I grew up playing the Sierra games, made in Oakhurst, Coursegold, California. The King's Quest games were rich with signs of the Californian trees, and a love of nature.
Later, coming out of Spokane Washington, there was Myst and Riven.
I grew up in a bushy suburb in Melbourne Australia, and I've always thought it'd be lovely to have a studio out in the hills.
I was recently out in the hills east of Melbourne, and I took lots of nice photos of areas where I could build my dream studio. I thought I'd post them here, kinda like a little dream journal. :)
I love this place, overlooking a big valley. This has set a sort of benchmark in my mind for what I'd be looking for. :D
And here's a bunch of other miscellaneous photos.
Markets
Community Centre
Today it was lovely and sunny. I walked to the Vietnamese restaurant for lunch on my own. I carried a leather satchel, making me feel rugged and adventurous. In it I had my iPad 2 and notebook, to think about B-Grade Renegade over lunch... (I'm currently working on the AI for the enemy monsters).
As I wandered over the sunny bridge, across the Yarra River, I longed to go hiking in the wilderness, to explore, to build things, to put up a house, to raise a barn, to ride a horse.
It was a nice feeling, even though I know these things don't fit into my life right now. Just thinking about it was nice.
And as usual, my mind strayed to how these things could perhaps be done in a computer game, a simulation, but giving the real feeling of doing it... and at the same time, I didn't really care about that. I knew that I really just felt like doing it for real. Knowing that the realness of nature, the pointlessness of it almost, was part of what I wanted.
Not to have some HUD or counters, pointing me to my next goal, or tallying up how close I was to the next cutscene or checkpoint...
The real, downright, un-mediated rawness of nature... things just being wonderful, in and of themselves...
In this real world, I am still the centre of my world... but the world does not revolve around me. And it's good to remember that, and appreciate it.
