#migw16

[enameledkoi]

My talk on Significance in your work from #gcap16 #migw16 is online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKaukjn_zhQ #bekind (at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC))

[enameledkoi]

Someone was really glad to see me when I got back from #migw16 #beaglesofinstagram #love

[strangeskeletonboy]

Part one: A shadow stretches across the deck

I guess this is the beginning. I’m writing it here because it’s not that no one will read it but sometimes the things I say here slip through the cracks. It’s not that I don’t want to vulnerable in front of people or about my experiences, but sometimes I just want to share all of that with the void, because I know that it’s response will be a very impassive and non-verbal “Cool…” I guess I like the reminder that my experiences and achievements are big to me, but I’m tiny. It’s the same reason why I like VR games in space; I feel like a celestial mote of dust, and it’s relieving that a dust particle can accomplish something, or nothing too.

Ahh, always good to start off with some vague sentimentality about being humbled by simple experiences. Expect this to be punctuated by more sentences and paragraphs like that.

That’s a pretty appropriate introduction, I reckon? It covers something, or at least my need to overthink. Starting this is still not simple, as about a month ago I began stressing quite significantly, so the period of time I’m trying to recount feels more like a disjointed dream. I was getting pretty antsy at work over a few things; my boss, staff/friends letting us down or forcing us to be the bad guys by needing to growl at them, and then having Melbourne International Games Week (yay!), Summer (less yay but yay-ish), and Spring Racing Carnival (👎🖕👋) all beginning or about to begin. It was too many things and each of them have a different relationship and magnitude of importance to me. So I naturally worked myself up a great deal, and cried a few times, and at work at one point too. I managed to work myself so much so, that I thought it was already November and that it was my father’s birthday and that is legitimately DADCON 2 in my universe. It was yuck, but the world didn’t end, and I was shocked. Lots of people said they loved me, and were thinking of me and I felt incredibly blessed and fortified.

I’ve been having some issues with my living situation the last few years, and they’ve finally started to resolve themselves, for better or worse. It was approaching critical mass just as everything in the last month started to heat up. The entropy of my personal universe was reaching the danger zone.

Then the boss went away after our staff meeting where we implied we’re going to get tougher in summer because we need the ship to sail flawlessly. That was nearly a catastrophe, and currently it still has a chance to go that way but I guess that’s a story for another time. What did happen though was the sun came out and so did every idiot in Melbourne. I sound like such a misanthrope and I don’t mean to generalise but in hospitality nearly everyone is awful, except for those who prove you wrong. We were understaffed and I had a protest group using a projector to shine a morbid anti-horse racing documentary on to our business. While I was trying to solve that, my poor staff were getting harassed by race goers downstairs. The protest thing was tough, especially as I hate the industry at least as much as they do and agreed with the message, but the business had nothing to do with it and shock tactics aren’t how you solve it. It’s ingrained in our politics at this point. I asked them to politely go, as their projection was on our business but they wouldn’t budge as apparently projected imagery isn’t graffiti and is therefore legal? They said call the cops, so I did, because there were bigger issues happening. By the end of that night I legitimately felt like garbage. It took me nearly two hours to cash up. I barely kept things afloat at work, and spent so much of the night asking people to do simple jobs that were being avoided. I felt like such an asshole. I believe the words I spoke were “Sometimes I feel like I’m absolutely useless at this job and I don’t know if I want to do this anymore. I shouldn’t be in charge of people.” I needed a massive sleep, so I got a chocolate milk and laid down forever.

Somehow forever was only 2 days and then GCAP started.

Something I’ve been neglecting to discuss has been that I started seeing someone again. An old flame if you will? Nah that’s dumb, let’s be real. An old friend, that I hurt significantly while being an emotional baby a number of years ago. She put a lot of effort, both physically and emotionally, into supporting me and all I did was push her away. To be fair, I pushed nearly everyone away when things got tough, and I’m aware now that when things are like that I need to include people and open up to them about the goings on in my life. In fact, I’ve even done it a few times, and I’m feeling more equipped to deal with things than I ever have before. The fact that I survived Games Week without a meltdown is somewhat proof. Anyway, I did bad and one of the last things I remember them saying was “I don’t want to see you around again”. At the time I was in such a bad place that I accepted those words as a normal reaction to my behaviour, which they were, but I should have been upset and I wasn’t. The healthier I became mentally over the next few years, the more upset I became by a number of things I did wrong. I think I felt appropriately guilty, I still do feel that way at least somewhat. Not all wounds can heal, and sometimes you have to make peace with that. Though, in this situation, that doesn’t seem to be the case. A reconciliation was made, and I’ve taken the first steps in righting a wrong. It’s an excellent thing, and excellent things have happened because of it, but the kicker is that none of it was really supposed to happen, it just sort of did.

Part 2 is on the way, the GCAP relevant parts, I just had to get this off my chest first.

[strangeskeletonboy]

A prelude of sorts.

What even is public transport? Also trump wtf? Also jacko liked my gift lots (Naughty Dog concept art book - I'm very proud of it) and that's all I need. Time moves slow in this universe. Seriously every new stop on my line is some sort of Faraday cage or signal dead spot. Or maybe my phone is cooked? I attempted to write a review of the last week and a bit of my life, but in doing so I found out last week began nearly 4 weeks ago. I still haven't quite settled on how to begin, so this isn't the beginning. I guess this is the Prelude? I have a few crumbs from a paper trail of events and experiences, and there's a few cards and numbers I need to chase up, either to say sorry to, or to offer my services. This is going to be an immense write up of some entirely too personal and professional things that happened in my life. This is going to be an awkward story to put properly, so here's hoping my writing skills have improved significantly. The last month has been a serious test of my mental fortitude. And I think the closed Beta test was a minor success. *there was some great feedback too; changes will be made before final deployment. There's still a few significant bugs in the social algorithms, and the lexicon needs to be updated to the full library. On a brighter side; previous inputs that caused fatal system crashes during the Alpha seem to work flawlessly, and I'm rather proud of that. I've missed them.

[lachlanmorrowgamedesign-blog]

#MIGW - Unite & GCAP

The end of year project is on a kind of pause this week (at least for me) as I spent the week at Unite and GCAP, with PAX coming up over the next three days.

Both Unite and GCAP were tiring but incredible experiences. I learned so much about the industry from the fantastic talks and met a lot of awesome people. I could go into a lot more detail, but I’ll probably end up making a big post after PAX going into detail about all of the events as a whole.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to PAX!

[adventureswithtime]

Looking at inspiration videos for transitioning our characters form the real world into the fantastical garden world. 

International games week is also very soon - there is so much on I have the events postcard to remind me of all the dates! :D