questproquo

Today’s post is a bit significantly less about game development and the game community, and a bit significantly more about me.  If you’ve taken the time to read the About section, you may have seen that I aspire to be a game developer.   I’ve undertaken a personal quest to eventually break into the game industry and I’ve decided to chronicle that journey.  Periodically, I will make posts like today’s categorized under “The Quest,” which will highlight my progress and hopefully celebrate milestones on the journey, though they may be few and far between since I have a sneaking suspicion that that this is going to be slightly more difficult than killing 10 boars for a little bit of gold and experience.

My educational background is – shall we say – less than ideal for making a transition into the gaming industry.  I have yet to see a single job listing for someone with a bachelor’s in history (if anyone reading this finds one – let me know).   I’m not without hope, however.  While most job listings call for an educational background in computer science, graphic design, web design, networking, public affairs, or marketing, every now and again a very successful developer sneaks into the mix with a much more colorful background.  For instance, Greg Street, a lead systems designer for Blizzard Entertainment, has undergraduate degrees in biology and philosophy and a PhD in marine science.

While I don’t have a PhD, my master’s degree in intelligence studies at least has the potential to be as useful as marine science.  Being able to do analysis and understand complex problems definitely would be an asset to a game designer.  But these are soft skills that can only augment existing knowledge.  They don’t stand up well on their own. To that end, I’ve recently enrolled in a local information technology retraining program.  I’ve been focusing my time and attention on software development and programming languages.  While the course has me working on some programs with more business and commercial applications, I am also working on some simple games.

The current short term goal is that in a few weeks/months you may see some of my early attempts at game development  hosted here on the site, and maybe eventually on your own mobile device.  We’re still a long way off from that, but there you go – quest accepted.