The Pursuit of a Dream

So, here I am. Starting something I've always wanted to do. ME ME ME SO EXCITED!

As some of you may know, I was approved to be a Wii U Indie developer a few weeks back. Well, I took the plunge, and ordered my development kit this week. If you know me, you know how much I fucking love video games. Now, I'm going to try and contribute in whatever way I can to what I consider the pinnacle of art forms. I'm going to make my own game. Maybe I'll make another after that. Pshh. Maybe. Of course I'm going to make as many of these as I can. Everything has a beginning, and this is going to be the chronicles of my beginning. I hope to share what I'm learning and experiencing as I embark on this trek. It's going to be fun, maybe painful at times, but fun. I'll also apologize for how scatterbrained this will probably read. Im not the most linear in my thought processes. Bear with me. It might get better.

Anyway, I decided in the shower today that I would do a sort of developer blog. In part to keep myself accountable, to the one person that may or may not read this and think what im doing i moderately interesting. and (did you catch how i just totally stopped using the shift key? i know right?) in part as a due diligence type of thing for myself. see where i was when i started, and what ive learned along the way. maybe a yearbook of a developing developer.

So why do i want to make a game? (holy fuck i used the shift key once there) Well, throughout my life, video games have played a very important role to me. ive always viewed them as something that have taught me lessons applicable to so many things in my life. problem solving, pattern recognition, risk/reward analysis, game theory, reflex development, the value of muscle memory. so many things. i remember being amazed when i first saw super mario brothers. my god, what a moment. all of a sudden theres this little guy on a screen, a beautiful blue sky, those geeky little smiling clouds that were the same as the bushes, and that ridiculous goomba that crept in from the right of the screen. picking up a controller and dying over and over again was so satisfying to me, because it would happen just a little bit further in 1-1 each time. then this kid shows up at my house and jumps after the 4th pipe in the level and exposes the hidden 1-up. holy fuck. my mind was totally blown. this thing took a grasp on my like nothing had before, and few things have since.

earlier, i called video games the pinnacle of art. and i whole heartedly believe that to be true. in no other art form do you combine beautiful visuals, music, and story with the ability to give control to the person playing. its interactive. as a player, you get to decide you experience. this is what enthralled me the most. you gained ability as you played. you gained a skillset, even if it was limited in scope to the game you had in. now, you could call it having an avatar. but that was a very foreign concept, to me at least, in the infancy of it. all i knew was i couldnt get enough. the beautiful scores of games like donkey kong country, ocarina of time, mega man, super mario bros. i feel like they led me to my passion of music.

watching these things grow into the ridiculous productions they are now has been nothing short of incredible. game visuals rivaling the stuff you see in your history books. its fucking incredible! its so hard for me to not be enthralled by it all. and when the curtain of oz was lifted, and i learned it all pretty much starts on a blank white (or black) screen with a few bits of text that resembles english, i knew it would eventually be something i had to sink my teeth into. so now, here i am. trying to do just that. well, i have tried before, but never with the focus i have today.

so, here it is. the start of something. the pursuit of a dream. the birth of a brain baby. im gonna try my best to learn all i can, treat this like the games i love. learn through trying. learn through doing. what a great example theyve set for me. how fucking cool would it be to have some kid discover games through my game, and years down the road he sits on the floor in his living room and writes is little blog explaining that he wants to take the plunge? heady bro. super heady. anyway, im gonna stop now because i want to go grab some steamable veggies at the grocery store.

heres to beginnings

-t