Hey there!#

A Little About Me#

Since I was a child, I always was inspired by the creations of others. New and vast worlds, magic systems, dynamic abilities and spellweaving… the intrigue and mysticism of a far land full of new traits to be learned made my heart skip a beat.

As a child, I considered becoming a writer or an artist, but was always told that wasn’t a real career, so I followed the advice of others and learned to program (with software development being the hot new field of the 2010s). I went to school for engineering and architecture inspired by my love for minecraft, and sought refuge in math and science. After leaving high school, I decided to do a stark flip into nursing after the 2020 pandemic. Realizing the gruesome sights I’d have to see and how they’d affect me, I swapped back to what I’d always known— computers. I graduated with a degree in Computer Science, but have faced unemployment because of my lack of experience ever since with the replacement of entry level programmers with AI.

Realizing my inspiration was always video games, being the place I truly sought refuge from the constant chaos of our age, I thought up an idea… why not make games myself? Put this now-practically-useless degree to good use! Thus, I took the plunge into game development and decided I will learn more. I’ll take all this spare time on my hands and use it to forge worlds just as I’ve always wished to do.

That brings us to now.

Welcome to my journey, reader. Here I’ll share all my mistakes, what I’ve learned, and how I got there. Not only on this blog, but in my videos. I realized the best way to hold myself to a promise is to help others with theirs.

Tech Stack#

I use Godot for my development, but am well versed in many “traditional” languages. Python, C/C++/C#, Java, and JavaScript are really the big ones I feel comfortable with. I began learning with Java, so I have a tendency to force statically typed variables unless I really have to keep them dynamic. I prefer to use snake_case for most things, resorting to PascalCase for classes and filenames.

I use Aseprite for pixel art, as I enjoy the features it has for spritesheets.

I use Blender for any 3D assets, as it’s free and well-supported.

I use Affinity Designer for vector art, having bought a license eons ago.

Lastly, I use Clip Studio Paint for any reference sheets, character designs, or paintings for my games.

Stylistic Choices#

Having seen many different styles, I can comfortably say I’ve developed a bit of a visual preference. I greatly enjoy a couple styles, starting with my enthusiasm for pixel art! I think that both rendered pixel art and traditional pixel art are both incredible styles, and would be incredibly happy using a 3D-to-2D filter in blender to pre-bake my spritesheets, as I really think the aesthetic grit makes for an incredibly interesting style.

Another style I admire and hope to implement is cell shaders layered with pixelation to create some texture using dithering. I do have a tremendous fear of touching the GPU by hand, but alas that’s really a fear only inspired by my lack of experience with shaderlangs.

Lastly, I have an odd fascination with one-bit shaders. Monochromatic filters can really bring some interesting motifs to simple textures with all the required dithering. Realistically I don’t see myself using this one all too much, but I think the drastic separation of values really makes for some interesting aesthetics.

Musical Inspirations#

Having been a rock musician all through my high-school time, I find that I have some interesting tastes. Not because I was a rock musician, but because I wasn’t doing what I truly loved… Metal and Breakcore. The lower those guitar strings go, the more I love it. The choppier the drums are, the more I can feel the blood in my veins.

In sum, expect some weird sounds coming from those headsets while you play any of my games! (p.s. I have 0 fear of uploading some music separately so look forward to that if you’re interested.)

Closing#

Look forward to more content from me, both auditorily in my videos, as well as here in text form!

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