Greetings! I just recently passed the halfway point in this current school semester, and let me tell you it has been something. I know in the previous post I had said that it was going to be the hardest semester of school ever, and I couldn't have been more correct. I used to wish that my classes had more application based projects, and now I feel as if they may have over compensated for that. Seriously, at this point in time there are 2 PROJECTS, yes PROJECTS, due every single week at a minimum. I know it sounds like I am complaining but I honestly have been enjoying it for the most part. If it wasn't for the added stress of professional development, I'll get back to this in a moment, this semester might actually be a little fun. My favorite class so far is this Embedded Systems class were we get to do low level C programming on a microcontroller to demonstrate various functions of a automated cart. I find it actually quite interesting, and have been enjoying the projects a good bit. 

Moving on, internships have been a nightmare, as the lingering fear of unemployment grows ever closer. I have applied to over 100 with only 3 interviews, thats like a 3% response rate! Not to mention most of the places I interview for basically just waste my time and tell me I don't know enough. Which begs the question, how am I supposed to have more real world experience if nobody will hire me?! It's starting to feel almost as if its some sort of cruel joke. I'm sorry I don't have formal CPU verification experience while applying to your INTERNSHIP position. Either way I'm trying not to be discouraged, I still have quite a few leads so all hope is not lost. However, it is most definitely a continuous struggle.

Finally, let's talk crash. If I am being honest I was losing motivation coming into this school year. That being said, as things have picked up I find myself yearning for time to work on it. I'm not sure what happened, but in the past few weeks I have found myself almost obsessively working on crash. I maybe have spent 3 hours of my free time playing video games and the rest coding well into the early morning. As per usual, all of these efforts are but merely chipping away at the marble statue that is Crash. I don't foresee myself finishing anytime in the near future, but I have a clear development plan/outline for the rest of the game. Which is just technical terms for I know what it means for the game to be finished, I just don't know how long that will take. Anyways sorry for this super long update, I haven't posted on here in a while and figured I would give a little bit of a life update. As always thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Stay cool!

- Lucas Conklin (PLEASE GIVE ME A JOB)

Well, it's been a while... First things first lets talk crash, I have gotten quite a bit done since the last time I wrote a blog post here. That being said I have done next to nothing the last 2-3 weeks, I figured I would enjoy my summer to its fullest before it comes to an end. This week I am going to be starting my 5th semester at ASU! Which frankly I am a little bit nervous to go back. I find myself experiencing a strange mix of both dread and excitement. On one hand I do truly enjoy learning and I love all of the knowledge my major offers. On the other hand this seems to be my hardest semester of school EVER. Only time will tell if that is the truth, but I feel confident I will get by. I want to focus a lot of my time this semester on applying for internships, as well as getting started on the 4+1 masters process. I never thought I wanted to get a masters, but as I have gone through my academic journey the prospect looks more and more appealing. Overall I would say that - as with most semesters - I am more excited then I am scared. I feel like I have finally reached the point where I have moved past all of the pre reqs and have made it to cold hard engineering. In which case I am ready to grab the beast by the reigns and get into some serious business. As for crash I will still try and work on it in my free time, but I cannot make any promises about it. I'll just have to see how this semester goes. For now this blog will likely be more of internship search/school updates, but I will try and keep yall posted on development when I can. As always thank you for reading!

- Lucas Conklin (Computer Engineering Junior and a Half)

So whats the deal with crash? It's midway through summer and there is still no word about when the game is going to release. Unfortunately, I feel I have been a little to ambitious with how fast I wanted to release this game. Despite getting a lot done, I still feel as if there is quite a substantial amount of work left to do. If I am being honest I am feeling a little bit fatigued so these past two weeks I haven't gotten as much done as I wouldve liked, but I think that is just the natural progression of a solo project of this scale. Don't get me wrong I am still putting in 10-20 hours weekly, but I have kind of accepted that this game is more of a long term side project. I can promise that the game will be finished at some point, I just don't exactly know when. I have a good idea for what I want to accomplish and have a solid set of goals for what specifically means the game is "complete". Although, I am not sure how long it will take. I would like to say that I am still incredibly invested in the development and working on this has been one of my favorite pastimes. I don't want this post to come off as me giving up, rather it is more an acknowledgment that this game isn't my job, its a hobby. I don't intend to make anything from it, it is merely a creative side project I do for fun. That being said the development process will be reflective of such reality. All things considered, I have done quite a bit and am very happy with how things are turning out. I'm not going to lie most of the time I spent working on it this week has just been playing the game because I have been enjoying what I have made so far. As always, I will keep you guys updated on development. If you are seriously interested I have started live streaming some of my longer development sessions so go check out ConkVerse on youtube/twitch. Thank you guys so much for reading!

 - Lucas Conklin (Game Dev Hobbyist??)

I would like to start this post by giving myself a bit of a pat on the back, I somehow managed to get away with all A's last semester to my own surprise. Not saying I don't deserve it, but it was definitely unexpected. So far I have been working fairly diligently on Crash, since I really have nothing else to do. However, anyone who has lived in Arizona knows that the summers can get so unbearably hot. Right now I would say the biggest thing slowing down development is having to take a break every hour or two to get away from my 86 degree room. Regardless I have gotten quite a bit of work done so far, and I think as of now I have a clear idea for the direction in which I want to take the game. To put it best, the end is in sight however far away it may be. Aside from that I opened up a couple of social media profiles for ConkVerse Studios to advertise the game so check those out if you haven't already. Still hoping to get everything finished before the end of summer, ideally within the next month or two but that is probably a stretch. Anyway thank you so much for reading as always,  go check out ConkVerse on it's socials (you can find it on the contact page).

  - Lucas Conklin (Head of Digital Marketing for ConkVerse Studios)

As of just about 30 minutes ago I finished my last final, thus marking the end of my second year in college. I had a great year and learned honestly some of the most I ever have in school. I am very grateful for my classes and everyone who helped along the way. That being said I am going to need at least a week to recover from this semester. Moving forward, it is full steam ahead on crash. I have been working on it a bit here and there, but now its crunch time. My goal is to have it finished (maybe not fully polished) by the middle of summer. Although, it really is hard to put a deadline on game development. As always I will keep updating you guys on development, but stay tuned as I am considering making a Conkverse account on a couple social platforms to put out devlogs and promotional stuff. Thank you guys so much for reading, Lucas out!

 - Lucas Conklin (Hopefully straight A student)

Oh boy these past weeks have been something, I had 3 MIDTERMS IN 3 DAYS, that is insane. Anyway I am writing this while I should be studying for the next midterm I have to take after that onslaught. After this I have finals in 4 weeks, which is going to be a whole different issue. Anyway, I didn't come here to complain about school. I figured I haven't posted in a while, but for the absolutely no one who is wondering what is going on with me, here is what's up. I have made nearly no progress on Crash as school has just been viscous recently. That is not to say that I haven't had time, but for the time I spend being productive most of it is spent doing school stuff. I have basically accepted that I won't make much progress until summer, and I am excited to have free time to work on the game. I have done little stuff here and there but nothing substantial. As for classes, I feel like they are definetly coming to the end, I'm not sure how much new content I am going to learn in the next 3 weeks. For the most part I have very much enjoyed this semester and have learned a lot about hardware design through verilog, circuits, and what not. Recently most of my time has been spent doing these FPGA labs which have been brutal but offer a fun challenge in some ways. I feel like I would enjoy them much more if I didn't have a bunch of other things to get done. Either way it's really cool to finally start applying what I have been learning to practical things, which has been a long time coming for me. I definitely feel like hardware design has been much more intellectually stimulating then my software classes, but we will see in the fall as I am pretty much only taking computer related classes. Anyway that's a brief update on what I got going on, the way my internship search is going, I am likely going to have a very productive summer when it comes to game design. I will keep you updated closer to finals. As always thank you so much for taking the time to read this!

  - Lucas Conklin (Expert level Scholar and Engineer)

Welp, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Crash remains unfinished. Perhaps the claim that I could finish it over break was a little too bold. However, I did get a lot of important work done, and learned a hell of a lot new about coding. In terms of progress I created a main menu and a save/load system which are fully operational for this stage of the game. As I continue adding features obviously I will have to add to the save/load scripts, but for now they are functional. I did a lot of other QOL additions for features I have already made, and there are still many to be done. If I am being honest it is likely that I will not be able to finish the game until summer break at an absolute minimum. Furthermore, I learned a crucial lesson about game design, which is that it takes TIME... A LOT... OF TIME. Anyway as this school semester comes to an end I think I will have to put a little more effort in on my studies, which means less time to work on the game. I'll keep yall posted about school and what not, but for now expect that Crash will be more of a side project until after finals. Thank you for once again taking the time to read into the development of my game. Until next time!

 - Lucas Conklin (Genius Game Developer the likes of which you have never seen)

ConkVerse has officially spawned into existence. If I am being honest this entire website was just a fringe idea of mine from years ago, thematically that is. However I have always wanted my own website where I can show off a collection of my various works. Recently I have started learning how to develop with Unity game engine, as I figure it is a good way to work on my code while also applying it to something creative. I had some good progress done until I realized, what do I do if I actually make something? I have no where to post it, or publish anything I have accomplished for that matter. Thus I spent sometime throwing this website together, and spending $22 on a web domain. I spent a lot of time before publishing it to make sure I like how it looks, so to whoever reads this I hope you appreciate the work I put in to make ConkVerse as visually stunning as it is. Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to visit and explore the pocket dimension that is the ConkVerse. I am not sure how often I am going to post on this blog page I have started, but I will at least try to keep it updated when I add something to the website. Until next time!

- Lucas Conklin (ConkVerse Founder and Curator)