I hate ‘Friends’
I’ve always hated ‘Friends’
I’ve hated it since it debuted in ’94 and them roommates and I were dirt poor, living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and it took TWO subway rides to get anywhere. The roomies and I would lambast the show for its sheer ‘un-New York-ness’. No one we knew had giant apartments like that. There were no strikingly attractive people living across the hall from us. Our ‘wacky adventures’ were rollerblading the city streets looking for the cheapest food and ale we could find.
But I can’t get that damn theme song out of my head.
2nd gear. Stuck. Summer break with 2 kids who are bored. Family vacations stuck in the car driving for hours. Summer camps (special needs for lil’ Art Director and chess camp for Jr. lil’ Art Director).
Playdates with other kids. And I truly believe Sartre is being misquoted when he said ‘Hell is other people’ – I think he mean to say ‘Hell is other people’s kids’ – either I have some sort of ‘vibe’ kids pick up on, or there is a serious parenting crisis in the country; but it seems that if I show even the slightest interest / interaction with anyone my kids are playing with, they instantly glom on to me and demand my attention. Its almost as if they’re neglected by every single adult in their lives and they are starved for grown up attention.
Rant over. Seeing that I haven’t written since April- I can totally relate to the whole ‘stuck in 2nd gear’ motif. Even though things HAVE been moving forward.
I’ve been slowly plugging away at the mobile game – and despite the struggles of adding the Curved World effect that it seems is necessary for all infinite runners these days, its getting closer to release. The biggest issue, of course, is the impostor syndrome nagging of ‘is it any good?’ Which I’m sure will plague me 10 years down the road after the internet has shredded it, mocked me into a cave-living hermit.
I’ve been playing around with AI stuff as well – I tried plugging my game into Midjourney, and this is what was spat out – and I kinda like it as a starting point, so it might become the logo for the mobile game. After some edits. Painting it from scratch. Adding my kid’s handwritten font. Redoing it again cause I don’t like it. BUT – I do see the potential for faster iterating of ideas, maybe not the actual art creation, but just quickly throwing out stuff to see what get the creative juices flowing.
Lastly – I got an intern! A fellow Oculus Launch Pad dev (who also happens to be a new media professor at a nearby college) approached me with a student who wants to learn VR dev and I have to say; as SOON as I get a dime of funding, I’m hiring this guy. Its been so long since I’ve done any collaborative work with someone else, that I had forgotten that people can bring a whole different kind of creativity to the table. The animation above really drove that point home. I would have given this character a skootchy, wiggly type of dragging on the ground movement, but instead my intern gave it this vertical, bounciness that I totally adore. Having a different viewpoint can be completely eye-opening.
Keep your eyes peeled – crowdfunding is coming soon!