Plan for Nicolas Quijano

Indie Life, does it get more busy and fun than that ?

Wow. I'm psyched, pumped and having a ball, and sometimes have to pinch myself to realize how fortunate and privileged I am to be doing what I love for a living while not being just a cog in a machine...
After a bit of a downer and procrastination (helped by WoW being fun ;)) when I stopped working at Gameloft Montreal, things are definitely on an upswing nowadays, on many levels although the prime topic of interest here is game dev and how you life outside it can affect it.

Working full time on a contract job for 21-6 Productions, but we can't talk about the project for the time being. Sorry :)
Interesting work, great team, great people, and a great project to work on.

And then, I'm also working with Dave Myers on a part time basis, for his new studio Lumpy Games, on the exploring game he mentions in his blog.
This is a project that's also very dear to me, as I've loved the broad genre of TBS/RTS and other more "thinking" games that appeal to the grognard in me ever since I played the original Balance of Power on a friend's Mac back in, what, 1984 or 85 ?
Not to go into the fact that I owned and played the original Civilization boardgame back in that era :)
I mean, from a gamedev's perspective, this games are like a boon : quite sophisticated in the way everything pieces together, etc.
It will rock, as this is another great team and bunch of great people :)

And there is more on the horizon :)

Now, this is all possible because the rest of my life is suiting me : I have a controlled burn rate, distinct short term and mid to long term goals for where I want to be at, be it game dev wise, or just living a good life.
Not to say that the last 4-5 years haven't seen a lot of ups and downs, failed promises and expectations, mistakes and outright failures.
That's normal : no pain, no gain as the popular saying goes..
Being happy helps, a lot, and for that you need to do other things from working on games and playing them : we all have phases where it seems that we only do that : make games, play games, no life outside...
You can't just be working on games, you'll burnout.
You can't have you head in the cloud (at least, not too much ;)), or you'll never reach those goals, however lofty and grand they may seem.
Which brings back to a motto you'll hear regularly around here :

Right size your life !!

Do what you can do according to your situation, not less, not more.
Achieving a balance is the key here :)

Now, I'm sure I'm not the only one psyched by T2D, the TSE upcoming milestone (have a good holiday Ben), and the looming refactoring of TGE known as 1.4.
Not to mention the great work the GG PR and Marketing guys are doing.
I mean, face it : a Ubisoft recruiter is looking for talent here :)
We must, as a group and community be doing something right, neh ?

IGC05, aka the fourth IGC will be the biggest yet, I think (and no, I do not have any priveleged information on the topic, I'm speculating) : more people, more games, more tech, more enthusiasm, and, hmm, more drinking... (lol)

Any endeavor in life is going to need a lot of hard work, but it's so fulfilling when it's the stuff your dreams are made of, that it goes against the grain, and you can be proud of what you do.

Many thanks to GG for being a "indie enabler", and staying that course.
Ditto to Justin and Dave for trusting me with their baby all the way back in late 2002 : that was a good push in the right direction, thank you both very much :)

Keep on Torquin' in the free world !!

P.S : It's not all fun and games, it's hard work, but the great moments make it all worthwhile

This plan is also mirrored on my blog, Permacrunch