I grew up playing football and video games. Given the choice between the two I would always choose video games. That fact helped me realize at a young age that I wanted to make video games as a career.
The first game that I ever loved and would spend all my time playing was a game called “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” for the NES. That game had everything I could imagine; action, suspense, fear, excitement, and challenge. It is the first game that I would play again and again even though I beat it. Over time I played more NES and Sega Genesis games but when I found computer games that is where I knew I wanted to play. With games like Diablo and Gunship 2000 I couldn’t stop playing, I would stay awake all night and even skip school when I had to. Eventually I came upon a game called Ultima Online and I found my true passion in video games within the massively online community. This is when I knew I wanted to not just create games but to create whole worlds for people to live in! It is when I really buckled down and decided to learn programming.
I taught myself programming as much as I could on my own. At the time the school I ended up at to play football in college did not have a computer science degree. So, I kept at it on my own after leaving school and getting married. After marriage I had to take a job that would help me provide for my growing family since I did not have enough experience to get a job in games yet. Over the years I have kept at it and even though life got in the way I have worked on many projects, some almost to the point of being released on platforms like Steam. Now I am enrolled in school and finishing my degree to give me more marketability and to help tie up those loose ends in my knowledge of the game development world.
Outside of being an avid gamer that plays games on multiple platforms and across multiple genres I love many things, first of all, my family. I have an amazing wife and 3 wonderful children. I enjoy spending time playing games with them as they get older. They challenge, push, and most importantly support my goals to work in the game industry. Other things I enjoy doing would be racing RC cars, forging metal (haven’t been able to setup my forge yet), hunting, and mountain biking.
Creation Process
Whiteboard
Whether solo or in a collaboration scenario. It starts here, where the ideas come out of the brain and onto the board to be defined in a more realistic manner.
Prototype
Once the ideas have been realized it is time to code. Here is where the ideas get brought to the screen in their most basic form. This is also the stage where an idea is cut if it is not performing or proving it is not fun.
Iterate
Once the idea is playable and it can be tested. Then it is tested to find out how fun and functional it is. If it is both of those things then it is finalized and if not we take the idea refine it and re-implement it. Then we test it again...
Polish
After all the ideas have been implemented and tested. It has been decided the game is fun, accessible, and complete we it is polished. At this time AS MUCH time as possible to make it run more smooth and look more appealing. Until it is time to release.