Post Digital GDC

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have been doing well. These past few weeks have been really busy for me and have kept me active. Two weeks ago, I served as a Conference Associate at GDC (Game Developer’s Conference). I was also able to spend the last week working on finishing various projects, including a short project that I started at GDC. I made this short project in Twine as part of a writing exercise. It was a lot of fun to be a part of this exercise. I love seeing how different writers work and discussing their techniques is a lot of fun. This week I was also able to continue my run through of Curse of Strahd. The players all seemed to have a lot of fun last week so I’m looking forward to our next session. We’ll be doing one of my favorite aspects of the campaign in the next session.

GDC this year was a lot of fun. It was all online this year which meant my job was all about monitoring chats and zoom calls. This was also the first year that I was able to do the job of a floater. At a normal GDC floaters monitor and check in on other CA’s. This is to help make sure that they have everything they need and if things get too uncomfortable, they have someone to get help. In the digital format the floater served in this way still, but it was much easier. We were able to have multiple windows open at once allowing us to monitor the sessions directly. It was also nice to be back at GDC with the other Conference Associates, even if it wasn’t in person. It was a blast to just talk with them and play some games together. I look forward to the next GDC.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have a wonderful week and that I have some exciting news soon.

Moving Forward

Hello everybody!

I hope this past week has been good for all of you. My week was very busy. I’ve been making progress with job hunting. This week was also a good week for me to expand my skill set. I spent a good amount of time on learning code. Currently my lessons have me learning Java which has been interesting so far. I still have a lot to learn, but I’m looking forward to it. The rest of my week was spent on working on my portfolio. I’m currently working on a new Twine game so hopefully I can put these coding skills to work.

This weekend was also really busy. On Saturday, I hosted a movie night. It’s the first event I’ve hosted in a long time, and it was a lot of fun. It took a lot of work though to get it set up. We had to clean up around the house and do a lot of yard work, but once it was all done it was really nice. While the movie night itself had some hiccups, ultimately, we had a good time. For Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day. That was a lot of fun and we ended up going to a restaurant named Crab Pot in downtown Seattle. It was lovely to spend time with my dad and celebrate Father’s Day with the family at a restaurant we love. While it might not have been the perfect day, we had some good times.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a wonderful week and I hope that I’ll have some exciting news next week.

A Good Work Life Balance

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all have had a good week; my week went fairly well. During the week I had to figure out more of my balance between work, hobbies, and relaxing. Work takes up so much of my time that it can be difficult to find much time for anything else. Even on the weekends my days will get filled with different things for me to work on. I’ve been printing and painting miniatures, working on stories, doing chores, etc. This makes it difficult to find time to just relax. I’ve been managing to keep to my goal so far though. The only thing I haven’t made much progress on is getting my license. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to get out and practice driving. Hopefully, I’ll get back into the swing of driving and then take the test so I can get a car. Then maybe I’ll have more time to perfect the balance.

One of the most important things that anyone can do is have a good work life balance, at least in my opinion. You should never let work become your life as I think it can cause resentment and unhappiness. If you do let work become your life, I think it will also cause your productivity and effectiveness to drop at work. That’s why the balance is important. You need that time to relax and step away from work. You need a hobby or two outside of work. To be your best self you need to be able to spend time with friends and family. These better your life and work so much. On different projects I’ve struggled with the balance and found if I focused too much on one the other aspects of my life suffered. There are days where your motivation for a project spikes and that’s good. Those are the days where you can make the most progress on that project and I think that when your work life balance is good you have more moments like that.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and that I have something fun to talk about.

Returning to Work and the Importance of Soft Skills

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all had a good week, mine was pretty good. It was nice to be back at work and get caught up on what I missed. It was interesting as well to hear how many people had also missed work. My supervisor was out sick for the week as well. Then it seems a lot of my other coworkers were out too. Work has been interesting and it’s fun to see the different impacts people have on the environment they are in. I have coworkers that when they are gone it can cause other people to ask less questions. I have coworkers that are good at keeping moral up. I have become someone that is a go to for certain tasks and making jokes. Several coworkers were debating on who’s better with meme’s myself or the shift lead. It was pretty funny to hear how they were discussing it and the points that they were bringing up, sadly, I left before I heard their decision.

That is why soft skills are so important. In school I learned how important it was to make yourself integral to the team you are on. I also spent time working in public facing jobs where I got to build my soft skills. Those skills are so important in every way. They’ve helped me greatly on every project I’ve worked on. The soft skills have helped in management, working with the public, and making mistakes. Hard skills are easy to learn, but soft skills have to be built in time. All of the soft skills I have learned came from working and learning. In school I learned the importance of critique, feedback, changing, listening, and how to enjoy the process. With work as tour guide and intern to now I’ve learned how important it is to ask questions, communicate, help others even if it’s not your specific job, how to teach, and how to follow directions. If you struggle with soft skills a good place to start is to learn how to listen and take feedback, then learn how to communicate and ask questions. These are key factors to the success of any creator and any job.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I hope to have something fun to tell you next week.

Thanksgiving week and Geek Craft

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a great week. If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a good Thanksgiving with your family or friends. If you weren’t able to be with those you love, then I hope that your Thanksgiving still went well. My week was a lot of fun. I had two days off of work so that was very nice. I had two Thanksgiving celebrations as well. It was fun to spend time with my family and eat really good food. Speaking of good food, the creamsicle cake I made with my mom was really good. It did have a little bit of that cheesecake taste to it and the cake part was super dense. I really liked it though and might have to make it again in the future.

This weekend we also went to a geek craft fair. The fair is always a lot of fun to go to and explore. I’ve found all sorts of fun creations there. I wish I had more money to spend so that I could get some of the cool stuff I’ve seen there. They have some amazing craftsman come out. Some of my favorites are the carpenters, 3D printers, and painters. There was a gentleman there running a booth for paintings that he’ll add nerdy content to, and he had and original print on sail for a $1000 that I really wanted to get. There were also some amazingly crafted Dungeons & Dragons Accessories. Currently so much of that stuff is just out of my budget, but someday I’ll hopefully be making more money and can afford to buy stuff like that and support these artists, but first I need to move to my own home.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a great week and I hope to have some good stories next week.

The Week before Thanksgiving

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week was pretty normal and nothing super exciting happened. Work went well and I got jump around a bit more. I’ve also been helping out my manager more with various tasks and planning. It’s been nice to get back into a bit more of that role. I always loved doing that in BTS and Daily tours. Hopefully, I can help out more and learn more about that role. It’ll be interesting to see how the job changes as we get into winter. The snow will make it hard for me to get to work and I’ll probably be forced to miss work. I like to see how work is changing and progressing.

I’m also excited as I should be able to start working on personal projects more next week. This upcoming week is going to be a lot more fun. I have concepts I want to start working on and Thanksgiving celebrations. For one of my family Thanksgiving events I’ll be making a pseudo-ice cream cake. It’s a creamsicle cake that I found the recipe on Facebook. It should be a lot of fun to try and make this cake. I think it’ll be really good, but I’m a little worried it’ll be like a cheesecake. It calls for cream cheese which might make it more like a cheesecake and I’m not a fan of cheesecake. I’m still excited to make it and try it though.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week, and I look forward to letting you know about how the cake goes.

Packed Week of New Experiences

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week was pretty exciting and fun. Work went amazingly well also. I’ve learned a lot and will only continue to learn more. This week was also the week of Disney+ being released. So far, I’ve really enjoyed the service, but it does have some quirks that are annoying. The watch list you make for yourself is hidden away, but the download function is very useful. However, the smart download function is seemingly not functional. I will say it’s allowed me to find a bunch of old Disney products and more I haven’t seen before, or in a long time. The new content I’ve seen is also very good. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying The Mandalorian while The World According to Jeff Goldblum is a silly informative show. I’m excited to see how the service develops and grows.

Friday was also a lot of fun because I had two things going on. I was invited by a friend out to 343 Industries for a tour. It was a lot of fun to chat with her and explore the common areas of the office. Halo was one of my biggest inspirations for getting into the gaming industry. It was really cool to see all of the memorabilia they had set up. The other exciting thing that happened on Friday was the new Pokémon game was released. I’ve been playing the game a lot and they’ve added a lot of great ways to play with friends. The raid system and online features of the game are great. I’m excited to explore the game more and see what else I can find. I’m still figuring out my team as well, but it’s been good. I’m loving the game so far.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a great week and I hope to have more to talk about next week.

Beginner D&D and Family in Town

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all had a good week. My week was pretty easy and nice. Work went pretty easy and I’ve been able to figure out a good route to take to take home. This new route sometimes helps me get home at least a half hour earlier than my normal route. I also had a half day on Friday as the lab had been closed in the morning. It was nice to just hang out with my coworkers a bit and chat. Then the second half of the day was fairly easy and chill, at least for me. Earlier in the week my Grandpa from Texas came up to visit and hangout with us, so on Tuesday I went to my Dad’s house to have dinner with them. There were a lot of people there that I hadn’t seen in a long time, so I had fun chatting with them and getting caught up with them. I sadly didn’t chat with my Grandpa much, but he seemed busy chatting with everyone else. It was still nice to see him and eat food he had spent so much time on.

This weekend I also had a little tutorial session in D&D for a player that had never played before. It was kind of interesting to plan out. I’m happy I had come up with some backup plans as well as people had cancelled on us. The interesting part for me as well was I had to figure out a simple thing that would teach the basics as well as be entertaining. I think it came out well and the player at least now has the basics down. I had also made to guides for them as they are a level 1 Warlock and it would be difficult for them to kind of learn the basics without having someone with them. My main goals were to teach them combat and exploration. They learned the basics of combat with some of the fights I had set up, this included a pseudo-boss battle. The exploration aspect was given by the secrets and traps I had left hidden around including: Hidden doors, traps, and loot. The third important aspect that they would learn is communication. This one I didn’t have a lot of, but I still gave them opportunities to learn through communicating with their foes. In future they’ll have to rely more on it, but for now it wasn’t a big thing I need to teach.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and that I have some good stories to share.

Busy Halloween Week

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good two weeks. I apologize for not posting last week but I was very busy. I got to spend a lot of time with my Aunt as she wrapped up her time up here in Seattle. Last Saturday we had a get together with a bunch of our family friends. It was a lot of fun to hang out and eat good food. We had all sorts of snacks. It was a lot of fun to hang out and chat with them. Then on Sunday we spent time getting prepped for her to leave. It was nice having her in town. I look forward to seeing her next time and hopefully, spend more time with the rest of her family.

The rest of this week was strange. It went both fast and slow. Every day at work it was slow and while at the end of each day I’d look back and it was surprising what day it was. It was also fun because we were preparing for Halloween at work. We had a costume contest at work which was also a lot of fun. There were some amazing costumes we had someone dressed as Carmen SanDiego, a female Pennywise, an Officer Jenny, and more! I look forward to more events like this and hopefully we’ll get around to doing more office events. Maybe have an ugly sweater party or something. I love trying office events and things to improve office morale.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have an amazing week and I hope to have good stories for you next week.

Borderlands 3 and a Chill Week

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all had a good week and it went well. My week was fairly chill and a series of ups and downs. My mom and stepdad were in Hawaii for most of the week, so I had some alone time at home. My work week was very interesting, and I made mistakes and progress. The mistakes I made have taught me a lot and I’m hoping make continue to learn. My failure will help me grow to further strength. In these first two months of work I’ve already learned so much. It’ll be interesting to see how the job helps me grow further.

This week was also the release week for Borderlands 3. I’ve been really excited about this game and I’ve really enjoyed playing it. My current main character is Amara, the Siren, I picked her because of an inside joke and because I typically play as a brawler/tank. My secondary character is Moze, the Gunner, she’s also a great tank and fighter. The game has amazing gun play and a great story so far. I’ve also been enjoying the different abilities of the two characters I’ve played so far. I’m excited to keep playing the game and explore it I’m hoping to find all the secrets and hidden aspects.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have an awesome week and that I have more news to share.

Labor Day Week and Seeing Family

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. I apologize for no post last week, but it was a bit hectic. These last two weeks were pretty fun. Labor Day weekend was my stepbrother’s birthday so we spent it celebrating. One day we went out to this laser tag place that was pretty cool. It was made to be a bit more realistic, so the guns were made to look like real guns and the vests were like ballistic vests. It was pretty intense and by the end of the hour we play we were all sweating buckets. We also saw Hobbes & Shaw, which was a fun movie, but really over the top and sometimes hard to suspend disbelief. All in all, it was a good weekend and good week.

The last week was also nice. Some of my relatives traveled up from San Diego and I hadn’t seen most of them in years. It was really cool to hangout and catch up. We discussed my new job and how they’ve been. The only bad part was my glasses broke and I was uncertain of if they broke when they fell of my face or when my uncles dog bit them. Not a big deal but it was a bit of a downer. I fixed my glasses with super glue and now they’re usable all though a bit crooked. I'm hoping to travel to San Diego and visit my family down there sometime next year, but we’ll see what happens and how the year progresses.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you guys have a good week and I hope to have some interesting stories next time.

Getting in the Swing of Things

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week so far. This week was good I made a lot of progress in learning and adapting to work. This week was also good as my anxiety and stress has gotten a lot better. The rest of my week has been spent trying to figure out what else to do with my time. I spend so much time on the bus going between home and work. Right now, I spend most of my time just watching my shows on the bus, but I want to get either a tablet or laptop like the Surface Pro so I can work on stuff while on the bus. I think I’ll be saving my money for that.

Its been nice to feel like I’m starting to get used to the job and aspects that were causing me anxiety. I’m looking forward to moving forward in this job and seeing how much more I grow with in it. I’m also looking forward to eventually moving and having more friends to hang out with. This weekend is BTS at Full Sail and it reminded me of my goal to eventually join Hall of Fame and go out to BTS as alumni. I’m curious to see at what point in my career I’ll be able to come down and do those events as a guest. I’m only a year into my post college career but I’m still looking forward to eventually doing that.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I’m looking forward to keeping you in the loop.

Almost Starting Work

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a great week. This last week was pretty good for me. I’ve been going through and working on various projects and paperwork. I’m also getting closer to starting my new job. I’m very excited to get started and learn. This is going to be a very interesting coming weeks and this last week before work I’ve got a few things to figure out. I’m just wrapping up some of my work on projects and I have to reach out to people about some business stuff. I feel bad but I made sure that everyone I was working with knew I was going to be leaving eventually once I got a job. I also have to see if I can continue work on any of my projects, or if my new job doesn’t allow me to. It’ll be a wild few weeks.

As for the other stuff going on this week I helped my mom with her works barbeque. The barbeque was a lot of fun and I got to meet a lot of interesting people including former Microsoft employees. They were able to give me insight on what it was like working for Microsoft and what they did there. It was cool to meet them and talk with them. I’m also planning on updating my website to include a D&D section so that I can show off some of things I’ve made and give people the opportunity to critique them. I’m always looking for feedback so that I can improve my craft. Its been fun to explore the homebrewing side of D&D and further my skillset. I think I’ve been improving and getting better at it and I’m hoping people are enjoying the things I’ve created.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have an awesome week. I also hope to post next week but I’ll be busy so I’ll probably have to change my posting schedule around.

4th of July Week

Hello everybody,

I hope you all had a great week and for those that celebrate the 4th of July I hope you guys had a wonderful Independence Day. This last week for me was a lot of fun. I worked on various side projects and D&D stuff. It also looks like I’ve found a new group to DM for so I’ve begun planning for that and am looking forward to making the new campaign. Hopefully, this group pans out and we have fun. I’m still waiting on info from the recruiters I’m working with and hopefully will hear some good news this week.

My 4th of July was a lot of fun. I went to a family friends house to celebrate. He lives in effectively a grey area between Seattle and Burien where it is legal to launch fireworks. He also lives near a parking lot. This meant that we were able to launch a lot of fireworks. It also meant this parking lot was filled with people launching fireworks. We had an awesome show of fireworks and we also had RC cars and a cannon. When I say cannon it was effectively a potato launcher except we were just firing it with no ammunition so it just made a really loud noise. It was great and I was happy to celebrate the 4th with my family again.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have an awesome week and I look forward to giving you guys an update.

Waiting and Writing

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys have had a great week. This last week for me was very relaxed. I spent the majority of it working my Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I’ve also started to make stuff using DnDBeyond in order to create homebrew stuff that anyone can see and use. I’ve also been trying to adapt it based on the feedback I’ve received. The rest of my week I spent mainly testing one of the games I’m working on and researching Lua for a potential job. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but I really want to learn more about coding.

The rest of this week I spent waiting to hear more about the jobs I interviewed for. So far I’ve heard from one of the recruiters I’m working with and sadly that job turned me down, but I have another opportunity coming up soon. I’m still waiting on one of the other opportunities and should hear back soon. I’m really excited by all of this I’m also very hopeful, but I’m being realistic. Some of these jobs are a bit outside of my experience, but I’m more than confident in my ability to grow and learn. Hopefully, I was able to convey that in my interviews.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you guys have a great week and I hope to have good news next week.

Relax and Make a Dungeon

Hello everybody,

I hope that you guys have had a good week. This past week was a good week. It was really easy and got a lot of work done on personal projects. I’ve also gotten some new leads on potential jobs. I’m working out details still but hopefully soon I’ll have some interviews. This week was also good cause I got to spend a lot of time with my dads half of the family. We barbequed and celebrated Father’s Day. I’ve also been introducing my brothers to different shows. Lately we’ve been watching Full Metal Alchemist and it’s been great to see the reactions. I love that show and everything in it but I don’t think I’ll ever get over the sad moments in it.

A good portion of this week was also spent working on various things for Dungeons & Dragons. It’s always fun planning campaign stuff and making the story for the campaigns. I finished my first one shot and now I need to playtest is. I seem to have trouble with boss fights. In the core campaign I’m playing with my dad and brother I setup a boss fight that I thought would be good battle but it ended up being a bit to easy. So I’m wanting to try my one shot out and make sure the boss fight feels right. I’m also wanting to try and make more puzzles because I had a lot of fun making one of the puzzles for my one shot. Hopefully, as I continue forward I’ll get better at building and growing the world I have.

Well till next week you guys! I hope you have a good week and I hope to have good news.

Crazy Week of Family Fun

Hello everybody,

I hope your week was awesome. Mine was wild and busy. Did my typical this past week with the addition of watching some of the E3 reveals that happened. I’m super excited about what’s coming. The new Pokemon game looks amazing. I’m super excited to play it and see how it’s changed from the past ones. I’m also very excited about the next Destiny 2 expansion named The Shadowkeep. This year has a lot of awesome looking games and I’m excited to see what other games are shown at E3. The rest of my week was wild.

So this week was a lot of family business and just being busy. Things took a turn when my Grandma fell out of her wheelchair late Wednesday night early Thursday morning. My Grandpa had to call 911 to get her off the floor. Next morning comes around and her legs swollen, so they take her to the hospital. Turns out she had broken her leg and because of her MS she didn’t feel any pain, that’s both a positive and negative. So Thursday night I’m babysitting my youngest cousin and my uncle comes back to tell me that she might need surgery to put pins in. Ultimately, they splinted her leg and she is now in recovery. Friday though my Grandpa goes missing. So my mom and I go out hunting and my Uncle and cousin are hunting as well, but no one can find him. Until he suddenly walks into my Grandma’s hospital room and is shocked when we tell him we had been hunting for him. So last week had a bit of extra stress for me, but I felt really bad for my Grandma and mom. My grandma for obvious reasons, and my mom because she just was so stressed by it all and it has been a real tiring week for her. I'll say my Grandma is now recovering and on the mend.

Well til next week you guys I hope you have an amazing week. Ubisoft just released a new content creation tool for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey to create quests for the game. I’ll be trying that this week and let you know how it goes. I hope to have some awesome stuff to show you.

First Interviews

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys had a good week, mine was very busy. The first half of this week was spent coordinating and preparing meetings. Then I spent time working on my side projects. I’m hoping that these projects continue on track and can be finished on time. I think all of the projects I’ve been lucky enough to work on post graduation are fun or interesting. I hope they can be met with success, but we’ll see. This week was also exciting because the final season of Game of Thrones premiered last night. I’m super excited to see how this season goes but I’m also sad as it’s the last one.

The most exciting thing this week though were my two interviews. I had an over the phone interview and then a in person interview at the same company. They’re my first few interviews in the industry and I’m super excited about it. This opportunity came from a friend who recently got a job at another branch and reached out to his recruiter. Hopefully, I here back from them soon and maybe I’ll have my first job. I’m super excited about this opportunity and possibilities it provides.

Well till next week you guys. I hope to have even more awesome news for you next week.

Post the GDC Craziness

Hello my friends!

I hope you guys had an awesome week. My week went extremely well, I had a lot of fun at GDC and working as a Conference Associate. I got to meet a ton of new people and make new friends. I also got to try out a ton of new games. I also got to take part in the CA tradition of Witch Hunt. There were a few games I played that really stuck out. Those games were Cobra Paw, 5-Minute Dungeon, and The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls. All of these games were a lot of fun to play and learn. Cobra Paw and 5-Minute Dungeon were quick to learn and play. They made playing them with new people great and they’re a ton of fun. The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls was a lot of fun but is a bit complex and is a longer game. It plays a lot like Munchkin but it has a bit more to it. The rest of GDC was also fantastic.

This week was an amazing experience. I was able to have my first interview out of school. It was awesome to finally learn more about my prospects when going into an interview. I learned that my resume is good and that I have the proper skills and experience to perform in the jobs I’ve applied for. This means that the jobs I’ve applied to my reason for being denied could be due to my portfolio, cover letter, and/or the company chose someone else. I won’t ever truly know but at least it was a step. The other aspects of GDC were fantastic as I’ve said. I got to see a ton of my friends from last year which is my favorite part while also happy to meet new people. It’s great to have a family that continuously grows and is making new connections.

Well till next week all of you! I look forward to delivering any news to you all next week. I hope you guys have an awesome week!

Rejection and Growth

Hello Everybody!

I hope you all have had a good week. My week has been a little interesting. I have had various ups and downs throughout the week. I continued to spend time as the Dungeon Master for my family. This means I’ve been able to further expand the story bible for my campaign. I’m hoping to finish at least the bulk of it soon enough so that I can share it with you all. It’s been very exciting for me to be working on this and I’m hoping to make a well informed and written story bible. The week also contained some sad moments.

I received two emails from companies I applied to, both were the companies saying no. Both were for jobs I was excited about. I was sad to see the emails. However, I’m not about to give up on getting one of my dream jobs. I’m going to keep pushing forward and trying to get a job. I’ve reached out to the other Conference Associates of GDC for extra guidance. After reading the feedback I’ve received I’m going to try making these changes. I’m also going to try focusing on more ways to improve my portfolio. I’m also going to try getting back into writing reviews and other short stories. I just need to better distribute my time.

Till next week my friends. I hope to deliver good news and I hope you all have a very good week.