My desk for now

Saturday I gave an interview for Games-Arena, a romanian video game blog, about designing and testing games. The first part of the interview got published yesterday (it can be read here, but it’s in Romanian). Last night, while reading it for the 10th time, I noticed a few things that I need to change, starting with my online presence. The blog has grown allot since I re-opened it, jumping from 10-15 readers during a busy day to 60-70. It’s not much, but for me, it shows progress. I decided to change my “Logo” and set up a portfolio website in order to achieve a more professional and clean look, and I’m in the progress of contracting someone to help me with the “design” aspect, since my artistic skills are worser then my smoking habits.

I keep trying to polish my design and coding skills as much as I can. Lately, I started playing around with Love2D and LUA, trying to port (and improve with each iteration) my UI Framework. I also fiddled with Flare, a 2D Open-Source RPG (similar to NOX/Diablo), by Clint Bellanger. Since I’m stuck on my old laptop, I didn’t get a chance to play Diablo 3 yet, nor get into Torchlight 2 open-beta, though I’m looking forward to this two games. Sos, an indie game developer and Ludumdare enthusiast, is also preparing to release a fun, and highly weird game, called McPixel, which I highly recommend playing once it’s available.

As for me, I still have two more weeks away from work and I plan on spending them by improving all aspects in my life. It’s true that I miss the people I got to spend so much time in Bucharest, but some time away from me can only do them good. With this being said, I bid all of your farewell… Till the next post.

Note that some of my opinions from this post are largely influenced by a bit of anger that, right now, keeps boiling and boiling! I’ve bought Red Faction Guerrilla a few months ago, but didn’t get to play it much till now (played it a few minutes from work one weekend) ! So, while browsing, looking up some new projects on scriptlance, I decided I needed to play something instead of hitting the F5 key, waiting for something interesting to appear on that site! So I opened up Steam and decided to download RF:G! The entire process went smooth, and it about 40 minutes I had the game installed, just waiting for me to push the “Play” button. Before the game started, steam informed me that I “might need” to use the game’s key somewhere, so it should be a good idea to write it down, which I did! What came next, brought me two steps closer to that mind stated know by some of us as: “The baby puncher mode”!

Now, I rarely get to that state where I’m so frustrated that I feel the need to actually place holes into the wall! Usually only one person can get me to that point, and that only happens after she tries really hard. But I have to hand it to “Games for Windows Live”, it got me there faster then my room mate can say “Get out of that damn shower”! So, the game booted up, and Main Menu was within reach! I decided to load my previous save, which I made while at work, in order to skip the opening sequence! Once the “Load” option was chosen, I got prompted by a GFWL screen, saying that I needed to be signed into an account in order to use that feature! Ok, it’s understandable, let me add my account details! It proceeded to download my profile information, but after 10 minutes of watching the windows 7 loading cursors, I thought there might be a problem with my internet connection! I ALT-Tabbed and checked up ol’ google, and saw that my internet connection is a-ok! Hm, network hang maybe? Let’s click on cancel and login again!

I canceled the entire process, clicked on load again, and noticed my profile was available! I clicked on it only to notice an error screen saying that it hasn’t fully downloaded and that I needed to delete it, and proceed again with the download! Fine, what the heck, let’s do this! 10-15 minutes later, my profile was downloaded! Perfect, let’s play! But, even though I previously logged in, I had to do it again! So, once again, I’m adding my account details, only to receive another error, saying that there is an update available for GFWL! Thought that I could cancel it, since well, I don’t need to see the new features, I just want to spend 40-50 minutes destroying buildings and nailing people to the floor! Canceling the update was a bad idea, as I could not use the Load feature yet-again! So, I installed the update (from within the game)! This of course meant another 10 minutes for the download to work properly, and once on my HDD, the game exited and proceeded to the install sequence! 5 minutes later I was facing the Main Menu again, not sure what to expect! I highlighted the “Load” option and, not to my surprise, the login screen was staring me back! For the third time I insert my account details (toggling the “Keep me signed in, damn it” option) and clicked Log in!

I got to play the game, but only after being warned that the “Terms of service” for using GFWL had been changed and I needed to “Accept” them if I wanted to use this lovely little bloated feature! To be honest, I never knew it would take 3 minutes in order to download the entire TOS, but once I could click Accept, I did! Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I got to enter the game! Well, my save files weren’t there (guess Red Faction doesn’t use the steam cloud feature), so I clicked on “New Game”! Heyy, it’s working, yiipiii! 10 minutes in the starting area, after bashing to peaces every soulless peace of architecture, a friend sent me a message via Yahoo Messenger! Now, I don’t know if this is GFWL’s fault or a problem with the window-handling manager of RF, but the game entered Window Mode! I could not switch it off through the In-game menu, so I closed the game, and started it up again… Only to be prompted to log into GFWL! Really? I know that last time I MADE SURE the “keep me signed in” option was toggled!

I’m sure that I wouldn’t have gone through the entire process described above, but I decided to quit the game for now! All I wanted was to play for a while, without interruptions! Comes to show you that to-much DRM can only hurt the game! Why on earth would the guys from “Volition” want to have GFWL even thought they distributed the game through STEAM is beyond me! But I learned a precious lesson from this! If I will ever fund a game by myself or get into a position in which I’ll be able to make a blockbuster PC game (hey, valve/bioware/egosoft, are you reading this? Feel free to contact me! please ) and I would have the final word when it comes to adding DRM to my game, I would say no! Really, I’d rather have people pirating and playing my game, then teenagers running through the city, hammering people and punching little kids!

/Rant off!

p.s. seriously if anyone is reading this and happens to work for the HR department of Bioware, Egosoft or Valve, do feel free to contact me for a Game designer/Level designer position!

p.s.s if any-one in the upper management of Gameloft is reading this, then I’m sorry, but Dragon Age, Portal and X3 are awesome! I promise to bake cookies and bring them to work on monday!

Here’s a taste of what to expect once this gem of a game hits the stores, later this month:

And the announcement trailer:

That is all! Expect it, adore it, and check the credits!

What is the App Game Kit?

The Game Creators describe AGK as being “a one stop solution for making game apps for mobile devices“. I would describe it as a “lazy-man’s” way of getting things done. The simplicity of it all with the combined support offered by the TGC community makes AGK a must-have tool for anyone who wants to develop their own games and applications for Android, iOS, Meego, Samsung Bada and even Windows. It takes care of any low-level nuissances one may encounter, while giving you a green light to do what you want, especially if you go for Tier 2 (C++).

AGK is a great tool for beginners and advanced users, as it comes in two flavors:

- Tier 1: It is used to develop games in a basic-like environment, allowing the users to broadcast their apps from the IDE to their Smartphones and Tablets. The only downside of T1 is that you are limited to the set of commands (although they are many) that AGK gives you as you cannot use (yet) any other external libraries or SDK’s.

- Tier 2: Now, Tier 2 (sometimes referred to as “Native”) allows users to code their games and apps using any modern C/C++ compiler. It removes any restriction T1 might have, allowing the coder to use any library/SDK he would want, along side AGK. For example, I’m using T2 and OpenCV in order to replicate the functionality of the “Power-level scouter” from the “Dragon Ball Z” series.

How useful is AGK for a Designer?

I work as a Game Designer at Gameloft Romania and even though I do not use AGK at work, I use daily when prototyping games. The simplicity of it’s commands allows me to get a game from paper to my android device in a matter of hours, sometimes even less. For example, I got Unstable Battlefield working on my HTC Cha Cha in just 3 hours after posting the concept on my blog. I find this tool extremely useful hence It allows me to focus allot more on the design process rather the spending time trying to get it functional. It’s not magic, but it’s as close as you can get to, right now at least.

The App Game Kit is constantly updated with new features and platforms. When I first got it, Android was in the works, AGK allowing users to deploy only on Windows, iOS and Mac. Just a few months later I can now deploy to those platforms, as well as Android, Samsung Bada and Meego. But it doesn’t stop here, the wonderful guys behind The Game Creators, the company that develops AGK, promise to support Windows Phone 7, as well as deploying any AGK apps in the browser. Would I use AGK to develop a commercial iOS/Android app? Yes, I would. Many others did, as you can see here.

It’s time to end this post about AGK here, but not before promising that I will continue to post updates regarding it. So keep an eye on this blog as I’ll treturn with more information and how-to’s, as well as many games and examples.

Needless to say I’m still obsesed with them, trying to design games that revolve around them. I tried my hand at a turn based spaceship warfare game, a tic-tac-toe like game with warriors and dragons aswell as a 3D roguelike. There were many others, but they all remained in the concept stage, or on paper. Now, I plan to add another one to my portofolio, a two player, turn based game, named Unstable Battlefield. Bellow, you will find a simple “design document” explaining the mechanics and goals of the game, as well as some poorly drawn mockups.

Unstable Battlefield

A turn based, two player game (P vs AI, P vs P).
Each player has a combat vehicle (tank most likely).
Each player can either move or attack the other player in a turn.
Each vehicle can attack only 2 squares from their position front.

The battlefield is made out of a 12×8 squares. Each vehicle occupies only 1 square, and can move 1 square in 8 directions.

Once both players take their turn, a square is pseudo randomly selected (the square where the player is situated never get’s selected) and removed from the playing field. No player can place their vehicle in a removed square. The square to be destroyed is is highlighted during their turns. Both players know which square will blow up next.

Goal: Destroy the enemy vehicle. Each vehicle can sustain only one hit. Both players can choose to destroy a square in their turn (toggles the vehicle firing).

P1 attack area!

End game scenario: If a player has nowhere to go, he lost the game. If a player’s vehicle is destroyed, he lost the game.

Edit: It’s only a concept played on paper for now! I’ll try to make a playable PC version this weekend (after work). Stay tuned!

I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to
failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half of the things you do you might as well turn
over to me and I will do them – quickly and
correctly.

The poem above is called “The Habbit Poem” and it’s goal is to remind us how our habits take over our lives. Since I was little I learned to abuse certain skills I picked up along the road. I learned to lie when I could barely speak. Lying saved my ass in numerous occasions, but it also condemned it to a spanking in many others. In 80% of the cases we all lie about certain aspects in our lives, even though we manage to pull it off only in a few. Lying is a habit we all turn to from time to time. We lie to our Boss about certain tasks and activities, we lie to our pals to impress them, we lie to our parents about our lives without them, and we lie to ourselves in order to mask inner wounds. Lying is a habit we all know and love, hate and despise, yet never abandon completely. We do that without realizing it for a brief moment, and then we hide it with more lies. I’ll be frank, I lie constantly. When I take the tram, I pretend to be occupied with my cell phone, so that hot red chick in short skirt won’t notice me checking out her “groceries”. I do this because I want to avoid an necessary conversation between me and that red haired gal’s macho boyfriend. I like my skin unbruised. If he’d ask me why I find her posterior so attractive, I’d say it was her skirt I was checking out, since I’d like to buy one for my girl friend. And thus I covered the first simple lie, with another, of bigger proportions. Telling someone that I’m not single could probably save my skin from being redecorated with blue spots, but it would also put me in a mood of meditation about that subject. I’d get to work, still pondering about the subject and when asked why I’m not focusing on my tasks, I’d lie saying that I’m searching for a solution. Thus, I’d probably set in motion a series of events that would affect my entire day.

Lying is a habit, but not the only one. I’ve been with Gameloft for almost two years know, one of which I spent as a Game Designer. I learned allot of things about game design during this time. I picked up certain habits doing so. When a level, a map, an area which the player explores searching for enemies to kill, or items to loot, is planned, it all starts on paper. I draw it and latter on, I build it with the aid of simple boxes, which I scale, position and rotate. This method is called gray boxing. At first I designed levels with it, but lately, I found another usage for this technique. I solve problems with it. By removing the mesh of a box, I’m left only with it’s collision. It’s appearance is invisible to the player, yet he can interact with it, even though he doesn’t know it. I solved allot of bugs with it, by keeping the player from falling from the map in certain spots, blocking certain areas so he won’t reach it yet, or by creating an invisible force field, keeping him safe from harm at certain points. A useful trick, yet harmful when abused. The 3D artist working on my level doesn’t know about their existence. He notices the bug that causes the player to exit the map, by falling into space. He fixes it and submits a new version, while I’m busy adding new features or fixing existing bugs. That box, the invisible problem solver remains there, as well as 200 others. After a while, they add up, eating up memory space and forcing the FPS to drop.

A habit is a habit only because we allow it to be. We’re human beings, we like comfort, we like to solve problems the easiest way possible. We exist because of our habits and we influence our existence with them. By making a list of all our habits we can define our personality, at least in my case. Maybe it applies to you too. But let’s be honest, don’t we all have that one little habit that we hate? I do, and so do you. Are you smoker, do you like to drink coffee each morning? Do you sing while in the shower? Do you smile each time your see your loved ones? Do you check your Facebook profile every 3 minutes waiting for that one little person to get online, so that you could think of a way to grab her attention, even for gipy? Do you check your horoscope daily? All of this are habits. Some are harmless, some are not. We can learn to control them. Relinquishing them would be of no use. They are called habits for a reason, because they are useful in certain cases.

What if we could control them, what if we could become a better person by mastering our habits? Would it be so bad for once if I ever went up to that red head and her guard dog in order to compliment her? And then stare him down and finish things by saying that he shouldn’t be angry because people are acknowledging his girlfriend’s grace and beauty? This brings me back to the rest of the poem…

I am not a machine though
I work with the precision of a machine
plus the intelligence of a person.
You may run me for profit or run me for ruin -
it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and
I will place the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Our habits are our fictional tools. Tools that help us achieve our goals without putting much effort into it. Let’s all harness them. For one day, why not identify our bad habits and avoid them. For one day, let’s all be aware of our actions. Let’s seek our bad habits and for just 24 hours, avoid them. Who knows, maybe we can change the world in that short period of time.

“Deploy All” tries to be such a game. It’s aim/goal is to express my believes towards this kind of approach. What I’m trying to achieve is simple, once it is laid down: A game in which the player has to come up with new strategies in order to achieve his goal. “Deploy All” features (at this moment) a random generated world (of 2400+ tiles), 27 different enemies (in both appearance, and stats) and 2 base weapons (almost 16 including their variations – different color scheme, fire rate, damage and damage type). By the end of development, the game WILL feature 216 different types of enemies, 10 base weapons and a world of at least 3000 tiles.

The game’s premise is this: You are one pilot, out of 1000, sent to capture/disable/scout an enemy base. Each playthrough you will have to fight your way through enemy waves on a new and dark map. A new strategy is needed every time, hence the enemies differ not only in appearance, but also in stats. Right now, they only feature 3: Speed, Armor and Fire Power (more to come soon, maybe… maybe…).

As for the weapons, after each successful mission new ones will be added to your inventory. During the first run, the player will start the game with only a basic laser cannon. During each mission, he may encounter (if exploring will be the path he will embrace) random weapons either dropped by the enemies, or found in containers. After completing the mission, the said weapon will be added to his inventory, for use in latter missions.

Each weapon has an effect assigned to it, and by mixing two weapons of different effects, combos can be made, either deadly for the enemies, or for their wielder. But enough about this for now… I’ll just say this OUT LOUD: “Deploy All” is coming. My first commercial indie game (and by most treasured project up to date), will hit the stores somewhere in June.

And, a treat for those who read this far, who cared for my ramblings and my little announcement: A video footage of the game, showcasing the world (8 different textures), the player’s beloved ship, two weapons, a bit of motion blur, decals and the Ambiance Music, one of the 3 different ambiences, that can be heard while exploring.

P.s: Keep an eye on this blog. I plan on releasing information every few days from now on!

My entry is called Cyber Shield, and can be viewed and downloaded here (source included).

Progress Report 12 hours in

It seems that 12 hours have passed since the compo started. It’s time to look back on what I have accomplished in this 12 hours.

I’m going to start with a small description of what is going on in the game:

The game takes place in a vritual environment (tron-like grids). Both the player and his enemies are virtual bots, living in cyber space. The player’s goal is to collect the “Intelligence” briefcase, and send it to the drop off zone. You win points by scoring touchdowns (dropping the Intelligence in the designated area), you loose points if you get killed.

The enemies (baddies as I like to call them) are not hostile towards you at first, but become so when you steal their precious briefcase. In order to reach the drop zone, the player must push (while carrying the briefcase) through the enemy lines. Once the touchdown occurs, the briefcase is reset to it’s original position.

Think of it as a Top-Down Shooter meets Team Fortress 2 and American Football. Up till know I have the following things working:

• Player controls
• Collision and Gravity
• Enemy spawning and a shitty AI that starts to follow you when you pick up the briefcase
• Dropping and picking up the briefcase
• Player bullets (enemy bullets to be added soon)

Here’s a rough concept of the playing field:

Here’s a Screenshot:

Progress Report – 16 hours in

I’m back with a new post. 16 hours have passed since I started working on the game, and things are looking bright (hope it’s not cause I have industrial quantities of coffee in me right now). I managed to implement a basic AI system for the baddies, and I’m building upon it. Since my last progress reported the following changes have been made:

- In order to focus more on the scoring mechanics and gameplay, the player can no longer shoot at the enemies. Instead he must dodge, run, jump and avoid the entire swarm of baddies that charge gun-first towards him.

- Enemies now feature two AI mode: Idle and Hostile! If the player hasn’t pick up the Briefcase, the baddies will run around the arena, acting cute and minding their own business. When the player steals the briefcase and heads towards the Touchdown Area, the enemies enter the Hostile mode, which has them engage the player. Right now I’m working on splitting the enemies in two groups: Attackers and Defenders. Attackers are the baddies that charge towards the player, while Defenders maintain their position near the Touchdown Area firing at the player, defending that position.

- Got the HUD to work, both the HealthBar and the “Special” bar.

- Collision detection between the baddies! Now they bump into each other, turn around and mind their own business. (Only in Idle mode).

- I suck at 3D modeling and graphics, but I’m doing what I can. Right now I’ve added the Player and Baddies models (who are subject to change if I will have enough time left), which look like a low-poly cell-shaded version of R2D2 from Star Wars.

Here are a couple of new screen shots, and a video showcasing the Idle-ing robots.

Progress Report 20 hours in

Ok, 20 hours have passed like a breeze. I’ve kept myself busy, coding and doing my best to create 3D models that can be identified with ease! Got most of the Core Mechanics working quite well. I now need to polish them and focus on Level Design and media (textures, models, music). This is a full list of features that have been added today:

• Collision
• Player and Camera controls (1st person, 3rd person, top-down – although top-down is what I am going to use)
• Bullet handling for the Enemies
• Enemy AI. There are two types of enemies, Attackers and Defenders. The Attackers will engage the Player gun-first, while defenders will rush towards the TouchDown zone, in order to defend it.
• Switching between levels.
• HUD (Health Bar, Special Bar/Stamina Bar)

I’m happy with my progress today, managed to do most of the things that I had planed. Gonna take a quick nap (2-3h maximum) and then I’m back to adding the rest of the features, and polishing the game.

As a bonus, here’s my Timelapse video. Hope you guys like it.

Progress Report – 32 hours in

Thinks are starting to tie up together, now that I also finished adding the Shield Mechanic for the player. Now, besides being able to dash for a limited amount of time, our little lonely-protagonist can spawn a shield that protects him from evil bullets, and also tosses baddies aside!

The AI has also been improved, Attackers now have a FieldOfView distance. They only engage the player if they spot him, so good bye having a huge swarm of enemies behind the player. This also allows better tactics in the game, as enemies are now evenly spread through the field.

Here’s a small video showcasing the shield:

Progress Report – 38 hours in

Ok, all basic mechanics are in place. I’ve decided to remove a few stuff in the end, but it’s for the better. The shield mechanic is now in place and it is the main attraction as o now. Dashing and Shielding are now separated (Shift – Dash, Space – Shield) from one another for better control over the character. The Main Menu is in place, although it lacks a Background. I’ve also finished the 1st level (easy), with 8 pits that warmly wait for the enemies to fall into them.

Death cam and Victory cam have been added (camera zooms in on the player, and rotates). Gonna add a special kind of mood to both cams (dark/grey for death, something else for victory).

I’m going to spend the next 4 hours adding more visual goodies (blur for dash, slow-mo camera when enemies fall into pit, a damage overlay for the player). After that I will try my best with sound and music. Time to get back to work, hence not much time is left, and more is needed to be done.

Here’s a Screenshot of the Main Menu:

And here’s the shield animation:

Last Progress Report – 46 hours and Release

My entry for LD22 has been completed and uploaded. Tomorrow I’ll make a full Post Mortem containing a Game Design Document, and my thoughts on what went right, wrong and what could have been done to improve it further. For now, all I can say is the following:

1. I’m proud of my entry. During the past 48 hours the game has gone through allot of design changes. What first started as an FPS, soon became a morph between a Top-down shooter with a capture the flag (briefcase) mode, with American Football elements (such as Touchdown). Only during my second day did I realize that the game was by no mean fun when chased down by an entire team. Writing AI for the team mates was a no-no due to the short amount of time left, so I scraped the basic mechanics and came up with a new one.
2. I’m happy with the current gameplay mechanic. Using a defensive weapon for offense is something not many games tackled, or at least no any that I know off. In this prototype I tackled two ways of using the shield, one in which the player acts a bulldozer, pushing his enemies into pits, and another where the shield is used to deflect bullets towards his attackers.
3. I’m not much of an artist but I feel that the current art style is decent.
4. I’m happy with the amount of features this game contains (although not all are used now). In just 48 hours I managed to integrate a TDS camera (with an alternate FPS version, currently locked), collision, AI (when the prototype was meant as a Capture the Flag game, I implemented two types of behaviour for the enemies: Attackers and defenders. The Attackers charged towards the player if he was near them, while defenders rushed to the touch down zone, forming a human/robot shield) and basic physics.

As I said before, a Post Mortem will arrive soon, in which I will explain how I have arrived to this current gameplay mechanics, what I had to scrap and why. Till then, I’ll leave you guys with today’s Timelapse, and a bunch of screenshoots.

• Screenshot 1 (Main Menu)
• Screenshot 2 (Asian Mode)
• Screenshot 3 (Normal Mode)

Download Cyber Shield.

Constant Distraction Drummer was a major success by my reckoning, as it was completed in time (3h 20m), with a few minutes left to spare for packaging and writing this postmortem.

Things go like this: You have acquired a set of drums, which your brother hates. He threatened to brake them after his soap-opera was over. So the drummer hired a ninja-assassin to kill his brother. The goal is to annoy your brother and distract his attention so that the ninja could enter the house and drop the Big-screen TV on him. You play the drums using keys 1 – 3. The level of annoyance is represented by an Annoy-O-Meeter, in the upper right corner of the screen. Once the Annoy-o-meeter is full, the ninja enters the house and can be controlled using the MOUSE, while continuing to bash the drums. Once in, the ninja must pick up the TV (by clicking when over it), and dropping it on the annoyed fellow.

What went right

As soon as I picked the theme I knew what I wanted to do. It took me less then 10 minutes to write the idea on paper, including details about the characters and sprite animations. I must be honest, I had to cut-down a few things in order to make the deadline, but overall it was a straight-forward development process, something I consider to be a “major WIN”, hence most of my projects get dropped due to the high number of features that need to be implemented.

It was a good idea to plan everything before opening Visual Studio, including making the assets first. Since it was a 2D Game, I first created a fake “screenshot” of how the game should look. Once I finished it, I exported all the assets, and opened up Visual Studio. The fact that I already knew all about the libraries I used allowed me to develop a prototype in the first 30 minutes, and then build upon it.

What went wrong

It was a bad idea to search for drum sounds near the end, hence adding sounds in a hurry kinda broke the code. And because this was a small challenge, I didn’t backup anything, so even though I meet the deadline I have two bugs that kinda brake the gameplay, when it comes to playing the drums. There were a couple of features I wanted to add, but had to cut due to time constraints(for example, dialogue between the drummer and his brother).

Conclusion

All in all, I’m happy that I could finish it in 4 hours, which was my goal. It’s a boring game filled with bugs, but it’s a completed game.

Here’s the Time-Lapse:

Download: Link

Source: Link

The drum sounds where acquired from here, and are royalty free.

At first I thought that I follow the reharsels in order to bounce ideas for my projects, or as an inspiration for work, but the truth is that I enjoy watching those people because, somehow, it reminds me of, well, myself back in the day when I used to host events in front of alot of people, something that I haven’t done in more then a year. Truth be told, I feel like that part of me which exploded with joy when it came to be in the spotlight, died when I joined Gameloft, one year ago. My guess is that I focused to much on achieving my dream of becoming a Game Designer, while my other passions and hobbies got tossed aside. Many changes have been noticed during my daily activity, including my current inability to come up with out-of-the-ordinary actions and shocking ideas. It may be because I feel constantly shadowed by my work collegues, who, are indeed , a bunch of high quality people with great achievements, people who I actualy look up to and respect. It’s something natural I guess, but I find my knowledge and inspiration capped, limited, and the single thought that my ideas would turn out to be bad kills me. I know that If I where in this possition two years ago, I’d shock everybody, but right now, I only manage to amaze myself with my stupidity.

I look back today on my past achievements. Not long ago, I won the BIG FEST trophy for the best on-stage monologue and presentation, where, in front of an audiance of 200 people, I managed to bring tears into their eyes only to make them laugh seconds after. I remember when I received the Copernic Award (one of the biggest awards at that event) during a IT contest, where my improvisations skills saved my “arse” from a mountain of flaws and errors my project had. Heck, I even got 1st place in a regional contest (with a class mate) for managing to “sell” a car condom that protected the pedestrians from a deadly impact. I remember writting poems and epic stories, working on games based on simple mechanics that turned out great because of their simplicity, I remember laughing at just about anything, and cheering people up by enganging in simple conversations. All of this things I could do with so much ease seem so hard right now that it’s mind boggling. And I ask myself, why? What has changed in this past year that turned my world around so much?

I regret not the hours spent at work, I actually look forward to them, I look forward to boosting my professional career and rising up the ladder. My only wish is to find a way to balance my huge passion with my hobbies. And I hope I will find it soon, or else, I’ll cease to be myself…