Preparing for GDC 2018 - 15 Days until Awesomeness!

Sometimes I forget that I'm a game developer. I write music and make cool sounds that go into Videogames! If I told this to my 10-year-old self, I would be freaking out and be smiling and running all over the house. WHAT!

There are so many people in this industry that I love. Many aspects of it that I absolutely adore. It's a place of encouragement, passion, and friendships. And all of the things are coming together as one at Game Developers Conference is the biggest conference for the game industry, with over 30,000 game developers coming together to share their passion and have fun away from work. That's why I'm willing to be prepared for this upcoming GDC, to make it the best experience ever!

A lot of people are coming to GDC to find work. I wanted to take a bit of a different approach since I'm attending my first ever GDC as a Conference Associate! On the back of the shirts that we get, it says "Ask Me, I can help!". That's exactly what I'll do best - helping people at the GDC. If there's anything that I'll be doing for my own interest - I'll be there to learn as much as I can before coming back to Long Beach to prepare for a possible SGDA workshop for my fellow audio folks.

Just like how Akash Thakkar, the wise man, the Prince Charming of the game industry once said after his post-mortem of GDC 2015, "Just add value".

Here are some of the tips that he shared. I already knew about the first two, but the other questions I realize are pretty important for Game Industry meetups (duh!)

  1. What do you do?

  2. Where are you from?

  3. Who do you know here?

  4. What are you working on?

  5. What games are you playing right now?

Additional Bonus Questions that I can think of that can also be beneficial for asking others that we run across at GDC:

  • Why are you at GDC? What's your goal / passion?

  • Are there any sessions that you're interested in going to?

Having these basic questions written down and figured out will help not stuttering in the time of need. Don't just answer these in one sentence, boring way.

That's it for today!

Fear and Confidence - Longboarding for the first time

Yesterday, my dear friend Adam Kinnischtzke invited me out to a nearby park to Sabbath with him. Adam and I arrive at the parking lot, when suddenly he smirks and to my surprise, pulls out a longboard - a forbidden object that I've never tested myself to ride before. After a brief moment of nervous laughter, the first immediate thought of 'no way' has passed over my head and I decided to give it a try.

At first, I struggle to stay on top of the longboard for a while. My two aloof feet are awkwardly placed and I barely miss my balance, almost resulting in a trip. Luckily Adam's on my side and he patiently helps me maintain my balance for a few minutes. Little by little, I start getting further and further without losing my balance until finally, I'm able to let go of Adam's shoulder and even start making longer strides on my own.

A true test of balance came at this giant hill (not really). Adam said,"Here, you're going to go all the way down without stopping." It's a curvy hill, and I needed to constantly make a turn without leaning too forward, otherwise, I might fall. I start making my way down, and my longboard gains more and more speed over time. Time starts to feel slower and a thousand fearful thoughts start to creep into my head and I imagine what it would be like to fall flat on my face or scrape my knees on a peaceful Sunday afternoon- But I put aside those thoughts and focus on maintaining my balance on the board. Finally, I make it to the end of the hill, and the board starts to slow down. The rush of exhilarating joy and self-confidence flourishes inside of me. I have challenged myself and overcome a small but substantial fear! Now I can truly call myself a longboarder. :)

When overcoming our fears, we grow as a person and are able to connect certain lessons that we've learned from to another valuable aspect of life. I can relate this small victory to other instances in my life where I've completely trusted in myself to go for it and didn't give up halfway. It results in a very important growth in self-confidence and the ability to want to challenge ourselves at other things in life. Every Sunday, I commit to going out to the park with Adam and enjoying the fresh breeze brushing against my face as I ride the longboard. Maybe I'll fall one day. But I'll get up again.

 

Writing music while doing chores

Today, everyone has left the house and I'm alone. They'll be coming back around at night, and I was doing some workouts on the floor when I realized that it was dusty again. Has it been a week since we vacuumed? I vacuumed the floor and did the dishes - and then suddenly, one after another, amazing pieces of music started coming into my head. I sat in front of the piano and recorded four themes that I think can be used for Garden Warrior - the game that I'm currently working on with Little Pebble Studios.

mushrooms.jpg

Roughly about 11 minutes of musical ideas came out from doing chores. I think chores personally allow me to relax and reach into my subconscious without trying to overcome a writer's block.  Then it clicked in my head: It's always been like this - my major compositions always came from chores.

So I learned something very valuable today. Do the dishes and clean once in a while. For others' good and for my own good as well. :)

Voodoo Cheval published. Full OST available!

Check out the full OST above for VGDA's 5th game: Voodoo Cheval!

Play the game for free: https://vgda.itch.io/voodoo-cheval

This was my first time scoring music for a game. I had a wonderful time collaborating with VGDA during this semester and writing 7 electro swing themed tracks for levels and 4 cutscene music! An Obsidian developer at SGDA even complimented the music and encouraged me to continue working hard! I think that this was the starting of my career.