In working on this thesis, I'm learning to embrace the "vertical slice" method of production. In case you're reading this and haven't come across that term, what it means is that I want to create a portion of a game that acts as a proof of concept of the game as a whole. What this means for me is that, since I have a prototype for my project due on November 8th, I want to build a section of the game in order to figure our macro-problems. For instance, while I had initially p

So, I'm writing this blog post at the tail end of my birthday, and let me tell you, it would have been really easy to just consider this a by-week just because of that fact. I mean, after all, on Tuesday I had received the tacit approval of my faculty concerning my new direction. I spoke with them in class to talk over the logistics of our midterm show, and they gave no protest to my ideas for what I could demonstrate. Having that out of the way, it would be easy to trick my

So, the week leading up to this weekend was one full of existential crises, if I may be completely candid. It was the usual doubt that I face as an artist - indeed, many artists feel similar doubt - compounded by the fact that this project is supposed to be a capstone of everything that I've learned in my 4 years at USC, and the fact that I couldn't figure it out was anguish to me. However, some time around Thursday argument, I began putting the pieces of what I had shattered

So, this week was...turbulent, to say the least, when it came to my thesis. For starters, I didn't end up making that paper prototype board game. The reason for this was because of a last minute change of platform that was brought upon by a conversation with my boss at my internship. Now, the realization that I came to with my boss is one that I still hold on to: my previous idea of having a linked board game and app was far out of my scope for a yearlong thesis project. I

...putting it together! (sorry, I can't resist a good Sondheim reference). Anyways, the title still works on it's own because now that I've actually committed to an idea and a schedule, I find that, at least for right now, I'm starting to look at a lot of minutiae that adds up to larger wholes, which can be quite daunting. Take, for instance, the making of a paper prototype (due Tuesday for me, by the way). Like every kind of creative project, I have to start out with raw mat