Greetings from South Africa

So we’ve been in South Africa for a couple days now and the experience and reaction we’re getting from people has been amazing. I think everyone on the trip loves every second that we’re here. The people are nice and friendly and the things we’re learning about making products go viral and how to properly format entertainment-education are invaluable.

The things we learn both about ourselves, the people of South Africa, and how South Africans view games are fascinating to myself. Earlier today I was speaking with some 19 year old South African women and they were shocked to hear that I was still playing video games at my age. They said to Corrin, one of the people on the trip, that they would not want to marry a man who played video games, after she shared that her husband still did.

It’s very interesting to learn all of these things. Not to mention that in the past couple days we’ve pretty much decided on a platform for the project and we’re really starting to nail down some thoughts, at least I believe we are. That isn’t to say we won’t change our minds as we’re still in the conceptual phase, but as time goes on we’re definitely getting a better feel of the country here and definitely, I think, learning how they think and how to talk to them.

Tomorrow

The day is almost here. Tomorrow we begin our Journey to South Africa. We're all feel very anxious, very excited, and very hectic as we're all running around taking care of all the little last minute things that we need to take care of.

I don't have much more to tell you on this except that the project now has it's own blog and we'll be updating it from South Africa so you can see it on my side links and you can stay up to date that way.

Incredible Opportunity

I purposefully waited to announce this. Probably because I didn't want this announcement to be the big reason why everyone came here and read what I wrote.

The United Nations has hired my department here at Champlain College to make a game. My department is the Emergent Media Center, hence why it's in my links on the side. The game they have asked us to work on is a game to try and help end violence against women. We're working with Population Media Center who have made many successful soap operas and radio dramas in multiple countries to help promote literacy, AIDS awareness, and awareness on other issues.

This Friday those of us working on the project will be traveling to South Africa. It's going to be a very long flight, which we're all planning on bringing a lot of travel games, but we're all pretty excited for this opportunity. After we fly down we'll be there for about 7 days doing research. I know this doesn't sound like a lot of time but after those 7 days we're going to fly back to Burlington, probably have a meeting including the whole department, then go to our first day of classes.

This is definitely going to be an amazing chance for all of us working at the department to really do something wonderful to help people. We're all looking forward to really buckling down and creating a great product. We just have to be careful, because someone said this about novels but I know it applies to games as well.

"You can have a wonderful idea, but there are only a handful of ways to tell it the right way, and over a million ways to tell it wrong way."

I believe it was Orson Scott Card who said that, or something similar as I probably paraphrased it, but the meaning is still there. There are going to be a handful of ways to properly make this game and a million ways to not make it properly. We're going to have to strive and push for one of those few proper ways to do it.

Declaration of Intentions

That title actually sounds a bit more important and formal than what I'm planning. But I thought up the phrase and now I'm sticking with it.

I am making this blog for the purposes of sharing some things with the world, or more specifically the video gaming world. This blog is to be a relatively formal place to share how I am Growing 'n' Gaming. Meaning that I will be posting here mainly about the things I learn, all though not all of the things I learn that's what notebooks are for, and design and team challenges I face both now and when I enter the industry. This will not be a place for me to vent my "I can't believe she turned me down on that date!" type of thoughts. I have other places for that and will turn to them get those frustrations off of my chest.

As I said this blog is about my growth in the video game industry and also probably as a gamer as well. I am a believer in the fact that we never stop learning and never stop growing so I expect that even many years from now I will be posting here. Rather than go on about this I think I will tell you a little bit about myself and save more information for my later posts.

I am currently a Junior in the Electronic Game Design major at Champlain College in Burlington, VT. Ever since I was in Elementary School I've cared a lot about games and I developed a drive in my heart to make things that other people can enjoy. Those are probably my two strongest driving factors in pursuing my current career path. I am confident that I will become a productive member of the game developer community, but only time will tell.