So I’ve been quiet on the blog and flickr scenes recently. Some verve came up and bit me in the heinie this morning and I’ve posted some photos to flickr. Got two new sets. The first is some photos from my last visa run trip to Vientiane, Laos. A few good ones in there.

The second set is of my friend Kris’ house party which I attended last night. I realised I hadn’t been taking many photos recently either, and this seemed like a good opportunity. ;-)

So, as I mentioned previously I have been stalled overmuch in my practice lately, which has unfortunately meant that my progress with the Flying Long Horse game development have been shut down for a while. I am getting on top of my workload again finally and once again have come upon the semi-current challenge keeping things from moving forward smoothly (or at all! :-O) My previous method to deal with issues of work-stoppage and lapses in motivation was to parse the production down into baby-steps. Which, in most circumstances, would rock, and in fact kept me from overloading at the sheer amount of work “weighing down on me”.

After a bit of time dwelling on that shift, and working up those shortened objectives, I have come to the realisation that in many ways producing one level in a game too large for one person to reasonably do (at this time, at least) is fairly comparable to doing a small, one level game demo by itself.

So, I am shifting gears late in the game. It means shelving the Human Trap game development and coming up with a new, smaller game - but all of the graphic assets I have produced to date are still useable. Part of the justification for this move is that a smaller ‘demo’ game is more achievable and immediately useful in my portfolio. I still have the larger game design documents and can use them later on if resources become more readily available.

I still plan to do a demo similar to one of the level-puzzles from the original game design document. But the gist of the ’story’ will be different and much more abbreviated.

So, here’s to progress - however slow and winding in its path. ;-)

A few transitions happening the end of last week to kick off the remaining two months of my stay in BKK. I finished my last classes at the Village Education Centre, and also polished off a website redesign for them. It’s not fully live but you can preview it here. It’s a CSS design template on top of a Joomla CMS install. It was nice to practice some clean, typical web design for a change.

I’ve also started my final classes teaching multimedia at the same old design college, which is comfortable enough since I know the material and the conditions well. The Village was a good experience, especially the opportunity to work with some developmentally challenged kids. But still it wasn’t quite my cup of tea, mainly because I prefer more mature students who can provide their own direction, and the material wasn’t my forte. I am after all a designer and I do my best teaching design. The kids were a joy to work with though. :-)

Other than that, my final thesis for my MA will be due near the end of August. Even though my schedule has cleared up, teaching-wise, I am currently under a great deal of personal stress about a few things, and I have not been able to do as much work towards my MA recently. Even if my thesis is still rough I have to hand something in. It’s too important to pass up.

As it stands I’m still very much looking forward to coming home and settling down some - get a decent job, etc. That hasn’t changed. I wish I could come home sooner, but it’s still makes more sense for me to finish my MA here. So, counting down the weeks, I am…