Who I am
Simply put: I am a ball of energy and passion, ready to give in-depth, over analyzed descriptions about my interest to all who would listen. I am a wildly creative person, with multiple hobbies in arts. I have started as a deeply invested consumer of all that can be defined as a stories: art, music, books, games etc. and I have decided that it is time to give back to this community I love oh so much. I started drawing, writing, playing the piano, and, the reason why you’re here reading this in the first place, developing games. I’ll go a bit more in depth about why I went for game dev a little later (the section below this), but for now I’d like to talk about who I am outside of the office.
I am a very nerdy person. I love reading over everything else, be it your typical western literature, encyclopedias, manga, comics, you name it. If it is a story I can find myself invested in, I will be rotting away in bed with the book in my hand until I have reached its end. I specifically am attracted to character heavy stories, where the focus is on their arcs and psychologies rather than the over arching plot.
Outside of my nerdy interests, I am a very outdoorsy and outgoing person. You wouldn’t really find me in a club on Friday night, but I love outdoor activities like hiking, especially on the mountainside. Actually, if I every find myself overwhelmed with stress or worries, a quick trip to the somber yet grand mountains will patch me right up. On more casual occasions though, you’ll find me rollerblading through the park or taking casual strolls with friends.
Now you know my interests, let’s talk a little about my flaws. Because of this deep passionate nature of mine, it is very important for me to be very invested in what I work on, and, sometimes, that can lead to either lack of work drive or stubbornness. The latter is as a flaw as it is a quality. It fuels my ambition, but sometimes I need to learn to let things go. Working on it though!
Well this is as much about me as I could muster! Hope this gave a good insight into the person behind the work.
Why game development?
I have been a big fan of video games since I was very young. It was a means for me to make friends and hang out with them as well as just a way to have some casual fun whenever I’d be home from stressful days of school. I realized early on that I had a deep curiosity about their inner workings. I always wanted to learn exactly how they were developed, be it from the design standpoint or the programming one. I never could quite choose which one intrigued me more and as such I became very interested in the notion of being a technical designer, somewhere in the middle.
But there’s more to why games have become what I want to do in the future.
Games weren’t the only media that defined my younger years. I have played with the idea in my head of choosing a different creative role like directing, acting or writing. There is one very important reason why game development thrones over all: it is the most immersive means of engaging an audience. There’s one thing to see actors play on a screen and try and empathize with their emotions and completely another thing to directly interact with the world and make choices which can impact you as a player directly. You no longer have to struggle to empathize since the connection between the controlled character and the player is deeper than that between a viewer or reader and a main character. You make decisions and you face the consequences directly. I think that is an incredibly strong tool when you want to offer people an experience, one that is very useful but difficult to master. I’ve always liked a challenge though.
My taste in games. What fuels my passion
What I’ve grown up playing have been platformers. I absolutely love a good platformer. I started with Mario 3D Land which plunged me into a Mario rabbit hole and since then I have moved on to more challenging games like ‘Celeste’ or ‘Rain World’. Right now, my favorite platformer, and, even more, my favorite game overall so far has to be Hollow Knight. It has it all: good combat, good platforming, lovely atmosphere, interesting lore, absolutely amazing music and I’m not even gonna start gushing about the graphics. This game is special to me.
Apart from platformers I’ve found myself enjoying a lot of RPG games. I had a big phase surrounding horror RPGs starting with Corpse Party and Mad Father and moving up to Omori which emotionally broke me for a few days. I wish the craze with horror RPG games would come back. They were always some of the most fun games I played.
When it comes to RPGs I don’t only enjoy the horror variety. I am big on action and adventure RPG games as well. Right now, the game I play the most is actually in this vein: Genshin Impact. I can’t say I’m proud of the amount of hours I’ve poured into it, but the exploration is too addicting.
Now if I am ever to be recommended a game, you can never go wrong with anything of the adventure variety. A lot of story to get invested in? Sign me up. Adventure is a bit of a broad spectrum, it isn’t really defined by one genre. They can be adventure visual novels like Danganronpa V3 or Coffee Talk, adventure platformers like Night in the Woods or graphic adventure games like Life is Strange. Either way, if it has adventure as one of its genre listings, chances are I have either played it or am planning to play it.