My Story
I am a designer and developer who is smitten with the gaming industry.
That’s pretty much the brief one-liner I issue to the web nowadays. By profession, I’m a designer and web developer, and spend most of my work-days at a small studio, designing and developing corporate identities and websites. Where, more often than not, I’ll manage any given project from beginning to end. My core competencies lie in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash / ActionScript, HTML and CSS. It’s in this position that I try to stay as progressive as possible through continued research in my fields of interest.
Now onto my love for the gaming industry, which is primarily why this website exists. I guess my first encounter with games was always at a friend’s place, either on a Commodore 64 or those ancient tape-drive machines. It wasn’t until I finally got my hands on a decent 486 computer and games such as Secret Agent, Commander Keen and Doom, that I knew gaming was it for me. It was my passion and I obsessed about it. When I found QBasic, it was all over. I spent late school nights in the solitude of my room, looking a blue screen dotted with white text — most likely the reason why it was the first time I donned spectacles — trying enthusiastically to learn how to program from help files and sample game code such as Gorillas and Nibbles, which at the time seemed astronomically advanced. I was set on a mission, to create my own Sierra adventure quest clone, set in space. Moon Quest was its name and I pulled off what you could label as a small demo, when I had an extremely narrow grasp of programming. As I drew each screen pixel by pixel and line by line, a new world opened to me. It almost seemed magical. I could create my own worlds, my own stories.
As the years went by I became somewhat more passive on development and fell back into being a casual gamer. That was until I realised Quake was moddable, and, after playing Half-Life, my world exploded. The game was so atmospheric and the thought of being able to create an experience like that gave me an incredible hunger for game development again. From there I started creating my own maps and became heavily entrenched in level design. My amateur level design career spanned a few years, and I created maps for Counter-Strike, Household Death! and Mastersword: Continued. On certain projects, while mapping, I would be creating textures, models and sounds all at the same time. If there was any area I thought I could make an improvement on a project, I would give it a shot.
Then work started to take over, and my passion for game design and development was overcome by the graphic and web worlds. Coupled with the added responsibilities that come with being an adult and with very little spare time, my heart for gaming was sorely missing. My dedication to craftsmanship went completely to the studio I work at and left nothing behind for when I got home.
The Premise
So, this is why this website exists: to rekindle the passion I have for gaming and my dream, game development. I don’t want to become one of those guys that say, “I used to play games when I was younger”. I hate that. My memory serves well in reminding me how much games added value to my life and how much I really enjoyed them. To be absolutely enthralled and inspired to the point it felt like it was coming out my pores. Comforting me during troubled times, being 17 — the same age as the main character Squall — playing Final Fantasy VIII.
Furthermore, I’ve always had a pretty strong opinion about everything. Family, friends and co-workers can testify to that. I want to use this website as a tool to share my opinions. Sometimes I see things and just think, “Does no one else think that this is stupid?”. Then I’d fruitlessly search the net for opinions on the subject and get presented with zero meaningful results, leaving me with an empty feeling and the urge to shout it from the rooftops. In this modern world, everything is being shaped by people’s opinions. I want to contribute to that.
Many people out there say, “Who gives a shit what you think?”. To that I say, likewise.
I received FFVII as a gift when I was seven years old. And then FFVIII when I was eight. I programmed in QBasic for four or five years before I was old enough to comprehend the internet and learn new languages.
I’m pursuing a degree in software engineering, but I’ve taken a look at your portfolio and I’m somewhat jealous. Perhaps I should have gone into graphics design :)
Thank you very much for your compliment; it made my day.
It’s just amazing how our stories can be so similar. I love the correlation between the Final Fantasy’s and your age, that’s just awesome.
I do regret not being a better programmer, it’s something I’m constantly working on. Software engineering is a beautiful direction to go in, and I wish you all the best.