“And I heard your voice as clear as day. And you told me I should concentrate. It was all so strange and so surreal that a ghost should be so practical.”
— “Only If For A Night”, Florence + The Machine
My sixth birthday was the best one of my life. I woke up and darted downstairs. A pile of gifts sat in the living room, but my attention was drawn to the largest one. My mom was making breakfast in the kitchen. I asked her if I could open my presents. She relented. My fingers tore into the blue wrapping paper, but I already suspected what they would find. Inside was a Nintendo 64, my first video game console. Soon after, I discovered a copy of Super Mario 64.
My dad connected the console to the TV. The rest of the morning was spent throwing King Bob-omb off the mountaintop and racing Koopa the Quick. I had played video games at friends’ houses before, but this was the first experience that was my own. The three-handled controller felt strange in my hands, but soon that foreign feeling would disappear, never to return.
Soon enough though, I had to set the game aside. My parents were taking me to Celebration Station. We spent the afternoon racing go-karts, eating pizza, and playing mini-golf. No day could have been better, but I was not disappointed when we reached the end. Super Mario 64 was waiting.
Yet when we returned home, I made a grave mistake. Rather than continuing where I left off, I cleared my save data and started over. Recovering the first two stars again would serve as a warmup before I jumped into unexplored territory. While I did not know it then, I had been cursed with a terrible fate.
Restarting video games became a common occurrence. I would play for several hours, delete my save, and begin again. Usually this would occur multiple times for a single title. Rarely would I ever beat a video game or even make it to the second half. Sometimes I would try to fight this compulsion, but I would inevitably give in.
The urge to restart would soon affect other parts of my life. Throughout high school and college, my career aspirations would change every few weeks. I wanted to be a veterinarian, an engineer, a doctor, a writer, and so many other jobs. Each time I focused on an academic pursuit something else would soon catch my attention. This uncertainty around my future was a large part of why I dropped out of college.
Even today this is still a problem. I attempt to diet, succeed for a few days, and then give up. I tell myself I will start again tomorrow, but the excess weight remains.
The worst affected areas though have been my hobbies. For over twenty years, I have wanted to develop my own games. In middle school, I taught myself C++. Since then, I have picked up a variety of programming languages, frameworks, and game engines. Many nights have been spent working on my projects. Yet despite all this effort, I have nothing to show for it. Unlike many aspiring game developers, I do not even have a hard drive filled with unfinished projects. Instead, all my abandoned games have been deleted.
Why do I give up and restart projects? Beginnings are easy. Before you start, your ideas are flawless. But once you begin, hard work is required. Worse yet, the end result is never as good as you dreamed, and the doubts creep into your mind. If your work is not that impressive, then maybe you are not as smart or creative as you thought. So instead of trying, you run away and start over with something new. All that remains is the existential dread at the back of your mind whispering about what could have been.
Besides playing video games, much of my childhood was spent watching Toonami on Cartoon Network. The anime-focused programming block introduced me to shows like Yu Yu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin. Toonami, however, was far more than just the shows it played. One unique aspect was frequently showing edited mashup videos during commercial breaks. The best one of these is “Broken Promise (Dreams)”.
The video starts off with a wide shot of a spaceship from Outlaw Star. The camera pans down. The anime’s protagonist watches the ship take off with longing. A disembodied narrator says, “A boy has the right to dream. There are endless possibilities stretched out before him.” The video cuts to clips of other anime like Dragon Ball Z, Tenchi Muyo!, and Gundam Wing. The narrator returns at the end with more motivational words: “Believe in yourself, and create your own destiny. Don’t fear failure.”
Toonami released an updated version in 2016 for nostalgic old folks like myself. The mascot TOM states, “When you were a kid, you specialized in dreams. Now that you’re older, does that mean you have to forfeit them? Maybe your childhood dreams did come true, but if they haven’t, don’t give up on them.” The video ends with the same powerful words as the original.
I watch both those videos every few weeks for a burst of motivation. I still hold on to my childhood dream: I want to create video games. But my constant restarting has destroyed any progress I could have made.
No more giving up. Right now I am working on creating a Pong clone in Unity. This is a project I have made a dozen times in a variety of frameworks such as Monogame, libGDX, and SFML. But this will be the first time I keep the results and show them to the world. From there, I am going to move onto progressively harder projects.
I am also starting this site to track my journey and write about my experiences along the way. If you are interested in reading about a hobbyist game developer’s growth, please stick around. Let’s get started.
