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!)
