The first time I fully realized my passion for gaming was after a long night playing Halo with my friends on Legendary, struggling to get past the two hunters over and over again. I knew then that I needed to somehow be a part of an industry that could create so much fun and engagement.
Since then I've been on a long journey, I learned Game Maker back in middle school and made a simple boss rush game. I then went to community college and learned the fundamentals of programming in C++. After community college, UC Santa Cruz was the obvious choice, as it provided a perfect environment to develop skills that I couldn't on my own or at any other college. And now I've just graduated with a Computer Science: Computer Game Design degree! /*While some people got discouraged from the stress of working with other people and crunch before deadlines, the fun of meeting with your peers every week and showing progress on engaging interactive experiences has only renewed my drive to be in the industry!*/ At Santa Cruz I pitched and produced Playground Heroes (banner on the left!), a cooperative boss game. Working with a team designing challenging player encounters is something I dreamed about back in High School while playing World of Warcraft. Going into it I was worried that working with others or frantically trying to meet deadlines would dissuade me from entering the games industry, but what happened was the exact opposite; last year was the most fun I've ever had! I'm super excited to take the next step and make my way to a real games studio, where I can make the experience that sparks the imagination of the next generation of game developers! |