Originally I’m from California but spent most of my life in Europe. As a kid; like many, video games were a big part of my life. When I got an Amiga 500 I started looking into programming and making my own games; simple ones just text-based dungeon crawlers. Then after a bit of tangent into 3D animation as a teenager, I went to University to study Computer Science and Astrophysics. During this time I was able to improve my programming skills a lot and got back into programming games.
A few months after graduating I got an amazing opportunity to work for Blizzard Entertainment as a Game Master. This wasn’t a developer role at all, but it felt too good to pass on. Over the years I got into management and the Game Master’s team does have some (though fleeting) contact with developers but I was definitely getting further and further away from my real passion for making games.
Over the years I’ve tried everything from making my own game engine to using Microsoft XNA, Unity, and Unreal Engine 3 & 4. Every time learning more about how games are made, but never really finished any project as my responsibilities at work grew.
In late 2018 I decided to make a huge career change and leave Blizzard and start working on my own games again. At that point, I was pretty familiar with Unreal Engine 4 and restarted a project of mine from 2014 about a lonely drone in space that is torn between its duties and finding out why it’s alone.
Drone Alone is what I’m working on right now, and every day is great. I’ve never felt this invigorated every single day to start working. This doesn’t mean I don’t have days that are frustrating, but that’s part of it and that feeling of either overcoming challenges or hitting a milestone is nothing I’ve ever felt before.