I'm finally out of the Extended Stay Hotel, and am working from home this week, as well as trying to get a new job lined up. Oddly enough, it feels like I'm completely preoccupied now, even though I know, mathmatically speaking, that I have more free time. I think it's because with the melding of my work space and private space, there's no clear line between "work time" and "free time".

Like, I do some work at 9am, and some work at 9pm, and have bouts of goofing off in the middle. I get my stuff done in spurts, rather than being "at work" for 8 solid hours. I think this is something I'm going to have to sort out if I want to get any creative stuff done.

Right now, my creative endeavors are pretty much downloading different types of game systems. I got a hold of Radiant and Game Maker, which are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of what types of games they make, but I figure I need to diversify if I want to make myself totally marketable. I haven't run into an SDK I can't figure out how to use yet.

I started playing that Professor Layton game, and damn if they didn't take the whole integrate-your-puzzles-into-the-narrative thing and run with it. Well, that's what I get for taking just about 3 years now to work on this Pythagoras game. They've even got an exchanging coins for hints systems like... well, like I was planning on using. I suppose my hook is that the puzzles are actually part of the environment, and not the whole "Hey how's it going dude, solve this puzzle for me and I'll tell you what you want to know" variety.

Here's an example, in the puzzle below, P has got to rotate the bends in this aqueduct to guide the water towards the bottom. Rotating each of the valves rotates four of the nine bends, in each of their respective quadrants, the upper-left valve rotates the upper-left four bends, and so forth. Theoretically you could solve it just by looking at it, but it's more satisfying to actually spin the valves and do it in-game.


Of course, since I'm doing this with an engine that's built for RPG games, It's kind of a one-off hard-scripted scenario, so it takes for-freaking ever. Oh yeah, plus I have a day job. So eat it Professor Layton. Damn good game though.

Well, today for some reason the wireless is going respectably speedy., at least with most sites. Probably one of the tenants was downloading huge files or something. I wonder how they divide up the bandwidth?

Anyhow, yesterday I spent my 15 minutes on dull portfolio updates, since I'm trying to re-establish an online resume. Yesterday I worked a little bit on music, which was pretty much just adjusting levels and extending some parts of the song I thought wrapped up too quickly.

Usually with music I'm loathe to repeat the same phrase more than once in a song but then things end up being only 2 minutes long, and covering 3 or 4 different musical styles. I'm trying to be more comfortable with sticking with a phrase for a while or more than once. It doesn't always have to deliver something new all the time. I shouldn't assume my audience's attention span is as short as my own.