I make games

"Astroids"

During my early youth, I ventured into the world of game development with just a pad of paper and a pencil to entertain myself during class or recess. I began by filling a blank page with random shapes, creating what I called "asteroids." Then, I marked X's on one side of the page and O's on the other as my units. The game involved moving these units "3 lines" towards the opposing side and simulating a projectile by standing my pencil perpendicular to the page with my finger holding it in place, then drawing my finger back and applying pressure until the pencil slipped forward in the direction of the target. If the line drawn intersected with the target unit, it was eliminated. If the line intersected multiple units without an obstacle between them, it was a combo! As I expanded the game, I created a framework of rules, including the addition of a "command center," a building with 5 HP that would spawn a new unit for the player each turn until the maximum unit count was met. I was thrilled to have created a game that no one had played before.

During one recess, while playing my game under the shadows of the handball courts, a group of kids approached me with a red handball. They asked me to move so they could play, and I did. As I was packing up, one of the kids noticed my notepad and asked about the game. I showed him the game I had created, and soon after, I watched as they played the game I had made. They enjoyed it so much that they asked to bring more friends next time with their own notepads. When they asked what the game was called, I excitedly replied, "Astroids," not even knowing how to spell it correctly.

Now, I hope to one day turn this game into a mobile app, with a different name, of course, and share it with even more people.

Starcraft Campaign Editor

As a child, I was fascinated by my cousins playing games on their PCs and game consoles. My father noticed my interest and knew I would want to start playing games too, so he let me use his PC. I remember spending hours organizing the icons on my desktop and typing in notepad. I played games like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Jump Start, and Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. However, after my parents' divorce, I had to leave that PC with my father.

I expressed to my mother that I wanted another PC, and when I was 8, I got one with Windows '98. It had many more games for me to enjoy, such as Age of Empires 2, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and Starcraft. I was also starting to work on my own game creations around this time, using Starcraft's "Campaign Editor". I spent countless hours tinkering with the tool, making my own maps, and creating new units. Even though I didn't have an internet connection, I enjoyed making custom campaigns, such as a recreation of Halo: Combat Evolved's first mission, "Pillar of Autumn", and a rescue mission for my father.

I struggled with scripting and making my creations playable by others, but I enjoyed showing them to my friends who came over to my house to play collectable trading card games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Looking back, I regret not learning how to move files and not seeking help to make my creations more widely available.

Mako Dawn, Mako Dusk

After completing high school, I delved into modding The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion during the summer. I was mainly focused on incorporating various creations from other users to enhance my gameplay. However, my perspective shifted after discovering a community dedicated to recreating Final Fantasy VII's Midgar in Fallout 3's game engine, The Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK). Despite lacking experience, I joined the team as a 3D modeler and received guidance from the members. To create 3D models and textures, I downloaded Blender and GIMP, which proved to be an educational experience. Although I familiarized myself with the scripting language OBscript, I only truly began using it when it was replaced with Papyrus.

Tristram in Skyrim / SkyScape

During my early 20s, I spent countless hours playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and learned some valuable skills while working on a Fallout 3 mod. Using this newfound knowledge, I decided to recreate my favorite game, Diablo, which had recently been followed by Diablo 3. Fueled by dubstep, Chipotle, and Monster energy drinks, I created static meshes and repurposed in-game assets to recreate Tristram, Diablo's iconic town. Initially, I only intended to recreate the town, but then I decided to take on the daunting task of replicating the Desecrated Cathedral as well. As I began to work on the dungeon, I realized that I needed to learn Bethesda's Papyrus scripting language in order to create a quest for the dungeon. Since no one was available to help me with programming, I taught myself the basics of programming during my free time between my two jobs. I discovered that I enjoyed programming more than 3D art and took a few classes to further develop my skills. I offered to help someone bring the world of Runescape to Skyrim by creating a skill framework that they could use with minimal programming experience. Eventually, the project became mine, and I spent several years working on it, going back and forth between Tristram in Skyrim and SkyScape. Although my projects are no longer in active development, thousands of gamers have enjoyed my content, and that brings me a great deal of satisfaction.

My first real engine experience

Unreal engine

Looking to the future

Indi-dev, professional dev