Thoughts

I am not entirely sure what compelled me to write a blog.

I've not even been here for very long. I popped into the forums, finding the Game Ideas most to my liking. Seeing new ideas spring forth from the fertile minds of those here at GG, those wiser and far worthier than I, from whom I may glean some tidbit of information, some nugget of golden advice or insight, that I might put into use in my own experiences.

So what exactly am I doing here? I am observing. I am not as active in the community, perhaps, as I would like, but when an interesting topic reveals itself, such as a mixed-genre game concept, I try to find the time to share any ideas I have, for that is what I have: ideas. I have always been an "idea" person, forming concepts and characters and story ideas, not always developing them to full fruition and choosing, instead, to abandon the project and find something else. That seems to be a habit of mine - pick something up, learn what I can, and leave it behind just as quickly.

For example, I took a computer class last semester [I am only a Junior in High School] in which I took my first stab at learning music production. I took on the program called Fruity Loops, and learned what I could. Got a sense for sequencing beats, a brief view of the piano roll helped visualize the song layout. However, before I made anything particularly noteworthy, I moved on to Garageband, where I experimented and quickly taught myself sheet music using the sheet music editor in GB. I took something that already existed - in this case, the main theme from the Metal Gear Solid franchise - and recreated it by hand, note for note through the notation editor. A long and redundant task, it taught me how music fits together with time. I then tweaked the song to my own liking, and made something of an arrangement of it using a Symphony Jam Pack, dubbing my creation - Metal Gear Symphonic. I contemplated working on another project in GB, but I got what I wanted, and moved on.

So I guess I'll get back to the point.

Except that there isn't much of a point, just a idle train of thought, rolling along its track.

I'm a writer, if you can't tell from my meandering wander of speech and my precision for accuracy in spelling, though I have been known to let official grammar rules slack for what sounds better to me. I am currently developing the history and geography of a planet for use in my own science fiction novel entitled "Ally". Most of it is currently in mental development, as I have a wide array of characters but only a few meager pages I call a beginning. Again, I'm a man of ideas. I do not particularly like writing, I like having written something I can look back on.

I hope to be able to find some work before I graduate as a writer, or editor of a plot, or something along those literary lines. I do find myself almost constantly finding ways to better work that I find, whether it be why this author should have used a different point of view character, or this game should have killed that character.

I'm also for making everything a tool for something else. I rarely do things just for kicks, almost everything has a meaning or a purpose. So, for example, I will soon be finding the time to write up a variety of different writing samples, which I can submit to any employers with a writer's position open. However, everything is a tool. These won't be idle samples, I will be using these to develop certain ideas or plot twists or even writing styles that may benefit the evolution of Ally. Maybe I want to write a dialogue tree, an outline of possible conversations between two characters for an RPG. It won't be just any dialogue, any characters. Instead it would be a possible conversation between two of my characters, so that through the course of the sample I can explore, for my own purposes, the various potential directions a conversation could take.

So now my thoughts turn to school, more specifically the time after. Pondering the many different paths along the education tree I could take. Do I go to a fancy, advertised "game design" school, spend a lot of many and hope I can make the rights contacts, get the right training or education that I can use? Do I stay here, living in college town Eugene, Oregon and go to LCC or University of Oregon, and get a degree in whatever I want, for the sake of having a degree to show a potential employer, proving myself worthy through my own abilities and experiences, not some piece of paper that says I'm good enough? Or do I strike out on my own, leaving the road of schooling to be walked by those with more money, and find myself a niche, or try to luck out and find myself a position I can get hired onto purely on my merit alone? Unlikely. I want to go to school, if not for more than the experience of it. My thinking is that I'll go to game school, instead of film school.

You see, both fields interest me equally, since my passion is not the technical development of games but the pure essence of storytelling. However, between programming, level design, and the like, there seems to be to be a more technical side to game development that I wouldn't get were I to pursue a scholarly education in film. However, there are more fields in game development that would overlap with films, such as character animation or environment artist. So I think I will pursue the one, and try to break into the other. I also firmly believe that the lines between these two industries, already becoming blurred, will eventually fade almost entirely, and make it easier to go from one to the other, all the while maintaining my writing on the side.

Well, I think I have effectively rambled on long enough for anyone who has so much time on their hands that they would sit and carve their way through a frivolous and ultimately superfluous blog. However, in my defense the provided description for a blog here contains "a soapbox from which to disseminate your views and opinions". I assume I leave few people for whom my views have not been properly disseminated. I do thank anyone who has taken the time to read this, as few of you as there may be, for your time and consideration. I hope to meet with some of you and get to know you better. In the meantime, this particular rant has sparked an idea for one of my planet's nation's capitals, and I must depart so that I may develop this vein of thought.

-Kouga