Where I Started
I’ve always dreamed about making games. There was a point in my life when I thought about going to school for game design. Not sure what happened, but that never happened. After graduating university, I ended up with a job in Accounting - going with the stable career path.
Fortunately, the first company I worked for was a really cool company. I was hired as a staff accountant, but they quickly recognized my interest in VBA programming in Excel and encouraged me to keep working with automating stuff. Even though I was enjoying the process of learning to code, I always had this feeling of wanting to do something more. Something...I really cared about.
The Hook
Shortly after, I tried my hand at creating something with GameMaker. It was fun but I didn't accomplish much with it. Another while had passed and I tried Unity3D. I was absolutely blown away at how much stuff you could do in Unity.
I remember one day I was in a Starbucks, and I finished the "roll a ball" tutorial on their website. I thought to myself, "yes, this is it... I love doing this." Ever since then I've been hooked.
What I'm Doing Now
Currently I'm working for a different company as a full time data analyst. This position offers more exposure to programming with languages like Python, C#, and MS Access SQL stuff, in addition to VBA (still mostly VBA). The type of work is actually pretty interesting, as it deals with cellular frequencies and bands. I'm learning a lot about how cell phone reception works and what impacts the quality of service, including all the new technologies associated with it.
Sure enough, however, I got that feeling again. It's not necessarily the job, but that I don't like people telling me what to do. I'm the type of person who needs to be their own boss. I realized that if I don't make an move, I'm going to be stuck as an employee for a long time... maybe even forever.
The Decision To Change My Life
So, I made the decision to take control of my life and pursue my dream of creating an awesome game for people to play. But not just any game, I want to make a game that:
I’m proud of.
People enjoy.
It's definitely not easy. I wake up extra early each morning, go to a cafe and work on my game before my full time job begins. After work, I start on the game dev again. On weekends, I work on game dev. I've been doing this routine for about 5 months now. If I didn't love game development, there's no way I would've lasted this long.
My Current Project
The current game I’m working on, “Haustoria” started out as an idea and slowly developed to where it is today. I’m not even sure people will like it. There’s a lot about game design that I don’t know, and I sure do feel like I’m out of my league when I see other amazing games out there. But, I just tell myself to push on, look forward, and give it my all. Everyday I imagine the finish line.
I hope you join me on my game development journey. It’s certainly scary, but a life lived without even trying to pursue my dreams is a thousand times scarier.
You can check out some of the other (very simple) games I've made on itch.io: https://antaresstudios.itch.io
