Being more productive

So I'm quickly realizing that in order to reach my career goals I need to start setting clearly defined smaller goals that will push me to improve myself. It has been kind of crazy lately since we moved to a new apartment and I have been gone for a while on choir tour, but now it's time to bunker down and be productive in my free time. So, that being said, I have been trying to outline exactly what I need to do in order to reach my larger goals and here is what I've come up with:

1) Always have a personal project to work on during my downtime. (This mostly relates to doing 3D modeling/texturing or anything else that might help me get a job with an established game company.)

2) Begin working on a simple game concept to submit to next year's Indie Game Festival at the Game Developers Conference. (I'm already fleshing out some concepts that I have had in my head for a while, and the best part is I should be able to do it on my own without much outside help [i.e. programming]. My ultimate career goal is to someday have my own indie game studio, so this could help me get there faster.)

3) Start doing some more freelance work to bring in additional income. (My job search is not going very well so this could help. I'm looking into working with a group of freelancers here in Dubuque. The best part is this will help me add to the non gaming related areas of my portfolio.)

As you can see, most of these things involve building up my portfolio. I'm planning quite a few personal projects and I will be posting updates here on my blog. Here are just a few things that I will be working on in the near future:

1- Board game or card game. (Or a combination of both. I have heard from several video game designers that creating a board or card game is a great way to test design concepts because you can iterate quickly. I will design, build, and test this myself, though I will definitely be looking for input and suggestions. I will eventually need other play testers too, so if you are in the Dubuque area let me know!)

2- Game level for the Unreal Tournament 3 engine. (I'm leaning towards doing another multiplayer map like Dreadnaught. Though I will probably make the scale a little more manageable. Dreadnaught was simply a little too ambitious for my first foray into the Unreal Editor. However, I might do a little more research and attempt to create a single player "campaign" level with triggers and bot enemies.)

3- Game level for the Unreal Tournament 3 engine with entirely custom static meshes. (This one is going to require a lot of planning. It will obviously need to be a relatively small map in order to keep the project manageable, but I think it could really pay off. I think this would be exactly the kind of thing that a game studio would look at and appreciate when looking for new designers.)

4- Game level for the Natural Selection 2 engine. (Natural Selection 2 is a First-Person RTS from the indie studio Unknown Worlds. The engine looks beautiful and the editor seems simple to use with its modular level construction. I already have it preordered and look forward to giving it a spin.)

5- Various levels and/or mods for Starcraft 2. (This seems a natural fit considering how much Blizzard encourages modding on their game platforms. I probably spent more time in the level editor than I did actually playing the original game, so I can't wait to get my hands on this one soon. Evidently you can even sell your mods if they meet certain standards.)

6- Human character model. (Complete with textures and rigged for animation).

7- Creature character model. (Same idea.)

8- Vehicle model. (Pretty self-explanatory)

9- Various "prop" models. (Highly detailed in-game objects that might be featured in game cinematics or close-ups. Different from background assets.)

10- Game-Artist.net mini competitions. (An easy way to get feedback on my work and improve my skills. All of my work on the above mentioned items will probably depend on what competition is currently running here.)

Wow, that actually sounds like a lot of work now that I've written it all out. I better get started!