Random Dev Notes: Reviews

I've been thinking about reviews and some stuff that does not make sense. Up until now I've received 836 rating with reviews in one of my games. 4.07 stars. The majority were nice stuff with positive messages. Some others were feedback about some device/game issue. A lil plain hate. There were also some religious intolerance in stuff that is not even religious at all. I love all reviews. Read and reply all of them.

But there is this lil things that really annoys me:

A) Criticize a game for asking for "android/ios" login. Generally this devices came with in game achievements stuff. I put it because this add a lot more immersion and new challenges for the players. But I got some minor accusations of scam. Nonsense.

B) Criticize the game for lacking innovation. If you play a game that is a total rip off of something, I can understand the feeling. But when you see a project labeled as: "my first project". With some original gameplay, the question that remains is: it is an obligation to innovate? Creating something unique as a feeling is not enough? If a game delivers what it proposes, isn't that a fair play?

C) Criticize for the size of the game. Wait. This information is on the download page. I know that it sucks because of the device space, but hey! This seems like a device problem. The game, the proposal is there. And it might be heavy. It is like desiring to travel and criticize the place for being far from your house. What I as a player really dislike is to download a game, open it and it starts to download heavy content - and can not close until is done. This is a pain in the ass. But my game in question does not have this, and still got criticize.

D) Criticize for the download time. This can be an internet issue, not the game at all. Or maybe it is the C problem. But again. The info is in the download page.


Writing this just to release this "impotency" feeling after reading some of it. But I know that I did a little well tied project. And I am feeling well about it. Just random notes.

How To Create Better Loving Self Imperfection & Getting Good With Age

When you start a project you probably gonna bake it a lil inside your head. If you lack confidence or motivation you can procrastinate in the path of execution. The time passes. Can be a week. Can be years. You probably get educated somehow. Or a lil more smart. Gonna revise it and fix/change things. Add new bits of wise. Model it better. Or starts something fresh and exciting doing it more faster.

That's a good thing, right? Not always.

I used to hand draw. Hours drawing at the school or at my home. It was always some Anime/Game character. My mom loved because her father was a carpenter.  He used to draw stuff he creates. I never saw his drawings tho. But mom said I had similar technic as him. Shadowing with fingers. That was pretty nice to hear. Feels to be part of something.

Kenshin 2002 hand drawing

But my father was never amused. My dad is a business man. Work too much for the family. Always typing contracts. Always helping small-medium entrepreneurs to sell more, to manage better their jobs. He surely never understood this Japan thing inside of me. So I tried draw people faces. And damn! I was getting good. I was so proud of what I was achieving. But when I showed to my father the best one I've made so far. He was just: meh!

Camila Carazzato 2008 hand drawing

Never drew again. The last one was in 2008. It is hanging on my wall. It is there. With mistakes. With lack of talent. Crude. But it exists. And I love it with my soul.

I have a lot of creative friends. Some of them are not afraid to create. Even whistle to a mobile record is a tool to production. Other ones, have amazing things hided in constant polish. And as I said, we are too in constant polish. So put it out there. No fear. It is a picture of you today. Finish as it is. Start something new. Repeat. Keeping moving and PUT. IT. OUT.

When I left Advertising university, I struggled to learn Photoshop by myself. I've learned textures and was using all over the place. I never really like Advertising. But I need to help my father. So I made a curriculum: put some drawings, some textures, some colours, all contacts info of my life. There. A total chaos. And it could not be any different. I was not ready. Academy just want money and do a weak job creating professionals. We are by ourselves. But at the time I was excited about meeting the world and people feedback. So I publish it on an artists forum-like site.

There I saw a 'website design' with simplistic execution that I sympathized with. I've made a compliment to the designer. Hours later this designer answer with a link to his personal blog. I thought he was showing me some cool stuff. But there I saw my CV on a post: "How not to make a CV".

owlturd.com

Yeah. Like that. And to make things worse: he was popular. He had some followers. And every single one of them threw a tomato. Laugh. My name there. My document number. My phone. Email. All there. Exposed for trying. Exposed for complimenting a random person online.

A friend tried to sense them into doing a better job to community with constructive critics. His comments were deleted. I asked: what can I do better? The answer: "nothing. it is just ugly."

I've deleted it from the forum. And struggle to convince him to at least erase my document number on the image on his blog. My confidence for posting online was dead. And this friend gave me some books and orientation. I got educated. But never loved my photoshop works. Never.

This lack of confidence plus not loving the advertising market made me search for new things as Performing Arts to be a dubber. While increasing my notion of character development and storytelling art for Video Games. I bought some books. Got educated. My sister got married and leave the house. My parents got divorce. And Ubisoft came to Brazil - they were hiring.

So I panicked. Looked at myself - what do I got? Just a crude fellow with a cool draw in the wall. And some unfinished RPG Maker projects. Not good. The fear. The insecurity. Made me a blank fellow. I got nothing to show them. How to convince to hire me?

This fired me up again. For the first time since my hand draws. I've forgot the fear -just like that. Boom! Studied C++. To code. To be a programmer. To create a new Curriculum. Yeah, me. The guy who 'used to make a good example of how not to make a curriculum'. Fuck it!

So I've got a homebrew software to create DS Rom. Open the resulting files with Notepad. And start to custom programming as my will, exploiting the software build process (yeah, a lot of things for a newbie). RPG Maker was a good thing back there, cause editing scripts with Ruby language and creating fork conditions made my mind cool for C language. And out of blue I've managed to create an interactive Rom for Nintendo DS. How cool is that?

Put that on an SD Card. Bought a SuperCard for DS. Make a physical cover. And sent to Ubisoft. The problem? Well... this took me more than one night to do. Took me a week + graphic printing. Time enough to Ubisoft hire someone else. Sigh!

But hey. I've made a fucking Nintendo DS project! What the freaking fuck? Never programmed before. On a notepad!? haha damn.

I have the ROM yet. This thing I've made. Challenge I've surpassed. Mistakes and failures. It exists. 

Success is not achieving a job. Obtaining money. Success is to have proud of your present self. To understand your past self. And to keep moving forward. With no fear. You can achieve success alone. Nobody need to hear about it. One thing is success another one is glamour.

So calm down. And look with love for the projects you have right now. Search your room/pc for old stuff you did. Organize them. If you can, put it where you can see. Try to find the beauty in your mistakes/imperfection.

You probably have a band you knew for a long time. Love their old works and are 'ok' with modern albums. You can see the nowadays production is better. They got better. They are mature. But you loved their mistakes back there too. Even more than now. Sounded cool. Made sense. You respect their nowadays works. But what touched you was the imperfection.

This is like an energy. Crude. That resonates. Embrace it. Sometimes we hold things trying to make it better forever. Destroying evidences of who we were. Or being afraid to put it out (It is not out for x people. It is out for itself. To exists in the world). Hesitation. Like not turning a page of a book dreading the end.

That is my point. I guess. Your mistakes will make sense. To you. Even to someone else. Don't be afraid to try. To put it out there. You will get good, trust me. We always do. Time make this for us. But remember to put some breadcrumbs of your work by the path. To remember how you came there. :)


If you don't know me, I'm Henry Gosuen, indie game developer from Brazil. I am making my fourth game. I have 3 mobile games with more than 300k downloads together. And I receive tons of love in the reviews and some hate too - love them both! And I'm so glad to put this games out there because today I really feel confident with my ability. :)

Antonio Vicentini - MTV International Ident

They gave total freedom to create anything based on the 'Technology' subject. I made this thing.
----------------
Agency: World Design Studio MTV International
Concept & Direction & Art & Animation: Antonio Vicentini
Producer: Camila Gonzales & Delfina Chiesa
Audio: Antonio Vicentini & Henry Gosuen :D

Space☆Spacy [iOS & Android]

iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/space-sp...

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...

Are you Creating or Digesting?

How feminism helped me perceive my creative emaciation.

This text is intended to creators of anything. To perceive and identify traces of shit, real shit, on their works. And try to work more deeply in connection with your creations.


March 2014 was when I released my first commercial game: North Wind: Trill of Consciousness

But it was in the end of 2012 that I finally sit down to develop something.
I did what anyone would do first: flirt with some plot. As I didn’t know how to draw anything digitally, I did some layout resembling Thomas Was Alone design. But I make it smoking. A black rectangle smoking.

At the time, I was fascinated by CAVE games, and wanted to create a manic shooter jammed with some Evangelion scheme. It turns out a regular Sci-Fi about spaceships with a weird Bionic Commando “wife arm” twist. ¬¬


THE PROBLEM

I gonna explain detailed the plot but... I am very, very ashamed of it. But shame is good. Shame is the perception of something that was going to the wrong way.

The plot: A Scientist that uses Woman DNA for creating organically spaceships. The reason to use woman DNA was about the better reaction to the feelings. - Yup - In the end the whereabouts of the real woman were missing. 

So … agh. His wife was a pink rectangle. She was missing. And the guy was on a quest to destroy the evil corporation. I was using female element to make a dude looks awesome and have something to do.

Boo me.
Seriously.

After I tried to draw the first spaceship, I got a bat. And the game was looking like a horizontal stick platformer. With bats. I gave up on plots to focus on the development of a unique gameplay that would make sense for an iPad Quest.

The “Role Playing Puzzle” gameplay idea was so good that I glimpsed an opportunity to create something mine that really matters. So I rescued a series of stories I’ve been writing since 1998 and made a spin off for this project. Still poisoned with tropes, I set a Warrior and a Damsel with a vampire, sure, kidnapping the damsel. And, obviously, the warrior goes for the rescue.

The twist: the Warrior transforms into a werewolf near vampires. In the final boss, the warrior as a unconscious beast and not recognizing his Damsel would kill her. Bringing a sad finale to story.
...
Yes. I was using female as a disposable element to construct my male character emotions.

Boo me. Again.

I was ok with that at first. The development was marching ok. The game was almost in the end...
until I reach:

THE PERCEPTION

Then I meet Anita Sarkeesian. Not in person. But in videos. I watch it all. All tropes.



Some details I would disagree with her. Because some games you have to go until the end to make some statements. But man, you can't ignore the load of cliché that is all over the place.
All same shit over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Anita K.O. me. My game that I treated with so much care was just one more in the middle.
I was wounded. I got on my bike to take some air and when I realize:

I'm not creating.
I am digesting. 

I’m digesting all of those games I’ve being consuming these years.
I am not developing MY product I am digesting my cultural food.

This is shit. A product of digestion is shit.

Anita bring the discussion to the game scene. She poked us in the eye. It turns up to a point where all things can get really confusing. There is some good opinions out there, but also, for some, a game with male protagonist is like automatic bullshit. Some could go even further, were games created by a man = meh!

These days I read a twit of Lisa Hignett (@LisaHignett):

"I care about both genders making games by their own merit!".

Merit - a good word to use when creating your characters also.
Do they matter for themselves, first?
Am I using my female characters respecting their existence in the context, or just building up the “awesomeness” of my male character?

For these questions I highly recommend you to watch all Tropes vs. Women videos.



I keep it written down on my pocket notepad all the described tropes.
To keep in mind these six clichés.

1- The Manic Pixie Dream Girl
2- Women in Refrigerator
3- The Smurfette Principle
4- The Evil Demon Seductress
5- The Mystical Pregnancy
6- The Straw Feminist

Run away from it somehow. Scream!

After that you can start "dating" with you characters. Know they better. To realize if you are creating or  justing 'pooping' female characters, there is The Bechdel Test. Quoting the Feminist Frequency site:

The Bechdel Test or the Mo Movie Measure is a type of litmus test to assess the presence of women in movies.  It originated from Allison Bechdel’s comic “Dykes to Watch Out For” in 1985.  Here’s how it works, a movie just has to pass these three simple questions: the first, are there two or more women in it who have names, the second, do they talk to each other, and the third, do they talk to each other about something other then a man.

For games I think that the questions could be:

1-Are there two or more women in it who have names?
2-Do they need assistance of a male?
3-Do they are over sexualized because 'why not'*?
*this last one is not agains't hyper sexualized woman. Since everyone is free to do whatever with their lives, the issue is the context, the character individual personality plot and not just to "build audience"

With all these tools I could make a good plot now? Can't I? Well...

MORE PROBLEM AFTER PERCEPTION

Title of a Polygon article:

Ubisoft abandoned women assassins in co-op because of the additional work.

Additional work.

I was already almost a year doing the game. Alone. With no money. Coding. Composing music. Evolving my characters from black rectangles to a sprite frame. The sprite frame to a Texture Atlas. With memory leaking everywhere. It was nuts. And I realized my plot was shit.

All the suffering, all the sweat… My new unique gameplay on the line. Man, my plot couldn’t be the weak link here.
I do embrace the additional work — happy.

I couldn’t remake the core elements of the game. But I could give it a little deeper background. Drop some meaning on some places. Seasoning the elements. Avoiding or toying with the tropes. Please note that I am not a feminist genius, and the end result is far from being considerate The Modern Plot of the Year.

But I think I manage to fix some punctual problems, and let the plot background expand far more better than before.

Another problem I faced was: brief texts. The game is iPad only, and as a tablet player, long texts RPGs are very tiresome for me. iPad is heavy, I want to go to action fast. So to present the plot I develop a limited chat space. And some plot details stayed out - it is normal tho. A lot of games explain themselves on guides or let things open for people make theories by themselves.

THE FIX

First fix: my main character was not a Warrior anymore. It is just a boy.
Second fix: The damsel is the warrior now. An Amazon warrior. With a name: Makayla.

In the game, Dir does not want to rescue or save Makayla. He wants to impress her. He admires and is thanked to all her patience being his tutor. He is an accidental fool, creating a bravery that he does not have, going on an adventure with some unknown partner just to make her proud of him.

At some moments Makayla would camouflages in the roles of some tropes.
Like after get attacked by an Incubus: Women in refrigerator
Disappear with the castle: Damsel in Distress
Reborn as a vampire: The Evil Demon Seductress
But she never play the roles of it per se. During the game Makayla is passing by her own quest. A quest of confidence and freedom that she desires since the beginning — for her and also for Dir. The consequences of the adventure for each one is different, tho.

“Jauss takes over the notion of horizon which he names “horizon of expectation” and means by it the sum total of reactions, prejudgments, verbal and other behavior that greet a work upon its appearance. A work may fulfill such a horizon by confirming the expectations vested in it or it may disappoint the expectations by creating a distance between itself and them.”
— Jauss, Hans Robert: Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics

CONCLUSION

So yeah. I said I was no feminist content genius. The main protagonist still a male fellow. Not the best of fixes but as the base of my game was already set, toying around with the flaws, seasoning some elements, made the story resolve themselves.

I’m sure in the future I can do a better job. And this text is just to show that even aware we tend to march to some cliché situations. The actual culture affects our creational process without we don’t even noticing it. We must be aware every time and try our best to untie this trope knots proposing a fair entertainment for everybody.

I‘m glad that I could perceive and fix it. Thanks Anita and everyone who is out there waving the flag — and taking some bullets. From a random damsel to a solid warrior that conducted the entire game concept. I hope Makayla could be impressed. x)

I have some female friends that aren't much favorable of man talking about feminism. I kinda understand that. But after watch "A Trip to a Grocery Store", maybe I can do better then just listen to it.


I think that if society is giving me any privilege because I am male, I want to use this to show how ‘privilege’ can make me a moron.

North Wind: Trill of Consciousness - First level!

Hey guys! Yup I made a game and stuff. I am not very good talking about my own stuff. Usually I do better praising other works. You can watch the trailer here:



So, to be fair with this creation of mine -that I'm pretty proud of- I will make a quick Walkthrough. How to beat Level 1 first "puzzle".

:D

So, this game is exploration with puzzle. Not focusing on combat, when you hit an enemy it is a brawl, dude. You get damaged and so do the enemy. That is a wild world out there.

Anyways.

Posture!
First, the best way to hold the iPad to play North Wind: Trill of Consciousness is like a huge Game Boy. Portrait position. Four fingers of each hand holding the back of the iPad and leaving thumbs free!

Start the game, a menu screen will load with a "New Game" mark on it. And a huge yellow button.
You can see some marks on the screen.

Swipe menus! (First time playing? Press the yellow button and jump to "Starting the game" section)
The standard language is English, you can skip this if you want to play that way. 
Swipe the top mark (on the title) to change the language. If you swipe once, you get the Brazilian Portuguese language setting. If you try one more swipe you will manage to see some Japanese characters, but no access to it - that's normal! It is under construction. Soon I will release the Japanese version.

If it is your first time playing you can skip this one:
Swipe the middle mark (on the 'new game' or 'level: x deaths:x') and it will appear a message asking if you want to delete the actual game. (if you have already played, sure). Press the yellow button twice to confirm the complete deletion, and the game will reset to 'new game' once again.

With the language defined and the 'New Game' on screen, press the yellow button. A mini story will pop while the maps are loading.

Starting the game!
The game starts with Makayla (the blonde pixel sprite) waving at Dir! Dir is our main hero. He is just a boy occasionally mentored by this blonde Amazon. Go there meet her. The game don't have a tutorial like: 'go left, press jump'... because I assume that you have already played a game on your life and can figure stuff out. But if you can't: use your thumbs to press the directional grey buttons. The purple button is jump!

When you reach her, you may have learned how to walk, and how far can you jump! Nice. You get and item from her. A shining pearl it is pretty useful on dark places, like this nice cave you are about to enter.

Keep going down. You can slip trough the rope at left or just jump right at the floor. Height won't kill you on this game! Go at the water, float till the other side. Keep walking right until a scene begins.

Dir sights a bat. You have to kill it to impress Makayla. But Dir felt a tremor and as you may have noticed something pretty odd is happening out there. A bunch of monsters and stuff on sky. Wow. Makayla must be in danger. Dir still need to beat the bat. Like I said before, lean on it! This is not super Mario, so you don't need to hit the head. Just tackle him down. You will get light injured.

Now the path is opened, you can go back and see what the hell is going on! Apparently Makayla is heavily wounded. And your future doesn't look brighter. 

Boss: Incubus

Incubus is ridiculous strong for a boy! You can try your best... you can't reach him.

The only thing remaining here is: death..ops! What? 

Werefox!

When Dir faces any Vampire, the smell of these creatures do some inner damage on his mind. After Dir is beaten up, an inner fox souls takes place. It is more strong and can jump higher. Incubus is no match for you now, perhaps his energy balls are a lil annoying and protect him. Avoid them, hit him and kill it.

After beating the boss, the Mandragora monster will lose all its energies. And will be back as a seed. Dir get it and attach it on his body. Now he is able to absorb purple energies. Beware! If a monster attacks you with a purple energy it can hurt you - because they are full of evil intentions. When you get these energies standing still on the wild is pretty safe. Mandragora will eat it and will get stronger. 

Small energies give: 1 energy point

Big energies give: 5 energy points

Get the energy and Mandragora will level up.

This is basically a "not declared" tutorial. You manage to understand the basics of play.

You can see this whole process at this video gameplay made by TouchGameplay:

First level puzzle.

After first level up you will be able to swipe and change the screens! (Like it happened when the Incubus appeared). You can only swipe between 3 maps at level one. But is pretty enough right now.

Stay away from screen divisions. Hold off the buttons and wait. Did shining lines appeared on the screen? 

NO:

You are on some wrong spot. Stay at a lower place on the map.

YES:
Great! The map screen are now divided on 3 pieces. #Top, #Middle and #Down. You can also notice some marks on each piece. Green arrows show that there is some maps to the right! If you swipe to the left you can access them. The red bar indicates that you can't swipe that map yet. On the screen above you can notice why: Dir is on the map. You can't swipe it if Dir is on it or if Dir is in the middle of the line. The reason is clear: Dir would not divide himself in the middle! With that in mind let's advance.


-if you want to beat the game by your own guts, don't read bellow, try your best and good luck. if you are stuck tho... keep reading-

To stay easy I will call maps by numbers.

MAP1: with the cave and castle as background, the Rock Fields
MAP2: with the forest and egg at top of a mountain, Rock Forest or something like this xD
MAP3: the lava abandoned pit, The Pit

First thing:
Change the #Middle to MAP2
Change the #Top to MAP2.
(just swipe to the left one time each).

You will put on screen part of the forest map.

So make this configuration:

#Top MAP2
#Middle MAP2
#Down MAP1 --> you are here

Jump to the #middle map, and climb the mountain at right, until you reach the "egg" at #top.
Change the #down to MAP2.
Change the #Middle to MAP1.

You see a little opening? Go there, take the little energy inside the cave at #Middle. continue going down until you reach #down! Now you are at the cave made by the dwarfs! Watch out for the traps!!
Change the #Middle to MAP2.
Keep going up until you can reach the #Middle. Grab the bracelet. Now you can break grey boulders!
Yay! :D

And that is it. You get your first item. Now you can explore some new areas. Now is up to you, folks.

Hi. I’ve made a game.

Hi. I’ve made a game.

Yeah. Video games. When I was a baby my mom wanted me to have some tech stuff. She always loved to see tech stuff at the time. And bought me an Atari. I grew in a religous family with strict rules about playing. “There is moment just the right moment for everything”. They don’t wanted a spoiled addicted child, I guess. I was addicted but pretty obedient. I got a Mega Drive yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars later. So I have played Atari a lot. Pitfall was the best.

But my favourite childhood games were Golden Axe and Streets of Rage series. I was a SEGA boy, since my first console right after an Atari was Mega Drive (Genesis). I would later get a Super Nintendo. But the colours, speed and kind more upbeat/mature music of Sonic make Mario just a kid game for my taste.

For Super Nintendo I loved the game Yu Yu Hakusho Final: Makai Saikyo Retsuden (at the time people at Descalvado, where I lived, used to call it Namcot Final - damn japanese titles lol). And for PC: Ultima VIII.

I always told my sister that I would be video game music composer. Just because I could do some freaking noises with my mouth. What a stupid, stupid child I was. haha

So I always was like thinking about ~working with something to do with games~. Simple like that. Like a kid wants to be astronaut. 

Being professional

But the things got serious when I saw the intro of Legend of Zelda, at a store on a shopping at São Carlos, Link riding Epona. No sound - I was outside the store. I didn’t had contact with older Zelda series before. First time meeting Link. I was like: I want to do this. I want to do video games. 

And I started to look about it, study. I see the term game designer. I was like: no shit. 

While some friends were ~tasting teenaging~ drink wine at central square, I was so hooked with King of Fighters on a local Arcade. I even started to do my own Video game project. A fighting game called North Wind. Each team had 3 fighters. And I started to draw them a lot with Yu Yu Hakusho references. I started to write a lot of background story. My mom said it was a bit confusing. And my dad criticise that “why all the characters sounds like japanese names”.

It was the first time I take a step out of my references and started to create my own stuff. I even did a small class of Game Design with a japanese teacher. It was in 2000 I guess. The fighting game got bigger and turn out to be a RPG. x) At the time an english teacher who came from Wales lent me a Zelda cartridge to Game Boy. Man, I love that game. It was a black cartridge. Original! It was AWESOME!! Zelda always impact me like that. 

Starting prototypes

I moved from Descalvado to Franca. At college, a physics teacher knew my desire of working with games and showed me RPG Maker. I started my first game production right there. I made a lot of “Beta’s”, North Wind got a lot of characters and branches. It was a mess. I lose a lot of content with HD burning and stuff. A teen drama. 

My North Wind game scripts got a lot of content. Zelda was on my head. Castlevania was on my head. And then it happens: Castlevania: Symphony of The Night.

dammit! I need to work with games so hard. lol After that time I tried some school at USA but they do not want foreign at the moment.

In Brazil, at the time, there was a post graduation course at a far away city. I was like, ok…I will do anything and go post graduate. That was my silly mind at that moment.

So I made Advertising.  …

My father works with Marketing, and speak about it at lunches - so it would be easy for me (4 YEARS DUDE, SERIOUSLY??).

In my mind I really wanted to avoiding programming. I always thought that: I’m a game designer, I have to think about experience. And schools make you hate math, so in the end you don’t know how cool math can be.

The university really screw me up. I started an innocent guy, doing ads classes and as hobby a RPG for the university. An horror game about a girl that wakes up in the university and it is already late. She is surrounded by large roaches, ghosts… a flying lizard?? and she need to explore the university to get the fuck out.

I never finish it. My mistake was to keep upgrading RPG Maker on all it versions. With this, I had to do a lot of “rework”. 

But at a bright side It was my first interaction with programming: the basics, if/else, fork conditions,  scripts in Ruby. I was really on it.

But I was having a hard time: I didn’t like advertising. I wanted to quit classes in the end of the second year. But my mother don’t accept it, so I finish against my will. Some teacher were really monsters that craft ego outside of our selves. I was transformed on a dick person. In the last year of university I was a total dick.

There was 3 stuff that happens to me that split me out of this nonsense moment:

1- The lost of Graduation hat

I have a musician friend that I helped a lot to pass the classes while he could totally focus on his music, so when he saw that I lost my hat he gave me his and said:

- you can have it, it is important to you than it is to me

That thing really hits me. I was like: this is not important to me. Why I care about this hat anyway? Simbolize something I don’t wanna do.

A nail on my brain. A crack on the ego persona.

2- The architecture student waiting for the bus

The dude was trembling, smoking 3 cigars per second… I asked if he was ok, he said:

- when this all finish (university), I hope I can go back to be who I was.

Another nail on my brain. A bigger crack on the ego persona.

3- The girl I had a crush

Then I saw a girl I used to like on the first year of university. She used to be a very mean to me, but I wouldn’t care. Every time I tried to be clever than before and make she smile. But she would always be hard on me. Always. Thinking about that, my experience with girls on university was so lame. Maybe this helped to make myself a dick too. lol Anyways. But then I met her again. The mean girl and the dick me. I thought: bla… she just hates me.

She was with a big smile, talking with me. I was like: is she drugged? But she said that really liked me, because no matter what she would say, I always gave her a smile.

Bang! my ego persona was killed. I was blinded. I created a being to finish the university, but the creature continued on me. Everything makes sense again. Fuck this university. Where was I this whole time? This is not important to me, I want to make games.

And that is why I am so bad with girls. lol

So I start to study, bought books, stuff. I wanted to know terms, professional methods. I got my old University Horror Game and tried to make it a popular game. I remake it and used Marimoon as character. I’ve used a popular girl in Brazil because I wanted to get feedback. Certainly her fans would play it and talk about it. What was the point to make a game and nobody knows about it? 

Despertar de Mari

Mariland

With this experience and feedback I could build up my confidence. My plan was: go to Japan, sit in front Konami’s door and beg a job until I starve. That’s me! My father was so worried, because I was deadly serious. I told him: If i have to work with ad I prefer to kill myself. And he was like: woa, calm down. I was a lil misguided about things. Started to do Theater classes. I was searching things to handle experiences, create characters and stuff - voice acting would be pretty awesome too. I was searching this aspects of creation and stuff.

Then Ubisoft came to Brazil with a game designer position. That was my time. But…. What should I send? a curriculum? pff. thats lame. I have nothing. RPG maker prototype with pixel pop artist? don’t make me laugh. I was empty handed. I researched and saw they want to make a DS game. So I made something that I am pretty proud of. I’ve found a DS game maker stuff. it was a pretty basic stuff that could make homebrew games to run on flashdrives and specifics cartridges. It could run on DS. The software had a lot of limitations and watermark on screen. It was really no good. So I started to edited the programming on Text notes. and compile with Eclipse I guess. And I freaking made a curriculum running on Nintendo DS. 

I was stunned. I made the package, It was ready to send, I open the Ubisoft site and: no position available. Dammit! What?

I was late. So I tried the old good internet, found the place Ubisoft was, send it anyway.

No response. I tried to call, emails. Until a day an HR guy answer me. He told that find it pretty impressive and in the first opportunity they would call me. I was like: happy!

And then my parents get divorced. That was quite traumatic. They were divorced but living at the same roof. My sis was married, And I was the only one here. I felt like I was holding them. Like a needle. And then Antonio, my friend, invited me to go to São Paulo. He don’t even had a home yet. He was living with some familiars. And even still he invited me. “come here we managed to do something”

:~

And I leave everything behind for the games. Even a girl I was with at the moment - for unbelievable it looks like. At São Paulo I was searching for any job. Just to stay close to Ubisoft. I past 3 months of total despair. Low money.  No job. Low food. Living under a roof by favor. But I manage to get a job finally. A cool one. Sell video games at a bookstore - how cool is that? A good experience. I met a lot of cool dudes, learn a lot about the market. But after 8 months, I was consumed. I did a lot of side projects in the meantime (paper, concept) and sent to Ubisoft.

some characters done with Antonio/DS project

some characters done with Antonio/DS project

Some facebook game prototype

Some facebook game prototype

No answer. Then I discovered the HR guy that was my contact wasn't at ubi anymore. Plus Antonio leave São Paulo. I was quite alone. I manage to live with my friend John for sometime. I even did a 4 days project - on my xmas vacation.

Reroute 2 Remain

Reroute 2 Remain

Reroute 2 Remain

Reroute 2 Remain

But John had a serious accident right after and came back to Franca. And I was alone again. And I left SP for the first time. I thought: in 3 months I will be back.

I made another project, and Antonio was back to São Paulo. I asked if I could spent a weekend at his house to send a project to ubi. He said it was cool. I went there. Sent the ubi the project. And in the same afternoon I got a call. I got a job. Not at Ubisoft, but as game journalist. What a plot twist. 

I work for Pop.com/games. Had a column about japanese games, met a lot of my personal heroes (old journalists from loved magazines). Tested some games. Learned a lot. I also visited some game schools. At the time "Game development" courses was trending. But was kinda disappointed. I made a distant course on Java. Made a lil game of pong. lol

I also had some interviews on new companies spawning at the moment, but I was rejected because I don't had experience - the enterprise don't have either... ¬¬ anyways you can't judge experience. A shower in the rain is a experience. Frustration is a experience. Moving on...

At the time Pop never wrote any article about indie games nor national made games. But I showed the game Talbot Odyssey (Miniboss) to the guys and they were very impressed and permitted to write an article about it.



Miniboss was like a relief for me. Finally a good stuff that mixed art+content. I was really angry with national scenario and Miniboss really made me proud of being a Brazilian wanting to work with games. I made quite a raging article. But my editor like it and approved it. After a while I get out the job. São Paulo is a very expensive city. I came back to Franca without perspective. Found myself in 3 shit relationships. I was really down. Broken. When Antonio came back from São Paulo to live in Franca. He and a fellow were about to open an animation studio. And ask me if I knew how to do apps for iPhone. I never knew shit about apple stuff. Just that were expensive stuff.

But I said: I can learn. I did a curriculum on DS godammit

My father helped me with an iMac, I got an iPhone.

I got seriously fucked up with money. I've started to study like was no tomorrow. 

The guys ask me a lot of prototypes. They got tons of ideas. Child books. Child games. Shoes catalogues. All for iPad. I had to do on iMac, go to the fellow house, got his iPad, came back to home build it, goes back to fellow and present it... But there was a serious problem. I made the prototypes, but it ends there. Nothing happens. The guys wont do nothing! When we got our first client I got so excited that I bought an iPad with the help of my mom. It was my last breath. It was also the last breath of the group. We got disbanded. I was bankrupt. 

It was a really fucked up moment. My mom helped me a lot. I was living under her roof again. I was marching to 30 years. I was a failure. I just hated myself because nothing goes right.

I tried talk with people. With the indie people from here. But everyone seems to be occupied with a lot of stuff. People were doing things. Traveling. I feel that I was interrupting them. Being annoying. I don't want to bother no one. I just want to know if I can help. I can do stuff for mobile.

But nobody wanted mobile because there is “just shit games”.

I said, “well this is a good scenario. maybe this is an opportunity to make a good game”

But I was kinda alone again. And my confidence was down the river.

Then I said. I will do this shit. I will do an entire game on my own. Art, music…everything. I don’t know how, but I will. I will draw a stick. Like that minimalist Street fighter characters.

I’ll try my best. I will not bother anyone. I will just do it. I knew that indie scene was about a community, people helping each other. And stuff. But now I feel like I was the anti-christ of Brazilian indie. I got myself inside my cave (bedroom). Don't bother anyone. And make something depending on no one. 

There is a lot of people out there that don’t do any games. Don’t do any apps and start speaking on how to do stuff. List rules. People gaining money trying to teach something they don’t personally achieve. While some may not achieved but researched a lot and have some basis to speak, there is also a bunch some o crap. I research a lot in the middle of garbage and could find also a lot of cool and precious stuff. For this game I’ve used my feelings and a lot of searching on Stackoverflow (I did just one question but I manage to figure it out by myself - nobody understand it anyway :~ Yup, I've deleted all my code haha).

I don’t make a game to be commercial. I made a game out of an idea I had and believe. I wanted it to be mine game, so I used old papers I had written when younger. I wanted to make it cool for me and respectful to all the references I love.

And the first success tip I read on internet was: to make a successful game, give it a short name. And that is how it is born: North Wind: Trill of Consciousness.

Because list of rules sucks!

[soundcloud]

Persons

Part I

The person was the short breath of air a drowned can get. The city you live is the ocean. The person was with common friends. Have smile that can turns on your curiosity. Same smile could be noticed while this person was totally not confortable. And when you are getting drunk enough to completely fall in love, the person was drunk enough to puke. Twice. You learn things about do not take advantage based on situations. And also forget things when you see your new crush kissing another anyone.

And this is what you called the first night. Pretty ok for some beers and a bar crush. Do not live about expectation or drunk feelings, is what some would say, uh? And you would convince yourself that everything is fine. Sometime pass by and the person came back from a trip, and common friends calling for another round of beers. Not now. You are ok, you thought.

Are you? Not sure, so you have to check it one more time. And the third chance came. You act like a robot lion with a burning belly. And the same smiles the person uses to be social is exactly what makes you lose the sight of the reality. You feel the lips and came back to reality. The smile again. You hear something about not being ready to cross bridges of friendship. But the smile and your happiness is too much information for the night. A message in your screen would put you inside a friends house. dealing with some sort of "friendship sentimental feelings post-bar". The person opens a spot for you on the couch. But in a twist you was driven into a sea of friends tears. You left the place and notice that was at the persons house while kissing and figuring stuffs out. When some light struck into your mind, and you could figure what happened in this night, you were already back home.

You'll never saw this person again.

Part II

Vacation is over. And now you will be back to your town that is not so far from your hometown. This last trip you saw your old friends acting selfishly sad and sentimental.  Is this news at all? Kissed by a regular person in your friends group that seems ok at first but quite overly attached. That was your vacation at hometown. You were just feeling kind drowned after being ignored by an old beach affair and lot of studies. Why people cannot just let it be? Friends drive you home with that reproachful silence in the car after you get pretty wild and kissed someone the other night. You have just to smile and take your time. This city is an ocean.

Part III

This is a minimalism text rehearsal. Fruit of a sober-minded expectation delusion. The person (italic) in Part I is the protagonist in Part II. The person (bold) in Part II is the protagonist in Part I. The person (italic and bold) in Part I is both. You can read the sentences backwards in Part II and you will be exactly where Part I ends: "You'll never saw this person again."

Example:
"The city is an ocean."
(...)
"Vacation is over."
"You'll never saw this person again."

Boston Bombers: The Dreadful Lesson for Terrorists

I was wondering too much about some topic, first I was: "nah, forget it".
But damn. It was consuming my mind. So yeah, blogging to spit it out.

In this Boston Bombing all the conspiracy stuff came back with strength. In this information era, people are so full of fragments and TV series that they are full of half but absolute opinion. Is kinda like a friend told me about Kant. YEAH... I have a fragment information about Kant, but anyways: he is a guy that never get out his hometown, so he live in the world of ideas. Uh, ok. I can live with that.
That is no problem at all, but as Mark Twain state:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

Maybe Kant don't need it at all. But you and me dude, maybe we need shake our asses from internet.
In my opinion, Internet is a whole village of vegetating people. I imagine kinda like medieval villages where people were afraid of everything, and they was stupid enough to think a simple flu was something cast by god hate or stuff. Ok, with this picture in mind and comparing with some of the world reaction it frighten me one thing: the lesson that can be learnt.

I will not state who is wrong or right. Who is the victim or the culprit. On this case I will only say: yeah, strange! Two brothers, young guys, simple expression on the face, types that can be anywhere. As flu. A brother is killed while on a car chase throwing grenades around streets. Another one hurt the throat and cannot speak. Locked in a hospital room. Signed a confession. Pretty smooth, uh?

Some people say: not enough proofs. USA said: signed confession. So, now what?

In facebook people were like: "no, way" "lies" "look his face, he looks virgin". A lot of picture of the bombers smiles and casual life.
Meanwhile in the internet, they got some pictures of guys with large backpacks and serious expression: the perfect terrorists: ready to blow people with awfully disguises. But, yeah. Suspicious. Let the old friend fear take our hopes.

You are walking on your kitchen, at night. Some dark spot in the wall. Holy crap! If you are afraid of cockroaches, you will see a fat roach looking at you. If you are afraid of geckos, you gonna see a gecko. If you turn on the lights you may see a spot that always been there, but you never notice it at night yet. So, after a bombing, you see two serious guys with large backpacks?



They can be the bombers. Why not? They can even be bombers that were kinda of late. And some another group exploded first, and they were like "Oh, fuck". Holding the devices and calling it a day. Or they can even be something worse: guys with huge backpacks. Only.

Now there is a lot of guys saying USA is lying about it. Hiding the true bombers. That they exploded themselves to have a reason to invade Korea (?). Bla, bla, bla. Fuck Mc Donalds. Donald Trump sucks.
Yeah. If I were a terrorist I would have learnt a dreadful lesson on this episode.

Bearded man with angry face is no good. Yeah, they can explode things all right. But this will only raise a rage against the evil bearded and ugly man and official reprisals. So, no good. It should get young boys, with cute baby face. The maternal/paternal feeling will urge in peoples hearths around the world. The bomb effect per se is quite minimum than the mistrustfulness feeling it would cause in my victim neighbours. Pretty neat for a terror act, uh?

So, the problem is not the true guilty at all, but on how the fuck we are still thinking? We live in a moment where people are fighting for freedom. To be. To choose. Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Homosexual, Tattooed, Indian, Retired Pope. _o_

In the end we fear what we do not know. Conspiracies. Dark spots on wall. Bearded man. So, a baby face may threat us not. And here lies the danger. You can spit on the bible, dude, but Lucifer is described as a beauty angel of Light. Ok, no religion, so...ok: the beauty queen transforms herself on a harmless (not the ugly witch disney version, for the sake of example) old woman to poison Snow White. ...yeah. ¬¬ You got the message.

The disney version with an ugly witch is just to teach (wrongly) children the notion of danger.
Do we still act like children nowadays? 

I worked on a store that was robbed by a sympathetic old woman and her down syndrome grandson. The security camera show it. No one would suspect. I not saying Dzhokhar Tsarneav "is guilty and period". But he can be! Why not? Since when human face is a determinant factor?

People have opinions on internet. Ok, no biggy. But these opinions are getting stronger and full of hate.  Discussions with friends and known people with tone as: ignorants fools!! Why? What is happening? Fear? Ostracism? Guys, chill up! Fuck.

IMHO, USA should forgive this boy. Hate is not cured by death. But love. Yeah, kinda hipster. But think about it. I know it is hard. You lost your children, your leg, your foot. But tomorrow it can be your city. Your country. Your world. All good medicine has bad taste and are hard to take. As Jamiroquai would say: Don't give hate a chance!



We can do this guys. Without opinions or fear.
Just put in mind that everything is fine. Lest move on. Together.

Portuguese Version extracted from my facebook:

Nessa história de Boston não sei exatamente quem possa ser culpado ou inocente. Realmente muita coisa estranha, mas ainda assim... o ponto que dá medo nisso tudo é outro: a lição aprendida. 

Na TV rola uma informação que o suspeito seria um guri x e ao olhar a imagem a reação rápida foi: "jamais! olhem para ele, moh virgem". ...

Na internet pegaram uma imagem duns caras com umas mochilas "aparentemente" uniformizados e a internet achou os suspeitos perfeitos. Tá, poderiam até ser os culpados mesmo, não tenho nada com isso. Ou poderiam até ser uma outra galera que tb queria explodir alguma coisa (com um péssimo disfarce por sinal), mas veio outro grupo que explodiu antes. Ou até simplemente caras com mochilas grandes.

O desconhecido é o melhor dos medos. É noite, vc vê um ponto escuro na cozinha. Pra quem tem medo de barata, é uma barata. Quem tem medo de lagartixa, vê lagartixa. Vc liga a luz e percebe que era uma mancha que sempre esteve lá, mas nunca reparou nela a noite.
No caso das mochilas e pose séria dos rapazes: terroristas com bombas. Ponto.

E uma galera pesou na visão contra os EUA e apoio aos "suspeitos"
http://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2013/04/suspeito-de-atentado-em-boston-ganha-grupos-de-apoio-na-internet.html

A tal da lição aprendida: marketing pessoal terrorista.
Se eu fosse um terrorista "random" teria aprendido uma lição mto boa. Homens barbados e adultos não vingam. Tá. Podem até explodir um canto ou outro com sucesso. Mas o efeito seria apenas ódio contra o agressor barbado e feio.

O esquema é pegar guris novinhos com carinhas de inocente. Nomes complexos tipo Al-Qaeda? Nah: Backstreet Bombers!! O efeito da bomba seria pequeno perto do número de inimigos que um rostinho limpo causa na galera. Efeito "paterno" "materno"...sei lá. Seria rápido a desconfiança contra a própria "vítima". E sem essa de AMERICA CONSPIRACAOUNNN, SEM PROVAS, CHUPA MCDONALDS. Tô falando da lição aprendida e não do que "seria ou não" verdade no caso de Boston.

Pq nesse caso eu tb faço parte da galera que acha isso bizarro: dois guris suspeitos, um morre jogando granada numa perseguição, outro, que havia ido para uma festa, machuca a garganta e não pode falar. Internado fechado num hospital. "Confessa" tudo com uma caneta. Uau. O.o Ae aqui falam da falta de provas, ali falam de confissão assinada. Bah! Muito ativismo do mundo por um problema alheio na minha humilde opinião.

O problema que me grilou mesmo é o tanto que imagem ainda é um fator determinante num mundo onde as pessoas brigam por direito de ser o que bem quiser: exu, cristão, tatuado, barbado, homosexual, índio, john diaz.

No final todos nós temos medo do feio/estranho/que não podemos compreender.

Dá até para entender pq antigamente galera queimava um ao outro na fogueira. Ah, se na internet o fogo ardesse.... Isso me lembra esse vídeo:

Tape Collection

My house is a piece of flashback. If in castlevania you can find a roast in walls corner, in my house you can find the past. You don't even need to blow an ocarina or something. Nope. Just came here in Brazil gimme a hug.

I was searching for color pencils - probably the ones I used back in 90s - and I found some tape collection. It was pretty mixed with tags with the name of my aunt, my mom and my dad. The styles were between brazilian soap opera themes to classical stuff.

All mixtape. And it was pretty cool to see the design of it. There is one also showing like "CD Master Quality". Wow, that was awesome. Some mixtapes were from 1970s. How cool is that.

So I grab a digital camera, yup, not something antique this time... but the camera was not giving a cool result, so I grab an iPad. Yeah, a shot in the past lol.

So with this duality I used my iPad 3 and instagram to register this awesome collection. Sorry dad, I broke one of your tapes. :~

I will put here some unedited photos. but you can visit my instagram to see the whole photo session there.

[warchild14]

The Three Girls

And then I am grabbed again by moments of total ignorance and camouflaged self pity by my total inefficiency of self known. You see, a human can pass through a lot of shit and indeed can learn and upgrade itself to another situation total “be ready” for another new mistake.

When you are afflicted by relationships for a long row, I mean, every time a lady get out your side seat, you keep it warm with another lady butt. And you keep the dance of butts an seats extending your real agony while you forget what passes inside your upper head to shove down some damp hole your downer head.

That’s the middle man situation. And this is what I try to run from most part of my life. My lonely walk towards the world of me showed me that I act like a social tool of summarized thoughts. I overthink and I’m “overlazy” to talk out every stuff my brain spit out. So I smile. And hug people. In the end I just want to drink some water and give empty smiles or even leave. You may read empty as something bad, but why do I have to give a full smile in a world of middle mans.

We are all living, loving and acting like if we were gods blessed with something unique. And in the end we got nothing more or even less that a middle man can get: middle achievements.

So life is a twisted knife. And when you “sell your car” and buy a motorcycle to get rid of the side seat of hell, the twisted life presents you the croup.

Yes, lady’s and gentlemen’s. Maybe I’m cursed with love again. I would not call it love, I would call it twisted passion. It is the mirror of soul kind of love. You see in someone else what you want on yourself. Let me tell you my sad story of stupidity and “middleness”:

The three girls

In later years I met a lot of trouble for my life. But as twisted life can be, with poison it gives also the antidote. And I saw another lovely lady that “platonically“ jumps on my croup. It all happened in a party. With ugly people and dearest friends. I was dancing drunk as someone might be in company with dear friends. And that was a fatty unknown lady trying to seduce every single piece of male in the dance floor. With my rotted mind I called the fatty sweat lady to a breakdown dancing moment. When I finished my magic steps of pure Latino Travolta B, the lights brightened my body and I noticed, straight in front of me, being watched by the most beautiful lady I could ever contemplate in this motherfucker city. She was gazing my shameful moment of stupidity. Which I used as my tool for approximation and short chat. Nothing gallant at all, but pulled a smile on her face. While the fatty lady was almost dead somewhere. I was blessed. And a mutual friend talked to me secretly: she is single.

But as twisted life can be, she was not. She was into some kind of love relationship with deals that just the couple understands at all. But every one assured me: she moved to the city for the guy, you lose, warchild.

I would not give a damn for people blabbers. But I was not in a situation where I could simple try anything. And, “human energy” speaking, the girl was important to me as the days was passing by. From her, I receive only sincere vibrations. And I made a strong bond with her. So that is why she is platonically seated in the croup. That way was the safer and fair I could act with myself.  Please, understand. By the time being there was still no one at my croup, but if it was intended to be someone there, this someone have to be ranked as that platonically girl. Or above. So this is the first girl.

So I was happy again. Smiling for life. Troubles and troubles beating on my door answered with empty smiles and bottles of water. I could not be more happier.  Until I met another awesome girl. She makes me smiles inside. I just feel like watching her all day, quietly. But she is gone. She is not dead or something. But she acts like it. What really bothers me in the start was that I was the will explosion worked in sincere long messages. And she was there. Online. On side. And do not read it. Pretending to not see it or something like that. Until she finally read it and answer with weighted long messages with a pinch of consideration and affection. My next messages, as you can imagine, was more weighted while my negative mind was: it is over man, let’s drink. This was the second girl. A fast and explosive passion with nothing really happening.

And then I met another girl. Yeah, I’m a love machine, uh? But this one kind kills me.  She is alright. A bit mad and underground for my taste. But I never felt so drained in my entire life. While I was with her I just wanted to leave. And that is kind of sad because the girl, apparently, was happy. And, apparently, is a good person. When I left her at her home I died. Slept all day. Walked 12km to sweat the bad vibes out of me. I stand three days cursed. I really believed that I would never make sex again in my life. As cultural known people may say: you get what you gives. I have to disagree a bit. It is kind like eye for an eye, but unconscious.

As twisted life can be, she makes you feel the taste of what you suffer, but in the other side. It is like justice, but no. Lets exemplify it. A lady got her son killed. The killer was arrested. And she claimed justice and the killer got death penalty. With the assistance of the state, the lady turned out to be a killer herself. But common, laws bla bla. Ok. And the killer, in the end, got what he gives.  Ok, this was a terrible example. But just got the feeling of the lady and we are good. Ok, proceding.

The second girl was there. Pretending not to see the messages. And I was there doing kind of the same thing with third girl. Got it? Yeah. Twisted, uh? I can not even protest. So I used the “second girl shoes” and maybe I was a burden for her. Maybe I killed her energies. Maybe she does not want to see me nevermore. And ok, it is fine. But it kind hurts the way my mind stayed attached to this situation. I mean. Why I cannot act like myself with people I like? Why do I have to explode and give myself in a tray? And why things that make me bad somehow endures?

I think that I want to people get what I feel in a sincere way and overdo it trying being closer. And repels every single one with it. The hedgehog dilemma.

When I was a kid –there it goes…- I really loved a girl. I sent her flowers almost every week. But I do not ever said a single word for her. My friends at the time warned me: “don’t say that you love her, she will tear your heart up. She is a monster with lovers”

And that’s how the trick was done. I was in love with my lil monster. I would not bother her. Just love the way she was in my innocent view.

I grew up and things started get complicated inside my mind. And I started writing things for her. The same way I do with this blog. Kind stupid, but I was a kid. C’mon. There was no experts in life at my age, even if the kids at that time think they were. In a matter of fact, every one that thinks that are expert in something relative (as life) are not – maybe just Einstein.

When I felt insecure writing things for her. I stopped. And learned that the best thing to be said to someone, maybe, is something you don’t ever say.

Now with my 27.9 years I finally understand what was my innocent love. Nowadays she is kind of dating, and this finally breaks the spell. Yeah, stupid again, but works. I do not love her, I loved the way people tell me about her. The way I want to be myself. Here in my city I am the naked hug man. Celebrating everyone with great party hellos. But inside of me I am the kind of guy of “beware, he bites”. The fact that I ever wanted to be more  discrete make me love the girl. This love also teach me a lot about “emulation” and “comparison” along the years. And I am really glad I “loved” this girl for so much time. It transform me into a –somehow- smarter person, but unfortunately, an overthinking person…

The second girl dilemma, again. In the end it was even more drastic. I really though that she was into something bad in her life. Some love disappointment… or something like that. She was avoiding people cause she was not so good with herself. So I was ok with anything. She was in the city for one more week. She said that maybe would leave in a specific day. And maybe would call to hangout for a last farewell. I tried to give all the space for her to call me with free will (sincere). I don’t even secretly organize anything with mutual friends or stuff. Inside I really feel that I would never saw her again. And in this time not a single message was traded between ourselves. It was ok.

Even when her friend said me that the second girl stayed in the city for almost a week more than she told me before.  It is kind sad when you want to see someone for a last smile and this doesn’t happens. But it was ok. I respect her will.

And with the first girl on the croup it was almost impossible for the twisted life and my subconscious try to sabotage me.

Hah.. But exactly in this moment twisted life acts again. Suddenly appears the third girl. And it also appeared the fourth and fifth girl. Yeah! Hell what. The fourth girl is kind the same energy as the third. And the fifth girl is married. Yes. Married. So, after I met the second girl I was overflowed with dark energies, putting my body and mind on the ground. I was empty. There was still a flashing point of good energy on me. The second girl? Yes, she was my last  remembrance of good energy. And she was gone. I put my project on the side. And was at life trying to emulate her energy with other girls. Life was toying with me. And I was falling. But after the third girl, I regrouped myself. I don’t even start anything with fourth or fifth girl. I just run! Haha

One day I saw something that reminds of the second girl, she was already in her city. Bu I sent her anyways; she answered. I replied, asking how things are up. And nothing. Later on she answer something like: “in the busyness of life. Kisses” And then I overthink. A delayed message, polite in the content. With a dot. Dot means the end of a phrase. Kisses means a social farewell goodbye. Dot and kisses are the ultimate final dot. So it was the ultimate final tip for myself that she was ok with her life, but I was really a burden for her. And that’s make me bad. I never wanted to be a burden for anyone. In fact everyone is a burden for me. And I am right there stood with a stupid smile. Hanging with people I don’t want to be.

I was completely empty. Trying to figure what made me so disgusting for her. Maybe some mutual friends talk some shit. Or maybe I am really a shit of energy sucker. Or probably I said something dumb (the most usual). I don’t know. But the feeling that girls think I want to marry them, just kills me. I don’t even remember the fucking kiss so fast that was. But still have her energy on me. It is weird. I miss her.

In a rampage of stupidity I get out my virtual life. And I notice that I was blasting against society something that was my fault. And I finally understand what attached me in this girl. Is the ability of being gone. Right now I’m really attached to a project I’m doing. And the ability of being gone socially was happening with me for the sake of this project. This was my ultimate weapon against twisted life. And life used it against me. Life takes my weapon from my hands and make me desire for her. And used a yo-yo of energy… bang! Worked like a charm.

The tremendous fear of losing the second girl and the last drop of good energy drives me mad. In my mind I was being a fool for every single one. A toy for the first girl. A tool for the friends of the second girl. A burden to the second girl. An evil motherfucker for the third girl… an so on. I take myself out of reach of anyone. I was gone. And I finally could see that things are ok.

The first girl is nice. She is a younger happy person that makes me happy.

I miss the second girl. She was the first mature person that appeared in my life since the disastrous 2012. And she makes me fine. Unfortunately I may be a burden for her trying being closer. So it is a sad and cold farewell. And the third girl… she does not make me bad. But the fact that I can act like a bad person with anyone did.

In the end, the answer for everything is me. And how strong and disciplined my focus for the project is. Energy comes later.