Falling in line with others I've decided to do a wrap up of my year.
Jan - Came back from holidays to IZ to find - well, not much to come back to. Thus began the year of meandering. Also found that my Skeleton Pack was no longer on the Garage Games website because they changed the requirement for all packs to work in TGEA and above, so I created this
PLAN. I have since learned that Torque 3D supports Collada so update 1.4 as part of my plan is not required (still haven't finished this).
Feb - Started a course in Microsoft Sharepoint to get my MCTS quals (not completed yet). Started teaching an afternoon class in Python with B-Rad at TAFE as part of an association with IZ and TAFE.
Apr - My birthday - got a Wii! Starting thinking about motion tracking games, also picked up another class at TAFE on Wednesdays teaching students traditional programming OO concepts but also applying to the super-fun subject of XNA programming.
July - Picked up more classes at TAFE, still working at IZ, started learning about iPhone dev to begin Surf Prodigy, XCode and picked up a contract programming job to make another iPhone game as well. So let's see, this is about where I was working 4 jobs, finishing at 3am the next day and was getting 4 hours sleep. This lasted until August.
Aug - Released Surf Prodigy for the iPhone, and it was not enough for me, apparently, as I picked up another job - making graphics for Simon's 3d simulation project "Hermes" in conjunction with BHP and Subversive Games.
Sep - Went on a field trip for BHP for site photography, and on entry to the first location we were asked to do what I thought she said "DNA test" - I was thinking "Jesus, so if I get blown to pieces on site they can identify my fragmented remains??? - she actually said D & A test - ahhh.
Oct - Good sales for the Surfing game which went on to get 3000 customers by the end of the year. Note at this point Sharepoint training not continuing, still working for BHP, TAFE, IZ, Hibana and DrewFX. Around this time I suspended my employment with IZ because I was just too tired!
Nov - Students produced TAFE's first ever XBox game demo for exhibition. Me proud as punch - students, ready to party. Hibana game complete.
Dec - Began wrapping up 1.2 update for Surf Prodigy (boy I wanna move onto the next game) , finished at TAFE until next year, BHP job complete - time to relax. By oh gnoes - started prepping for TAFE next year.
So all in all, a very busy year, made a bit of cash, released 2 games, and helped build a mining simulation, and got way better at surfing IRL.
Outlook for 2010 - make crazy cash in games for XBox, PC and iPhone, finish MCTS, Dip Ed and teach students the value of study - or at least teach them to not aim for the least amount of work required.
Wish list - make a mil on a game, go snowboarding, see Europe.
