One week as a game dev mom
My husband and I are together working as indie game developers. We started our biggest game related coadventure together before our son entered our family. Before our child was born, we were working together nights long in our home office room. When I was pregnant a lot of people said, that I can forget about my job, till the kindergarten, that I wouldn’t have time for it so my ambition was to prove them wrong. I love what I do and I want to be in this industry.
We are living in the time when social media is full of over blessed Instagram moms, who show that they are super perfect and their lives are full of events and social activities. There are so many over positive stories about how the new moms started their new carrier while they are still in parental leave. I don’t believe it. I think in most cases, that’s just a way to deal with postpartum depression.
In reality, I really don’t have a lot of time to work, but our game in some way is also like a child which I can’t leave to die (in the Steam early access stage). Yes, there were a few months when I didn’t even think about working, I just wanted to enjoy the time together with my son. My daily routine has totally changed, so those working nights together with my husband has been left in the past. I have only a few hours in a week for my work, usually, it’s time while my son is taking a nap.
At the moment I think, that this big break has come as the favour to me. I still can’t work even half day, but I’m spending my time working at the computer more productive than ever before, with a new inspiration.
So this is one week in my game dev mom carrier and the reality about how much I really can work.
Monday.
I was totally inspired and created three easy mode levels and got an idea for a new boss fight level in Aizkraukle Castle area (before we didn’t have it in Aizkraukle castle area). Before it was really hard to decide what type of enemy it could be, because of the story, there are no real dangers in this place. So I decided, that the fight could be against a lot of ghosts, which are living in this castle. What you can’t see in this picture is, that at the start of the level you have only one ghost, which is following you, after killing it, two new ghosts are spawned to follow to you, after a while some spikes appear and four ghosts are following you.
Tuesday.
I polished boss fight level in Aizkraukle Castle. Found some bugs and reported them to my husband who is the programmer behind the game.
Wednesday.
A day off. The lack of sleep was too much for me. (Yes, children tend to get up at night, especially if the teeth are growing).
Thursday.
Got an idea for new Burtnieku Castle level. Created and tested it. The biggest challenge for Burtnieku Castle area is that there are no enemies. So there are no places to die. You just need to get to the finish without checkpoints and thinking about how to press and hold all three buttons at the same time to open all three doors.
Friday.
Created two new easy mode levels.
Saturday.
Day off. Spent all the time together with the family.
Sunday.
Polished one of the easy mode levels.
That was a week of my life. I’m also planning to write a new blog post about easy mode levels soon, so I’ll tell about my work on them later.
I know it’s not much, but still, it was one of my the most productive weeks in game development since I’m a mom. I know that work from home will never be the same again and I’m not that super perfect mom who can manage all game dev things like before. Big changes in our lives demand changes also in our everyday routine. We don’t have to be ashamed that new duties don’t allow us to do our jobs in the same way as before. I’m still a game developer just with an additional role for the rest of my life.
