My Gaming Roots

Commodore 64

I figure this blog better start out with a bit of explanation of why I like to make games. Simple answer: I love playing them and they have amazed me since the first time I played Pong on Atari at my babysitter's house. My Dad introduced me to programming when I was 10 (1990), and I was programming my own games in Visual Basic on my Commodore 64. I still have fond memories of storing my programs on my cassette tapes.

I joke I was so poor growing up I used to have to make my own games. That's kinda true though. I didn't get my first true gaming console, the Nintendo NES until 1992. Before then, I would follow my brother to his friend's house down the street. He was lucky enough to have an NES before us. I would just sit and watch them play. I was the little sister, so I didn't get much chance to play, but I didn't care - I just wanted to watch. 

Final Fantasy 1

One game in particular caught my attention: Final Fantasy. OMG I still love it. I have been a fanatic Final Fantasy fan since the beginning, playing all of the North American releases. Before I get carried away with Final Fantasy, let me continue to the explanation at hand. 

Since our first NES, I can't remember a time I didn't have a game console. With the availability of games, I put the programming on the back burner for a while and just... played. I played the first Mario Brothers so much I was able to beat it in 1 guy, and in 3 levels. It was sick.

I loved (and still do) either the brain games like Tetris or the RPGs like Final Fantasy. I started back on programming in 1994 when we got AOL. I actually mowed lawns to pay for it (like I said, we were kinda poor). I was blazing the internet with my 56k modem. I fell in love with HTML and taught myself how to make web pages on GeoCities (before Yahoo! bought them). All I needed was my text editor and I could make really cool stuff. Well.. I thought it was cool at the time. Thinking about it now, I cringe at the horrid web page abominations I created, but hey - everyone starts somewhere, right?

My hobby faded in my late teens (dur... being a teen) and I thought I'd turn to more serious pursuits. I was taught having fun doesn't pay the bills, right? I graduated High School, left on my own, and decided to go to college. I started school, majoring in Criminal Justice. It was interesting to me, but most of the classes were just boring as hell. Needless to say I epicly failed my first two semesters. 

Luckily for me, my school just created School of Informatics (around 1990) - a cooler version of the School of Computer Science. Now I knew I could go to school and possibly land a job... to have fun! It's been a long hard road, and I've had to wait out semesters due to finances and just life in general, but I am not a quitter. So here I am, almost 10 years later closing the long journey to validate my passion for programming and making fun interactive experiences. My last semester is coming up and I will graduate with a Bachelors in Science in New Media Arts and Science from IU, a certificate of Applied Computer Science from Purdue (actually getting this semester), and a certificate in Business from Kelley School of Business.