Habits and How to Form Them

Apologies, it's been over a week since my last post and even then those were only fillers.

Writing is something I enjoy and something I feel I'm reasonable at (although I know full well that I need to develop my skills a lot further) but getting into the habit of doing it every single day is something I find really difficult. I could blame the backlog of 70+ games or 200+ books but when it comes down to it I just can't trust myself to do what I should be doing at any given time. It wouldn't even be so bad if I were making a dent in my game and book collections but I'm not. Too often I'm sat pondering what I should really be doing next.

To try and stem this I've started trying to write something every day, no matter how minor. Whether it's a blog post like this, an account of somewhere myself and the family have been or an entry into my creative writing, I'm determined to get something down every single day. OnePagePerDay has a guideline of trying to fill an a4 side every 24 hours (about 750 words). That's probably not a bad target but I know I've struggled in the past to hit marks like that. I'm not going to beat myself up if I fail, but the more the better. I want to partake in NaNoWriMo again this year and as I'm away with the in-laws again I need to be able to write around 2k words every day. That's a shock to the system at the best of times but unless I'm used to having some kind of output each day I'll never make it.

Not Games. Honestly, No Games Here.

When my wife found out I'd started blogging again, she offhandedly commented that "it's probably just about boring games*". I said "Of course it's not" but then realised that so far my success rate in trying to keep this blog well-rounded hasn't been particularly great, even across the very few posts I've made so far.
So, a not-games post then:
...
....

... I'll work on it and get back to you

*(dramatisation. Comments may or may not have actually been made in this manner)

Case in point

That last post was meant to be a draft and was meant to be a *lot* longer. I was also intending to write over 1000 words but at this current time I've written... 37, 38, 39, you get the jist.

This weekend I've not finished the garden, a game, a book, the cleaning or my planned writing. The only things I've sorted out are choosing a game to play for the next few days/weeks (GT5) and watching a film (actually managed 2, The Money Pit and Limitless).

The Importance of Finishing pt 1

The number of things I've ever actually finished in my lifetime is appallingly low. I guess some might say that "you can never truly finish anything" but I never even come close most of the time.

Indispensable

I'm a tech-loving sort of fella but really only from an appreciation point of view. I love seeing how people solve problems using technology more than I enjoy using devices themselves. Sadly as I'm getting older I'm becoming ever more cynical about why a product even exists in the first place.

Example: Kindle. A truly revolutionary device, but not for the reason you might think. I don't care about the fact that I have 1,000 books available at any time, especially given that the search engine on the thing is utter guff. I care that for the first time in recent history the publisher model is being disrupted. No longer does an aspiring author have to approach a publisher and beg to be considered. No longer does a writer have to tweak his story to fit a certain "target demographic". A writer can finally just write what he likes and charge what he wants to charge.

The same thing is happening in other entertainment industries: music, videogames, film-making. There's people out there that would suggest there's always been room for people to break through but the point of the stores that allow individuals to publish their own work is that the wall is now that much thinner. It's not breezeblock anymore, it's plasterboard.

Swimming Against The Current

One project I've recently started is the prospect of creating a game, from scratch. I could do this purely for kicks but the wealth of indie-friendly shopfronts that iOS, iTunes, Steam and the XBLA Indie Store have produced a strong desire in me to try and monetise the project.

I'm not a particularly frugal person but myself and my family survive on a pretty damn modest income. It really wouldn't take many sales to keep us going for a month or two. Hell, if I could rack up the equivalent of six months wages then I'd consider sacking off the full-time job completely and going into development and writing full-time.

I have my game ideas mapped out and I'm trying to shovel as much C# knowledge into my head at the moment (albeit in a very disorganised manner - I think I'm hoping that it'll stick by virtue of osmosis or something). All it'll take now is the awkward task of actually putting fingers to keyboard and writing some bloody code.

As for development and release platform, I've opted for Windows and Windows Phone 7. This might sound like a weird decision to most but it was by far the cheapest platform to get going on. Developing on iOS demands a Mac and that's something I can't stretch to right now. However, a Windows 7 PC suitable for development purposes only set me back £130, which is a cost I can most definitely live with. The development tools are all free too, and learning materials are plentiful. I just need to buckle down and get on with the task itself.

Fighting a Mini Fantasy

Incredibly good news today (albeit on a geeky front): I found that Talisman of Death, a conversion of a Fighting Fantasy book is coming to PSN in a couple of weeks. I loved these books as a kid so I'm looking forward to seeing just how rose-tinted my memories are, given the 25 years that have passed since I last read one. I'm also hoping the "mini" tag, which indicates it's been coded for the PSP, doesn't mean it's too fugly on the big screen.

Sliders: Sole Survivor

I sometimes find myself getting frustrated at "gaming" and "gamers", usually following a visit to HotUKDeals or AVforums, but every now and again a light comes shining through, reminding me why I still love them. Chain World is such a beacon.

Ostensibly an experimental "game" by Jason Rohrer, an explorer of gaming concepts and paradigms, it's a one-off world of Minecraft in which there are a couple of key rules.

• Only one person at a time can play
• When that person dies they must pass on the game to another willing player

The Wired article above shows how within two "passes" things have already started to take a very weird turn purely because Jason has only created one, single, USBkey-stored version of the game. He did, however, hint at the possibility of creating an online version. He just as quickly dismissed the notion but I, for one, can't think of much I'd enjoy more.

It would exist as a Minecraft "multiverse" where for every player there would be a new world generated. Everyone would start off in their own fresh new world, exploring, creating, leaving their mark. When they died their world would move into a limbo state and the player would move into another random, previously-occupied world. Die again and you end up in another random world. Rinse and repeat, exploring to see what other people do, but only ever as a sole survivor. To provide freshness occasionally players could slide to a pervasive "limbo" world, one that's populated with hundreds of other players. This would be the only true collaborative environment and it would ensure that there were always a handful of empty worlds available for new players.

Minecraft fascinates me, scratching both the "love to explore" and the "love to build" itches simultaneously but the scope of collaborative building is, whilst inspiring, utterly downright frightening. If anyone moves forward with the "Chain Multiverse" idea, everything would be moved back down to the individual: explore, build, slide, explore, build, slide. There'd be some immense scope for griefing that would need to be addressed, of course, but for the most part the the idea of a game that's only multiplayer by virtue of the legacies you leave for others and discover is incredibly interesting to me.

Changing habits

I never finish anything. I'm legendary around my family and friends for kicking some new project off and never quite ever managing to complete the task. Decoration, work projects, learning, cleaning, garden work; I have mounds of each of them sat waiting for me. I even have films, books and games sat at home that I've either not finished or that I've not even started because I know that I'll never get round to finishing them.

What's my standard solution to having not finished a project though? Start a new one, of course! Couldn't find the time to finish painting the skirting board? Why not install a new door somewhere so that you don't paint that too? Hell, you can even leave the handle off for the full effect. Ditto games and books. Why bother spending time grinding through airbases in Just Cause 2 when I could be playing something new? Why plough through the final Millenium book when there's another freebie available for my Kindle from Amazon ?

Things have to change. I can't expect to ever achieve anything if I can't ever put in that final 10% that's needed to push things off the "to-do" list and onto the "done" pile.