More than a little about me ...

I really don't know what to say, honestly I'm really terrible at talking about myself ...

Well, I'm terrible at it until I get started, then it can be hard to shut me up.

At any rate, your not here to have me ramble on about me ... oh wait, yes you are.

I'm a 30-something (36 at the time of this writing) budding game designer. Just about to enter the final stretch at Full Sail University where I'm currently enrolled in the Game Design Online Program.

From a young age I've wanted to make games, I think the first time I played an RPG got me hooked (not video game RPG mind, it was D&D 2nd edition pencil and paper and proper dice of all sizes). Ever since I've had a thing for designing campaigns, missions, maps, and all the things that go along with, including "rewriting" some rules to better suit my own campaigns.

That may not be entirely true, as I think back I remember also my grandmother giving me a Commodore VIC20 back when I was 6 or 7, it came with a stack of books and manuals that was nearly as tall as I. Those manuals covered all sorts of things, from how to use the cassette deck for playback of programs as well as recording of them, to how to write your own wordprocessor. I was just a kid, and let's be honest here, I didn't understand half of what I was reading. I was nevertheless hooked, by the end of that VIC20s time I'd written a simple Chicken Run game (from one of the manuals of course) and added some of my own levels to the base project.

Sadly shortly after that things with my family life took a really undesirable turn, I found myself orphaned and suddenly a ward of the state. Computers and video games were not to be found, and in a few of the places roleplaying games such as D&D were even banned. This was not enough to quell my desire to make and play games of course, only delayed my ability to do so.

Throughout highschool, and for years after highschool, I taught myself to program properly (or something that passed for properly). Utilizing environments like LambaMOO (Baymoo.org:4242 was huge for me in the 90s) and LPC, I learned object oriented approaches, basic function and property usage, inheratance, and much more. I decided to start building my own MUD and actually used both Lambda and LPC drivers to see which was better suited to what I wanted to achieve. Over the next year or so I learned about what it really took to manage a running MUD and how much work went into building one from the ground up.

I decided that as a filler activity I would start working to build my own 3D game engine, sadly this was never completed, but I did get alot of work into it before DirectX and OpenGL, and even 3DFX's Glide api (we all remember that right?) came into being. Those apis and my next major life choice really put a wrench into the engine, but it was still a great experience.

It was also around this time when I decided to point my life down a path that could open up some more possibilites for me, I joined the U.S. Navy in Aug. of 2000. I went in as part of the advanced electronics program and became a Firecontrollman (essentially Electronics Technician that focused on shipboard radar, computer and weapon systems) Four years, and many many adventures later I found myself leaving the Navy to try yet another path.

I stayed in FL. the state of my last duty station, and started waiting tables, bartending, and cooking. While I did that I saw MMOs explode and realized that all my time working on MOOs and MUDs would easily apply to these. I'd also decided to learn to design websites, because really who doesn't want to do that. I took the time to get a domain name, setup web, mail, ftp and mysql servers (I still run all of my own to this day for fun and keeping the rust off) so that my learning could be as well rounded as possible. I started learning PHP and MySQL, and with my knowledge of LPC and Lamda it came really easily, of course web specific and internet related things took a bit, but all in all I really enjoyed this, but it was still not making games properly.

A few years, and yet more adventures, later I decided to attend Full Sail University, that was what seems like a lifetime ago now. Since begining classes I've learned alot, and been able to apply alot of what I'd learned in the past. I've spent a ton of time honing skills and acquiring new ones, all the while working for Soldier On an organization that helps veterans who need it. In a few short months, assuming all goes well, I'll be graduating and hopefull in no time at all joining (yeah I'm confident) a game studio where I will get to work on games. I have no illusions about the road ahead, I expect (and actually look forward to) huge challenges that really make me work for "it". I know that if I give myself over to this crazy calling I'll get to be a part of great things, and that's really all I want in the end.