Battle Gem Ponies DevLog #187 (When Will This Be Overrrr?)

     I swear, this isn't even a Battle Gem Ponies development blog anymore. It's me applying to every Unity Programming job on Earth and waiting weeks at a time for a response. Another week flew by and BGP gets covered in dust. But at least more promising opportunities are coming up lately. Just waiting for any one of them to throw me a decent concrete offer for a mid tp senior position and I'll probably jump on it.

The job search continues in this week in gamedev.

   Completed:

• Updated Blog's "Videos" Tab to Link to Updated YouTube Channel Page
• Practiced More Programming Languages
• Refreshed on Web & Database Programming
• Learned Countless New Unity Tricks
• Studied Tools and Info for Tangentially Related Industries
• Researched Games Made By Companies I Applied For
• More Applications for Anything Unity Related (entry, mid, or senior)

     Lessons Learned:

• September has become a full-time cram session.
• ll be rather upset if this becomes a two month process. Feels like I've been at this forever. I just wanna get back to making something.
• At the very least, I feel like this month of study has made me a better programmer and when I finally do get my hands on Battle Gem Ponies again, I'm gonna have a few cool things to add.

      Phone and in-person interviews all week long. Applying for anything allowing me to use Unity or similar engines, communicate between designers and coders, or come up with mobile games from scratch. Like, so many that I'm starting to forget which ones I applied for and the callbacks and followup emails are surprising me. 

     Some interviews are promising prospects that went incredibly well and others were flaming disasters. I just really can't wait for this all to be over and I'm pretty sure whichever one offers a number even slightly above my written budget first is gonna get me. Each passing day is painful and emotionally draining and I just want it to be over.

     Dealing with all kinds of negative feelings like exhaustion (more than usual anyway), embarrassment, inferiority, hopelessness, and rejection. Like 90% of small businesses, I went for it and failed. Luckily young enough to dust myself off and have a few years to spare, but one by one I'm missing those milestones I promised myself in high school and beyond. 

     My 25th birthday is coming up, and instead of being in my prime, celebrating my accomplishments that finally led to me leading a happy, wealthy, and free lifestyle, I may still be on this agonizing job hunt. Sounds unlikely right? How's a programmer searching and researching all-day everyday go 2 straight months unemployed in this day and age? Well, things haven't been going according to plan lately, so who knows. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Also hurts my soul knowing the current Battle Gem Ponies build is still in an unplayable state...
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      Featured:

     Given how a week has passed and I still haven't gotten an email from Magfest, I'm gonna assume I didn't accepted into the indie game showcase. Without any feedback my mind is left to speculate, and I believe the playable demo is what failed me. I know that thing is glitchy to hell and back and that's why I decided to start the whole codebase over from scratch which got me into this job search mess in the first place. (Or maybe it's just that lots of gamers don't like anything pony related, I get that a lot.)

     But hey, there's always the Quick Play option. I can setup a laptop running BGP for about 2 hours at a time and still get a taste of feedback. I hope by then I can at least have a vertical slice running.

     And there's always the chance that just like BronyCon, I could be next in line on a waitlist and hear sometime in December that it's game on. Look at that. I'm still optimistic.
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     Hurts my heart not being able to work on this thing. Just looking at the sprites makes me miss it so much. The Battle Gem Ponies are my babies and I need them to see the light of day. I have to get this game made. I just need a day job to keep the lights on while I tinker away, however long it takes.

     With any luck I'll end up with AAA experience and knowledge that I can use to increase the quality, plan out the sequel better, and gain some credibility/familiarity with games press so I'm not just some guy making some pony game nobody's ever heard of.