Week 2 begins, and the sliding doors that separate the artists from the programmers are opened and the programmers are finally revealed to us normal folk (well, at least we like to think so). It really is quite funny to see the differences between artists and programmers, as we all work in game production you would imagine that we're all quite similar; but from what I saw today you would be very wrong. As I walked into the room I was taken aback by the fact that the room had just doubled in size, and on my left were sat 10 programmers all with various objects/toys/anti-stress balls littering their desks. After a brief moment taking in this sight I go for the computer that seems to have become mine; oddly enough we seem to have come to some unspoken agreement about who sits where.
Today we weren't set tasks to complete, as such, at least not like last week. Today was all about learning how to use the Torque 2D engine. This was very different to anything we did last week as this was not so much art oriented, but rather more towards building the core gameplay. As this was a fairly new software for everybody involved we were told to just make our way through the 'official documentation' (or in other words, the tutorials that come with the software). So that was pretty much what we did all day; although it took most of the day I think I could have been done earlier but we (and by we I mean over half the whole group of artists and programmers) had some issues with the software. It just did not seem to want to work, or when it finally did somebody else would have a problem and then a little later on you would find you have another problem yourself. Still, we worked our way around some of them and fixed others (well mainly the programmers/tutors did).
Let me give you another couple of examples of the differences between us (the artists) and them (the programmers); the first is that even though we are all going through the same tutorials you notice that the method of going through them is very different. We tended to play around with the graphics and see how we could implement what we had just learnt to make some 'cool' visual effects; the programmers on the other hand tended to just use whatever graphic and concentrate on making the mechanics more efficient. We played with the art side of the tutorials and quickly passed/skimmed through the scripting parts, whereas they tended to do the opposite (some of them even trying to pick the code apart to see why the software was bugging. One thing that did make me laugh was when one programmers thought he'd spotted the reason why the software had been giving us grief all day and tried to show us, but when he ran it and it worked fine he got frustrated shouting: "nooo you're not supposed to work, why are you working?", whereas when WE were having problems and then suddenly it was working again for no reason we would just be glad that it was working again).
So anyway, my second example was something that was only noticed halfway through the day and pointed out to me by Richard (one of the artists sitting next to me); as we sat there each concentrating on getting through these tutorials, with the odd out-loud 'eureka' moment, the programmers had not stopped talking about...actually I don't know I wasn't listening, but they did not stop. At one point they were firing Nerf guns at each other, or were sharing 'lolcats' around (you know the ones, they are the "funny" pictures of cats with "funny" captions). I don't actually have any issues with this, if anything I find it amusing to see the differences between two groups of people who work so closely together. I guess this kind of behaviour is something that has been embedded in the programmers to help them deal with the stress and frustrations that come with programming. Then again it could just be a coincidence, either way I think this year is going to be a whole new experience for me, but most probably an enjoyable one.
Bring on next week, the start of production for our space invaders game. I expect plenty of crazy, stressful, happy, frustrating and eureka moments; in other words, there's going to be more mood swings than on the set of Loose Women.
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