I’ve been thinking about writing my thoughts, ideas, analysis, theories – basically anything that’s remotely connected to my work as a developer – for years now, as well as documenting my progress on my various projects.
This is my attempt at doing exactly that, hopefully kinda regularly (but definitely not on a proper schedule – let’s not start setting unattainable expectations right from the start).
Who am I?
Very briefly: I’m Max, and I’ve been making games for years. For a long time, it was something I did as an amateur (nothing negative behind that word, as far as I’m concerned), while working as a T.V and radio screenwriter. Then, I published a game on Steam, Down n’ Up, just to see how it feels, and worked on a more personal project, The Antarctic Sphere, that earned me a grant.
The money from the grant enabled me to take a break from my job and enter a very famous video game school in France called ENJMIN (I enrolled in game design).
I’m now at the end of my university course, and I’m about to do a 6-month internship in a small French studio to validate my diploma and enter the industry. That’s pretty much it.
But the most important thing, and the topic I’m gonna write about in this blog, is that I develop video games in my free time, as a solo developer.
Why write?
That’s a good question. I believe there are many benefits to writing about your work, here are the ones I am particularly interested in:
- Enhance your own thinking: I am a firm believer that the writing process is an amazing way to become more aware of your own work process, and a great help to develop deeper thoughts about lots of connected subjects like design, programming, project management, and all the good stuff. It’s like rubber ducking but with a record of your thoughts. I’m really interested in that aspect of writing, because I’ve been doing games in a kind of amateur way for years now, and I’m looking to make my design more conscious and intentional.
- Document your work: I think documenting your work is a good way to keep track of what you’ve accomplished, which is by itself a good way to not think you’ve accomplished nothing (a feeling that often crosses my mind). Again, it’s also an interesting process to structure your work and make more progress. I believe I’m way better at managing my projects, scope, etc. (I was very bad at it before I entered my school), and I’m really interested at becoming really good at it.
I’m also a huge fan of blogs about the process of game dev (I’m an avid reader of lots of blogs of this kind), so I figured: “Why not do it myself?”. - Keeping yourself on track: I have this idea that when you write regularly about a project, you’re less likely to abandon the project and leave it unfinished. I have a very tendency to keep the vast majority of my projects unfinished. I’d like to sop doing that… Hopefully, this will help.
- Open a dialogue: even though this is first and foremost something I do for my own benefit, it’s still pretty great if this lead to interesting exchanges with other developers. If you want to react to something you read here, or just chat with me about anything regarding video game development or game design, feel free to contact me at dotsquaregame@max-martinianigmail-com
The choice of language
I’ve decided to write these posts in English, even though my native language is French, just so that it’s possible for non-French-speaking people to read it. That’s pretty much it.
Like everything else in life, it comes with advantages, but also disadvantages – in this case, that of taking up more of my writing time. I’ll do my best to write in correct English.
What’s next?
In my next post, I’ll be looking back at the projects put on hold during the last few months of my studies, and write down what I plan to do in the near future (this is still unclear, and I hope this writing process will help me see more clearly what I want to do).
So long! 👋