From Desire to Designer - a dev-to-be's blog.

As a long time gamer falling victim to the narrow minded line of thought that creating games for a living is not a plausible career path for anyone who wishes any degree of respect for the importance of the work they do, I have only recently been able to pull my proverbial head out of my proverbial tucus and see that a career in game design can, indeed, be a rewarding and deeply fulfilling life.  As such, I've not consciously been preparing myself for entry into the industry in any way except for my fanatical devotion to video games, and gaming in general. 

Fortunately, though, this puts me in a unique spot.  I am now 28 years old, and I find myself preparing to enter a field in which I have no experience whatsoever - software engineering.  I have chosen software engineering because McMaster university of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada has a Software Engineering (Game Design) program, which will allow me to gain the skills requisite to succeeding in this field.  Now, you may be wondering precisely how this is a unique situation - surely, I'm not the only one who plans on entering into this program in the near future.

This is a unique spot because I, with a good decade more life experience than my classmates to be, will be able to document the path from desire to designer from a mature, realistic, thoughtful point of view. Whether this blog is 'featured' or not, I hope it will help future members of the game development industry gain their feet in what can be an exciting and rewarding subculture.

To this end, I have started a development group whose abilities will evolve with not only the skills I will attain on the path to MEng, but also with the added members of the team, and the experience gained in working together as time goes by.  This group I have named Fighting Possum Studios, a nod to Steve Smith's The Red Green Show, a truly brilliant piece of Canadiana.

Suffice to say, dear viewers, keep an eye on this page - it will, in the future, contain news on the relative ease or difficulty intrinsic in the various aspects of the path from desire to designer.  As well, keep an eye on Fighting Possum Studios' webpage.  It will, occasionally, feature (initially volunteer, paid positions later, as we move away from game mods post-graduation and post-getting-funding) positions open to those who wish to gain experience working in the industry.