Walking the Bumpy Road
I have always been a romantic at heart. I didn’t want to just be good, I wanted to be the best, to make a mark on the world. I put a lot of passion into everything I do. Yet in spite of my passion and the praise of my peers, I nonetheless found myself in a 5 year rut where it seemed everything was going wrong.
I have lived through the death of my Grandfather, toward whom I felt guilty I did not know better. I watched my father descend into substance abuse, not knowing if he or his medications were to blame. I came impossibly close on multiple occasions to getting the job of my dreams, only to have it snatched away. I poured my blood, sweat, an tears into a massive gaming project, only to have it never see the light of day. For years life felt hopeless, and in spite of my best efforts, only seemed to get worse.
Yet I do not see these as wasted years, a tragedy to be cast off and forgotten. For though it was painful, the lessons I learned far outweigh anything I lost out on, and my future is brighter for it. More personally, I worried for my mother, whose life was in dire straights as she pursued divorce.
The Gaming Years
Where does Wed Dev fit into this picture? It lies at the heart of me discovering who I really was, and weighing the costs and benefits of the career paths before me. I spent many years honing my skills as a game designer, even heading up my own team to make Terrachanics for the Department of Energy. I came extraordinarily close (twice!) to getting into the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy, which only accepts 20 students a year. At the very least, I knew I had the skills to succeed in the game industry.
Yet as the years went on, doubts began to creep in. I saw classmates get into jobs at companies making mediocre games. I read articles about companies making excellent games that no one bought. The jobs that interested me were few and far between, and far too many were just to create shovelware to make a quick buck.
Greener Pastures
I began to consider alternatives, perhaps to go into programming. Having coded for about 12 years in a hobbyist capacity, I thought maybe I could do programming. Sure enough, after some digging I learned about the emergence of Hacker Schools, and among them Bloc, which I ultimately enrolled in.
Yet still I wrestled with doubts. Am I giving up on my dreams? Would I even like Web Development? I will admit, I carried these fears into my first month or so of Bloc. Over time, however, they began to fade away, as I found myself pulled into the world of software development.
I have always had a fascination with problem solving and the building of systems. As a Game Designer, I specialized in the design of mechanics and rules, particularly for strategy games that challenged players to combine various effects and units in novel and interesting ways. When programming, it felt like playing that very type of game, carefully using the tools in front of me to solve complex challenges.
The Epiphany
Until recently I had always considered programming a means to an end, a tool to actualize my creative ambitions, and always thought of myself as a day-job creative. Yet when working on Terrachanics, I found that while solving creating problems did give me the occasional thrill, I was never so absorbed as I was when I was actually coding our prototype. Reflecting on this I find myself questioning who I really was: am I the wide-eyed creative, looking to open the eyes of the world? Or the calculating technical type, intent on tackling the world’s most complex problems?
In the end, I don’t feel I need to choose. I can be both a game and web developer, creative and technical. I realize that the kind of games I want to make are risky, maybe not even commercially viable. As a web dev I can tackle challenges and grow my skills to create new apps and solve complex problems, and make enough money to mess around in the world of games. The two scratch different iches for sure, but with the money and job security of a web dev career, it opens more doors for me to explore my creative interests and get a bigger slice of the life fate denied to me in my rougher years.
I cannot say where life will take me, but in a way my realization is liberating. Being a Game Designer does not have to be what defines me, but one facet among many. As a Web Developer, I can grow my programming skills to bring my ideas into reality.