Every day I drown in a sea of emotions. Stress from schoolwork, boredom from lacking activity, envy of others. Stress, boredom, envy. Stress, boredom, envy. Escape. Escape from the endless cycle torturing my soul each and every day. Escape to a digital world of pixels and power ups. Escape to a complex puzzle constructed of variables, functions, and countless lines of code.
In my early days as a second grader, I began playing around in this program called Scratch. I ended up first using it while in elementary school. Me and my older brother loved to test out the limitations of both our imaginations and the digital building blocks, only to share and compare our creations with each other. I used to spend hours each day in the browser, dragging block onto block. The bright colors adorned by them reflected off my eyeballs as I practically gave myself a headache trying to get to a seemingly simple goal. Despite my best efforts, I never did hit the limit of the program. Nonetheless, I felt restricted and knew I had to go bigger.
In my early days as a fifth grader, I made “first contact” with an actual coding language. Lines and lines of complicated, nerdy, nonsense. It all began with a book. A book detailing all the ins and outs of html, which is essentially what makes websites. Specifically the functionality behind it all. I recall not liking it all too much. I still don’t find it all too much fun. Regardless, I’ll never forget my first website. It was filled to the brim with differing tints and shades of saturated orange and red. I very quickly forgot the language until it came back with a vengeance in some kind web design class in 6th and 8th grade. Nonetheless, I felt disintrigued and knew this wasn’t the path for me.
In my early days as a seventh grader, came the day September 16th, 2020. That was the day that I released my first game. Back up a bit though, early Summer of 2020 was the epitome of boring. Worried my Summer break would be a bust, I begged the universe for anything to keep me busy. Around then was when I figured, “Hey, I like coding” and “Hey, I like games”, so why not combine the two. Without a second thought I guided the mouse onto the search bar and typed out “unity download”. Fortunately, help was far from scarce. There is a wealth of Youtube videos, forums, and Unity documentation that was no farther than a Google search away. Although help wasn’t hard to find, good help was. I ended up taking comfort in this one man, which as far I’m concerned is a miracle worker, who went by the online moniker of Brackeys. His near countless Youtube videos held my hand as I made my way into the ever wonderous world of game development. I have a weird and interesting approach to learning most things. Most people probably start with the simple stuff before they tackle the big stuff that is usually built upon the smaller stuff. I don’t do that. I jump straight into the deep end. Forget starting with the foundation and building up, I start from hard stuff and learn the bare minimum required to gain a basic understanding of that topic. This probably didn’t help me out a whole lot. But, I still got where I am today regardless. Wherever “today” is. Afterall, I still see myself as very much of an intermediate/novice when it comes to game development as a whole. Nonetheless, I feel content and know this is my escape.
The combination of all this programming over the years has impacted me on a very crucial level. I have goals, a career path, and a hobby. My strong passion for game development dictates much of what I do in my everyday life. From sneaking in lines of code in between classwork to brainstorming concepts and such before I go to sleep. Programming is more than a possible career for me. I love to code. Programming is Princess Peach and I’m Mario constantly chasing after it. Sometimes when I'm sad or angry, I will resort to my computer and get lost in almost endless problem-solving. Where others see a mess of jumbled letters and symbols, I see art where the monitor is the canvas, the keyboard is the paintbrush, and I am the artist, letting my ideas fly free. I look forward to seeing a career in game development and wish nothing more than to spend the rest of my able years tapping away at a keyboard, creating programs with the sole purpose of bringing people enjoyment.