Now with Retsin!

The first week of work after my vacation is now almost in the can. It was definitely a shock to the system to come back after such a relaxing bit of time off, but it was also good to get back into the swing of things. My vacation was really an illuminating experience on so many levels for me though. I came to understand a lot about my career and work in the last two weeks. The time really opened my eyes as to where I am and what I need to do to keep doing the things I love. Prior to taking off I was feeling pretty frustrated and creatively stifled, which is really not a good place to be when you are trying to lay the ground work for a project. But now, thanks to some really great conversations with various people over the break, I feel freaking great! It is amazing to me how much clarity you can get from stepping away from things for a few weeks. I think I need to do that more often…not all the time…but definitely more often than I have done in the past.

I went down to San Diego on Tuesday night to do the Sony gamers day event and chat a bit about God of War: Chains of Olympus. Seems like everyone is pretty excited about the game, which is good since I am busting at the freaking seams about this game. I really think it is coming along beautifully. As is par for the course for me, I ended up hanging out Tuesday night and kicking a few back with some friends I don’t get to see too often, leaving me wrecked for the next day. But since I normally look like I haven’t slept in days, it was hardly noticeable.

I also go to check out this Game Deconstruction Group last night. This is where a group of USC game development student’s breakdown different games and everyone chats about various aspects of the game. There were a bunch of people from the development community there as well so it was nice to get to meet and chat with everyone; it’s always good to hear about what everyone is working on. (Plus I got a free copy of F.E.A.R. for ps3..sweet! Thanks again for that!) I wanted to go to the last one they did about Gears of War, but I was working. They were doing God of War 2 last night so it was good to get for that one. These guys that broke the game down were pretty freaking sharp too! Three of them had come in for focus tests of God of War. It was pretty cool to see someone really break down the game in detail and hear what others had to say about it. I think they are going to do a deconstruction of flOw next time since the GOW2 thing went longer than they expected. Hopefully I will have the time to go back to check that one out.

I have a story meeting to get to, so I am going to cut this short.

cory