I’ve started to notice a trend in my own internet behavior, and somewhat feel that this new behavior is saving my time. I’m talking about following news via twitter.

At some point I was noticing that twitter is full of crap (that holds quite true still), but now I started thinking that I rarely visit to other gaming sites. Earlier, I checked indiegamer.com quite often. Gamasutra.com was also something I read. And I had a list of blog RSS feeds that I more or less frequently visited.

Nowadays I’m visiting indiegamer.com quite regularly (one reason being the fact that I’m a moderator there), but besides that (and my own sites) I think my direct visits to other sites have decreased. I now longer visit those sites so often unless somebody tweets about them. So, when there’s something worth visiting, twitter will tell me about it (I’m using Tweetdeck by the way, which is a must-get).

Didn’t really planned this. It just happened to me.

What gaming sites – blogs or others – are you visiting?

Today I’ve been doing a lot of work to get my game online with certain functionality… and did a bit of testing with help of couple of chaps (thanks to you, you know who you are).

It’s amazing how time flies when you get into the zone and have 110% clear idea of what you are supposed to do.

Better get some food (I’m hungry right now) and then transform my body to the bed. (My mind probably joins me as soon as it closes a few loops…)

Yesterday, I worked on The Infected traitor game design document and the “bare bones plan”. Earlier I had about a dozen different documents about gameplay, networking code, design ideas, some links, todos and everything. I had several documents since I was just using these files to write my things down, unorganized.

Yesterday I organized my thoughts, wrote a plan and made a clearer looking design document. I keep it bloody simple, and definitely don’t mark everything possible in the doc, only the essentials. Writing down this thing made everything so much clearer to me. I have a very clear idea about the upcoming next steps and things I plan to finish in the upcoming couple of weeks (guesstimation, I have no written-in-stone schedules). It also helped me thing about IGF submission and what I might be able to provide there.

I made huge progress yesterday. Didn’t write a single line of code. Just draw the route to the goal.

Now I’m running towards it.

Fast.

I moved to a new place in this month (desktop should -perhaps – come on Monday ;)) and was without an internet connection for over a week. This was bit strange to me, since I’ve never been without a computer/internet connection for one week (if you exclude holidays).

Earlier, I’ve always packed computer last – and unpacked it first. This time our move schedule changed (we were supposed to move in the end of November rather than in the beginning), so I couldn’t get internet earlier.

It was somewhat strange experience.

I didn’t miss computer and I had decided not to try to rush with things, but rather do the stuff what I can and do the other stuff later. (For example, my Dead Wake game needs an engine upgrade to ensure video card compatibility: these couple of issues that need to be taken care off before the release.)

It was bit weird to be without email for those 9 days.

But… it was also quite refreshing. I felt pretty “light” for that whole period. I don’t stress about things, and I like doing stuff on computer, but I’m not really an addict. I spend a lot of time on computer, but I also try to spend a lot of time off computer. Having one week off – suddenly – was a bit strange experience but I kind of recharged my batteries. After I get the desktop table, I have great motivation to get things really going on again.

It’s worth taking a break every now and then. A bit longer break.

How would you survive the next week without a computer & internet?

My “office” is moving next Tuesday and we are packing things. Like mentioned couple of days ago, I’ll be offline for about a week or so. I realize that there’s many things piling up in this time: there’s Dead Wake trial (one “candidate” version out) and Indie Xmas Calendar and a few other things as well (Insiders site re-opening and some other).

I realized that there’s no point for me to try get the real sellable trial version out before the move is done. It’s just too much hassle. I’ll also put couple of things on hold for a week or so, and will mainly focus on (1) move (no surprise) and (2) preparing the Xmas site for the launch (after all it’s only a few weeks to go).

No multitasking for me. Better do one thing at a time.

I’ve thought that I’m the kind of guy who gets excited about new things… but then drops motivation quite soon. I might impulse buy stuff that doesn’t get used. At least sometimes.

But… in game development, I find it pretty interesting that this doesn’t seem to be the case.

I developed Edoiki game for couple of calendar years (after which I cancelled it, but I wouldn’t call it lack of motivation – it was more like “too large project” thinking) and now after doing of couple of calendar years Dead Wake I still like to code it (which I now got to IGF and out for sale pretty much tomorrow day after that this week?).

I wonder how it’s been possible to keep the motivation when I’m doing things pretty much solo – with some help of course. I have managed to stay motivated pretty much all the time. Maybe it’s because that for the game project is something that simply keeps me motivated. I’m as excited about the progress of Dead Wake as I was on day 1. (At least if I remember correctly)

What about you? How motivated you are to work on your game? Do you lose your motivation? How you get yourself back to working? Is it easy? Tough?

Share your thoughts please.

This cat makes a valid point.

(pic found from here via google image search).