Jack of all trades; master of none

Yeah, I wrote this little rant at about 2AM and it's literally what it is; a rant. But I think it could be a good read and if you want to look at Symbols of Magic then there is a link at the bottom of the post, but be warned because there is some swearing and low brow humor.
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So here I am, sitting alone late at night and I’m trying not to fall asleep, instead I’m trying to think up where to go with my super awesome sprite comic which is updated rather irregularly now. My sprite comic called “Symbols of Magic” was supposed to be updated on an every-other-day basis, however that’s changed now and I usually submit pages to where my comic is hosted in some sort of bulk. The problem isn’t the fact that I can’t get the pages done, however it’s the fact that I can’t get them done because I can’t be bothered anymore, no, not to do the comic anymore but rather to stick with my schedule that I usually re-new every month.

“Symbols of Magic” is an adventure of self discovery with hints of science and religion. The reader follows the adventure of a mysterious “200” year old girl called Maroon as she roams her continent in search of knowledge and later runs into an old Symbolican called Zuchyin who is willing to help her discover who she really is and then face her past.

That’s a small synopsis for my sprite comic, it’s not a complicated story and I’d rather keep it that way, but while I think about how I’d like to keep Symbols as uncomplicated as possible, my mind always drifts off onto other things that I would have much preferred to be less complicated as well. An example of a story that got too complicated would be the Kingdom Hearts series of games; after the first game things just got too complicated, there was nothing wrong with a nice, feel good adventure of a boy with a magic key fighting off baddies and making friends. That’s all a good story in a game needs really, nothing fantastic and complicated. Of course, my mind drifts off to one of the games that I like because I’m a gamer, that’s where my mind drifts off to a lot of the time. But I’m also striving to become a game designer which obviously means that I can’t let my mind drift off to only games for too long.

That’s why I’ve invested a lot of my time to different hobbies, my sprite comic being one of them, there is also my drawing and writing projects that I spontaneously initiate on a whim. But because it’s only a whim they don’t last for too long, and to be honest; my comic so far is the longest running drawing project that I have stuck to and it’s sort of pathetic in the sense of how lazy I am with it now, since I like to keep it simple each page is a compilation of copy and pasted sprites that I made. Obviously I made the sprites, after all it’s a drawing project and not a “Re-colour of Sonic sprites that I posted on Deviant Art” sort of thing.

But is there really an uncomplicated way to make the sprites for my comic? Of course not, I do it the easiest way there is and the best way I can think of. Mind you the sprites aren’t amazing looking, but they get the job done. If there was a shortcut for making the sprites that wouldn’t jeopardise their quality then of course I’d take it because that’s the kind of person I am. If there is a shortcut that would make things simpler, then by all means I’ll take it.

It is exactly because of this sort of mentality I didn’t get into the Warhammer franchise, and see it as more of a collecting and painting hobby. Buy little orcs or space marines and then colour them in, it’s like back in the early days of primary school where you were told you were being creative when you were scribbling sweet nothings on the walls of the school. But the thing is, I really wanted to get into Warhammer and if I tried to learn it then I would, but it’s too complicated for my brain to care about so I didn’t, which is a shame and all because when I went to the game shop in Ipswich and the kind employee showed me and my friend how to play it, I really liked it.

But complexity didn’t stop me from learning to do difficult things that I really wanted to do, for example; in my last year of high school I decided to learn how to play an electric guitar and as far as I remember it, it was amazingly mind boggling to me because I’ve never done something like it before. I just thought that I’d look cool swinging my EG 012 YAMAHA, that I bought for £100 at a local LIDL, around the room. In spite of my lack of knowledge of guitar playing I still learned it without any prior lessons or help, and I’ve become painfully mediocre at it.

But there were just some elements of playing a guitar that I really didn’t care much about like learning the chords and whatever, I’m sure that would be useful but since childhood is short I just went ahead and did it. I learned the basics of playing a guitar and just went on to learn some famous guitar riffs alongside those that aren’t so famous.

But since I’m not really fond of being a copy-cat I always try to make my own while I pretend to be a professional musician. It usually ends up in failure but at least I feel good about myself, it’s as if I’m making something rather than taking what someone else already done and just making it slightly worse when I do it. I still do jam alone in my room with my guitar every now and then, but lately I’ve not had much time to do so.

Which brings me to my writing projects, I have a lot of them, I’m not a fantastic writer, but I do love writing, and I feel bad about initiating a story which I feel really great about at one point but then I leave it as soon as I stop writing. It’s just the issue of time, I never have enough of it to finish my writing.
Since I have obligations to my other hobbies and people, I never have time to finish a piece of good writing, and when I finally decide to get back to it I just don’t care anymore. Obviously that’s a bad trait, but I can’t expect myself to stick to something I decided to do on a whim. Looking at my other hobbies, I was seriously thinking about them. When I learned to draw, I seriously wanted to out-do my friends, when I learned to play guitar I seriously wanted to impress some girls and when I started writing I seriously wanted to be entertained.

Well apart from the big three of my hobbies I’ve tried doing many other things, for example; making videos in windows movie maker, but I gave that up because windows movie maker is horribly limited, I used to try out photography when I was younger, I had a Polaroid camera and I just ran around taking pictures, I used to try taking real life videos with my video camera. I’m not saying that I’ve stopped doing all of these things, but instead I’ve become less able to do them. I still take photos, but with my phone and I still make videos, with my phone and lately I made a fantastic slideshow filled with amazing effects and Metallica’s Enter Sandman for my father’s birthday and he seemed to really like it.

Of course, by now you’ll be wondering why I’d want to be a game designer, well it’s not because I like games, but it’s because I like creating things and making designs, it’s why I start so many spontaneous projects, it’s why I made a sprite comic on the internet, it’s why I have so many different hobbies, it’s exactly why I prefer colouring in orc figurines for Warhammer instead of actually playing it.

In my personal statement I sent into the university I wrote something along the lines of “Computer Games are a unique mixture of art, music and film; and I want to be a part of what makes that.” And I really mean that. This doesn’t come from a person who is a gamer and wants to make a blockbuster first person shooter or whatever; this comes from a designer who has experienced many things, has many abilities and wants to utilise them to create something as unique as a computer game.


Links;
Symbols of Magic