Creating your own world

So you want to fulfill that nagging desire you have had since childhood?  You know, the one you have had ever since you opened that box, pouring over those manuals, and inspecting every detail of packaging art.  I’m talking about that game that changed you inside.  The one that sent your imagination soaring, turned you into a hero, and hooked you forever to the gaming experience.  Yes, that one, you remember now.  It sucked away your summer, and turned you into a nocturnal creature.  It was like a drug, but worse.  You are still dreaming about creating your own world, your own heroes, and your own adventures.  You are still trying to fulfill that artist, writer, and sculptor of ideas that exists inside.  Well, for me that box was Zork, then Ultima 3, then The Bard’s Tale, and so on – well you know the list.  You can go down memory lane here at the CRPG Addict.  

Because of those games, I started out learning basic on the commodore 64.  I then promptly ran out of ram for my creations.  That’s when I learned assembly as the answer, getting lost in the tron like space of hexadecimal dumps.  Then I moved on to c on the Amiga with its ‘modern’ user interface and ‘infinite’ color palette.  I finally graduated to a PC and c++ during my days in college.  That is where I found 3D graphics and I fell in love with the idea of virtual reality.  I did my senior research project on 3D graphics hardware, and actually purchased the original Renderware SDK.

I have always had that nagging desire to create something that is straight out of my own imagination.  Looking back, I can envision the trail of half-baked ideas, incomplete code, partially created frameworks, weak art, and general crufty attempts at making games.

Now here I am, again, immersed in real-time 3D.  Another decade later, after Java took over my life and my career, and I am still trying to fulfill that nagging desire to create my own world – I just don’t know why.  Some people write, some people paint, I guess this is my medium.