andrewb

Had similar issues to you and also did similar things.

However I eventually got through it and my suggestion below is what ended up working for me.

For a fortnight, do the following:

- Go to bed at 10pm, no music, no movies, etc. Get up at 6am without exception, even if super tired.

- Moderate exercise at 630am for 1 hour. Ride to work, do some weights, go for a run. Whatever works for you.

- No caffeine after midday. I've got friends that can have it at 8pm, and still sleep at 10pm. I cannot if I have it at 1pm

- Alcohol free. It disrupts your sleep and makes you eat more junk food.

- More vegetables. Because I don't know how to cook, I just went with steamed veges with a different sauce (bbq, sriracha, butter, etc)

Regarding hyperactivity, the best thing you could do is setup a TODO board (e.g. Trello, whiteboard with sticky notes) to visualize everything going on in your life.

Taxes to do, bills to pay, emails to reply to, people to see, presents to buy, tutorials to watch, books you are reading. Everything.

When I did this, I had a terrible amount of work in progress that I just couldn't keep up with and my mind was constantly on.

See what you can do to reduce this. Take a day off work for taxes, admit you won't read that book, unsubscribe from emails, say no to social obligations if you're feeling overwhelmed, etc.

Hope this helps.

The only comment at this level which is constructive and thoughtful gets the downvote?

My thoughts were there is nothing wrong with saying mobile-first and cloud-first. They are complementary to each other. i.e. You build your mobile apps using a cloud backend.

What I learned from another indie dev was to stick to creating small games but each new game you create introduce a couple of new game designs.

Therefore after a while, you'll have a pretty good game framework and that big game you were dreaming of will be that much easier.

With no backing data, my reasoning would be it's the ideal time to jump into the industry.

Before the iPhone, I can only imagine how hard it'd be for developers to handle the business side of building a game, e.g. purchasing, delivery, website hosting, etc.

Now a days you have multiple mobile app stores, Kickstarter, Greenlight, Humble Bundle, etc.

I've had similar thoughts.

My current plan is to move towards contracting work. Therefore, if there is time between contracts, instead of dwelling on loss of income, it essentially gives you time to work on your hobbies.

In your situation you'd need to ensure you are well ahead of your mortgage.

I'm jealous about you living in NY.

I had a holiday there for a fortnight recently and for the first time in my life, I felt truly inspired.

One of my highlights was going through the MET. Specifically, seeing the flintlock based firearms. I was simply blown away by the intricacies.

Thanks for the links. Tried a few out and they were quite interesting.

IMO, the two most exciting things that is happening right now is the Occulus Rift and independent developers.

I've had a bunch of games in my head that I'd love to build and it turns out there are plenty of indie developers who have had the same idea but are actually building them.

My current sci-fi list:

- RimWorld

- The Mandate

- Satelite Reign

Excellent work. I like your perma-wield idea.

I've only just started on the "aspiring indie" path the past 6 months [1] and it's a great feeling when I've got a spare weekend to toy around with an idea.

One thing that I found useful was joining up with a indie game dev group in my city. It's always great to hear other peoples stories.

[1] http://andrewjamesbowen.wordpress.com/

If I had my time again with headphones, I'd be buying DT770 (work) / DT990 (home)/ Bose QC15 (travel)

The Beyer's are very comfortable which I think is the #1 feature for long periods of use.

The Bose make my daily commute enjoyable now as I can listen to podcasts with no distraction.

I'm using these at home too.

Previously I went through Logitech's every 2-3 years, I've never even considered changing to something else since owning them.

I'm a person and I care about widespread surveillance of people.

I'm a regular user of Evernote and it certainly makes me reconsider that decision if that's the mentality of the CTO.

Time to look into alternatives.

Cheers. I found it helpful.

I too would like to have an answer but having the question is the most important thing.

http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park

I've been playing around with MonoGame and it's not too bad. Considering Microsoft has stopped developing for XNA, it might be time to look into it.

I've been using a component based approach to building my game from scratch and it's been an excellent development experience. Too often I feel like I'm in the deep end and unsure if I'll sink or swim. So I try, sometimes an idea works, sometimes it fails but it's all fun.

It's all very beginner but I've started to blog what I've learned. http://andrewjamesbowen.wordpress.com/

Source code is available on GitHub too https://github.com/abowen/MonoGameOpenGL

From personal experience, Google Apps Script is not ready for Enterprise / Production. It's simply too unreliable.

However I do enjoy the API. It's wonderful how easy it is to prototype an idea and get it off the ground with minimal effort.

I made a recent trip to NYC and visited several museums and Five Points. I was more impressed by the artwork by the graffiti artists than the majority of items at say MoMA PS1.

Unfortunately, I think graffiti art will be accepted one funeral at a time.

Similar to other comments, my father (68), rides to and from work which is 30km+, then for fun, will also include another 2-3 hour ride after work. My understanding is eventually you get into the zone, 100km is easy work.

If we were talking 90, then I could see why 100km a day might seem hard. However for some, 70 can still be considered youthful.

I don't agree that'd be a disaster, I personally like the idea or at least something similar.

Essentially it's about basing promotions & pay based off meritocracy. There could be concerns about the Peter Principle [0] but at a high level, it appeals to me to work in an environment where people can "prove" they have the skills, instead of talking the talk or simply being the oldest employee.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

Yes. I should have added an additional statement that these games actually promote themselves as clones.

UberBlox

"Im making a kinda of Minecraft Clone"

https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/605337

Manic Digger

"an open source clone of minecraft"

https://github.com/henon/manic_digger

I made a mistake with FortressCraft. After reading the Wiki apparently there was a dispute between themselves and Minecraft.

If anything, it seems similar to Terraria. I'm not going to call it a clone because I personally find the term derogatory. I'd rather call it a 2D platform sandbox game that has similarities to Terraria but still unique.

A clone of Minecraft in my books is more FortressCraft / UberBlox / Manic_Digger.

Congratulations to the OP though. Overall looks pretty good.

My gut feeling is that there are more suitable approaches, such as the recently submitted PG story.

http://brandonb.cc/no-filter-the-meanest-thing-paul-graham-s...

Just playing devil's advocate here. My opinion is neither for / against Linus's approach yet.

Why is the language unacceptable? He criticizes the work / logic that has been implemented, not the person, albeit in a expletive manner but is that not a method of expressing emotion through email?

Just installed it and think it's superb. I hope HN takes some influence from your extension.

I'm subscribed to Pluralsight training. Maybe only a few courses might be relevant but it's a relatively cheap entry cost for the possible ROI.

I don't think he took inspiration from it. From speaking with friends we have all had the same dream for the first few years graduating University.

Columbus made four voyages. This is a one way trip.

For most part, they were also unaware if their future was going to be better or worse, so there in offered great reward.

From my perspective, yes studying the Mars environment would be interesting but not worth leaving everything behind. If however there were life forms on Mars or something "better" than what's available on Earth, then it might be an interesting prospect.

I don't think the Ireland example is the best. My understanding is they left because their home country was poor and the grass looked greener in America (land of opportunity and all).

The grass does not look that green in Mars

My initial impression is "Wow, so cool, I wonder if I could do it.

Then quickly I am brought back to Earth by thinking that I will never see my family, friends or pets again.

I wonder how many of these "thousands" of applicants have truly though this through and could actually do it.