2012-07-13th Dear Diary: TIGJAM 2012

Dear Diary...

2012-07-13

It's Friday 13th!  Oooooh!  Bad luck?  Or great luck?!  It's been an excellent day!

I went to meet up with Lester about being in his documentary about indie games!  He wants to make me a character to focus on, hopefully, like Phil Fish or Jon Blow in Inide Game: The Movie.  I'd love to make it work, and it helps give me a lens to see myself, to question what I am really trying to do.  He wants to interview me, and film where I work and things.  I need to make sure I have something to say, and connect with the camera.  To have myself figured out a bit.  I'm excited!

After meeting with Lester, I went to Kill City bookstore on Swanston St, full of crime novels (a place he'd just told me about, because he's a pulp novel fan himself!).  I bought a compilation, "Women on the Edge", which seemed to be full of writing that was fast moving, and instantly catchy.  The sort of stuff I needed for my game.  Short snippets that moved fast, and kept the reader engaged.  A lot of the novels I picked up were slow, dry, languished in pacing.  That just wouldn't work where I needed the action to move ahead with every sentence.

My friend Luke called me, and said he'd put up some posters for Rad Skater Apocalypse in some skate stores around Frankston.  The kids all asked if it was free, and he had to say no, it's 99 cents.  I really need to get a free version out, with advertisements in it.  Maybe I'll wait until my our game is out, and link to that game directly as well.  Shame they're very different games, for totally different markets.

Then I took some photos around the city, of the old buildings...  Flinders St Station, the Nicholas Building elevator shaft, the Regent Plaza theatre, the Town Hall Clocktower, and the Carlton Gardens.  All possibly locations I could use for a more graphic novel style presentation of the story.  I could photoshop filter them, like Max Payne...  or use them as reference, and trace over them.  I could take photos with actors in them too, and exaggerate the lighting and design in Photoshop.

TIGJAM is tonight, in Richmond.  I'm gonna go and work on something!  Dunno what yet!
Might team up with some people.  Might just work on my own.  Happy to just meet people, and see what happens.  

My life is so much more exciting since leaving my day job!

- Muz



Note to self:  TIGJAM will be a good way to experiment with the idea of a Travelling Game Dev Setup.  I can take my laptop, and some basic tools for creating all the content.  Pen and paper, H4 audio recorder, phone camera.  Will be interesting to see what I can come up with in 48 hours!