A Cat Brought Me Back Here...

Reblog

Hand "un-bandage". Physiotherapy starting.

Things happened, story continued, breath taken, dream ended. Life still going on no matter I still bloging or not. Truth is I can start typing with both hand since 2 weeks ago, altough it last not long (need some rest after 2 or 3 hours) but I didn't blog anything. Busy is my main excuse, lazy should be the second. There isn't anything which strong enough for me to revisit this website and type the thing floating in my mind. Somehow... a cat bring me back to here...

A cat or A feeling pull me back

One hour before, I went out shop to buy something which able to keep myself awake for the night of assignments. Right I reached my doorstep, a cat, a grey color with black stripe cat running to my way and shock me (a little...).

'Arghh, just another bugger who wants food'.
I opened my door, put the cat behind and close the door.
'ermm...will it still around?' .
Opened my door and it just staring at me.
'arghh....'
Closed again. ... ... . Open.
'Gone?'... ... 'Arghhh, hiding behind the wall? you're clever and let see how long you will last here'
Closed the door, locked it, walked back to my room. I put down my potato chips and place my Ice Tea to the fridge.
'Will it...'
Walked to the door, unlock it slowly and quietly (seem useless since the noise is too loud for an animal) and...
'Ya ya! You're most patient cat I ever see, but you still get nothing...may be some food...hmmm, i don't have food for a cat now, forget it Kuan.'
Closed. I believed that I made up my mind. I grab a "penyapu" and swept my room's floor, it's full with hairssss. Then I random picked an underwear and pant, 'Time for a bath'.
...
5 minutes bath
'Adopt it? Nah...this house isn't mine'
5 minutes bath
'Give some food? May be my ping pong biscult i guess...'
5 minutes bath
...
'If you still waiting behind the door, I'll will give you some food, lure you to a far place and don't come back.
Open the door.
'Okay, you win'
Walk back my room and searched my "food division" for something to feed a pity buggy cat. 'Ah!'. Then I walk out with one pack of peanut (small pack one, around 20 pieces inside). I walked out the door and it start moving around me and meaowing for food. I drop the peanut piece by piece to the floor and keep walking forward.
'Ya ya...follow me'
I "bring" it all the way down the lower ground, drop all the penuts there and turn back to my room while it was eating the peanut.
'hmmm...will it come back, it seem I didn't drive it far enough'

... ...After awhile I didn't care about it and concerntrated with my assignment but the feeling of "it-still-out-there" keep bugging me to check it out.
'If it back here, I will drive it even further, pick it up and throw away is necessary'
'(strange that I hope it will be there...)'
Open the door (againnnn)
'Ah ha.. two packs and don't come back again.'
Get another 2 packs and walk out again.
'This cat really that hungry? Why some many doors but chose my door?'
I walk much further this time, walk pass by my car park.
'why you walk faster than me, dont block my way else I accidently step on your tail.'
Walk pass the corner
'hmm? why it is not eating my nuts?'
Walk pass the guard house
'... it's not eating, don't tell me it expect to enter my house and become my pets ahh.'
Keep walking but stop droping any nuts
'may be I bring it to the mamak there, so many people there and it will get lost and confused'
Just pass the small round about, the cat still following my back.

Right there, an unexpected incident happen. 3 Malay guys who just pass me by talked something and one of them grab up the cat. It's seem is a good chance for me to let it get away from me. I keep walking forward.
'Well, may be just some guy who love to play with cat or eat cat, either way, it's not my business now, I just let go my trouble'
Before the entrance to the small path, I throw my packs of peanut to a dustbin
'If the cat is some wild cat (no host or abandoned), why it sticking to my door just now?'
Keep walking
'Is that guy the cat's host? It's rare to see people just simply grab up a cat'
Reached the lower ground where first time I left the cat behind. Then I heard some talking sound. Some people is walking back home. Feeling tell me that are the 3 Malay guys. I walked up the stair and observe them. The cat is with them, one guy holding it on his hand.
'it's their cat? or they just decided to adopt it?'

Til then, I decided to blog. This seem unreasonable, or the whole incident is just normal and not interesting at all. But for me, it spice up a lot of different thinking, it put me into some weird but natural thinking for that hour. The story between me and the cat is so short but in that moment I just thinking about it ( I mean, how to treat it, feed what, adopt it or not, is it male or female, is it belong to someone...).

Fate or coincident, I brought it back to it's host. What if I take another path, what if I decided to adopt it, what if I never care about it, what if I open the door one minute before or after. Still the timing is suit enough for me, the cat, and the cat's host to create this incident. Fate is not the force to drive me reblog, but is the natural mind with an animal. It's so simple, it's speechless, it's positive, it's natural. Should it be just oppose the feeling that I felt towards human recently. Should it be something just remind me that, life is simple and easy.

I hope everyone enjoy my reblog :) Ya, i'm back.

Vacation due to hand injury

Left hand Dislocated

Kuan is injured, left hand elbow disallocated. Cause? my famous sport game - basketball at last friday morning. Typing with one hand is tire and tedius, need to look at the keyboard and check the screen frequently to check if type smething wrong. so... will restart bloging once doc allow me to take off my hand from hanging.

Feel free to call me :P since i prefer talking now. Chat seem like a tire thing now ( you can try it out with just right hand typing, for one hour...). The most bad news is coding... Don't know can archieve wat i planned for Computer Graphic or not.

hehe. i believe its time to let me learn that importance of two hand. The 1st thing bother most is bath.... :(

ok... Be back when my one month MC over... tired....

Web Language

Web programming

It's been some time since I blog about programming language (which is one of the main factor I want to start a blog). I used to refuse to learn web language people. At first I thought that web language is high level, easy and boring. Boring is because I don't like web design. Beside of my Design Idiot Brain(my user interface, color matching and effect is extremely weak), I thought that web don't require much creative thinking, algorithm thinking and problem solving. Web is just a plain page which emphasize design, layout, font and information. (Thats my point of view before). The only web site I ever did is for TAR College's assignment. A web page that sell handphone using a little bit javascript, css and whole bunch of HTML (really feeling idiot that time since Frontpage/dreamweaver is around but I was typing HTML tags with notepad).

But, the world is changing and the internet world is changing faster! Web is no longer the same old wed as I knew 5 years ago, it changed, a lot. We can do a lot of stuff with web page nowaday (oh god, am I typing an english exam essay?!). Straight to the damn point. Gmail, Google calender, basecamp, campfire chat, yahoo mail (new UI), gchat, all these are the web that prove web page is very potential field to improve and develop, at least they are "not-that-easy" to code and need some creativity.

WEB 2.0

To define this...please refer to wikipedia :P

From my point of view, web 2.0 is new web service which very different from the traditional one. What impress me is the way web 2.0 application is made. Programming Web2.0 application is more interesting, challenging and flexible (really just my own opinion). Many new thing can perform with the language or style as long the programer has enough creativity. Famous language in Web 2.0 are AJAX( javascript + XML), Ruby on Rails (Ruby + Rails) and others.

I don't like web programming, but I knew this is an essential thing to learn to live in the future IT world. Nothing ever success pull me into web field, HTML, php, javascript, flash (just interest use it to make game). Need a reason for me to jump in, and now the reason is here - New programming mission from Hatchlings Games. I need to learn this new language - Ruby on Rails and rapid develop something within some time. I fall in love with this language honestly. It's different, It's high level, It's easy and It's flexible. Awesome way to connect database, invisible of complex linking/protocol just focus on main thing (design, mechanic).

Friends who like web language should check these two awesome language/style out. I heard that web 2.o programmer earn a lot. They are quite rewarding by the way even we code it for free time.

End...

Weird post? Ya... need to recheck what's wrong with me, not much mood for bloging recently

Today Feeling ## How to answer my final exam leh... hmmmm (specific for someone)

New Way to Blog : Title : ACM Manila

New way to blog

I tried to write a blog right after I came back from Manila, 6 days ago. I wrote some paragraph, insert some picture and tried to blog my Manila trip as what I did for Taman Negara Trip but at the end, I pause and cancel that post. I think there are 2 reasons I cannot blog it, I mean I failed to blog. One is because I don't have the mood and feeling. I don't feel like writing a long, casual, detail post. Second is because I up to something in my life which I addicted to -- Game Coding. I am coding for Hatchlings Games and I really enjoy coding more than bloging :P.

Giving up bloging is not an option for me, I can't stop this, this is fun and I had my friends who frequently viewing my blog (Thanks for the support). So i figure out a way, a solution which will make me easier to blog and, update oftenly, I blog shortly. New blogger has the option of Labeling the post, it is a good idea so that I can blog shortly, and label them. Even post not according to time line is fine :)

So...here I go...

ACM Manila

Actually we brought a bad news back from Manila. Both MMU team did bad at the ACM Manila. MMU Cannibals able to solve only one question and my team, MMU SJK was able to solve NO question in 5 hours time. Ya, what a shame result we got all the way from the Manila. Anyway, we earn the experience and lesson which taught us that we are still kampung programmer. Lol. Don't worry, I'm not upset or depressed, It's over and I got my energy boost to do better in everything :) Lets talk about the competition itself.

There were 82 team from 9 different country joined the ACM competition (actually half of the teams are Philipines team). The venue for the competition is very small, packed. each team need to sit face to face to other team (Lame... the team in front of us is the 1st runner up of Philipines team, they solved 4 questions). We saw a lot of Chinese from HK (HK got the champion, they solved total 8 out of 10 questions *Salute* and their team is 2 boys and 1 GIRL!), China, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia. Japanese (grap the 1st runner and 2nd runner up for the competition, both solved 7 questions) and Korean. Surpising (and also depressing) is, there are a lot of girls participants. Many mix group but there was a team from China, all 3 are girls (they solved 3 questions :( ).

This year Manila's question is hard. Very unexpected we cannot solve even ONE. I felt so sorry and sad to the people who ever wished me, and putting some little hope on me, totally failed. Other team can solve very good. I think we lack of experience, preparing and HEART. Well, I guess I learnt this hard lesson pretty much. If there any chances, I want to be in this competition again and I want to archieve better. SJK!!!


I think I just stop here for the night. Hope this type of short blog can last too :P

Today Feeling : - : - : Holidays is leaving me

Busy Holidays

It's Holiday

Yea, it's already second week of my university's holidays and third week since I finish my last paper of examination. Then why are this blog isn't updating? This seem unbelievable for me as well, I actually is busy enought for me to omit my time for blogging. Many things happened, a lot of fun and a lot of busy working things. I guess I start getting lazy and like to summarize things in one blog, don't worry, I promise a/some post about trip to Manila will be avaiable right after I come back from there, Stay Tune :)

FULL Holiday

My own defination for holidays is : Days which no need to worry when to wake up for lecture, date to submit assignment, chapters to read before some exam. Holidays are days which let me do whatever I like to do. However, this holiday turn out to be my busiest holiday ever. A holiday which full with work for game programming, full with training and preparation to programming competition, what's better than this :P. This is the most FULL holiday I ever have, FUN+WORK+EXPLORATION. hehe

FUN which tiring...

For sure, this holiday ain't just about working and programming, I will die if I live like that. (But never mind if I am working in Blizzard or Square Enix lah). What fun did I have...ermm... Basketball. Ya... It's been a very long time since I touch a basketball. I was at Setapak with Kent them and we went play basketball in the early morning. It seem that my skill of basketball get really rusty, but the fun of playing it is still the same, Basketball still my favourite game :D And it's LsL's games woo.

The next fun and crazy day is the day which tie my movie watching record and the first time I ever fell fed up eating McDonald. Last Thursday, William, Min Bee and I went to Wan Utama and watched 3 movie in a day. first movie is Open Season - Normal Animation, fair graphic and story line. second movie is World Trace Center - quite dissapointed, not as expected, fact and touch one. Third movie is The Grudge 2 (picture)- from japanese's Ju On 2, disgusting, shock scene, fair story line. Overally, these 3 movie, just fair. On the same day, we meet up Solid, Eddie and Eddie's cousin at the curve's McD and eat the McD buffet. This buffet made me felt that I don't want to see McD meal anymore in this half year. RM20.00 per pax and eat all you can inside McD (got some limitation lah) but it seem like a nightmare after we eat all those fried food, chicken, fries...ahh...fed up. Solid was the winner of the day, he ate 4.5 burger, 5 piece of chicken, 2 nugget, unknown amount of fries, banana pie and 3 glasses of soft drink. *Respect* *Salute* to the god of eat :P

The day after McD & Movie. Me, Min Bee and William were on the way to Genting Highland. It was a in plan trip for me (actually is Setapak there ask me go up de, and it's celebrating Kent's birthday, so, no matter how also must be there, hehe.), but it's not an in plan trip for Min Bee and William since they decide want to follow me at the midnite. So, we were there and our main objective is... Coffee Terrace's Buffet!



Coffee Terrace Buffet is a famous buffet restaurent at Genting Highland. It's has variety of food which include, local food, nyonya food, indian food, japanese food, western food, chinese food, desert, ice cream. Me, Min Bee and William take together and eat together and we can eat different kind of food for 3 hours, no repeated food except one plate of japanese uncook salmon fish meat. It was quite costy as we went at the peak period, it's RM67 per pax :|. Normally it is RM50. The pics are stolen from website, havent receive any pic from them yet.

We spent around 4 hours in that restaurant until everyone filled their stomach completely, eat back the price mah. After that, we have a short celebration for Kent at the room. Around 10 people fit into a small room and fool around with the cake. Then... as their tradition... divide into team, play Big 2, and the loser drink Chivas (it really seem is a tradition for them...lol). I lost few games, drank few cups of chivas...lucky still can tahan else Min Bee gonna kill me liaw. Until the Alcohol finished, we three went starbuck to enjoy the coffee and cold weather. This brought me back to the first time I drink Starbuck in my life at the same place, around the same time. Both was a very good time.

WORK which fun

My holiday mostly is covered by work and training. The day to Manila's regional ACM is very near. Honestly I didn't do much preparation, may be that will felt better and more relax... who knows. So, just take all the luck from friends and family, then enjoy myself there :P Need to headache wat sourvinie to buy lagi, haizz.

About the work from studio...Confidential :P

Ok lah...report until here, want to continue some of my coding.

Living with a Different Aim

The Hard Past Days

Crunching of assignments, studying for examination, keeping myself not going crazy and mad were the things I did for past few week. Obviously my blog production was a very big decrese, blog posting is... pathetic less, and my visitors were dissapointed with this slow/stop blog writer and stop clicking my link :( . Well...Yo! Kuan is back!

I wanted to blog few times at the time I either dying for Game application's assigment or OOP's assignment. Everytime the blog time I normally used (2 or 3 hours one post) always drive me back and continue my works :P . What happened to me for last month? I was emmerse completely into academic stuff. Assignments, test or exam, were all over my life, I didn't do any other thing beside of academic and life thing (life thing mean, eat, sleep, hang out with mother :P). I didn't do a job about GDC's VP (bad guy...) I didn't commit anything to Hatchlings Games (and they did a lot, I'm really a bad guy...).

My full concerntration for assignments ( I really felt sien ((chinese words, bring a meaning of ...sien lah...haizz.)) keep repeat typing this damn "assignment" words over and over again ). I have an academic aim in MMU, I have to keep myself in a very top position to ensure I can win an intership to Korea (if there's one at my time) and for this reason, I need to put all my time and brain to make sure everything go smooth. Well....that's why I dissapearing in those time. Anyway...I'm Back ! :P

The Happy Past Days

Kuan is not that Geek anyway. Don't misunderstand that I really used all my time just for typing report or figuring way to score a max mark in assignment (Again?!). Many events happened in between those days. Too bad I was too busy and lazy to blog them. Mother was here. Me, and cousins in KL had a dinner together, then I brought her to Ikea, Wan U, and lastly KLIA(what a brief, It's a sweet weekend). One day, me, Min Bee, William and Miss Yoon went pizza hut and JJ shopping (what a good day :P) and Miss Yoon said she has a friend who work in a famous Korea's Game Company, and she's a PR of that company, I might stand a little chance if I like that inter at there :) .

What else...O! I'd celebrate Mooncake festival, but it's one day after the real day. Why? Because having an exam paper at the day after mooncake festival and need to study. Right after my paper, Me, William, Min Bee, Yan Hui get on my car and drive all the way to Sg.Buloh, to William's house. On the way, we picked up Jillian. We spent a nice night there, William's family gave us a warm welcome, and his mother cook a lot of delicious food for us ( so nice...). Then we light up some tanglong and brought some tanglung walked around that Taman (ah ha...I am 22 years old anyway... :P). After that we went Mont Kiara (the real Yum Cah Heaven in KL, freaking many people, too freaking many car). We went there's 24 hours Starbucks and drank some coffee there.

Current Days?

So, it's holidays. I'm proud of myself that I can last typing this blog from last holiday until this holidays. (Loud applause). I received many positive feedback for my blog and some friends enjoy reading it, thank for the support :) I promised I will keep this up as long as someone viewing it. Why sound like going to end this, lol. Ok, letz keep going...

It's Holidays. Finally I got myself free from all those freaking tedius assignment (again...) and exam, and finally I freely can chose what to do at my time now. I receive some mission right after I get my own feet.

ACM

nFirst mission - Training. Something very big is going to happen in my life. A programming competition between other asia country's university, A trip which fully sponsored by IBM, A country which I never think of going there. Hehe. It's Manila ACM, and we, SJK is going to there to face our next challenge by this end of month. So, part of this holiday I need to sharpen my coding skill and algorithm thinking. Anyway, SJK still the same, our main objective is EAT (by Solid the leader), secondary is SEE and PLAY (by Kuan), then is taking Photo!(by Josh, I made this up myself one... hehe). Well, go relax, code relax, and wait for the miracle.

Hatchlings Games

hNext mission - Game Coding. Then I got a big job by my boss :P Ahh...cannot say much, I think this is abit CONFIDENTIAL. Need to get permit first. Something I can leak is, I going to become a true game programmer and need to really code something this time.

Company of Heroes

hAh Ha! I didn't play any game since September! What a shame for a game developers. I going to crazy if I keep not playing any game. Then I found this game, Published by THQ, developed by Relic. A cutting edge and best reviews RTS of the year - company of heroes. I enjoy playing it. It's graphic, story line, game plays are all good. RTS lover should try this out. Well, I set myself a mission to complete this game (I not going to give up halfway again this time!).

GDC

hHehe... Thing going to happen next sems and my mission as a Vice President in this holiday is to plan a Game programming competition and make it happen in coming semester. Anyone have whatever idea on mind and suggest to me :)

Seem it's a bit rush and i need to end this now. Going back to Setapak since there are some hunger ghost waiting my car to drive them to grab food.

By the way, It's 14th October at Australia in this time. At here, I want to greet my very best friend, Edmund, Happy Birthday. Wanna record this at my blog, forever recorded :P. Cheer guy! There's a very bright road for you!

Today Feeling - Holiday mood, mission ON.

Assignments, and Exam period

I just pass my assignments MONTH. can't believe it actually cost my one whole month's time to do different assignment. It's really killing when you take 7 subjects in one semester in MMU. I actually have 7 different assignment on hand but lucky submit in different time. In past month, I didn't play any game, I just watch 3 movies (actually got alot dy :P), I back to Setapak once, for assignment one... TERRIBLE. And finally I finished them!

But now...here comes my exam week. Arrggghh, I managed to caught 2 days rest and now need to enter exam mode. Felt sorry not updating this blog for a damn long time. Will be back after my exam ! stay tune!

:P, and good luck for MMU's buddies Exam.

Bee Game Birth!

Ya...after hours and hours of working. Finally I made it! It's Bee Game Beta Testing! I need people to test it out, finding bug, critique it, comment it and suggest it. I not going to post long here, because this post is mean for comments on the game. Everyone please comment here. I need the Comments for report.

Please get the file from me (it's just 2mb) or dowload it

Thanks :)

**EDIT**

Thank for trying! After few people help me to try it out, I fix bug which i never meet in my testing period, thank you! I fix the bug and re upload again the file, so, please download again.


Some tips here, if you got boring playing the 1st few level, change the data.txt setting, copy and paste the last level to 1st place, and taste the hard level, I found that the hard level is really challenging :)

**EDIT** **again**

Spending a sleepless night, I manage to implement sound and music, completed level to the game. But still not much bugs fixed. And this is what i present at my game application 1 class. Bee Game 2.2b

I thinking to refine the game play, provide clearer info, fix bug (a lot of them...), and implement a new game mode, score attack which play unlimited until you lose. thinking of it.

Crunch Time?

Busy Month

Yea...it's crazy month. I think people who check my blog frequently was giving up to keep check it out but nothing updated :( In order not to lose some more fans, I need to update something! Recently really crunch days. Assignments, tests, training, mother-come-event, and training are filling up most of my time. Bloging seem need 2 or 3 hours for me (Have no idea why need so much time, unless I keep typing without thinking...). Anyway, half of the things past, now just left another half in front. One of the "left" is the BeeGame for Game Application final assignment. I just left one week to complete it, polish it, send to fren to test it and write a report for it. Thinking am I going to succeed since typing this blog already making me sleepy just pass 12....damn.

Time Allocation

Thought which keep floating around my brain is "Where is my time!?". I didn't play any game recently...precisely, I didn't play any game this semester. But looking for myself now...I did nothing beside club and academic thingy, at least I thinking it is. I concluded that, I wasted my time with slack, doing nothing and doing something I cannot remember...

Seem like time is really running out if I really want to make a good game out of the BeeGame. I always have a feeling that it going to be nice and fun, I doubt it if I cannot increase my productivity. So I guess I need some good time management this week to handle 3 assignments and can present a good game (this is the reason I came MMU...what is the purpose of living if I cannot do something nice in game?).

Attendences is not important start from this week (Theoritical), so I guess I wont waste any more time with useless lectures, I'm seriously thinking that is it only CyberP and Korea Level 1 is the only worth paid subject for me this sems....(ermmm... I thought thats consider many already?). It's mean I have plenty of time to code my game this week and my other assignment as well lah.

Time allocation? Sleep, eat, drink, metabolism, walk, breath compulsary. Other time is Assignment and BeeGame~!

Last Plan for BeeGame

Entering the last week now! What'd it has so far? Just a gameplay prototype...pity. Just saw some ugly graphic, some move around, and click somewhere to move your "bee", gather flower make honey. In my opinion and original planning, actually my game play is completed 80%. Now left Enemy AI, bonus pop up, more enemy applying to the game play element.

1. Later (Wed) is the day to implement AI for the main enemy. Have to at least make it know the way to gather enought nectra and return to the hive, dump abit which it wont always take the shortest path, smart enough which it will not fly from one corner to another. First time for my AI programming and I hope everything go right.
   
2. Next day (Thurs), not much time since I predict that we going to rush Math assignment, so... PopUp power, easy thing.
   
3. Friday and Saturday is special case...need to take out sometime back to Setapak to meet Lo Shyang for the game art and scan so image (If i having it that time...). Saturday morning ACM training somemore, but something need to be done...effect and animation (heavy part)
4. Sunday, full day working is needed, to finalize the Game. Create menu, make level.
5. If polishing is complete, send the game out for friends to test play and gather critique, so...who is voluntee?

Well... When I typing this, time is really not enough!!! Something really need to be done soon. Felt crap lah this blog...thanks you for viewing..lol

How Much Actually Game Developers Earn?

Dream as A Game Developer

This become my dream since the first time I was making my very 1st card game using Visual Basic when I was Junior 3. I still remember that I saw this book "Visual Basic 3.0" which is chinese version in my secondary school library. As a noob, I asked my friend a Noob question :"What's this?", my friend, Cheong if i not mistaken tell me this is something which allow me to make my own computer program in computer. I was stunned and got very exciting with the fact that I can start making my own computer program! (I think someone might finally found out why Kuan so interested in programming, Coz I actually fall in love with it in first sight. )

Then I borrow this little book back to my house, and start flip it over. (I still remember the first time i read that book is when I was doing my business in toilet :P ). I got very exciting, I learn textbox, command button, label, variable, event driven, one new thing i learn, I got myself one level higher excitement. Not to promote but I learn all flow in the 2nd time I read the book, If, While, For, Switch, and I love them. In few days, I created my 1st calculator (I don't know why but I just created it...). Some weeks after that, I made a card game which rules similiar to black jack but largest point is 9 and just draw once - "Dok Dok" I named it.

I pause programming for one year and picked it up again at my Senior 2 and made a Chinese Chess Half Board. They are kind of easy but I enjoyed making them anyway. I not wanted so bad to be a game developer at that moment. I just felt that become a game developer is my unreachable dream. I love playing game and amaze of how to make such a cool game (StarCraft, Quake 3, Final Fantasy) but I learn very less knowledge of game development and have a very very high view of that job. I thinking that become someone who making game is the hardest thing I will achieve in my life. That I will say it as my hidden true dream :)

Now, I am on my way to my hidden-true-unreachable dream. Initially my point of view for game developers was a very hard job which earn very less and hard to become rich (Young thought). It's still the fact now anyway and it's harder than what I used to imagine, somehow, I knew it is reachable now and thats why I am here bloging a site namely "Game Dev Life for a Student". It's still tough, it's still a great challenge, when going after what you really wanted, it's nothing to lose.

Work as A Game Developer

Although I am Hatchlings Games's programmer, I never put myself into realy game development process so far so it's not true that I ever WORK as a game developer. Then who am I to say something about works. Well, sooner or later I am one of them ^^v (Solid teach de smileys, it's ^^ 2 eye, and 'v' is the finger 'v' shape). I guess anyone like me, who wanted to become one of the soldier in the battlefield of Game creation, will have some question. From my guessing, the most famous question in mind will something like "How much I get...am I going to survive!?" or "Do I need to work part time while making game" OR "How am I going to use my whole tons of Salary!!" (jk...).

Lazy Kuan surf around the internet, reading this and that, and finally clicked back the bookmarked Gamasutra and found an interesting post. This post title is "Are You in Demand? Hot Jobs for Big Bucks in the Game Industry" This post is about what is the average pay for USA game developers. Anyway, USA market is totally different from Malaysia or some other country but what I think is, may be there wont be the same figure but relatively same ratio in the country job market.

Something I like to highlight from the post (Since not everyone will click it and read...) is the average pay for fresh graduate or early game developers. Average game developer salary is USD 70,000 per year. Figure is about... RM 260,000 per year and RM 21,000 per month. (Thinking fly over to US and work in Blizzard? ask me to join :P ). Even I divide the figure with 10 times, I still getting RM2100 pay as fresh grads ...not bad...

Well, this is Statistic and it is US's statistic too. It not likely to make any comparison to Malaysia but I believe there are something related. Codemaster from US planted in Malaysia...wow... some other statistic for fresh graduate in game industry is :

• Programmer US$ 52,989 - RM 196,000 - RM 16,000 per month. ( I can upgrade PC every month, Travel every half year, spend you all Chilis every weekend night)
• Artist and Animator US$ 45,675 - RM 169,000 - RM 14,000 per month.( Lo Shyang can buy one new console per month, buy original games like buy pirated games, collect all FF thingy in one month)
• Game Designer US$ 43,486 - RM 160,00 - RM 13,000 per month.

**note : Those figure is what in US, converting to RM just for dreaming and imagine purpose ( else someone go out there interview as game programmer and demanding RM 10,000 per month and got chase off from the office everytime...come back here and comment :"Kuan, you're big liar!")

So? Game Developers earn a lot man! Making game is the funniest job I can think for myself in my life, though it's working for someone, it's employee, it's hard, it's OT, it's crunch time, it's instant noodle job, it's sleepless, it's .... it's dream job :)

today feeling :: stop raining, I wanna play Tennis!!! Assignment is killing me off dy~

Flash Workshop & Game Design Workshop & B&B Steamboat & WCG

Lazy Kuan delayed and delayed his blog again! I really getting lazy to blog? Nah! I just hardly take my breath, sit down there and start typing the thing I want to record down. Recently flooded with assignments, test, events and enjoyment time :P. It seem that my room missed me so much that i normally just spend 6/7 hours with it, and my laopo too :( . What's busy? hehe, here they are.

Flash Workshop

Ya~ the very first event of GDC this year. Directed by Leong Kee, and his helpful Sub-Comm - Norman (Terrence Chi's brother ah! At MMU wo, hehe), Shuqi (another great "flasher"), Jia vui (0007...not you...dun perasan! wuahahha, same name wo :P ). And sure, don't forget William, Iris, John, Key who help out the event also :D ( I am sorry if i missed someone...really scary to put people name since I am damn forgetful). I not sure if the workshop is a good one but I am sure it is a successful one. For me, it's objective achieved which is let the beginner get their starting hand on flash and hopefully they will keep playing with it.

Workshop is two days. As usual, few of the participants didn't turn up, some of the 1st day participant didn't turn up on the second day. Nevermind, we still did our best and try to deliver as much knowledge as possible to the people who interested and want to learn. I hope all of them learn something and did share some of the flash out if they make some.

Game Design Workshop

Last saturday was this second event of GDC game dev. This is relative bigger event compare with flash workshop and the guess is Big People from the industry such as Josh (Dragonback's CEO ? plz fix me...), Max (GM of Code Master, Malaysia), Mike Ooi (Lead game designer of Feng Weng Online. Sound familiar? refer to 2nd blog of mine, hehe), James (someone from MDV, he's quite big but I forgot the position...) and many more. The guess seem good...but the participant seem abit dissapointed since near 40% of participant didn't turn up.

Still, this event is a successful one. Great event, great speaker and great setup. Too bad I can't share any picture of that day since I not getting one myself. Will update this after I got some. hehe. The bad thing about me is, I can't fully join the event and actually missed some important part since I had a Java lab test at the same time (And I used all 120 mins in it..unbelievable...).

B&B Steamboat party!

Wah ha! B & B finally appear at my blog! Beuty and the Beast - Group of Taman Negara gang. We came out with this idea at someday I steamboat at SK with Min Bee, Willaim and Leongi. It's funny that we spend some time there to decide the group name. Well, now I am member for LsL, HLG, GnL and B&B. wuahahah (SSing....). Ok, back to the steamboat. Thie Steamboat is mean to gather back the Taman Negara Trip gang to chit chat, eat something and...dunno what liaw.

We chose to have our own steamboat. We did a lot of preparation, Such as... Min Bee brought a lot of stuff from her hometown one week before. William's dad so kind that he drive to MMU just to give us table, the steamboat's "boat". Shopping council who go Alamanda in the early of morning to buy food (but so bad that we buy 15 ppl food for a 9 ppl gathering :P ). William who stay alone at Min Bee house to cook soup and cut chilies (Salute!). Eddie and Alfred Cut Vege at Bao Bao (their house...). Ms Yoon brought some Malaysia's KimChi (I think she brought for Josh, he finished them! ).

It's a bit tedious and tiring to actually made a homemade steamboat, but I think it is 100% more fun then drive my car go out there and eat. We enjoy the night very much, chit chat, play some lame magic (by Kuan again, wuahahah). Ms Yoon and Leong Kee just cannot get the clue until everyone made it damn obvious (Ms.Yoon may be becuase of cultural and background...Leong Kee.... :P ). Well, beside of playing lame thing, something interesting and exciting happen in the middle of the eat, it's Eddie Concert!!! Can sing some Korean Song in front of a korean, I think he really enjoy it :p

Problem arise at the end of the steamboat party, a lot of food left! Everyone was full until cannot move already. So we gave up continue and start cleaning up thing. After things were settle, we sit together to sign the white wine and red wine bottle drank at taman negara. We gather everyone signature on the bottle and leave it as memory of Taman Negara. hehe.

Got some life...

bLife recently is...busy? Fantastic? Exciting? Not so sure but I did enjoyed my life very much. Sunday just went KLCC one noon to watch WCG with Kent and Shyang. Yesterday night just went Sunway Pyramid watch movie with Ms Yoon, Min Bee, William and Josh. Just now just played almost 3 hours Tennis. Tommorow going to celebrate Ah Seng Birthday at Setapak (Don't get me wrong, Bday, not Nday). MANY assignments, some test next week, some ACM training, some GDC event, some other things. I do hope I can blog soon about my BeeGame.

Today Feeling ****** Shoulder pain lahhh, someone massage? Tennis is my latest favourite sport now :P

Sleepy Month

I ran out of idea to blog for 2 times. I type some text in the blogger but at last didn't publish it. Once is because I didn't save what I type and restart the PC. Another time is because I am too sleepy to continue typing and close the windows. So i chose to blog once right after my dinner, to ensure I have a blog today :P

Art of Sleep in Class

Sleeping in class seem is something evil for student who studying. But it's my habit since primary 5 or 6.Everyone know me well or been in the same class with me will agree in this, sleeping is one of the main activity for me in class :P. This month seem is the most serious time which I will sleep in class. One hour, 2 hour lecture or tutorial, in front or at behind, friend wake me up or not, eat sweet or not, still sleep... Sometimes I will wonder how people can actually stand awake 2 hour in a boring class (or may be people will wonder why am I so sleepable in a just 2 hours class). May be someone can help me out and comment this blog how you stay awake? lol.

Why Sleepy month? This month I did a lot of changes in my sleeping habit. I woke damn early in the morning (6? 7? 8? They consider early compare to my time before...). And i sleep damn short (4-6 hours). I personally think that not affecting my life beside get sleepy earlier in the night. Sleep in class is not the main side effect, I keep 100% focus in Korean class :P and 70~90% focus when learning new topic. I just got sleepy when the class going to boring, lecture start repeating or teaching slow... that really drive me sleepy.

Sleep in class is normal thing for me, but get sleepy suddenly early in the night is something "new" to me. I think the effect of cutting short my sleeping time made me fall asleep earlier. So, another question....how to stay awake and not that easy to drop sleepy in the night. hehe. I knew the best way to fall asleep, read some book.

"Game Coding Complete"

This is the book which I borrow from MMU library almost 6 weeks (actually got another book along, mathematic for game, but never read any single page). I borrowed Game Coding Complete once at my MMU's first year first semester but it overwhelmed me at that moment because I cannot understand most of the thing inside, it just too hard for me.

After one year of learning game programming, from Hatchlings Games, from forum, from article, from other book, from friends. I can't say I got significant improvement in skill but I do learn a lot more game development knowledge through out the year. Then one day I came back to library and search for books. MMU library is so nice that have a lot of "Kuan Wanted" book but too expensive to buy book and I can borrow it and renew it like unlimited :P. (Actually felt bad that sometime I not really enjoy this facilities since I just use 30 minutes to study a book in a day.) Whatever, then I get back this book "Game Coding Complete" and watch it over. Wow! I understand the table of content, I can read the "aliens" words now! Then I get it, until today :P

This book is recommended strongly to people who interested in Game Programming. It covered a lot of game programming technique which I think I will never learn by myself or in class(Definately...). It emphasize in programming style (how to organize code and directories) and special technique (wont find any "simple" code in that book, cool). I personally think that this book is not for beginner. It mean more for people who knew programming and did some game programming. I didn't mean that I am the second one since I still having problem to understand some part :( . need more coding!

blehh.....

hIt's really seem that I ran out of thing to say? But not the next post. Actually was waiting Game Design workshop, WCG to over, then will have a long blog to report them :)

Today Feeling ------- Stuck in many things... Released many thing too.

Trip of Taman Negara

犯小人, 贵人助

This week seem is a very terrible week for me to talk about people. I felt the Chinese speaking of "犯小人" now. Translate to english, it is "offense small people". It have a meaning of the fate will make me have problem with people in some time (week or moths). I got several people problem in this week, what a "happy" week. People just piss me off with no reason. For me, they just want to piss me off even everything is going fine. Or some people pissing me off for something they are not involved? What the heck. There are 3 people actually pissed me off this week (surpise? some might just knew one, haha...) But, thanks for my true friends all around me who support me, understand and bear with me in this kind of "shit" moment.

It's not easy to make me felt angry, but one thing is too easy to make that happen. Stop treating Kuan as friend and trash our friendship. Friend respecting is the very important thing for me, so i respect every friend of me, if they don't, surely they ignite me. Somehow, something prove my way of treating friend is correct. Instead of some pisser kicking my ass, there a lot, a lot more angel who carrying me from falling to frustrating and angry life. Thanks to those friends, I live no regret as with my true friends :) (geli? ya...i think so... but to show my appreciation to my dear friends! )

DAY 3!!!

Everyone is asking about the day 3. "Where is your last day?", "Too sad to write the ending?", "busy week? I want your day 3!". I wanted to blog day 3 right after my Day 2 post but din't have Day 3 picture (Josh pindah rumah, congrats to him to leave his hostel "venom" room). Got the picture yesterday, so, need to work something out then :)

Early in the morning of Taman Negara Trip Day 3 - 6:30 a.m. "Handphone Opera" again but no one going to do anything of it. Until 7 a.m. our leader cannot stand anymore, she's switched on the damn light :P. Everyone had a very nice sleep after really tiring Day2 activities. We had a very rush morning. Boat will reach the jetty at 8:45 and we only woke up at 7:00. hehe. We rush pack, rush queue, rush eat, and rush down to the jetty.The fact is, we are not the 1st group to get on board, and we waited around 30 minutes for next "express boat" to fetch us to Kuala Tembiling (what is the purpose of rushing... should have enjoy the toast and hotdog slowly!). It's returning mood for everyone, after just 2 days of trip, I felt like it's been a long time to stay there and with all the people there. Well, every trip have the same feeling when returning :)

I was keep awake for the 3 hours boat trip (had a nice good sleep mahh) and so do others. At 1st we all boys played poker on the boat, not pluging leg fur again...just drink some water. After one hour, sien liaw. Lol. I sat beside Ms. Yoon, she's enjoying her Ipod and the river breeze :| . Then I start to ge boh with her, Yin Yee and Min Bee, ask some girls' stuff ahh, boy's stuff ah and...3 hours just past like that. There once our boat mulfunction, it float there until some other boat pass by and give the boat driver a hand.
Without proper rest and lunch, we get onto our bus after we reach Kuala Tembeling. We have some plan to make sure we get the last 2 row of seat before get on the bus. Girls will go up in 1st place to book the place and boys load the luggage to the bus (I think only chinese and youngster will do this.. :P ). What happended in the bus? zzZzzZzz. Hehe.

Back to the "Bulding Forest" -- KL.

After the sleepy bus trip, we are back here, KL. But not an end for Cyberese, still way to go. Ms. Yoon is rushing back to CyberJaya for her Seminar for the korean student. Me and Min Bee need to back and prepare go pick up Min Hui at LCC (low cost airport for Air Asia). So...everyone need to rush back :P. We had our lunch at KL Sentral - KFC. This is the fastest KFC meal I ever have with my friends. But still, we late of one minute :P and need to wait another 30 mins for next train.

Activity not stop right after we reach CyberJaya. Everyone of us still have stuff to do. Ms Yoon need to go seminar. While the rest of us + Min Hui & Alferd - Leong Kee, went to Mines to watch movie - CLICK. It's a fun nigth because pity William and Yin Yee keep fooling by us to "matching" they two. Hehe. I over night at William's house that day, to accompany this pity lonely guy who don't have anything in his house :P Min Bee and Yin Yee went to William house, and we four have so "early morning" sharing like that lo...

The Trip...

Well, this is my Taman Negara Trip. I enjoyed it so much and I believe others too. Some of us are not familiar or even don't know each other before the trip. Then end up is a bunch of friends. I went to many trips before this, but I can say Taman Negara Trip is one of the best. I miss the trip very much. Looking forward for next trip :)

Today Feeling --> Many things happended, I can felt people around me, good and bad.

Day 2 Part 2

(Please read part 1 first :p)

Longest Canopy Walk in the Globe!

After a very fast lunch, we ready ourselves to the next exciting event, canopy walk. I been to few canopy walk before, Ranau's and Penang's... and where else....forgotten, there's one more. But Taman Negara's one sure a lot better. The Age of the forest, The distance and height of the bridge, the feeling of the bridge are the thing make it best canopy walks I ever been to.

To the canopy, we need to take a very short boat trip to entrance of the canopy walk. Actually everyone was very tire after morning tracking, Ajax saw this and ejek us lagi :| . Ajax brief us the history and fact for this canopy walk. The highest bridge is 44 meter from the ground, the whole canopy long 500++meter. There's are rules and regulation to follow to walk this canopy, which is keep the distance and mind the number of people to stay on a platform (frankly no people told me this at previous canopy walk).















Even it just 500 m something, but the whole journey took us like 1 hour ++. We divide ourselve into two group, which is Group 1 and Group 2 (Plain...). These picture took at the starting point. We got plenty of time taking picture, watching snake (which Ajax found out). It's just a small snake but his eye was so sharp like can see and feel every animal around the jungle :| The reason of having a lot of time is because every group need to wait the group infront to leave the platform only they can walk the bridge to that platform. So...if one of the group infront stop moving, everything slow down. But...who care? We are there to enjoy, no rush :P

We took many picture on the bridge (since we have plenty of time on the platform). The feeling of this canopy really nice. It's high in the sky, can spot some nice scene view up there since it just next to the river. Especially crossing the highest bridge, I cant even see the ground, too many plant cover it. Min Bee got very exciting for the canopy walk, whole walk just can see she laugh :D. Ms Yoon got a bit unlucky (again). She bite by "unknown" insect on her finger and I can feel the pain by her face. Lucky its not something poison. Josh keep doing his job of photographer :|. No report for group 2, please refer to Billy's and Leongi's blog for that, lol.Rapid Shooting...or Playing Water on the boat ooooo

Last event of Nusa Camp package is Rapid Shooting. Actually this doesn't turn out something expected in my mind but it still fun :). This activity is easy, get on the boat, and get wet! There are few rapid in Sg. Pahang. As the river bank become narrow or the change of depth will make the water flow faster and form a rapid there. What this activity does is drive the boat, and shoot the rapid. This action is not that fun and exciting, because the splash from the river is nothing to us that time since we are already wet by "human action".

As the boat drive very fast, just put the hand into the water and the people at your back will whole wet. The water just splash to behind. Me and William was at the last row, sure, the "wettest" of the boat. Josh was infront of me and he keep putting the hand to water, later Ms Yoon beside him learn to do the same thing. When we come across with other boat (who playing the same game), all also splash to each other. It's like primary school but, its fun :D. (Pic : We don't have picture for rapid shooting. This pic is taken after canopy walk, but the same ship we used for rapid shooting.).

Before getting back to CampSite, the boat stop us somewhere in the river and let us swim. I can't said I have a good time there because, its quite dangerous to swim in this kind of water current, it keep flowing. There once Ms Yoon, Leongi and Josh wash push by the current to far and need to come back carefully...It's tire to swim againt the current.

Well, then we back to the campsite and end all our acvities in taman negara. Although it's a bit sad to indicate an end but, I don't think we have any extra energy for more activities too :P.

Waiting for the night ~ and Cheer for the night

After all the wet chicken dry themselves, they just found out that it is still have 2 hours until dinner serve. Then we start doing random thing in the room, not actually remember what is that. But one thing very classic is, all the boys go up to Josh and my bed and play Poker. The loser of the game will need to... Plug one Leg fur. Too bad I am the big time loser an at least plug out 7-9 fur total :(. Ms Yoon was fall asleep while she reading a book on her bed while another 2 girls were too boring and keep disturbing the boys' play. Well, actually everyone are waiting for the dinner!

Nothing good about the dinner, so let's jump into the night activities! William's Dad chose 2 very good wine for us. I sponsor the red wine and William sponsor the white wine. Both is very good wine! We took all the remaining junk food, wines and cards to the place we used to play last night. Then we celebrate our successful trip and sure, play some games.

The first game is "Lying Games" which use card to lies. This game aint about winning or whatever, just a game to have fun find out who is lying and who do not believe who. Everytime I played this game hardly come out a winner but create a lot of laugher. Well, next game sure is one of those silly game lo :P. I Choice to play Truth or Dare instead of King's game because truth or dare I can stick with Dare, no need to tell truth, hehe.

Truth or Dare Dig many secret among ourselves, even about Ms Yoon de oo. So I going to reveal them all here... ... ... and I will be dead man :P. There's many funny Dare happen ( as the picture show, Min Bee slap William because of me, too bad ). I enjoyed that night very much :)



End of day 2...

Ahhh.....finally... After the games, we went back room to sleep. It was a tiring day and everyone sleep very nice :)

It is 6 a.m. in the morning, Can't believe I used 4 hours to wrote these two blog. I didn't continuous typing but flashing back a lot the memory in the trip. It is so fun and memorable. Day3 will reveal soon and I promise it wont be long again :P

Today Feeling *** I found out something, something which may be my happiness of life, or another tragedy in life.

Day 2 Part 1

Before I continue...

Previous post seem really long. Everyone said that (not sure if anyone complain that except Cheong). I knew this do nothing to gamedev thingy but this is very worth to be record down. So that I can enjoy back the mood and feeling brought back from the trip. 2nd Day post will be crazy long, was going to split it into two. My bloging speed become slower and slower since I start care about the grammar and thing to type. Think today I just type whatever come across my mind since I just wake up from 3 hours night sleep, strange feeling.

Day2 - Fresh Morning

Early in the morning - 6:30am. After last night Forest Orchestra, our room was playing HandPhone version one. I can heard at least 3 handphone alarm is ringing at that time but no one willing to wake up, including me :P. Min Bee is the one jump up and open the light, then everyone only willing to sit up. The room is much more colder than the 1st moment we got into that room, I think it because we were in middle of rain forest. I think the best place to wake up is in the middle of jungle, air very fresh, cold and clear morning. It enlighten people mood.

All of us finish brushing ourselves very quickly and went to the river side to enjoy the morning breeze. Nusa Camp has a very special enter way. Infront of it is a very large Rock area in the middle of river, this made the river who squeeze to the side become a rapid river. Boat will need to "shoot" that rapid and make a 'U' turn to get to Nusa Camp. (my direction skill seem weak).

We went down the rock area to grab some beautiful morning picture and touch the water while waiting for the breakfast to ready. Nothing much happended down there. But we took this funny picture :) For information, Sesat is Malay language and it mean "lost" in English. At first we just wanna joke around and play with the picture. But Josh did a good work in editing this picture and I think everyone face is damn suit. So...put it on here.

The picture at the right side is the taken by Kuan when everyone finished a very...time consuming breakfast. Imagine that, around 30 people wanting to eat breakfast, and there are only 2 bread toaster, mean 4 toast per time. everyone average want 2 toast and it take around 30 sec to toast one. So the queue is just funny, waiting everyone to toast the bread. The buffet food is always insufficient, I guess the boss of this restaurant like to give surprise to the customer. They keep serving addition food one by one when all the food finish in the tray. To save cost may be but it make very ugly action like us...such as, when something come out, Min Bee will go and take half of them and gave it to everyone on the table while all the foreigner thought she can eat so much :P

Adventurous Trail but disappointed Fall

According to what the package arranged by us, we suppose to get moving to a place named hill Warisan for hill hiking. But after discussing among ourselves and with our guide - Ajax. We decide to go another trail which lead to a water fall named - Abai. Ajax gave us a very brief map for the way to the fall. That map helped a lot. So 8 of us move on ourselves into another trail without anyone else. Before this we thinking to go to that fall in the early of morning, now I am relief we didn't do that, else find me on the newspaper.

This trail is 3KM long, path is very obvious at the 1st part but it getting blur and need to find marking to go on at the last part. 1st part is just walking in the jungle, with soil and tree around us. The 1st leech victim of the day is Ms Yoon if I not mistaken :P. But we are well prepare today with Yin Yee medicine and always have check point for everyone to check their body for leech on the way to the fall. We need to cross river for 4 times in this trail. 1st crossing is peanut, 2nd crossing is 2nd tougher which just a 2 feet big rock to keep your shoes from getting wet. 3rd crossing not that hard but here is where I wet my shoes for 1st time. 4th crossing is tough which u need holding a rope to actually cross the river safety (William cross without rope and got himself both wet shoes :p).

I think the only thing the girls most worry on this trail is Leech. Ms Yoon was panic at the second bite, Min Bee keep find leech on the floor, Yin Yee was very worry of it. They keep checking out their shoes, shock, bag for the leech, alien creature huh? :p. We came across with a Orang Asli village on the way to the fall. It just one house there (Wonder how it called a village, may be other house hidden inside). the Orang Asli there was playing guitar...yes...guitar. Orang Asli village is the middle point of the trail. We rest and took the best picture there with the help of Orang Asli (best picture in my opinion and this is my wallpaper now :).
Path after the village is getting tougher. This is the toughest jungle tracking trail I ever walk. Up and down become more and harder to climb. Path become hardly visible and need to find marking or rope to go on. Some of the part need to climb big rock with the help of rope which ready there. There once I knock on a very big spider web, the spider built the web and block the entire path and she is huge :| (but we are bigger...so...her house was destroyed by me).

Before we saw Abai Fall, the last last part is climbing up a very big rock then can felt the big disappointment :( . 3KM of tough trail and we meet this "Fall" in the picture. It just took me 1KM at Poring,Ranau for a waterfall which is 3 times higher than this. Anyway, the trail is enjoyable anyway. We spent sometimes at the fall, taking pictures, swim (I'd swim to the fall, it's deep), check leech (A stupid leech dead when sucking my blood and cause my sock and shoes in bloody red!!). But not much time spent since we are late and get back on track very fast. We're quite rush on the way back to the campsite but I did lead the group to wrong direction once :P what a lame scout. When we got back, everyone finish their lunch already, we're last again.

End of part I

Day 2 is very happening day. Another half is even better. I need to split this up in case one post is too long and people get bored and start skiping. In order not to miss fun part, so take time and read this separately will be better :) Ok...here I going to post next blog

Yesterday Feeling -->> (Forgot to post this at previous post, but I remember the feeling) Lonely and missing the trip so much !!!

Taman Negara - Nusa Camp Site - Day 0 & 1

Foreword (Day 0)

Yea yea...I knew everyone missed me and thought I gave up for bloging since one week I didn't update anything in my blog. I wanted to blog once right before the night I went to Taman Negara but too many thing happened and lost my mood to blog but just worry about the trip. This trip was a bit tough and full with obstacle/accident/delay. Eddie can't make it to the trip one day before the trip (lucky we found one replacement at the last minute and covered Eddie cost). Yin Yee's train was delayed 3 hours and reach KL very late, after that stupid Kuan take a wrong turn at Serdang and end up eating dinner at Ampang (From Cyber Jaya, 40km). Honestly my mood was disturb at that night because a lot of changing went on, and I hate last minute changes... well, letz move on to DAY 1 !! (this blog is so damn long...so...bear with it :P )

The team and On The Way (Day 1)

Who are the people I went with? Lets introduce the team! They are... William(billy loh), Leongi(see his blog for details of the trip :P), Yin Yee (The only one Non-MMU, Min Bee's Segamat friend), Min Bee(the one start and make the trip happen *Salute*), Josh (our dear photographer), Kuan (?), Yan Hui(Min Bee's neighbour who did us big favour to replace Eddie), Miss Yoon (My Korean Lecturer!!! Ya! She was there with us :P).

Day 1 was a very tough day. At the early of the morning, everyone woke up damn early and preparing for the trip (I just caught 2 hours sleep). Due to chaging of plan, 4 of us need to take ERL to go KL, while the rest follow William's dad's car (Thank Billy's Dad :) ). The trip start at Taking bus at Mutiara Hotel in KL city. Well, bad thing happened there, our agent forgot to book bus seats for us! 8 of us didn't reserve a place on the bus, we were so worry and wondering is it we have to gave up the entire trip because of the mistake of stupid agent! Thanks god there are 8 absence to the bus and 8 of us manage to get on the bus (While the bus delayed half hour cause of us).

The bus trip took 3 hours to fetch us to Kuala Tembiling, Pahang. Kuala Tembeling is one of the entrance to Taman Negara (Taman Negara is so large which cover 3 state and have another 2 entrance at Terrenganu and Kelantan). At there, we took a lunch at the very friendly boss shop. And the lunch is the 1st event which all of us gather together and know each other (Miss Yoon, Yan Hui and Yin Yee are new people to the group anyway). Then we took the first group photo (up there).

We are not there yet. Another 3 hours of boat trip need to enjoy before we step my foot to our place of staying. The boat is 2 people sit one row and a long boat (River Boat) and it was more stable than I expected where me and leongi can play Poker on it (And I won RM0.50!!). The boat "sail?" up to the river and keep going going going. The scene beside us was beutiful at first but it getting boring as you sit at the same place and see the same greeny tree and water for 3 hours. (Pic : Me and Leongi was split up with the group and they sat at the back).

Nusa Campsite

3 hours past and we reach our staying place! All of us were so excited. Nusa Campsite is a good place to stay, natural feel, have a nice scene of river and rocks, link to trails into the jungle and friendly crews. Nusa Campsite is a bad place to stay too, Simple room ( 4 double decker bed all fit into a room and it was hot like hell as we enter it), bad food (not delicious, always insufficient food and tea which is not tea.) (Pic : Left : everyone going to hostel, it always need to cross the hanging bridge which someone complain it is so shaky. but no more after 2nd day canopy walk) (Pic : Right : The hot room force us to come out and take some fresh air, the house at the back was our hostel, i mean one of the room there.)

Before the dinner, we plan to explore the camp and we walked on the only jungle trail at that camp. We just walk slowly, enjoying, chit chating and get ourself adapt the jungle. The 1st part of the trail was a road for four wheel car to pass and it is wide and easy. I thought all the path we going to jungle tracking are going to be like this (easy) but lucky I was wrong :p ). We wanna find the path to water fall and planning to adventure to it at the next morning at the camp. We stop at the junction which point to several place and plan our morning there, it seem everyone of us were exciting for the place and wanted to play as much as we can.

Night Walk and Game of Ourselve

There nothing to tell about the dinner(it's not nice). But a funny thing happen after the dinner. Me, Josh, Miss Yoon and William were standing and talking something at the restaurant, then suddenly Ms Yoon scared by something on the floor and run behind us. I can't see what is that at first and thought it is either a dog or lizard. but...a porcupine turn out!!! It walking freely and smelling here and there. Everyone around were stunned and get exciting of it. Some worker gave it a plate of...vegetables and the cutely porcupine enjoy the dinner by skiping everyone human who stand around it and shooting picture. It is so cute! Too bad I cannot hug it, or even touch it.

Here come our 1st event in Taman Negara - Night Walk. We had a very nice guide (ranger) who named Ajax. He brought us into the jungle at the dark night and search for anilmals and insects. It is a full moon night (the day after chinese calender july 14th...), Ajax said it is the worst day to find insects and animals. He manage to show us some insects (Spider, Scorpion, Stick Insect, Fire Fly), frogs, and luminous fungus. Ajax is a very skillful ranger, He can spot very very small spider (around 2 cm big) at the range of 5 meter away using tourchlight. He taught us the way to hold the torchlight and searching for growing eye of insect or animal to spot them. He told us some knowlegde of insects and fungus, thanks him we learnt a lot on that night and everyone enjoy the walk.

*Hold On* Special announcement, our first victim of Leech... Ms Yoon! A leech was stick to her leg and enjoying Korean Blood when all of us checking ourself at our room. She'd scare because she don't know about leech ( our bad for this, short of information). We used some Leech repellent from Yin Yee to chase away the leech, but too bad the wound not heal and keep bleeding (bit by bit lah). Pity Ms Yoon :P

After everyone's bath time, we start to play our own stupid game :P. We brought some junk food and Min Mei's sparking juice to the restaurant which facing river to have our happy hour. There was just us, yelling, playing, whatever no one will care :P. I was the one who keep come out with games, so, we just played what I've played at my previous trip. Alot of them, "pair Card calling name", "Thieve and police (use hand purse)", "Heart Attack", "Pick Turtle". Sure, a lot of punishment going on :P. There are no crazy game at the 1st night such as "Truth or Dare" and Kuan's all time favourite "King's game". We had a lot of fun playing those stupid game

It's happy that Ms Yoon did enjoy the game with us. Frankly she is the one we worry the most because habit of talking chinese hard to change and always make she felt left out when all of us talking chinese. But I think the group was trying so hard to talk english lah :P. She quite a quiet people, or may be she not so familiar with us, not so sure. Josh did talked a lot to her ( me too but not so much). She did enjoy the night walk and game lah, and everyone did, from the smiling and happy mood of everyone :)

Everyone went to bed at around 2a.m. While some of us fail to sleep in this kind of exciting holiday and group together to talk ghost story. Actually just Ms Yoon and Josh were slept sweetly and the rest gather at Min Mei and Yin Yee bed to share "ghost story". Min Mei not a good ghost story teller since she will laugh at the middle of telling (who wanna laugh while hearing ghost story :P ). Yan Hui talked a lot...but... too long and draggy which successfully put everyone to sleepy mood. William was scare and quiet hidding in the corner, wuahahah.

Well....what a long post, omg, just day one. Day 2 is the most important day and happening day, will post it as I gathered more picture and more time. I love this trip, and I believe all of us love it :)

Next Step

It's cold morning

Recently Malaysia is rainy. It's feeling good to wake in the raining morning, everthing seem beutiful and fresh (except for the cold which always keep me inside my blanket :P). The sun is lazy this week, but... I enjoy the day without burning hot sun, hehe.

It's morning again and I am here typing my blog which related to dreaming again ( as jia vui comment my previous blog which need time to digest what is the true meaning of that ). I love to plan my day a little bit at the morning when i woke up, and always morning is the best time to figure some plan or solution (coding i mean).

Steps

It's been 10 weeks since I first blogging, as I review back, I dare to say that I improved my game dev skill and experience which I think is the greatest growth compare to any other time. From zero Direct X to making simple bouncing ball. From no-one in GDC to someone who responsible for game dev activity. From ordinally programming student to champion of ACM. From someone just knew 5 language to someone knew 6 language.

Ermm.....why it's like showing off...omg. Actually I just want to know where is my step now and where to go in the next step. So...What is the next step? I not someone who will have a very clear vision of long term. I like "see one step, walk one step" style of planning because life is unpredictable and too much change or fail of plan seem demoralising and becoming something forgivable for myself... which is unforgivable.

I was once read a book which wrote about planning, and it emphasize on setting short term and easy to achieve objective in life. Keep rewarding yourself and get self-motivated for a bigger and longer plan. One last 5 years plan seem far away and get nothing until then while a lot of distraction will happen in the path of life. Set middle or short term goal which lead to the last plan, and make sure the short term goal is achievable and reachable. Accomplish them step by step and reward yourself (Feeling happy and shared the success already a nice reward i guess ).

Kuan's Step

Talked so much, what's in my mind? I'm someone who never satisfied and believe there's always room for improvement (actually it's not a room, it's a city), but I am someone who never feeling "not enough" for what I'd done so far. Strange? I guess so, I have no idea how to describe it...

I think I having problem to explain myself today morning?? By the way, just wanna mark my plan for the future days...

• Get back my feeling in SexyFrameWork, which is PopCap framework for C++ doing simple 2D game. This is for ready my final game of BeeGame.
• Keep the plan working and succeeding in GDC for second half of 1st sems.
• Read some book...finish it...
• Enjoy the break :P Taman Negara! I am coming!!

Today Feeling <> It's Holiday :)

Vision of a club

Visions....?

It seems the topic recently were slow and not related to game dev. It's happy that my blog is getting a bit famous between my friends, thanks buddies :). Well, this the reason why everyone rarely saw some blog with "D3DXMATRIX" , "String Hallo = "hallo world";" or "*-+/" recently becuase it's not much people going to read them and I don't think I am a good tutorial writer. So I decided to post more about the thing happended in my life which affected the road of Game Dev. (So is this the vision of Kuan's blog?? ).

GDC GameDev Vision....???

I was told to think about this before yesterday meeting. The terrible thing is I never really deeply thought about this even the first time I knew I going to be Vice President. I keep figuring out the way to improve GDC and promote more game dev related stuff but never think about what vision is the game dev division in GDC. I think the meaning of vision is aim to achieve in time. Well, I spend some time to figure it out what's in my mind.

I think I'd inherite most of the vision from John. We'd plan a rough year plan for GDC GameDev right before the sems start and the vision is quite clear with the plan : "Promote Game Development". After some times of evalute and concrete my idea, I've come out with Kuan's vision in GDC game dev in year 2006.

• Survive year 2006... This is not kidding, keep something alive and the way it use to be is something tough.

• Create the game development culture/habit for GDC. GDC much like a Game Club than a Game Dev Club. Both is the obective of GDC, just need something to keep the game development department alive. Create culture/habit means Game Development event and gathering will carry on no matter how.

• Make this year as a super class of years after this so that the future Hi-Comm can inherite the propertise. (:P programming). Meaning is, make as much event as I can, record the process and method, keep them for next batch of GDC Hi-Comm. A small system is needed to let the culture grow. None Hi-Comm knew how to book a booth before this week... Lucky Iris found a whole lot of links of "how to do thing in MMU".

• Guide the lost sheep. Hehe. I knew the feeling of first joining GDC and SEGD course, want to know more about game development. I was lucky for meeting John last year and he guide and taught me alot of game dev stuff. So the most important vision of GDC GameDev is... let the junior or people with heart in game development have a place to stay and learn together.

This is the first time I type a blog in the morning after i woke up. Last night was too tire. People is more fresh in the morning, so I chose to share the vision in the morning. I hope I still in the track :)

Today feeling :::::::: Kuan is getting lazy to blog...omg...

Dream of dream

Dream and Vision and Life

Wow...seem serious topic? I wonder why I never talked about this thing in my blog. I used to be a person who like to talk about dream, ask people about vision and try to help someone with their life. May be Kuan seem not to be someone who talked about this for someone, or may be for somebody, its already boring to hear me say something about that.

Why out of a sudden I want to share these things out of my mind? Mainly it was John had a very long talk with me just now outside my house, we stood there for 2 hours and talked a lot of thing. He always have somehting to learn from :) Later was chatting with Ah Giat (my cousin brother at Sandakan, we're like best friend, live together, play together since my very young age.). We went into discussion of business and working life. It was already 3 years I was trying so hard to affect them to go out of Sandakan, come to KL or KK at Sabah to have a better chance of life. At the same time, was discuss some friendship problem, and the changes within us with Edmund. All those thing trigger a lot of my mind, after incubation in the bathing time, i try to share it out here with both eye droped on the desk.

Dream

How many people can actually tell someone "what is my dream?". I've learnt that people can believe that they can own their dream at the time I finish my SPM and start reading book of <> <<>> and start exploring into the world of Multi-Layer marketing world (I think this word is familiar to everyone). Honestly, I need to give my thank to Japson and DreamChaser. I think my life's biggest turning point was at the moment I finish my SPM and waiting to go KL study TARC. I start to dream, i start to think about money and life, i start to explore into business world. DreamChaser is a very good organization which actually taught me a lot of golden knowledge which I will never learn this in my school.

Frankly speakig, altought I had my dream that time, but actually it's not my dream. What I dream that time was, owning a big house, rich man, big car, help people to get rich( ya, familiar...MLM talked about this all the time). I was confused, not the right word, I should use "not satisfy" with my dream. Something beneath me telling me that I was wrong. Books and talks taught me to dream, and so...my self concious start dreaming too. It start digging my true mind for dream... Obviously...why am I making this blog? My dream is to make game!

Ya, my dream since young is being a game designer. What?! Everyone tought I wanted to be the best game programmer? Programming is my favourite thing in this world while to make a game which everyone like to play is my dream. For me, becoming a game programmer is the best path for me to get a chance to creating my own game. I did told someone in one of the GDC gatheting that I dreamed to make a new kind of genre...that still true :)

I never dreamed about I can involve in game making industry. I was taught since young that game is something bad, waste time. Go study and get a good job is the most right thing to do. Thanks to books and friends, i learn a better way.I not dare to jump straight to MMU to take SEGD as my 1st choice when i chosing University for further study because I cannot find reason and courage to convince my old mans to send me oversea to KL and study GAME.

So i ended up at TARC. Here comes a special conincident... Stephen Tang, lecturer in TARC who always with the game development burning in his heart held a game talk in tarc. After the talk, I made up my mind to study game and make game. Stephen's seminar reveal the industry and open up my mind that, games actually earn! And i ready to jump into it. So after Diploma of ISE in TARC, i shift to MMU to study game design, and here I am :)

My dream of making game is so clear that I start learning and involve myself into this. I seldom do that since I am quite lazy person anyway. But i never stop chasing after i knew the existance of the chance to make game.

It seem a bit boring....may be i was too sleepy and type something weird and personal since my brain doesnt work well now :P continute tomolo or soon...

SJK Won MMU ACM 06 !!!

"S"olid"J"osh"K"uan won MMU Annual Code Match 06 !

Until this minute i typing this charater, I still not 100% accept the fact that we actually won this! We won! Yes! We won it!!!!! We are the champion for MMUACM06!!! We got the RM1000 1st price! We did it! Not 3rd place as we expect which we said is the place we only get if we try our best. Not 2nd place which we said is the place we only get if we got the most luck in the world. It is the 1st place which is the place never think or consider in our mind (that just simply dreaming if we got it).

Even though we got the 1st place before the score board freezed (it stop updating the score at last 45 minutes so that we don't know who won at last). I think, due to the reason we don't want to have hope of winning, we just assume other submit some question after the 45 minutes while we still don't have the mind to win. After having the refreshment which is... ... ... so so. We was call to wait announcement for the winning team.

After FIT dean and IBM representative gave some simple talk, Mr. John See start announcing the winner, from 2nd runner up. Everyone hope they got something, I think we still hoping to get some place for the match and so, 3rd is the place we expected the most. Obviously it's not us. Our mind was, we lost? or we got higher standing? Then Second runner up, not us too. But then... Solid told me... his friend in the 1st runner up group, said they solved only 3 questions. Nothing much to think, we just wait...wait wait wait...and after the announcement, it was us, us...? US!? We stuned there. I was laughing...can't believe at all. No way. But we got it :)

Stategy of SJK

We solved 4 problems. All are ad-hoc question (which mean no fix or existed algorithm to the solution), we plan this before day because we 3 are bad in algorithm such as graph and such. I personally love number, 2D array, recursive problem. A little bit showing off here...I personally solve 1st and 5th question :P. But actually both is very easy pattern recursively question. We have a good stategy to actually earn the winning place.

Our stategy is solved the faster question we can. Start of the match we flip over the question, and chose question 2 as 1st attemp. Then try question 3. By the time I solved question 1. Question 1 just simple pattern question. for instance, create a square 2D array, put in number so that all row, column, diagonal add up is same total. Just a pattern building with recursive. I learn this pattern some day in Secondary while playing IQ question. After this, qustion 3 solved! That time, we left half hour I think, lucky we found out the solution to question 5. Actually that is the easiet question in the match, I think other just missed it because it's 5th question.

Factor of winning?

There was a time lecturer asked us go up front and share our stategy. Solid very frankly told all people the truth. We did our training yesterday ONLY. And that is a failure :P. We bring nothing to the match, no book no notes, just calculater and pens. We came unprepared. Then I said may be it because some question very suit for me to solve, and I knew the pattern before this. Josh said relate to Solid's. Main factor is, we don't have the pressure. We relax and doesn't have the desire to win. This cut off many confussion and pressure in mind, but focusing in trying the question together.

Here I really learn something. Skills, I think all the attendees have it, some even better than us. When it come to competition, skills is a factor, but the mindset and attidute become the most important factor in competition. Pressure and desperation will cause confussion and nervous. Debugging logic error need a very clear mind, to find the right solution need quiet mind. We have very good teamwork since we all 3 can clam each other and have the same mindset in the competition. Actually i think the failure of the training is the best helper :P Dare to Fail!

Appreciation

Earning this joy, need to thanks for the friends who support us! Thanks Min Bee reminding me not to underestimate ourself, waking me up in the morning and bring me lot of lucks. Thanks William for waking up Solid for us :P and also, supporting SJK. Same go to LeongKee, Eddie and Alferd who wishing us good luck before nights. Supports from Edmund, Jillian, John, Key, Jia Vui. hehehe...i also forgot who ever said this liaw...may be because I never expect to win :P

Today Feeling :: Great :D