Carnegie-Mellon: The Aftermath
So if you've started reading this journal thing recently, you may not be aware that this summer I attended the Carnegie-Mellon University National High School Game Academy (I'm 17 and a senor in High School for reference). It basically is meant to introduce interested high school students into the process of making a game.
And it was sort of lame.
Well, for me at least, because as it turns out I am ahead of the curve when it comes to actual knowledge about the game industry and about making games themselves. Our major project, or 'Mod', was just a map made using the Warcraft 3 editor, and it basically formed the major basis for whether or not we succeeded, and whether or not we would get a reccomendation to go there for for real college.
Now, while I was there, I worked on my map, which I thought was done half heartedly, me wanting to draw stuff for A22, which I felt (and still do) was infinitely more important in the long run. I never even bothered to have other people play test it, whose input written up comprised our weekly assignments. I basically just made up my own stuff based off the problems I saw., instead.
So I got my project(map) review back from them a week ago, not reading it too close for fear that I essentially just blew several thousand dollars in attending. I basically glanced at it, and found out that it was good, but had some bugs. Bugs I should've fixed. So I then left it alone and kept it at the back of my mind until today, when I actually bothered to see how my classmates did by talking with a friend from there that kept in touch with everybody.
As it turns out, my map was the only one that he heard of that had a good review, which also gets me the formal recomendation to Carnegie-Mellon.
Fuck, yes.
And the more I thought about it, and the more I reread the review letter, the awesomer I felt, because I realiized that the entire time I was there, that I was the only one who had some idea of what the hell they were doing. I was the only one that was working a significant amount of time when we were supposed to, that actually talked to any great degree to my assigned mentor, and who had any idea of a realistic approach to the assignment.
I owned that program, in retrospect. I simply dominated. And it feels awesome, especially because I didn't even try that friggin' hard.
Overall, this hopefully means that I actually do have a decent chance of breaking into the industry, given what I've seen of my competition(of similar ages).
Neuvo Menu!
Ok, the ego trippin' is over with for the most part in this entry, as I am now going to show you a hardcore work-in-progress menu:
Our menus will basically all be on this screeen, which has two sub-screens that will change with the context, with the basic option buttons in the lower left being permanently seen. It's going to be interesting to figure out how to use both screens for everything, and making navigation... navigable.
I'm going for the glass-cockpit look, in case you were asking "what's he trying to go for with that?".
Good night, school tomorrow!*
*Exclamation Mark does not indicate enthusiasm
