The Start of it all
When I was a very young boy, I wanted to be an astrophysicist, when I was twelve, I wanted to be an astronomer, last year of high school I no longer knew what I wanted. But along each of those steps, there was always something I was fascinated with, the machinations of things, anything with logic behind it that made it work a certain way. This curiosity has always led to me disassembling objects, toys, computers, I didn't care if I could put them back together, I just wanted to know what was behind. Looking at the motors on an RC car, or a — admittedly dangerous — heating element of a hair blower, I certainly got an earful from my sisters and parents, but it was still a fulfilling moment.
For software, it was quite a different story, I couldn't just break it open, so I settled on just imagining things behind the scene, looking at screens trying to think of how clicking this button will do something, two buttons look the same but do different things, identical on the surface, different behind the scenes. I was young, barely knew anything tech related, but I understood that things in software are always running in a loop, it's a routine. But another field that I really liked spiked this interest even more.
Video Games
Even being an early 2000s kid, I still found myself playing and enjoying much older games, DOS era, NES and SNES, the Commodore 64 too? It's insane to me how many generations of video games I experienced in the span of maybe 5 years.
But my first proper video game that I deeply remember, is the first Prince of Persia. God I still remember those absolutely janky controls, and the stupid door that closed whenever you went to pick up a sword I think, hard to play, but it sparked my love for video games, that challenge may have been the reason I am into hard games or time consuming games.
From there on I played many other games until my first 3D game, Need For Speed Most Wanted. And then my world was different. It was mind blowing, this isn't some crappy early 3D game, this is mid 2000s, the PS2 was already out, it looked like real life to me, the speed, the sound of the engines. 2D games I could still wrap my head around, swap images fast enough and things move, like a flipbook. But now there was a third axis I had yet to learn existed, how someone could make this stayed in the back of my mind.
Over time video games stopped being just a thing I liked, to being a full on hobby, maybe even an obsession. I liked physics, I liked astronomy, and I liked video games, it all came together without much effort, just things I liked. My goal was now clearer, I wanted to explore the field of
Making Video Games
It wasn't easy at all, making games isn't like typical software, this one included sound design, art styles, game design, gameplay mechanics, level design, writing. It was daunting, but I still wanted to explore it.
Then came finding a job. Searched and searched, didn't have a lot to showcase. Participated in some small game jams, always ended up near the bottom. Confidence was low, decided it wasn't for me, a lot of things happening at once discouraged me from pursuing it anymore. Plan B, software development, applying to jobs left and right, rejection after rejection.
Then one night, a League of Legends match of all things led to my first client, needed a form app built in a month. I said yeah I can do it, when in fact I had no idea what I was doing. Tried native code, hated it, found Flutter, learned it fast, stressed the entire time. It was like, "ok take down this mouse, good, now fight this inter-dimensional catastrophe level threat". But I finished the app.
The taste of getting paid felt addicting, sold my laptop, got my first proper desktop PC, could finally run all the games I want, and the spark came back, so I thought, why not, one last time, looked up game jams on itch.io, found a MechJam, I'm a huge fan of Armored Core and Dark Souls, so why not make
Armored Souls
A week late I joined and I submitted 2 hours and 36 minutes before the deadline. Results were average. But my audio and visuals ranked 45th and 53rd respectively, and that made me happy, because I always valued sound design and artistic style in video games.
It started off as a "one last time" thing, and ended up making me want to make more. Working with games, coming up with ideas, writing the code to make a player move, setting up event flags, game good or bad be damned, it just made me happy to make games. But reality struck, happy doesn't pay, door shut in my face, back to searching for jobs, ultimately landed a job that is right in the middle, of all things, I ended up teaching
How To Make Games
Making games is not easy at all, so I was worried about teaching how to make them, my proudest achievement in the field is an "average" result. But the material wasn't too hard, and guiding kids through the process of building their first games, I am always happy to do it. Same routine for a while now, not hard as it is annoying.
Then came the day I watched Cairn's trailer.
That sparked it again, but this time I was sceptical, it's always pick it up then give up. I approached it differently, decided on a plan, and started drafting, making changes left and right, for the first time picked up a pencil to map out continents of a new world, the process was absolutely tiring, painful sometimes, yet it was fun, akin to the soreness after a nice gym session.
At the same time, applying, and the dreaded "unfortunately" email were starting to take a toll on me. Regular jobs be damned, I do not care anymore, the world is moving at a different speed than I do, the majority of people are riding hypercars going at insane speeds, whereas I want to ride my bike. I tried riding a car, but I could see the bike mounted on the bumper, the suffocation feeling of a car, with no way to properly steer it the way you want, you are a driver only in name, you are in fact a passenger. So screw the car, here I am riding my bike, enjoying the wind hitting me, going my own pace, this is the
Last Stand
A solo indie studio building narrative-driven games about broken things that refuse to stop existing.
The first game is a narrative flight sim, no combat, just you and your plane(s). It all started when I played Sky Odyssey, telling a story through just flying, genuinely one of my favorite gaming experiences.
I am not sure how much I will show in these devlogs, but it would mainly be technical, and I will show every messy bit of the process, I don't want to impress you the reader, I want you to understand that nothing is perfect, you can find meaning even in the broken. So bring your bikes and let's ride together, and if you prefer to go in your car, godspeed with you.
First entry. The bird flies away.