Why aren't you making your own ColecoVision games, Luc?
People who know me also know that I'm pretty good at making ColecoVision
graphics and coming up with nice ideas for ColecoVision games, and considering
I still live with my mom, that I have no girlfriend and that I work as a
computer programmer for a living, the natural question that should normally
come to your mind is "Why aren't you programming your own ColecoVision games?".
Well, there are several factors to explain it, the first of which is what most
people like to call "real life". For one thing, the commute between my home
and the company I work for is very long (two long bus rides with a subway
ride in between) which I have to travel back and forth every week day. This
commute doesn't really bother me, but it does take up a sizeable chunk of my
time. Buying a car isn't an option, because there are several traffic hot-spots
that I would invariably get caught into, which taking the bus and subway allows
me to avoid.
Training at my local gym is also part of my routine, which I do on every
Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and also on Sunday afternoons. And again, the
bus rides between my home and the gym are rather long, and I get home pretty
late on those days. One warm shower later and it's time for bed, although I
do spend some time on my PC to answer e-mail before going to sleep.
So that leaves me with Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, and most of the
week-end. Sundays are usually reserved for certain chores, like cleaning and
ironing, and then I'm off to the gym (sometimes I do these things in reverse
order). Sunday night is also the only night of the week where I actually watch
TV (the not-on-DVD kind) so Sundays are not very good days for me to do any
real programming of any kind.
My Saturdays have a way of getting planned out long in advance. When I'm not
spending the day with one of my friends (going to the movies, or watching TV
shows on DVD, or some other planned activity) I have somewhere to go or
something to do that I can't really do any other day of the week. On average,
only one Saturday out of three can really be considered a free day for me.
This will be especially true this summer, with all the blockbuster movies
coming out almost every week, like Spiderman 3, Shrek The Third, Pirates of
the Caribbean 3, Ocean's 13, Fantastic Four 2, Live Free or Die Hard,
Transformers, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and the list goes
on and on... A lot of my Saturdays will be reserved for movie-going, that's
for sure...
As you can see, I do have some free time spread out across the week, and
that's more free time than a lot of people have on their weekly schedule, but
it's not as much free time as you could expect, and the free time I have is
very fragmented. Since I do computer programming at work during the day, I'm
not exactly overly motivated to do even more programming on week nights. So
instead of taking the time to learn how to program ColecoVision games (which
is something I really do want to get into eventually, by the way) I tend to
devote my free time to "easier" projects, like the Steamroller box I presented
in blog #2, or watching a couple of episodes of a TV show on DVD, or doing
certain tasks as executive producer of Opcode Games (like beta-testing
upcoming games, for example), or just surfing the internet aimlessly when
I'm too tired to do any real work.
It's very easy to stay busy with all kinds of fun short-term hobby projects,
too easy in fact, and that's what's been keeping me from getting into
ColecoVision programming. A cheap excuse, you say? Probably. It does take a
lot of personal discipline to make homebrew games, and there are knowledgeable
people out there who manage to make games with even less free time than I have.
But that's my life right now, and the worst part is that it's nowhere near
getting better: Last week-end, I started to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator
CS3, which I will use for a string of projects that will keep me occupied from
now until next Christmas. This includes preparing box artwork and manuals for
my first two ColecoVision releases under my own publishing label, namely
Pitfall II Arcade and Bank Panic, as I mentionned in the previous blog entry.
So I may not be programming my own games yet, but I'm still actively devoted
to the ColecoVision scene, so it's not all bad. Eduardo does need a guy like
me to keep Opcode Games on track, and I'm glad to help him manage his projects.
I'm HOPING to seriously get into ColecoVision programming in 2008, but I'm
not making any promises to anyone, or even to myself. 2008 is still an
eternity away, as far as I'm concerned, and lots of things can happen in my
life between now and next year.
LATEST NEWS
There's very little Opcode news to report this month. Beta-testing of Pac-Man
Collection is proceeding on schedule, and there's really nothing else to say
about it. Some work is being done on the box and manual of Road Fighter, but
progress is very slow at this point.
Next month, however, will mark an historic event: I will be meeting Eduardo
face to face for the first time! Rest assured that I will let you know all
about it in my next blog entry, roughly one month from now! See you then!
