Podcast here.

I think that's all for this post. Once again you can follow me on Twitter @saampahlavan. It's been fun. Cheers.