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WaldFlieger
Jeff Mumm @WaldFlieger

Age 38, Male

Indie Game Developer

California

Joined on 5/2/05

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WaldFlieger's News

Posted by WaldFlieger - March 4th, 2015


The first official "Guinea Pig Parkour" game development log!


Stay tuned - new DevLogs will now be released every Wednesday!

So don't forget to subscribe!


Posted by WaldFlieger - February 23rd, 2015


In accordance with the advice I've received on YouTube best practices, I've gone ahead and done a lot of work on the Guinea Something Good YouTube channel

Almost every video has a new thumbnail, title, description, keywords, and I've added transcripts and closed captioning to every animation.

Internet Withdrawal was featured on Channel Frederator's "Saturday Morning Cartoons" last Saturday, and we received 50 new subscribers in a day! So that's pretty awesome.

Here's their video, with "Internet Withdrawal" as the final short of the bunch

I'm in the middle of gearing up for the launch of weekly content - both to YouTube, and to JoeGP.com (and Newgrounds, of course). The work creating new branding has made the process take a lot longer than I expected, but we should be launching in the next week or two.


Posted by WaldFlieger - January 14th, 2015


Follow the development of this game, play this engine, and all pre-alpha engines, by becoming a supporter on Patreon .

This is the second pre-alpha engine for the comedy action platformer Guinea Pig Parkour.

Added to this engine are:
-Vaulting
-Vault Fail
-Dynamic camera
-Land on object
-Destroy object

 


Posted by WaldFlieger - January 5th, 2015


1202693_142050244482_beat-procrastination.png

1202693_142050244342_happy-2015.png

Happy New Year! I couldn’t resist celebrating the year 2015 with a little tribute to Back to the Future 2. I’ve been anticipating this year since my childhood, thanks to Back to the Future 2. Hard to believe it’s finally here. Back to the Future takes place in 1985, the year I was born, and they travel 30 years into the future in Back to the Future 2, which means I’ll be turning 30 later this year (quite a bit later – I was born in December, so I just turned 29.) Combine that with my love of science fiction and comedy, and, well, Back to the Future definitely holds a big place in my heart. I can’t wait for people to start wearing double ties and inside-out jeans, though I’m not holding out much hope for the flying cars or hoverboards.

Guinea Something Good had a nice beginning to 2015, as the generous Travis E pledged enough on our Patreon page to bump us up to more than $80 per month, which means we’ve hit our first milestone goal! That is, one full eight-hour day can now be exclusively dedicated to GSG projects! I want to give a big shout-out to Travis for helping us hit that milestone. Maybe this year we can get to our second goal, and fund two full days of GSG productivity!

Speaking of productivity, I thought this might be a good time of year to talk about beating procrastination – what with New Years resolutions and whatnot. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to figure out the optimum ways to manage my time and get the most out of everyday. The problem is that trying to figure this out by trial and error is extremely inefficient. You can never really tell why something started working or why it stopped working. You come up with theories, but there’s no way to ever really know. You just sort of feel like sometimes you’re more productive than others, and all you can do is just keep fighting to do better.

But this year I found this amazing book by Timothy Pychyl, called “Solving the Procrastination Puzzle.” Now, what makes this book special, and not just another self-help book, is that Timothy Pychyl is a research psychologist, and dedicates his research to studying why people procrastinate and how they can overcome it. And apparently, he’s been making podcasts on the subject for almost 10 years! This is the kind of thing I’ve been looking for for a long time. What are the PROVEN ways to beat procrastination and conquer your time? And this is about as researched as it gets.

Well, for me, the most important thing he discusses is what he calls “implementation intentions.” Everyone talks about setting goals and prioritizing projects, which is definitely important, but there comes a point where you’ve laid out all your plans, you know exactly how you’re going to proceed, and yet, you just don’t quite seem to proceed as much as you’d like. New habits are extremely difficult to form because of this. You have good intentions, but when the moment arrives to do the thing you told yourself you were going to do, you put it off. And eventually you realize, it either never gets done, or it’s just so sporadic that a new daily habit will never form. And that’s it. You’re left with this constant struggle, or worse, you give up completely. You blame yourself and your lack of willpower. But what you should really be blaming is the fact that you never planned HOW you’d accomplish your goal. Specifically, in the moment, without relying on willpower. In fact, you should be planning on how you can accomplish your goal when you have absolutely NO willpower. That way, no matter HOW you feel, you’ll STILL accomplish your goal. And that’s what “implementation intentions” are about.

It’s actually very simple. An implementation intention simply ties your goal to something external in your environment. For example, say your goal is to start exercising everyday. Instead of relying on the time you “feel like it,” you simply make an agreement with yourself that everyday, right before you shower, you exercise. And you don’t let yourself shower or start your day until you’ve exercised. That takes a lot less willpower than you’d think. Because in your head, you know that you’ve agreed not to shower until you’ve exercised. So you just don’t step into the shower. And you go do what you need to do so you can shower. It not only puts the impetus to complete your goal into your external environment, but it’s a nice reward system, too.

For me, the most important way I’ve implemented this idea is through a repeating timer. I mainly work from home, and as such, working a full eight hour day is a really important goal for me. I hate ending the day and feeling like I didn’t get as much done as I could have, just because in the moment I didn’t feel like it.

Now, I’ve blogged before about how just setting the eight hour day as my number one priority, above everything else, allowed me to accomplish that goal. And it did. But it wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule. Because I wouldn’t let myself go to sleep until my eight hour day was done. I got to a point where I was going to bed at six or seven in the morning, and it became insanely difficult to break that sleep schedule. I needed a more reasonable solution. And with implementation intentions, I found it.

What I had been doing to keep myself on task was to set a timer and not allow myself to think about anything but what I was working on until that timer was over. And that did the job, but as soon as the timer went off, I had leeway to put off getting back to my next work session. And without rigid break times, I just was never able to put a full eight hour day together, without staying up to make up for lost time.

I’ve tried setting a rigid schedule, as though I were at an office working for someone else, where my work times and break times were laid out in advance. But this proved ineffective, as well. This had no room for error. What happened if I missed the start of my work session? What if my break time ran long for some reason? Sometimes I’d give up, and not work. Sometimes I’d throw the whole system out. It wasn’t flexible enough.

Well, the repeating timer is the answer to that. Less rigid than the minute-by-minute workday, and less room to procrastinate than the loose “time yourself and then take a break” method.

Basically, here’s how it works. I set a timer to go off every 15 minutes on an app I got for the iPad. If I’m working on something particularly taxing, when the timer goes off, I switch to another project, to give myself room to breathe. If I’m in the zone, I’ll just keep working on what I was working on. After 3 sessions of 15 minutes, I take the next 15 minutes as a break. Because the timer automatically goes off, and I have nothing to do with when or how it’s set after the initial button press, the break WILL end after 15 minutes. But – here’s where the flexibility of this system comes in. Let’s say, for whatever reason, I don’t get back to work as soon as that timer goes off. Well, then I’m not ALLOWED to go back to work until the NEXT timer goes off. What that means is that for 15 minutes I’m preparing for when that next timer goes off. And when it finally does, I’m completely ready to go back to work. Because instead of thinking of excuses as to why I don’t need to yet, I’ve been thinking about how lame it is that I missed my mark, and I’m waiting to get back to it as soon as I can.

The other implementation intention I have in regards to my work day is that I need to get started two hours after I wake up. This gives me plenty of time to get ready, eat, caffeinate. But as soon as two hours has passed, it’s work time.

This has actually helped me adjust my sleep schedule, as well. Like I said, it was an incredible challenge to get back to a normal sleep schedule. But now what I do is, everyday, I set my alarm clock to 10 minutes earlier than the day before. I put my alarm in the bathroom, and I don’t let myself turn it off until the shower is running. That way, any feelings of “I could just sleep for ten more minutes in my nice warm bed” are countered by the currently running shower, and the thought that, “well, I can warm up in there.”

Anyway, for me, this has been hugely impactful on how successfully I’ve been able to create and maintain new habits. My own spin on this is that I also keep a record everyday to keep me accountable on my habits. I only add one new habit at a time, and I only do so when I’ve upheld the other new habits I’ve started for seven days in a row. If I miss a habit, I set the record back to 0 and have to start again. Keeping record of my “score,” in combination with the implementation intentions, has really turned me from someone who “really wants to do better” into someone who IS doing better, everyday. And as long as you keep your eye on where you’re going, and how exactly you’ll get there, and you focus on progressing just a little bit everyday (and not set yourself up for failure by trying to do too much at once), you can turn your New Years resolutions into new habits.

If you’d like a wallpaper of the image above, I made one you can download here!

Happy New Year!


Posted by WaldFlieger - October 3rd, 2014


This is video of the first step in creating the GSG game - a basic playable engine with finished animations and a temporary backdrop to test parallax scrolling.

Support the development of this game and get access to pre-alpha testing by becoming a supporter on Patreon


Posted by WaldFlieger - January 18th, 2014


The FML website had me illustrate one of their entries, and even gave me a nice interview! I'll be posting the strip on Monday with a bonus page, but for now you can read the comic and interview here.

And apparently Joe also speaks French!


Posted by WaldFlieger - January 17th, 2013


Hi, everyone!

Unfortunately our Kickstarter was unsuccessful. I'm definitely disappointed that the project didn't catch on the way I expected, but I sincerely appreciate all the support you've given it. It really meant the world to me to have you behind it.

It's disheartening to put your heart and soul into a project (not to mention hundreds and hundreds of hours, half a year, and all my savings) and really think it has potential, only to see it sort of sputter out into nothing. It's been a huge learning experience, and this whole campaign has really taught me so much about putting myself out there in a way I never have before. It forced me to look at things from a marketing point of view, and that's something I just don't think I ever would have done, certainly not to this degree, without investing so much into a project and gambling so much on its success.

I think there are a lot of different reasons why it probably didn't turn out to be successful. I don't think the concept was necessarily strong enough for people to spread the word or become immediately interested. Even though I put hundreds of hours into this thing, I don't think I put the time in the right places. Instead of spending weeks making 2.5D backgrounds (it just took so much longer than I expected it to), I should have made a variety of environments, more vehicles, more weapons, more bosses, and a demo that would allow you to play through at least one complete level, so people could really get a feel for what it was going to be. I also didn't do enough research prior to launching the campaign, nor did I lay the groundwork of getting people excited and motivated BEFORE launching.

So it's time to regroup. I no longer have the means to work on this project full-time, so it's going to be relegated to side-project now. But I'm not abandoning it. With everything I've learned, and all the time and effort I've already put into this project, I think it would be insane not to try again down the road. But I'll only be considering that once the project is much further along. I'll wait until I have a playable demo and a lot more of the game to show. I'm not sure how long it will take. Right now my priority is finding some kind of employment because I really kind of gambled it all against my better judgment and put myself in a terrible financial predicament. I was trying to make the best of a bad situation (I was a year from graduating animation school, and suddenly, without warning, the lender I was using to help pay my way stopped supporting my school, forcing me to drop out), but my time and money was not invested nearly as wisely as it should or could have been. For that reason, this is more than a learning experience, it's been a true life lesson that will really stay with me and keep me much more grounded in the future.

The other priority is building the Guinea Something Good brand. If my comic had more of a following, it's very likely this Kickstarter would have been a piece of cake. So in that regard, I think I simply jumped the gun. From now on I'll be doubling down on getting GSG out there and expanding on what it is as a project. More information on that to come.

Finally, I'm going to be releasing a "Pay What You Want" bundle on my website in the next few days. It will include an eBook of Guinea Something Good comics, including one exclusive comic, a set of animated GIF avatars, a desktop and mobile wallpaper, and for the first time, a PC download of Bounce or Die, with full screen support, native gamepad support, and even a two-player mode, which is something I just need to put the finishing touches on. I'll send out an announcement when the bundle is available.

So let me close by just once again iterating how very, very deeply I appreciate the support you've given. It meant a lot to me to have you rooting for the project and even though it ultimately didn't succeed, I still feel as though the campaign wasn't a failure. I learned so much and that has made it all worth it. This battle was lost, but the war isn't over. So thank you!

Onward and upward!

Until next time,
Jeff


Posted by WaldFlieger - January 5th, 2013


Hey, everyone! I'm doing an AMA on Reddit right now. AMA stands for "Ask Me Anything" and is your opportunity to ask me whatever you'd like.

I need your help to make sure this AMA is seen. If you already belong to Reddit, just be sure to upvote it. If not, it's really simple to sign up, and by upvoting, you could really help give visibility to the project. Also, be sure to ask some good questions!

Thanks so much for the support!

Click here to participate!

-Jeff


Posted by WaldFlieger - December 7th, 2012


OK, this is it! I've been working on this project tirelessly for the past six months, 40-80 hours a week, and it's finally here. Please, visit KickJoe.com to find out about the new "Guinea Something Good" 16-bit retro video game, and how you can help make it possible! I'm really excited about this and I hope you are, too!

While I've spent the last six months getting everything ready, programming, making animations, etc, this past month has been particularly time intensive, and I haven't been able to update the comic. I apologize for that. But to make up for it, I will be updating the comic five days a week for the entire duration of the Kickstarter campaign. But it doesn't end there. If we can reach the goal, I will update "Guinea Something Good" seven days a week for the following two months. And if we can reach beyond the goal, I'll update seven days a week well into the future! So, in a way, this campaign is not only to make the video game, but it's also to keep "Guinea Something Good" running like clockwork.

I've been drawing webcomics since 1999, when I was in the seventh grade. The comic I was drawing back then was simply called, "Joe" and while it started on GeoCities, I eventually bought the domain "JoeGP.com" - and I've kept it ever since (though there was a period of about two or three years when I lost control of it). "Guinea Something Good" is in a way a throwback to that original comic I did, from 1999 to 2004. In other ways it's completely unrecognizable, but it's still the same characters. Joe and George were childhood pets of mine. I actually started drawing comics on paper about them when I was in the third grade, and in the fifth grade compiled a 170 page comic book of their adventures and sold copies to my friends and classmates. It's coming up to 14 years that I've been at this webcomic thing, with my goal always being to make a living doing it. I haven't yet been able to reach that goal. But my hope is that this project might, just might, bring awareness to these characters and this comic and get me closer to that goal than I've ever come before. This campaign isn't just about making a video game. It's about turning my hobby into a profession. It's about fulfilling my childhood dream, a dream that I've tirelessly fought and struggled to earn. I hope you can help me earn it. Spread the word. Let people know about KickJoe.com . Together, maybe we can make this happen.

Super Bunny Insurrection


Posted by WaldFlieger - September 30th, 2012


8-Bit Animation

Sample

-Single Character Image: $15
-Character Animated: $15 + $3 per additional frame
(12 frames per second, but 8-bit generally has very limited animation, as low as 2-frames for a loop)
-8-bit Style Logo: $30

16-Bit Animation
Samples:
Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3 Sample 4 Sample 5
Logo sample

-Single Character Image: $25
-Character Animated: $25 + $4 per additional frame (12 frames per second for full animation)
-16-bit style logo: $50

Flash Character Animation
Samples:
Sample 1 Sample 2
Sample 3

-Single Character Image: $50
-Character Animated: $50 + $5 per additional frame (12 frames per second for full animation)
-Cartoon Logo: $50

Full Animation
Sample:
Sample 1

-Single Character Image: $50
-Character Animated: $50 + $25 per additional frame (12 frames per second for full animation)
-Cartoon Logo: $50

How to Get Started

Send me a note on Newgrounds or an e-mail at Jeff@JoeGP.com with a description of what you'd like and any reference material you'd like me to use as a guide.

Anything you won't do?

It is at my full discretion to turn down a project I don't feel comfortable doing. As a general guideline, if it is excessively violent or sexual I probably won't want to do it.

Thanks, everyone!

Commissions OPEN