Creating Games, Animation & Art
Confusing thoughts clouds my heart,
or is it the sorrows that cloud my mind?
Have they been born from an outside source, to be unleashed upon me?
Or simply my own spawn devouring me for there self preservation?
Slowly embalming me creating a dead inside mummy.
Too which an empty shell can hold no feelings, serve no purpose other
than to remind us of what was, and what will be.
A soulless body lies and decays.
No more life to flow through it veins.
An empty shell left to remain.
Instead of the life, that it use to reign.
I seek you father, where have you gone?
Shall we meet before long?
Lost is your spirit that inspired my own.
This place is now empty no longer a home.
I bid you fair well, farther of mine.
For you had to leave, it was your time.
Long lives your wisdom, your values & ways.
In the ways of my own, your life force remains.
~Francois Marais 2008
A heart not loved, beats it’s rhythmless beat.
Filled with pain and anguish, it’s tormented meat.
With the worse yet to come, love to fill its chambers.
And the elusive love to burn with fire embers.
Now why is love the hardest to bare?
For now two hearts have one love to share.
They beat a rhythm only they can feel.
Love drives them on and it is real.
But hurt awaits, these hearts of fate.
To burden them with love and hate.
To be loved and love, then hurt the giver.
Is the harshest pain to the receiver.
Interesting, so my personal blog normaly contains all my my intimate and inner conflictious ramblings. Today is a really important day for me, and this is why I will blog this to the world.
Know thyself, this has been my inner demon for a little over a year now… yet it reared it’s ugly head, I have not taken notice of it until recently. I have been on a mission to find out what makes me tick as a person, more importantly why.
Bottom line is for more than over 6 months I have asked random people, what there most defining moment was, how it defines them and why that defines them into who they are. The answer always remains the same… evading answers off topic, and when you keep them on topic they get uncomfortable and feel weird, and generally leave… which to me is awesome, cause its fuels that hidden comfort zone/personality, I have with my selected audience or peer group of friends, my little hidden introvert jumps with joy.
So yet, I still feel the same about knowing thyself and all my pointless ramblings and conversations on the topics has gained me no “fruitful” results, other than the fact that I know no one really knows, how, why or what defines them. (well few do “Shodan” being one of them, yet I never asked him the question in fear of the bar tab if I do if I did pose the question to him ;) Oh and Shodan yeah we need to grab that drink sometime mmkay. )
Not to ramble of topic like I do 
I would just like to state the point I was getting to, or rather the conclusion… To me you can never know yourself truly, who you are what defines and you and what you know have nothing to today with the future “me” and the past “me”, the present “me” is the only truth to who I am and nothing other than that can be promised or given, since the past has been done, and the future is absolutly unpredictable.
To me balance will be found when who you want to be and who you are are the same person, in other words being who you are is your ideal you. Expecting nothing harnesses no predefined result, or disappointment. But rather leaves you with here and now, and no alternative other than to enjoy the moment for what it is. Life owes you nothing, move on.
So in conclusion, know thyself is not merely a statement made by men who think themselves wise, or philosophers that long to be profound. It’s a daily challenge of actively understanding oneself and ultimately a quest that is by its own definition a journey that leads to nothing more other than understanding who you are at that stage in time (the present), and not who you were or who you will be. Never leaving you with more or less wisdom than you had yesterday…
So the world is a pretty gloomy place sometimes, but seriously who cares? I decided to watch the news the other day and it really bothered me that 99% of the news was negative… and this is what people watch? Why? Seriously!
I got so frustrated seeing how screwed up everything is I decided not to watch the news any further, it really drove me to start thinking about leaving my home country, South Africa… now I know this is not very optimistic, and my point is exactly this.
What you feed your brain is what it thinks you want, I mean heck it’s been said for many moons. All the books i’ve read have said it, every motivational speaker says it… Oh and now some women repackaged it and called it… THE SECRET.
Anyway bottom line is junk in junk out. There we go no need for 50 books 4 motivational dvds and 2 life changing courses.
I found a pretty kewl website which I was laughing about and actually made me write this post, since it reminded me of my watching the news experience the other day 
All the news with none of the abuse Hehe if you use that I so want credit 
So feed your self happy thoughts as in the words of the wise Peter Pan, and stop thinking about all the crap that the pessimistic media is trying to brainwash you with.
Anyway have a good one,
Francois.
Ps: Yeah all my rss guys thought I was gone but wrong I’m here to feed your reader
So I Found this clip and I love it, well I pretty much watched all of the They Might Be Gaints (TMBG) The Else their new album is pretty awesome! I have to say I like the majority of the songs and the music videos are mostly Eye Candy.
I wake up today and decide, that I need to make a bicycle out of paper clips. It sounds nuts I know but then again what else can you expect from me.
Anyway half way through whilst talking to Mr.d4v1d I realize, wait a minute… I better check google, since you know some insane artist like myself already did this… I google and find that indeed some guy on you tube made a stock animation movie with what is supose to be a paper clip bicycle… it was not and indeed I believe this to be the first one of it’s kind.
Anyway other than that I couldn’t find any other paperclip artwork that has object form or shape so I continued with my bicycle.
I did this without planning drawing or anything I just imagined the bike and made it. Its got some functionality not alot yet, and the second one I will probably plan and work around the non functional issues. Currently the bikes pedals can rotate (very wobbly ) but they do and the handle bars can turn like a real one.
Enough with the chitter chatter enjoy…
There we go, I hope you enjoyed that, there will probably be more paperclip art in future. Drop me a comment or stumble me if you enjoyed this post… well drop me a comment if you didn’t either
Till next time,
~Francois.
Ok so if you have no idea who Dave Gilbert is, you probably don’t know anything about Indie Games. Anyway I’m not writing this to educate you about the scene and all it’s about (although I will probably in the near future do so).
So let me get to the purpose of my post.
Dave created his own computer games, using the AGS engine created by Chis Jones. He has now successfully created 2 commercial adventure games and is busy creating a third one called : Blackwell Unbound Dave sells his games under the the name Wadjet Eye Games . Dav’s previous two games The Shivah & Blackwell Legacy can also be found on the site.
The games themselves are amazing, and with every game Dave creates it just gets better. He works hard at bringing the best quality to the players and that is primarily what my post is about, the hard work that Dave puts into the games. When you play the games you get a nice polished feel and enjoy the game. The music the graphics and everything works well together, and whilst playing the games you get that uniqueness from it that every over-bloated 3d clone is lacking these days.
Games like these is why game design and creation has intrigued me from a very early age, and I guess this is pretty much what I am posting about mainly. But I don’t get that feeling from games anymore, it’s all clone after clone and no unique identity to the games anymore.
Luckily for me I found the Indie scene, and that has sparked new life into me. So whilst I have been in the scene for a long time I haven’t really done anything other than the odd animation or sprite for other games. Maybe brainstorming with Buloght on some puzzles & ideas, for his games. But that was about as far as I have come… not counting the 3 games that have made about 5% progress on my hd. Jonathan Crest, Drug Money & Gary Gauch.
Well it is about time I start getting serious and create my first game out there. I have officially started rewrite a script of a game that I intended on creating as my first game. Altough it’s short and sweet it will be to get myself up to par on creating th more demanding titles.
So I guess I should say thanks to Dave for the new zest of life that he has given me in boosting me again to start being more active and doing what I have always loved.
Thanks Dave.
Regards,
Francois.
Hehe seriously though, I have been one of those introverted people recently. Not going out of the house unless really required. I tend not to call the tech support or help services, I just open my browser and google the answer. Why cause maybe it’s not about being introverted, it’s simply just faster than arguing with a idiot over the telephone and getting told that those settings or services etc are not available then… 10 minutes later after I have consulted my god friend Google I have the problem solved.
So why should I waste my time communicating with people that are of no help? Really, I could of better spent that time slaughtering some poor defenseless sheep in Desktop Tower Defense! Trust me don’t google that cause your going to kick yourself in the head. Desktop TD is EVIL! Or maybe it’s physics since it makes time miraculously disappear.
Ok but seriously recently I had this bad phase where I felt so Introverted that I just started to feel like I am old and should go find a shallow grave. Working from home doesn’t make this any easier! (Also working form home sometimes ends up in no work getting done.)
So pretty much this is my post to my online buds that I have seriously been neglecting over the last month or so just to say WHATSUP! Frop me a line via mail (yeah postal ) or IM or give me a call… no I don’t want you to clutter my blog with irrelevant posts So mention Doughnuts or Cheese 
So my posts will probably become almost daily again soon watch out for those, since they wont be bland and boring and if they are I probably won’t post them
~Francois