1. Presentations

Work on my Staffordshire University talk – which I’m giving on Thursday – is proceeding slowly, despite a lot of caffeine and what I feel is a pretty good basic structure.

The subject of of ‘breaking into games’ is a bit elusive, though, to be honest. It’s a bit like asking Tom Cruise how to be a movie star. (I am not, in any way, comparing myself to Tom Cruise. I’m taller, for one thing.) The point is, it’s kind of hard to tell anyone about how to achieve something as nebulous as a career goal. But since I doubt anyone would want me to just stand up on Thursday, shrug my shoulders and go “I dunno!” for 45 minutes on Thursday, I’ll keep working on it.

Doesn’t help that I insist on trying to make every presentation I do better than the last.

2. Judging

Related to the above, I’m helping to judge a competition for the students there. It’s split into various categories for things like Games Environments, Modelling/Animation and so on. Those categories were easy enough to pin down, but Game Design – where I’m looking at trailers and pitches for full games, or mods – man, that’s tough.

Tough because I’m trying to figure out if what I’m seeing would really be a good game, or whether it’s just a good trailer; tough because while some of the ideas are original, their presentation is weak (and vice versa) and just tough, really, because it’s so damn judgemental. Of course, that’s what you deal with when you’re a judge, so….

3. Casting

As I think I’ve mentioned before. We’ve got over 200 applicants for our two roles, now… I’ll be back on that by the end of the week, I expect. It’s not getting any easier. If I feel bad judging student’s games, imagine how I feel rejecting people for having a funny looking nose.

Ah well, back to it.