Thursday, December 20, 2007

The Best Part Of My Job

A sharp as hell #2 pencil, a stack of clean white paper, and a big tub of diet coke by my side. Yep, I'm in brainstorm mode. And hands down, this is the BEST part of my job.

Doing doodles, sketching out ideas, working out mechanics on paper; seeing how one idea leads to another...and God, when you hit on a idea you just LOVE, ooohhh, that's a nice group of pleasure neurons that fire off and make you feel like a God! But THEN once you get one of those cool ideas, I tend to get all like 'ok, don't push it' and then I kind of sit for an hour with NOTHING coming cause it's like the Universe is like a) don't get greedy! and b) ok, YOU may like it but don't be an arrogant ass and assume anyone else will!

Ah ya know, screw it...the (a) above is totally true...the (b) is not. I never feel that way. I fucking KNOW when I've stumbled upon a sweet ass idea. I don't question it. I was just trying to sound humble :)

In fact, here. Check this out:



See? That says 'COOL!' and there is a big circle around it. I do that when I hit on something I really, really like so it doesn't get lost amid the many doodles on the many sheets of paper floating around. I also do it as a way- I guess- of expressing how excited I am. It just kind of comes out.

And the best thing is, this is the part where I- having come up with what I feel is a sweet ass idea, or having heard a sweet ass idea from someone else on the team-get the same charge players get when they play the game for the first time and see/experience something cool. Difference is, now that I've gotten the charge, the team still has to work like crazy the next 10-24 months in order to bring some of these cool ideas life and thus, give players the same charge we've had for over 2 years!

But whatever- that's the job part of it, right? No worries. Especially given the people I work with tend to take a cool idea and then thru execution, make it 50 times better anyway!


And all that aside- WHEN one of the notes/sketches/doodles that I've worked on gets made and then gets in the hands of a gamer and THEY light up and smile in the same way I did when I first sketched the thing 2 years prior...man, that makes it worth it!

Plus, fuck man, even if some of these ideas don't make it (and alot won't), I still get to sit here all safe from the cold outside, warm in my cozy office surrounded by cool pictures, neat toys, and all the latest and greatest video games and just be creative! Fuck dude...what did I do so right in my last life to deserve this?!?!

I'm a happy man.

David

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank God for this blog - just when I was beginning to question my career path...

The Jaffe giveth and Jaffe taketh away.

Anonymous said...

I like what I see on that piece of paper...

Anonymous said...

I'm a firm beliver in Karma.

We reap what we soe.

gg

COOL!

derrickgott007 said...

You do have the coolest job on earth. I like to doodle my ideas on paper too, it helps me to visually arrange them. Like mental tetris of my ideas, yet on paper if that makes any freakin sense...lol When I write I have either tons of paper in front of me or like 5 windows of MSWORD open at once full of various ideas.

And your office sounds cool as hell.

Unknown said...

Cool!

Anonymous said...

Get your ass out of the cozy office and go underground - that's the place you get the best ideas! :P

Anonymous said...

That's great Dave, keep the ideas coming.

Anonymous said...

WHOO!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

you're a tease. we sure would like to know what some of these cool ideas are. a suitable christmas present don't ya think?

Unknown said...

Hey Jaffe, I am new to the blog. I've been reading for about two weeks now. Just got a job recently in the game industry. Just to let you know that you've inspired me to start one of my own blogs. So I've been writing away for the past two days.

I still really havn't decided on what I want to do (in the industry) because I love every aspect of games and at the moment I'm an interface artist but I love to write to and I've been putting together a side project with some guys at work. Little XNA project, small Xbox Live thing. Maybe I'll post some funny drawings on my page.

Twisted Metal 1 and its sequel are probably two games I've spent more time playing with friends than any other on the Playstation. Nice to see that you are hitting the paper I'm excited to keep reading the blog to see what you come up with next.

Anonymous said...

It's cool to finally be able to say on the blog that I understand what you are talking about sometimes because I too am working on the downloadable game market. I'm a Lead Programmer on the game Shred Nebula for XBLA and we just officially announced not too long ago. Now of course, I'm not the designed so sometimes the ideas I think are awesome don't actually make it in the game while other times the ideas I don't think are awesome do. It's a crazy cycle, but it is definately fun. I really can' t wait to get my first reviews back and see what people think (thought the thought is rather scary at the same time).

Happy Holidays everyone!

Anonymous said...

Hey dude im the guy that said i look like Kratos. Im telling you, I am the real life version of him. I wanna send you some pics of me man. Please give me a chance and just take one look. my email is mallow712@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

OWN3D
You're that "Krayatoas" from, erm, India, right? XD

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