September 28th, 2004
109638465039753801
Great game music for coding, a handsome boy
As I said, another programmer quit last week, so we’re staffed at two now to deliver a platform game. I can’t emphasize enough how crazy this seems (usually a platform game is built with a team of five or six). Obviously my company has some issues to work out as we can’t seem to keep anyone on to their first review. We (the two of us still here) have a deadline tomorrow, “Platform A”, which essentially means the game has to work more or less (sans special effects and real art), and in addition my newest run-and-code MFC application has to allow fundamental editing, simulation, and export to a format the console handles. I can’t believe it, but I’ve basically built the thing from nothing in less than a month. The pace is beating me into the ground though, I work through lunch (next to the keyboard) half the time, and I’m pulling sixty hour weeks with long periods of mad coding sans standing. I have even developed a series of paces I use depending on how much I need to get done, the most intense of which is where I code even when compiling to save time on compiles, and ignore fifty percent of all bugs I notice manifesting in expectation that they are non-critical or reside in a part of the code that a design change from management will deprecate soon anyway (obviating the need for a fix).
Ok, enough bitching. I am combating the stress (sort of) with a deluge of Lotte Green Gum, homegrown mint tea, and endless sets of video game music (I swear I could be Uematsu’s stand in by now). The VG mixing/arranging community is one of most savvy and sophisticated groups you can find on the internet. If you grew up with a Nintendo controller in one hand and a Zapper gun tucked into your Jams, I highly recommend giving some of this a shot.
Today’s tune: Kong in Concert – 10 – Protricity – Mine Cart Misadventure
You can get the whole album in raw wav and burn some nice CDs from the torrent, or grab the MP3s one by one. Tony and I both eagerly recommend the Aquatic Ambience remix.
Actually, the wonderful world of video game music is quite varied and rich, so I’ll have to talk about it again when I don’t feel like my neck is going to rot off. In the meantime, if you have spare cycles to burn, check out ocremix, nsf, and spc goodz (I can code at a hot fifty lines a minute listening to the last couple levels of Final Fight at maximum volume).
As a cute sidenote, upon returning from the grocery store last night with the makings of Mom’s spicy mustard chicken, I had the fortune to happen across a group of neighborhood seniors. Normally I try to make pleasant conversation and learn about the ladies’ lives, but I usually don’t get too far before I’m inundated with a chorus of “handsome” or “how polite (he is)”. That of course prompts me to programmatically deny such claims and apologize, which in turn spawns even more praise. 
Ah, community… Cheap, cup liquor with old men, and sweet desserts and cooings from their wives.
