Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

218

1/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Well, it’s 2017 now. I have been thinking about branching out a little on here for a while. This blog started as a development blog, because I thought that was the thing you did when you wanted to be an indie game developer. Back then I was using Microsoft XNA and just trying to learn C#. I only had the most basic grasp on a few other programming languages at the time, a few versions of basic, some rudimentary C++, a smattering of LISP and Pascal. I could make some sense of the code if I saw it, but lacked the fluency to really write much. I figured that C# was probably going to be around for a while, so I might as well focus on that. As it turned out C# has persisted, and become fairly popular, which is nice since that means there are always lots of answers available when I have questions. Now I typically use a combination of simple visual scripting with a graphical state machine system and very small C# scripts that do only one or two things, but do them well and predictably. The current tools for game development let you do a lot with small, well planned, effort. I wouldn’t say that it is easy exactly, but it is easier than it has ever been.
So that is sort of how the development part of this has gone.
At some point I started writing about video games in more abstract and non specific ways. I would write about remembrances of particular games that I think are important. I would write more generally about the industry and the culture surrounding video games. Mostly I would just write. Consistently, at least once a week, I would write something. Videogames was just a topic I knew well. A resource I could mine for words on a regular schedule. Videogames were never really the point. At least not for me. Writing was the point. Writing had to become a habit. I experimented a bit, and tried to “find my voice”, whatever that means. I also put every post out there in public so I couldn’t be precious with them. I rarely edit, and when I do, it is for readability and clarity, not content. I have written a few sentences that are real clunkers, and they will stay that way until this small corner of the internet is scoured from history.
Here is what I think I will do going forward. Most of the time it will be the usual nonsense. A write up about an old game that only I care about. A commentary on something in the larger gaming culture that I think I might have a take on. Some of it might be personal, some of it not as much. I’ll check in from time to time on my own work, art or development related. Once in awhile though, I will write something very different here. I might just post up a short story from my childhood, as I shakily remember it. Or I may, from time to time, post up a short bit of fiction that probably has very little to do with videogames. These I will write at times other than a few hours before I post them. I will edit them slightly more rigorously. I may even edit them and repost them with the changes.
I still love videogames, and I like talking and writing about them more than I like most other things. And when I say that I mean all the things. That exist. In the world. It’s sort of a problem. Anyway, I will continue to write and post at least one piece a week, but they might not all be about videogames. Some of them might be about bikes.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact