Hello World!
Some things happen overnight; others take a lifetime of learning, growth, and a lot of patient waiting. As I begin what I hope to be a long, fun, and satisfying journey in gaming, this is what I would like you to know about me and why I do what I do.
I’ve wanted to make games for most of my life, and even though technology has always come naturally to me, I have never been a developer or an artist. I can’t even draw a nice looking stick figure. I did teach myself C# at one point to build something important, but that’s a story for another day.
My parents brought us to America from Ukraine in 1979. My first experience with video games was in 1980, and it changed my life in ways I wouldn’t really realize or understand for many years. The stories, the imagination, the adventures, the fantasy… It remained a big part of my life and only grew into a deep desire to be a part of the gaming industry.
However, my journey led me toward customer support, network administration, network architecture, management, and cybersecurity. All my attempts to get in the door with gaming never blossomed into anything. You could say I was typecast. But don’t feel sorry for me; I love what I do, I love working through the night, and I never hated waking up early every day. Ok, maybe that’s not entirely true; it wasn’t always that simple. But I digress.
Here is the important thing I would like you to know as we begin this journey. I have a deep love for being creative, for writing and presenting my creations. My dream was never just to be in gaming, but to deliver creations that are fun, sometimes tell great stories, and are a pleasure to interact with.
I have never been able to do this before because the barriers to entry were great, and I didn’t have the specific skill set needed to build these worlds myself. It’s like having all the food you can eat, but it’s in cans, and you don’t have a can opener. Until now.
Thanks to AI and how far it’s already come, I am finally able to apply my passion for gaming and build games that aren’t simply built to say I did it; they are built to tell stories, elicit emotions, and provide hours of entertainment that stay with you beyond the monitor.
To accomplish this, I am not asking AI to build something and call it a day. Don’t get me wrong, there are lessons to learn and fun to be had with quick results, but most of my work is and will be about putting careful thought into every decision and direction my games take. I plan and design the work. AI helps, one careful change at a time. Slow on purpose.
I hope you will join me in this new chapter of my life.