legacy

Nick and I will be working together on Legacy. Legacy has been a side project for a while, something we worked on at home for fun. Annie's done a lot of art for it, Doug has written a lot of lore for it, Isaac and Katie even helped a bit! I've been steadily chipping away at it for a long time.

We're going to be rewriting the code from the ground up in Java. Then, we're going to make it fun. I'm excited.

why so serious

I think one of the reasons I drifted away from Riot over the last couple years is my aversion to seriousness. This personality trait comes up again and again in my internal account of my life, and I'm sometimes conflicted about it. It certainly gives me something to prove.

One of the things I'm most relieved about is that I can leave Riot's inevitable transition to seriousness* behind me. I don't think it's because I can't compete technically, on the merits. I think it's much more that I find it tiresome to worry about every little thing. My style is much more "deal with it when it's a problem" than "figure it out upfront."

In my long term dream, the castle, I live the life of a gentleman-artist. I dabble in whatever interests me. I continue to work hard and learn. But the things I want to build are zeppelins, submarines, secret passages, towers on islands in lakes, underwater fortresses, aquaponics, tropical greenhouses in the snow..

It's difficult to tie that kind of whimsical vision to a big company. I often experience seriousness as a one way street. It's easy to get more serious, hard to get less serious. It takes real discipline, optimism, and trust in order to maintain a fun, creative working culture where mistakes are celebrated. I think it's extremely difficult to have that environment at a big company, for reasons of human psychology**.

If I'm willing to accept that I have the mentality of an artist but the skills of an engineer, then it seems that software engineering at a big company isn't really for me. Developing little games is the closest thing I've found to being paid to do what I want. Making my own game seems like an inevitable path.


*I don't think it will stop being fun to work at Riot, more that it's gotten so difficult to push stuff live. When I arrived, associate engineers could push code live without any real process at all. I'm more comfortable in that kind of environment, even though it may not be appropriate for a product the size of LoL.

**monkeysphere.

so long,

suckers!*

I'm no longer at Riot. It was a good place to work and I really enjoyed many things about it, but ultimately my career is going in a different direction, and I'll have to figure that out.

I don't yet know what I'll be doing with my time, but Annie has her job and we have enough funds for the moment. Which means that all sorts of exciting possibilities are spread before us.

I'm really looking forward to figuring out what's next. Also if anyone want to talk about anything, hit me up. Real estate, stock, babies, restaurants, games, tech, cheese, whatever.


* "so long, suckers!" is a traditional farewell among my people. It carries no ill-will.