A lot has happened within the past month. My childhood friend and distant-cousin Jessica Lum, who has been fighting cancer for the past 2 years, had passed away on January 13th Sunday morning at 9:53AM. It was upsetting news when she first revealed that she had cancer and it made it even harder just a few months back when she started feeling the effects of the cancer take its course and had to be rushed to the hospital. It's hard to accept the fact that she isn't with us anymore. To me, she represented ambition and determination. I remember when we both got into college, we still kept in contact by sending text messages over AIM and we would share our dream careers. We both had the interest in the game industry, but she specifically wanted to get into photo journalism. I even remember saying "that's a really hard profession." But it was something she wanted and loved the idea of traveling around the world to learn something new. So it saddened me that her journey was cut short as she had accomplished so much in just the past few years. She's an inspiration to many people who've met her showing that we as humans are very capable to wanting something and achieving it so long as we work hard towards our goal. I will miss her.
As for me, it felt strange going into the year 2013. I don't know why, but it just felt so unreal. For some odd reason, I feel like this is going to be a really good year. I don't know why that is, but I should take advantage of that feeling and use it as a momentum for productivity. As usual, I made some New Year's Resolution:
1) Work on Art, be they fan art, comics, concept art, or in-game art. Reach 50 drawings.
2) Take my pursuit in music more seriously. Work on my projects, especially personal ones. Reach 50 Songs.
3) Finish one game project. Luckily, I just agreed to work with a team a few days ago. I'm looking forward to that.
4) Take better care of myself. It's evident that I've been neglecting my health in the last half year. So consistent exercise like 2 years ago, and sleep.
5) Can I beat over 107 games by the end of the year? I'm gonna try, my backlog is ridiculous. Also need to write more for these.
As you can see, I'm being more ambitious and putting numbers on how much I want to accomplish this year. For number 3, I sadly had to decline the project because of a legality issue within the NDA they wanted me to sign. I stopped making "finding a job" a resolution and am going to let it happen when it does as I continually apply for more jobs. So far, I have drawn one picture which I used for the cover art in my music uploads (look below). I haven't done any music projects yet, but I have quite a few lined up ready to be done. Starting from January 2nd, I started going to the gym again and exercising as much as I can now. I go to the gym 3 times a week and try to go out for walks on days I don't go and just finished 4 weeks of exercise thus far. The only problem is I still haven't fixed my sleep schedule which is still really bad for my health. But I definitely want to take better care of myself. A healthy body will lead to a healthier mind. As of last night, I have completed 9 games. It doesn't exactly show that I will beat last year's record of 107 games, but it's good progress. I wonder what I'll learn in game design this year. Last year, I think I learned a lot on game controls, user-interface accessibility, and level design.
So our game Camera Obscura has been put up on Steam Greenlight.
Alongside that, I had uploaded 3 of the songs I made for the game on Youtube. It seems a lot of Steam community members really like the music and game concept but has problems with the graphics. This will be a very difficult aspect to satisfy. We also got a response from the Indie Game Festival judging and we didn't get anything. No wins in any category and no honorable mention as a finalist. On the other hand, it seems our progression to getting the game greenlit is doing pretty well. The problem is, will it sell when we finally put it out? So aside from working and finishing up on Camera Obscura, I really need to get more of my own projects out and make my portfolio.
In terms of games, I don't know exactly what I've been playing. I've been kind of all over the place. I bought and completed the eXceed series which was pretty fun. I finally installed and played through Dear Esther and really hated it. It was a hiking simulation essentially; it's an interactive narrative if you will. It was about 1.5 hours of walking around an island and listening to a guy talk. I got to special world 8 of Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS before I decided that I didn't want to play it anymore (you have to collect more special coins from previous levels just to play the last levels of the special levels). I finally finished Bioshock after who knows how long (I think it's been 2 years?) and thought it was an okay game. I finished Orcs Must Die! and really liked it, but didn't want to keep it around any longer. Saint's Row The Third I had installed just to play with a friend and we ended up completing it 2 nights ago. The game was incredibly over the top and ridiculous which I loved. It made the Grand Theft Auto series seem kind of plain. Last night, I finished Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD which was a good nostalgia trip. Right now, I guess I'm trying to complete Summoner's Fortune and Realms of Ancient War on PC, Eternal Sonata on PS3, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy on 3DS, and 007 Goldeneye on Wii. I'm mainly focusing on PC games since it has the largest backlog right next to Playstation 2. I didn't think I was going to look forward to any games this year, but I was pleasantly surprised when it looked up what was possibly coming out this year:
PC:
-Neverwinter
-Phantasy Star Online 2
-Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm
Playstation 3:
-Dark Souls 2
-Final Fantasy XIII - Lightning Returns
-Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Wii / Wii U:
-Pandora's Tower
-Bayonetta 2
Nintendo 3DS:
-Project X Zone
-Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate
-Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate
There's actually a lot to look forward to this year, but I think I mostly care about Phantasy Star Online 2 and Project X Zone (I still can't believe they're bringing it over to stateside, I'm so excited!).
I feel like I haven't talked about animé in forever. The last animé I recall watching was Acchi Kocchi, which I absolutely adored. A lot of my friends are encouraging me to watch an animé called Sword Art Online and I told them I'd watch it once it's entirely done. Well, it's entirely done and I've managed to watch 2 episodes so far. It reminds me of .Hack Sign, but takes an interesting turn on the story in how it pans out. Essentially, a bunch of gamers are stuck inside a virtual world and can't get out unless they complete the game. Should they die in the game or someone tries to pull the game helm off, the player will die in real life. I've gotten sidetracked and ended up recently watching an animé called "Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou". I think the only animé I've watched that had that much nudity in it was Mahoromatic Maiden. I didn't mind the nudity as the writing, humor, art style, characters and story all blended so well for an entertaining show. The show focuses on a boy who wishes to become a High Priest to make a difference in the world and protect the people within it. Upon arriving to a magic school, he was deemed qualified as a future Maou. A Maou (Demon King) is said to bring destruction and annihilation to the human race. It wouldn't called it a classic animé, but I really enjoyed it. I then went on to finally watching the 2nd season of K-On, which I've wanted to do for years. I eventually get around to watching Sword Art Online, but I think I might be a bit more focused on K-On. It's shaping up to be a crazy year, so I better straighten up and work hard.
