I’ve played video games for a good chunk of my life. Having been introduced to them during middle school, I immediately became hooked. I was fascinated with the idea that I could become anything I wanted. I could be the medieval knight in shining armor or the future super soldier at the press of a button. I thought of them as books or movies, but ones that I could live in.
As I became older and became more engrossed in programming, I saw video games in a new light; I realized that I could potentially make my own video games. For a couple months, I researched free resources such as engines and picture editors. Endeavoring to make my own game, I practiced my limited art skills and programming knowledge. I found guides on YouTube to be extremely helpful, but also realized the process of making a solid video game is quite an arduous process.
The concept phase took weeks alone of me simply drawing characters in different styles. I eventually settled on a style I was happy with (2D) and then discovered the next laborious step of animating. I pushed forward past this step, accepting that it wouldn’t be perfect and managed to create an extremely basic level. In this level, you could fire your gun and jump. That was it. The result of months of work was a character who could perform only the most basic actions.
I found the experience extremely enlightening and fun, but have yet to continue the project as I found myself envisioning creating far more than I could ever do on my own with my current schedule.
