I'm in the middle of a Zen Moment at camp so I thought I'd write a blog post. I'm sitting in a lonely corner of the room rejoicing in the high of game development. About two days ago I wrote that I was recoding Noise and I feel great because at this current moment, it plays better than it ever did and the gameplay is really almost done. I know that you've heard me talk about my game for the past two years and throughout I've said I was almost done. This time I really feel it. The amount of confidence I feel as to implementing various features in a game is skyrocketing because of how much control I now feel over the game's code. I still have two and a half hours tonight if I want to work on it more. I'm excited because now that I've broken through the haze of sloppy code I can finish Noise in a reasonable amount of time and finish a few more of my abandoned game projects for the rest of the summer.
I'm also completely satisfied with the high of listening to music free on Youtube. Fugazi to Mudhoney. Led Zeppelin to Black Flag. Modest Mouse to Engine Kid. Particularly though I felt a huge moment of nostalgia while listening to the song Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns by Mother Love Bone. It was a different kind of nostalgia though. Mother Love Bone is very regional and non-famous Seattle band and their songs remind me of the time I spent in that fine city. I realize how much influence that city has had on my influence. I've moved around a lot during my relatively short life and gained a lot from the places I've been but for some reason the two years I spent in Seattle have eclipsed the others. I believe it was because I became a true teenager in Seattle. I began to transition from childhood and my true self began to develop. I went through puberty and the innocence of my life began to fade and as I began to understand the world more my interests began to specialize. It all really happened in the course of the two summers I spent in Seattle.
The first summer was the one in which I moved to Seattle. It was late June. I had no friends. I had just been on a perceived mega-highway into the West for a week. I played games a lot that summer. In the hot, above-garage, room I honed my gaming taste. The game of that summer was Metroid Prime seemingly. I mostly thought about Star Fox Armada as it was called then. Yeah I was a real loser. We had G4 that summer. I went to the mall and I recall buying some vintage games about every week that summer. I think I replaced my recently lost friends with games. That's why the games were so personal. I play Metroid Prime like I visit an old friend. I remember meeting my new friends with games as the common ground. I knew I wanted to make games.
The second summer of Seattle was slightly different. I went through puberty. I remember the day it happened. It was about a week after school let out my brother and his friend were having a sleepover. I went to the library that day. I remember thinking about how I was going to adapt Nintendo's Japanese Star Fox comic "Goodbye Beloved, Falco" in game form. Naive. I remember that we watched Lord of the Rings: Return of the King that night. I remember I had a dream that night. I was never the same
That summer I also discovered the Internet's capacity for communication. I'd later call it "teh Netz!" I began to use it as a resource for my life. I figured myself out through the Internet. That summer I overcame all fear. I got into horror movies. I read Stephen King. I read IT. IT was like an abstracted version of my summer. I don't know about all that coming of age stuff but I totally fought a metaphysical clown. I thought about death. I thought about life. Are we chemical reactions or are we characters? I couldn't figure it out. I remember that my mom got me Halo after refusing for a year that summer. Perhaps the M-Rated boundary crossing was symbolic. Probably not. I remember how I'd feel hot in my clothes and so cool in my night clothes. The hot to cool, discomfort to discomfort transition was transcendence. At that point in time I couldn't die. I had no idea of the existential inspiration of a red eye flight. We'll All Float On hit the scene that year. I listened to it on the plane. It helped me sleep through the discomfort. I missed living while sleeping though. So was the song a drug? It killed me but I stayed alive. I made it out of stagnation and then the ride started again. I want the stagnant wandering to come back.