Progress

Sprites: Done!

Script: Done!

Backgrounds: 2/2 Complete (maybe)

Coding: Not yet complete, but surpassed the greatest problem so far

Music: Should be fine, just need to track it all down

CGs?: 0/2

Crime Inc.

My addiction started as all addictions do. It was a fun, innocent diversion. Something that friends introduced me to. We would get together on the weekends and while away the time, doing nothing in particular, until someone would say ' Let's go to the arcade!' Like well trained soldiers, we would march towards that magical place where a young man could lose himself for an entire day.

 A Never Never Land of flashing lights blaring sounds and garish colors all blended together with the faceless huddled masses that were crowded around each machine. Like royalty, the game masters, those that consistently placed in the top 10 of high scorers would hold court as the hustlers wannabes and fool sycophants stood close by to bask in the greatness and perhaps to glean some secret that would propel them to the same lofty heights or at the very least, take over an abandoned game that one of the masters grew tired of.

What started out as a minor diversion on weekends became an all consuming daily passion.

Sacrificing my piggy back to get to the shiny coins inside I soon realized that I just didn't have enough money. I had to feed my addiction so I did what any other junky would have done. I stole.

I stole from my siblings piggy banks. I stole from the comic book store, sold the comics and used the money to play more games. I, even, stole money from my mother's purse. I was shameless and I was good. I never got caught I never slipped up. I took just enough so that none would know, or at the very least, they would know that something was different. Something was out of place. Something was amiss but they couldn't quite put their finger on what it was. As a 10 year old, I was improving my skill at video games and my skill at thievery. Such was my sickness that I didn't stop until two years later when I got my first official job as a  paperboy.

Once I realized the hard work that went into making a dollar I stopped and never went back to my life of crime.

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Whistle while you work

For anyone that has ever created a game there is a section between unrestrained exuberance at the start of a project and the satisfying exhalation that comes  at the end of a project when you step back and survey all that you have accomplished. This "Middle Time" seems, somewhat, like the burden that Sisyphus was tasked with.  

In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king of Ephyra. He was punished by having to roll a boulder up a hill forever for his crimes. This is a time in the project when your life seems like that of Sisyphus and all you see in front of you is work with no end in site. That time is, usually, referred to as The Grind but I've come to know it as one of the seven circles of hell. Toiling away in my workspace, the endless amount of small details that go into the quality game that I am assembling can seem to stretch on with no end. One must, truly, hate oneself to put themselves through something like this without being coerced but I can't seem to stop myself. Not only am I drawn to work on this game but I have so many ideas that want to come out that it sometimes feels like the pressure will make my head explode. All of my game ideas are fighting for my attention and jockeying for position in the pantheon of creations. They all want to come out at once but it's my job to hold them at bay like a Lion Tamer directing the actions of the lions that only cooperates because they still haven't realized that the Lion Tamer is, quite, fragile.

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