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A fork in the road

So its been a bit of a while since i blogged anything and this is due to having nothing game dev related to blog.

I’ve done a minimal amount of work on the art for my next game project “Gary and the Jetpack” but its far from finished and i’m not anywhere near ready to start coding it.

With all thats going on in life atm its hard to find the time to code, and even when i do its hard to find the motivation.

My lovely partner recently re-enrolled me in crossfit which is an absolute godsend, as I had to give it up in January due to family budget issues and since then i’ve put on 11kg and really been sent into a downward spiral of sadness (not depression, everyones got that these days #controversial) and treating myself and feeling like shit . 2 crossfit sessions back and i’m feeling 100% again. eating right, off the booz and just feeling awesome again.

This brings us to the fork in the road. I have a cert III and IV in fitness and I have been toying with the idea of becoming a PT and getting into the fitness game. At the end of last year I was solely focussed on that but felt myself missing the mental stimulation that coding gives me which is why i started game dev in a semi serious way. Ideally I would like to have the best of both worlds and maybe I can but history would suggest thats its going to be one or the other. If I didn’t have the kidlets to look after i would have all the time i need but thats not the case and of course, if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its are when it hopped 😉

Excuses, Fear, Laziness, genuine concern?!?! who can say.

At this moment my priority is the fitness thing. Making a living as a PT seems far more plausible than as a game dev. That being said I’m not giving up. I just got to figure a way to get some coding done in amongst everything else. If its important enough i’ll find a way. Lets see what happens.

Leaderboard in Alpha

The original vision for Gary and the Avalanche was to have a leaderboard where by everyones highscore and rank could be kept track of.

As this required a bunch of additional work and the goal of the MVP was to purely “get a game in the app store” i put the idea on hold until now.

Its taken 2 weeks!! (realistically about 4 days of coding but that speaks to my current schedule more so than the complexity of the task).

Its finally in Alpha testing and my Team Alpha guys are putting it through its paces as we speak. Looking to deploy into production over the weekend failing some critical issue the guys might find for me.

If i may digress for a moment, I have a whole bunch on my plate right now not related to game development. Not good stuff, not stuff i wanted but stuff thats been thrust upon me. The sheer cost of participating in this system renders anyone living week to week (as I do) at a complete disadvantage. This guy Gary, this tiny little experiment in getting something into the app store has been a source of solace over the last 2 weeks. Something to look forward to. Something to keep that light at the end of the tunnel shining and for anyone who actually reads my blog posts know that you play a vital role in keeping me going. If your reading this, THANKYOU!!

 

Busy!!

Life just gets in the way sometimes. I’ve had the leaderboard API built since last Thursday and today (a week later) is the first chance i’ve had to get back to my pc and start implementing it into the game. Kids, work, life!!

Oh for the day when building games is my fulltime job. Thats the dream right there.

Hopefully have something exciting to post re: leaderboards soon.