My Learning Process

I’ve been busy trying to make a game for Physics-Games dot Net while simultaneously learning how to make a game at all. I do have some experience with game development, so I am not fearing the part where I have to make the game fun/decent/playable, and I’ve been fucking around with Photoshop in some form or another since I was but a wee lad, so the graphics won’t look all too terrible either. But programming man, fucking programming… I think that’s one of the few things my brain just is not easily capable of (along with making/keeping friends and cleaning the house).

But I want this, so as usual I’m going to try. There is money involved this time, so I might actually succeed in my goals. The game is actually coming along a bit, and I hope to have it done before the end of March.

While sorting things out for the game, I started noticing how I have a certain pattern of learning. I have always been a bit self-reflective, and I’m thinking that, trying to somehow get a business going out of this work, being a little bit more self-reflective won’t hurt. So it seems to me a good idea to write down these thoughts that occurred to me.

I already know a bit about pretty much everything. Spending most of my teenage years watching television (some if it educational), reading anything I found interesting,  watching other people fuck up lots and having a ton of free time has really given me a lot of knowledge on both a global, common-knowledge scale and about a bunch of different subjects. Basically I know a little about everything.

Generally this a positive trait, but I’ve noticed that it can get in the way of my learning. Usually when there are lessons for something, like say tutorials on how to make Flash games, they tend to be too simplistic, and I get bored. I already know a bit about Flash. I’ve animated with Flash, I’ve done some (very) simple ActionScript, I don’t need to know how to make a button, how to move a ball from one side of the stage to the other… So, getting bored I look for more complex lessons, and jump right into the deep end.

Of course, then it gets way too hard. All the knowledge I have about a particular subject is pretty much due to semi-random exposure, there’s very little structure there. So then I get annoyed, because this is too hard, and the other one was too easy, and depending on my motivation I probably give up and move on to a different subject at that point.

This is why there aren’t any Flash games with my name on it out there (yet).

This is why I have very little money.

Of course, I don’t always give up. Depending on my motivation I either adapt my strategies or my goals, or I push on and keep going, taking the easy lessons and moving on to the hard ones, giving myself structure and all that.

It is because of adapting my strategies and goals that I am pretty versatile with WordPress, something I knew very little about just a year ago.

It is because I will push on and just learn what I have to learn that this game will be finished, and will also actually be somewhat fun to play.

Being more aware of why and how I give up when I don’t want to should help me keep going in those times when things get a bit too hard and/or annoying. I am somewhat of an adult now, and I have a lot of compensating to do for being such a lazy fuck for such a long time.

I’ll be fine.