Thanks to 3 dads, Lee Davey, Rich Hudson, and Owen McManus who submitted this content. Cheers to all you dads and people who love dads. That’s just about everyone.
Calgary’s International Game Developer’s Chapter restarted over the last year with a handful of members who like to hang out share ideas. Our meetups are pretty informal with a show and tell at either a meeting place we can find or at a pub for beers. It’s about fun and collaboration. Since three of our members are dads and we all enjoy the dad stories and pictures, we thought we would share the dad perspective.
Day and the life of Lee working on his game
“Now that I have children, I realize that I wasted all my free time” Lee Davey, one of our Developer Dad’s.
A year ago Lee Davey was looking at getting back into writing code. “My twin girls are 20 months old (as of this writing) and I have been married for nearly 4 years. During the day, I manage a team of software developers and do not have the time to spend coding at work. For a goal to work towards, I decided to make a game at home in my spare time. I enjoy playing video games and in my early programming years, tried to make a few. I wanted to develop something in the mobile space and with my knowledge of Java, I chose Android.”
Rich Hudson is a hobbyist, who says “game development never becomes a job and if it did, I could simply stop. Game development for me is the mental escape and relaxation I need at the end of a hard day coding at work and looking after my young boys. It’s the creative process that is at the center of this harmony. There is nothing more exciting than writing some AI code, attaching it to a 3D character and watching him come alive. Another factor for me, living in Calgary, Canada, is that we have long winters and you really do need something to do with your evenings, especially when I cannot go out because of my children.”
Owen McManus comments ..”I’ve decided to stay home and play with my kids, while they still think I’m cool.” See photo below of Owen’s two cuties.
Testers who push the boundaries of imagination
Owen went on to explain .. “While the passage of time corrects that misconception I figured I might as well dive into game development as a (very) part time occupation. Being a stay at home dad with two kids means I’m not going to be making any epic scale games. That doesn’t really bother me too much. I plug away on some modest sized projects, and also the occasional small app development. So far, I think the results have been pretty good. I’ve learned some javascript and C#, developed decent workflow strategies, and I have a 3 year old that can speed run the first chapter of Portal 2. All important skills. ”
He goes on to write “In some previous life, I’ve worked on all sorts of commercial art. From modelling and animation for entertainment and advertising companies, to designing and manufacturing signs, and giant foam sculptures. I’ve also had the briefest of professional brushes with game development. My personal love of games and interest in game development goes back a lot longer. Roughly 3 decades. Since the time I spent hours stuffing some half baked Adventure clone through a barely functional membrane keyboard, into the 2K of memory inside my Timex Sinclair, I was hooked. I’ve spent years working on every peripheral skill, each time coming back to games. Art. Great, but I think I want to make art for games. Animation. Fantastic, maybe animation for games. Acting. Love it, maybe I’ll act in some games. History. Good research for making better games. ”
What are some of the challenges of a hobbyist game developer with young kids?
Lee says. “Time is one of the biggest challenges especially with twins. Usually I am developing on my home computer and with the girls under two, it is hard not to help out while they are awake. So your time to work is limited to after bed time and after spending time with my wife.”
Lee will tell you dealing with interruptions is another challenge. ” If I manage to get a little time to myself, there will be interruptions. For example someone crying during a nap or when falling asleep or I have to watch the kids while my wife goes out for some errands. It helps to be able to quickly jump back into the project and get my head around where things are at and what needs to be done. Good comments in the code help with this as well as a to do list. Both of these help answer the question, “Where was I?” when I get back to working on the project”
Rich Hudson shares his perspective of the nights staying up too late coding, “knowing full well I will be awake in four hours with a screaming child. The art of firing off a build with one hand and wiping a child’s bum with the other. The focus required to find and fix a bug all the while being hit in the head with a small plastic hammer.”
Thought you had a tough day in the office?
All three developer dads agree it’s not all that bad. In fact in some ways it is the perfect blend of game development and doing something they enjoy as a hobby. If your game is age appropriate for your kids, you could use them as your first testers. And nothing motivate a game developer more than the kids nagging for the next version to get released.
Lee says finding the IGDA Calgary Chapter was also a big help. “It is helpful to meet people have a variety of skills and involvement with game development. There are people from the industry, community organizers, and hobbyists. As well as people with skills in coding, art and design. Hobbyist game developers do not have quite the urgency to continue with a project like someone who is in a company and getting paid to finish the game. Attending the regular IGDA meetings is motivating, it is like having a workout partner. They will encourage you to keep going and are interested in seeing things progress.
I met people so much like myself that we Game Dev Dads also meet up outside of the regular meetings. The three of us enjoy working on games and all have kids around the same age (around two). It is a good opportunity for us to get out of the house and keep motivated on our projects. We share the latest progress we’ve been making on our games, show off pictures of the kids, and talk about game development. Each of us brings a different perspective on game development, I am writing my own game engine for Android using OpenGL, another dad is creating a game using Unity3D and C#, and the third dad is an artist and works in Unity3D as well.”
Rich says what is great for him is having about three hours every night to work on his game (other than when I am playing soccer). ” I also have a very supportive wife, who not only does not mind me spending our money on both the game engine (Unity3D) and any art assets I need to purchase, but does not mind the time I spend working on it. I also have a very focused personality, in a year and a half of working on my game I have only ever taken a break from it for vacations or family emergencies.
For whatever reason I just never seem to tire of working on it. Some nights I may elect to play a newly released game instead of working on mine, and I generally feel guilty the whole time. The IGDA has also been great for me. It helped me move from feeling isolated to feeling like there were others who shared my passion and understood what it took to live a full life and work on a game in your spare time. In particular, there are two other hobbyist dads who I interact with regularly for support, ideas and of course a night out. Also interacting with other IGDA members who may be employees in the game development field or own their own game development companies helps bring different perspectives and ideas to both their own and my development experience.”
Rich adds the biggest challenge I face as a one man hobbyist, is trying to fill in the roles I cannot do. “For me this includes 2D art work, 3D art assets, and music/sound. Those things need to be purchased, and sometimes I cannot get the exact assets I would hope for, so how do you compensate for this? Well I change my story/setting so that it fits the assets available. Ideal – no, but as a hobbyist I do not have the luxury of a large budget, but what I do have is the flexibility to change ideas mid-stream and not have to go through any hoops to implement them.
Another big challenge is scope. I started out doing the dumbest thing a new game developer could do, I went with an RPG. Or was it dumb? OK yes it was dumb, but I made the decision less dumb. My thought at the time was that I love RPG’s so my interest would stay high, and I would likely learn all the ins and outs of the engine and API through this genre selection. I was right on both counts, and the way to make an RPG work for a hobbyist is to control scope. For example, I will never be able to implement a fancy inventory system because this requires all sorts of specific 3D objects (armor, weapons, helm, etc.) and then the associated 2D art (icons). So I went with a “rune” system where you add runes to your items and they add properties to them. Anyone can get/create a small rock that looks like a rune, and manually creating the icons and textures was within my lousy child-like art skills. So I have the opposite problem large AAA titles have, they end up with scope creep and I end up reeling in my scope whenever something is beyond my resources or skill set.”
The world is mine - all mine
Rich says “so long as I can continue to balance fatherhood, work, sports and game development I will. If it ever becomes a choreI will stop, but I do not see that happening. I may or may not ever release the game I am working on (The Kranky Boy – A developers blog ) but either way it will have been a worthwhile journey.It has been fun so far and I look forward to where we can take the Calgary chapter in the future.”
Owen reflects “having kids really makes me focus on what is important to me. I simply don’t have time to waste. My life gets narrowed down to only those things that I have to do and the things I won’t give up. Spending my very limited free time working on games became obvious. I’ve spent over 30 years thinking about games while I was doing something else. If I spend the next 30, or more thinking about, and making games, I’ll be happy with that. I will be forever grateful to my wife and kids for providing me with that clarity.”
He says finding like minded people in the IGDA group has helped a ton. “I may not have time to devote to working in a studio right now, but being able to talk with people who share the same need to create games that I do, is a great support. Finding that other members of the IGDA group here in Calgary are in a similar situation, young kids, and side projects, is also very helpful. I think that game development is often thought of as a “young mans game”, that requires me to sacrifice my time and family balance to death march crunches, and shipping schedules. Finding compatriots who prove that isn’t true is refreshing. My apologies to the “nerd dads” for possibly implying that we are old men… and nerds. They are good people though, so I don’t think they will be too insulted.” Plug: TurboGarbageTruck. Go play it.
Our group meets monthly, next meeting starting in Fall. We don’t know if we will become a formal IGDA chapter or just meet up. In any event, Calgary has some creative artists, developers, and interesting stories, just not all well known.
Cheers, Happy Fathers Day, and Hugs to all…
Laurie
