God, I Miss This Place

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

They're great. The oldest one is six now, started kindergarten this year, and we had another baby in March. There were some complications during and after the birth, though. Mom and baby are perfectly healthy now, but the medical bills are insane. The whole experience really opened my eyes to some of the dilemmas with the health care industry (which is saying something, because I work in health care).

As for the new job... it's good but super stressful. I've had multiple new jobs over the past 1.5 year, and keep getting shuffled into new roles through reorgs and resource shuffling. For a time I was doing QA, then was helping as an analyst, now I'm now back to project management and I don't love it, but it's stable and decent money. My background is really straight up Agile/Scrum project management, which is what I was doing when we were last working on our "project."

EDIT: Warning, here comes a life rant!

I'm definitely the type that wishes I could find that one job that gets me excited. I actually interviewed with a fairly well-known video game company on a whim not too long ago, but the job was more geared to marketing than actual project management (despite the job post), and the move would have been to CA with an insanely high cost of living and not enough pay to justify. I love the company, though, and even knowing the insanity of the video game industry, I was tempted.

I've toyed with trying to start my own company, but am scared to death of the risk associated with it. My wife is a stay-at-home mom, and being the sole breadwinner for a family of four doesn't really leave much room for risk... And to be honest, I also don't really know what kind of company I'd start. I mean, I know software development from the PM side, and I know some SQL, but by no means am I technical enough to sit down and push out something that requires technical work. I look at things like Black Isle studios (RIP), Stardew Valley, and old game studios that had a dozen people and the idea of it is attractive, but only in theory. I'm revisiting Terrangima by Quintet on the SNES and I am finding it both therapeutic and inspiring.

I dunno, I'm in my 30's now and I'm just waiting for that lightbulb that I fear may never come. All I know is that I hate being tied to a cubicle and feeling like I'm just a cog in a machine. Some days I feel the springtime of youth is fading, hahaha...

/rant.

[Mauron]

Glad the family's doing good now. I think some of the healthcare stuff becomes clearer once you experience it first hand, unfortunately.

Stress is quite an evil thing.

There's definitely something interesting about making your own games, but you'd definitely need a team for it, even when using simpler graphics. Maybe some hobby creativity will help recapture that springtime of youth feeling?

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

You and I are thinking on the same wavelength. That's what I was talking about in regards to scratching that creative itch with picking up our little project again.

Sometimes we find clarity in that sort of thing. If nothing else, it's fun and a nice distraction from the day to day grind.

[Mauron]

My first goal is the sense of completion from finally getting Hi-Tech in a release state, instead of endless development. I was going to jump into finishing the 8th character patch afterward, but a creative break wouldn't be bad.

[Cherenkov]

I don't want to intrude on you two's reunion, but I wanted to say, don't lose hope on the whole game creation thing! You mentioned needing a team, but remember that Undertale was made by just one guy, and look how big and popular that got! With enough determination, even one person can make a beloved game.

[Nangbaby]

It takes more than determination, though. I can and have been determined to pursue countless projects in the past, but without any skill, you're just banging you head against a wall and going nowhere.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Yeah, it's about skillsets. I know SQL, which is only for developmental database work, and even then I'm only a novice. Plus, I don't really have the time to invest huge amounts of time in learning new coding languages and all that. I feel like for anything to get off the ground, I'd have to do the heavy lifting -- then, once you've grown, you can bring people in.

I was moreso casually throwing it out there as something I enjoy and have daydreamed about as a possibility, but nothing that I'd proceed with at this point. It's one of many ideas I've toyed with in trying to get out of corporate America.

The strongest lead I've toyed with and researched is to own and operate a hostel in one of the nearby metro areas. I've done some preliminary research into startup costs, locations that could use one due to tourism, and the property costs of those areas. If I could work around liquor laws in my state, I could potentially utilize nearby (but entirely separate) space for a bar to help raise profits (hostels don't have huge profit margins). I think a true izakaya-type bar atmosphere could do well in the right location (small square footage, simple menu, comfort food). Couple the bar and hostel together and things could look better on paper (financially).

EDIT: Fixed a typo

[Mauron]

I've gotten decent at 65816 ASM, but you can't practically make a game using that anymore. 22 years ago, sure, but not today.

That sounds like an interesting plan. Any chance you could throw it together?

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I don't know. It comes back to the whole risk element. Interesting idea, but profit margin is low and I'm scared deathless, seeing that I'm the lone breadwinner for my family. I'd probably have to put it together and continue working my 8-5 job while bringing someone on for day-to-date operations.

[Mauron]

Yeah, that definitely makes things more difficult. Starting a business is easier when you have something to fall back on.

[Cherenkov]

I think Five Night's at Freddy's was made by just one guy, too, and that was also a huge hit.
But I get your point, and it's a good point. The creators of Undertale and FNaF surely had quite a number of skillsets to work with, and it's not so simple just learning all of that stuff when you've already got a full-time job and a family.

[Nangbaby]

I've gotten decent at 65816 ASM, but you can't practically make a game using that anymore. 22 years ago, sure, but not today.

That sounds like an interesting plan. Any chance you could throw it together?

You can make a homebrew SNES game, and given that people have been injecting roms into  NES and SNES classic this still may be a viable distribution method for a brand new game.

[Mauron]

I could definitely do something in the hobby area, but I don't think anything would sell.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Yeah, ROMhacking as a whole is a wonderful hobby, but there's no career in it.

Even RPGmaker doesn't seem like like any more opportunistic than a hobby.

Not to knock on hobbies, as they're great... but once you have to focus on paying the bills and careers and your future you have to look at it all a bit differently.

[Ramsus]

Yeah, ROMhacking as a whole is a wonderful hobby, but there's no career in it.

Even RPGmaker doesn't seem like like any more opportunistic than a hobby.

Not to knock on hobbies, as they're great... but once you have to focus on paying the bills and careers and your future you have to look at it all a bit differently.

ROM hacking skills translate very directly to reverse engineering, which has a lot of applications in the cyber security field. That's a pretty fun field to get into. Unfortunately, my software engineering skills are worth way more at the moment, and in the future I'll probably have more lucrative opportunities in the machine learning realm, so the cyber security thing is something I can't transition to myself.

If you can get through even several levels of the following game, you might have a fairly lucrative alternative career waiting for you somewhere:

https://microcorruption.com/login