Saturday, March 23, 2013

Back to Flash?

Thanks in part to school work (and another part laziness), I've not been able to work on any personal projects for a long time. Naturally, this has caused quite a craving for some Actionscript action!

There has been quite a bit of discussions from my fellow classmates about HTML5 vs Flash - that is, they claimed that Flash is dying (or dead), and that HTML5 has taken over. As (quite possibly) the only guy in class who really liked flash, I've gotten several jabs about my supposed refusal to give up on flash (why the heck should I?). Certainly, I see flash player getting phased out for video play-back, for site banners and for those annoying advertisements - but that hardly undermines the ease of use of Flash as a platform for prototyping. What about games development? Does HTML5 offer a 'frigging-awesome' IDE that allows for the easy creation of art assets and the integration of codes, does it have some form of an established pipeline for content creation?

With AIR, and the Starling framework, it seems to me that Flash may have already moved on to become something else completely - a tool for creation of interactive media for the web environment, for phones and who knows, whatever devices the future holds.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Into the industry, before we know it.

This seems to be it. Several sleepless nights and crunch times later, I'm nearing the end of the final semester in Digipen. Everyone's excited of course. And a tad bit concerned - many waste no time in seeking job opportunities. Web sites are done up, resumes reviewed (again and again). And almost everyone is involved in the first ever Digipen Singapore career day.

I'll be there of course. But I will not be there to "promote" myself, to pull interviews and job opportunities. I will be there to observe. To see the standard the big guys are looking out for. To learn. Crazy as it seems, my intention is to go indie immediately upon graduation, and I'm not alone (a couple of friends are with me on this). My lecturers and an administrative staff have been supportive, and even gave some great advice - it's all quite encouraging.

And - ... uh, it's 3.30 in the morning and career day is today. Time for some shut-eye.