Hello World!

Before we get down to business: I feel like you should know the person behind the blog before you can fully appreciate what the person is writing. So who's writing this blog? 

My name is Samantha Thode. Some people call me Noodles. Most people call me Sam. 

I'm a senior at Champlain College (ugh it's weird to say that) in Burlington, Vermont. I'm a Game Art and Animation major and, yes, I love video games. But I also love other things. I love baking. I love being outside. I love watching hockey. I love learning anything.

As a jack of all trades kind of person, it is -- and has been -- weird to be focusing most of my time and energy into one specific field of art. Three years passed by, and I barely even noticed. But here I am in my fourth, and final, year of school at Camp Champ.

And that brings me to the core of this blog: Senior Capstone. As I understand, most colleges or universities don't have "capstones" like Champlain does. It's basically a huge demonstration of what we've learned during our time here. It's kind of a big deal. And it takes a lot of time and effort.

I mean a LOT of time and effort. For Game Majors -- Game Designers, Game Programmers, and Game Artists -- this capstone runs for an entire year and eats up anywhere from most to all of our time.

This blog gives me the chance to step away from the work, and just log what I've been up to. It provides a place to give a little insight to making a game, from start to finish. I know these things exist all over the place, but most are probably done by professionals, right? Well this is a little insight to my world: the world of a student Game Artist!

I want this blog to be for everyone. To clarify: I don't want this to be only for my teachers to look at. I don't want it to be only for people in my graduating class of game majors to see what I'm up to. Not only for game major students, and not only for people in school at all. 

While I will have to be using some technical game jargon from time to time, I really want this blog to be a little window into my world, and the game major student world in general. Because -- let me tell you -- there are A LOT of misconceptions about us game majors. I will tell you now: We are some of the most hard-working people you could meet. We're passionate about what we do. We get done what we need to get done. (And if we're lucky, it comes out pretty awesome.)

I hope this blog will allow you to see that. Especially since this is not only my work, but the work of my amazing teammates. Alex, our Programmer; Chris, our Game Designer and Level Designer; and Bryan, our Game Designer and Producer. 

Of course, since it's my blog, you'll be seeing a lot of my work and my works in progress. But you'll inevitably see some stuff we've all done together too!

Alright well that's the end of my introduction. Hopefully that puts this into perspective. And I sincerely hope you follow along and see what we come up with!

- Sam