Isn't it always the way - you start something, learn alot but in the process, but end up forgeting something important.

Having been in the games industry for around 8 years now - its kind of hard to remember the happy thought I had the day I got my first job offer in the industry. Having finished university and worked for 9 months doing a job I hated, while practicing my coding and working on small demos in my spare time, that work had paid off. Then the actual reality of the job hits - the long hours, the stresses to meet deadlines and the outpouring of your energy into something that earns you little reward or you have little creative control over.

I have to say though, the last 8 years have been fantastic both in terms of what I have learnt and what I have done. I still enjoy working in the games industry, but I don't think I'm quite as enthusiastic about the games I work on. Which is probably why I've come full circle back to working on my own little projects in my spare time - not that I have much!!

I used to work with OpenGL alot before I entered the games industry - recently I've started to write a little application for windows with OpenGL. Now when I used to write programs there were no shaders or multi-texturing (yes - scary), so I've essentially started again from scratch with my knowledge and tried to make sure I don't fall into any pitfalls I remember.

My old projects used to take me a long time to complete because I didn't formulate myself a plan to follow, or objectives to complete. This is one of the things I'm glad I've picked up from my work. I sat down before I started and layed out a simple plan to follow that would be both measurable and have visible results in each step. This has helped me to actually get something up and running quickly - no screenshots, its not at that good a stage yet - and I have an actual goal to aim for with my next step.

So what am I doing here now - well, gamedev has been a massive resource that I have used alot to find out information and keep myself reminded of what I used to do. Now I'm back to pass on hopefully helpful information to others - and try to rediscover what I've forgotten!