GOT A DAMN JOB

A short update! Or so I thought currently, dunno how would it turns out in the end but I won't edit out this part. I got a job. (So big deal that is the only bold text here.)

Originally I planned to focus on games until I hit 30 then I want to get some office life. I know some of you that already on office life may say "go away!" but on this side I was living a bit too thrilling life, chasing dreams without money, that is. I want to see some human beings too. And maybe a family, a house with woodworking space and a room where I could make music with a speaker, etc. All of those could possibly be realized by just simply getting the more social office life. (Not this year of social distancing though!)

But opportunity always come at an unexpected time. Other than my "go to Japan and stand behind my booth and speak Japanese and give collectible badges to my fans" dream I want to achieve ASAP, I do want to travel with my friends when they are still going continent after continent. I missed the plane many years while they could go together, a price to pay if you sacrifice salary, you have no savings while working on the meaning of life that you thought it would be. (Risky! It may turn out meaningless!)

There is one more thing even more urgent than my age-30 deadline. My mom and dad honestly won't live much longer and soon they could not afford to travel far. Before that comes I would like to take them to other place than Thailand. I think I would regret it if I miss that chance. Thinking that I would be able to reminiscence together with them about our trip when they could no longer leave home, if I put my effort to collect money now. Focusing too much on my own dream could lead to failing that mission.

I thought money could not make me sway from my game development passion! ...if it is not huge enough. (lmao) So, this job in particular is a front end React job, a skill everyone seems to have nowadays given how ubiquitous the output could do. I want to gain this skill in the first place so I am really interested in working on this job and getting something I wanted out. And the money is HUGE. It is much more than 20k THB (later upgraded to 25k after a year, but no bonus) I used to have back when I tried to juggle day job and game dev night. In USD standard not much, but in Thailand.. It's so huge that finally made me feel I could afford getting algohol that is more than 10$ just for pleasure's sake. I am normally not a person who buy things and always go for the cheapest, I won't buy an orange juicer because I thought I could always use hand, and I use old things until it broke down to bits. So this money is really something.

And it is so HUGE I feel like I am actually making games while not making games, because this money could easily commission artists I love or getting more new localizations to plug into my game. Like pressing a button to upgrade the game! That made me feel a bit better!

Maybe I was so used to not getting money for my effort. But what even better in this job is that the hour is flexible, and I could work from home aside from occassional meetings. So roughly, I require 22*8 = 176 work hours per month. I tried working in the same pace I always used in my game. That is, wake up and code. Reading documentation on phone while eating or commuting. VSCode in toilet. And program until I fall asleep in bed. (Lately I was so used to the orange screen mode I forgot what is an actual white color at night.) This pace that I grew used to in these 2-3 years, I have never thought it had THIS much value. By the day 16-17 into the month, I have already completed all the required hours for work! (Avg. 12 hours per day, no weekend.)

I am the type that can't switch back and forth. I tried work at day and make games at night style but everything sucks. I got headache switching around and nothing is fun. Now I got rewarded "magically" for the same effort, it made me realize I had put so much effort into my games all along, just that they weren't rewarded that I felt nothing. (It would be nice if I get money from my own game though! That I hope is a story for the other time.) It feels just like those "quest board" system in games. You just follow orders and you could farm money that came from nowhere. No need to strategize how to get money from others. It's so good!

I could feel more sense of urgency too because I have to use my latter half of the month to the best of my ability, knowing that in the beginning of next month I have to go back to full on on my money work again. Maybe it will turns out to be a positive thing for my game. I have to try since this is the first time of such workflow. I am currently in the latter half of March, it took about 2-3 days to finally remember where I left off back when 1st March and pick up the same speed. A small price to pay.

And moreover the Coronavirus! It is actually better that all my friend's plane tickets were cancelled this year because I no longer felt envious of them! (I feel sorry about their cancelled trip but forgive me for also feeling good about that...) This is the perfect year to get some money so the next year I could also go! Let's hope the virus is gone by then! Gotta work on upgrading Duel Otters and making my music games Mel Cadence! (Now that I have more money to pay commission price to Japanese artists!)

What's the deal with these cats? If you look at credit screen of Duel Otters V2.0, you will notice a mention about condominium cats that came even before my previous teammates. (they were more helpful, at least they are relaxing to look at lol) Here they are. No one owns them, but usually there is a grandma that keep feeding them. The recent Coronavirus outbreak made government exercise the quarantine order with many shop closed down or allowing only take-aways. In effect, I feared that the grandma would stop coming one day and these cats would be dead.

So just in case I go out and bought some cat food. I am unofficially the grandma's substitute! I have not really ever talk to her so I have no idea when she would be absent or if she wanted to stop doing this someday.

I never realized there are so many flavors. To be honest they all looks delicious lol. No idea how to figure out what they would like to eat so I randomly choose the tuna flavor. They seems to love it! Imagine the tuna sauce pocket coming from these thing like the bag depicted.

(It's not short after all!)

Duel Otters is revived

First of all look at the post date of this previous post in the series : https://blog.exceed7.com/2019/07/i-was-here.html, this post is the final one. "What the fuck" I genuinely thought. How did it went from July to almost the end of October! Hahahaha!

It didn't go to waste as that was spent on learning how to make a servicable game backend (Firebase Firestore + Protobuf) and creating a new website (Svelte + Rollup) which the tech used are completely new things for me, but I let the technical things slide for now. This article instead I want to talk about how I feel yesterday.

It's done. Duel Otters 2.0 rework I started working since around 20 April. That makes 6 months for this game savaging project. The game is revived. I am not letting you die. It may have started from just a simple reason back in university. The reason for fighting now may change (a bit), but I still loved the content I made the same. Though I hope that you see how far things had came from that point. Life's really interesting.

I was here : the story of Duel Otters 2.0 rework

Been too long since I posted anything here, and it's troublesome to type them all out later to catch up, annoying just like maintaining a changelog later.

I am not sure anymore what was already said or not, so roughly :

- Duel Otters finished before I go to Japan. From that point the team basically reduced to me alone.
- I was able to push few updates from Japan, including voice acting and Japanese localization. But at the same time I have to focus on academic papers and also pursuing my next dream : Mel Cadence, my music game.
- After I graduated and came back to Thailand, I continued working on Mel Cadence.
- However it's not pure game dev, many opportunities, many hesitations. I took various part time jobs (hit or miss). I started maintaining things on Asset Store. (right decision, I am very proud of them) Mel Cadence has bad performance, and it went through one epic rework to Unity's new ECS system, which take time to learn. I started a new http://gametorrahod.com which I maintain English knowledge articles. Then I bought Tecre's badge making machine, because I got some idea about this as a new business for my future if the game isn't enough to feed, I would have some backups if I grow a new business now.
- And then I took more part time jobs because I need money for a desktop with decent graphic cards to do 3D/video works. This money has not yet arrived yet as of today. (Ryzen 3000 arrived already, PT please give me money money...)

It's not that I abandoned Duel Otters. But everything above that piled up make my Mel Cadence plan delayed, which I planned to work on Duel Otters afterwards.

Then it came to one point, that I think a change of plan is needed. I feel that I have already failed my Mel Cadence - then - Duel Otters plan because I could feel the breakpoint, that Duel Otters is rotting. Why? I could left it stale like that without no updates and the app works just fine.

Since when did I lose an ability to fight for myself?

Long time no see isn't it?

In fact I have so many outlet to write things nowadays that I haven't put anything in here for ages.

For silly things it would go to Twitter, for game development related which supposed to go here it instead go to my page http://gametorrahod.com/ which "supports" both Thai and English, both educational post and "story" post about hardship in game devs.

And then some sensitive personal thing would go to my personal blog where I thought no one would come to read. I feel more secure there and I feel better to let it out.

For extra sensitive thing it would go to my diary (physical).

What about this place now? I think it is for when I want to write about somewhat sensitive thing but thinking that it would be better expressed in English. Also I think this place is more "deserted" than my personal Thai blog (just guessing) and so it feels even more secure here.

Anyways let's go to the point.

What's the point of making game? Of course everyone wants to finish the damn thing and put it out finally so that someone can play.

But from the beginning, I am full of extrinsic motivation. Of course I want to make a game because I want to do it once (or more) in a lifetime this would be a reason for myself. However there's more reason which at that time I think, they are just secondary. But no I was wrong all along.

The freelancer's advantage of continuity

Something new I learn recently was "continuity". That is when you managed to do something continuously it results in a bonus to your learning.

Currently, I have been working on the game for more than 12+ hours every day without caring about anything. (I totally forgot that Friday to Sunday are supposed to be special, but I go to the cafe to work on the game anyway)

I couldn't stop because I know if I am losing the streak then I would get less done when I resume! That sounds a lot like incentive system in social games nowadays isn't it? It's true! I work through "weekend" not because I am crazy, but it is a mix of it's what I want to do anyway, I want to get more done in less time, and afraid of losing streak.

How much life do you have in your job?

Since new year, I have changed to a new person. I decided to get serious. From October (I graduated and decided to go full-time game dev alone.) to December I realized I am not at my full speed.

From January till now is a different story. The period of no blog post from then till now is the proof that I am very engulfed in "my own" work. The Pokemon Moon I bought day 1, I haven't reached the first gym yet by now. That's because I decided to play it hardcore and select Japanese language... (And now each conversation took 10 minutes!!)

I want to write something as a checkpoint. Most of the thing about my dream game Mel Cadence has been said in Thai in my other blog (5argon.blogspot.com).

I am still job-less. I could not believe about half a year had passed! I have tried finding a way to earn money while making game as a mean of survival. In January, I got a web dev job with my friend, who recently got married! That said a lot about his/her progress in life, and the amount of money he/she have, and how much I am behind even though I am at the same age.

The butterfly effect of salary system

In my previous post I did praise a lot about salary. However! there is a catch!

I once thought, when I am rich I would make a company that allows flexible time. If you are done with the work early you should be able to go home sooner. If you need to be absent tomorrow then you can work overtime for 2-3 days to make up for one man day that you will be absent. Why can't you work from home and measure work based on your task? Or other thoughts along these line.

Then I talked these with my friends why no such company exists in common. The answer is surprising, it's all because the after effects of a salary system!