Hobby to Passion
Around 2012, I had no particular interests in anything. All I did in my free time was watch cartoons on the T.V. I never used social media since I thought it would be easier to deal with online dangers by not interacting with it at all. This was big mistake for me in particular, since I never made any close friends. But I was about to discover a new activity that I’ve never had the same experience with anything else before.
For some years, my parents decided to cancel the cable since my brothers and I were the only ones who used it. My parents moved on to the internet for entertainment. Since my parents were so engrossed in it, I wanted to try too. Using Youtube for the first time, I only watched free episodes of old cartoons or animes since I didn’t know what was safe to watch. Browsing through some videos, I became interested in a strange thumbnail of polygonally shaped, pixelated character. A concept that I’ve never seen before. It was a comedic video of Minecraft, youtubers who use the very flexible game of Minecraft to play while making jokes directed at young children. This was my first experience seeing videos of everyday people making their own content that didn’t have a high budget, but was getting millions of views still. What was more interesting to me was how free form and creative Minecraft can be using the player’ imagination. My gaming experience before this time was very limited, I had a Nintendo DS and only played Kirby and Pokemon. These are very linear based games that have set stories and mechanics that have barely changed over the decades since their first releases. Minecraft was different, it was a sandbox game, that means the world was yours to change however you want to one giant block at a time. There is no tutorial or story for the game, you just had learn all the mechanics from online videos or wikipedias. This was because the game released early and was originally created by one person, Markus Alexej Persson. Due to how limited and open it was, playing the game made me feel like I was making my own choices. I could try to learn the fastest way to get the best items or immediately begin building a house for hours without being told this was the wrong decision. These choices grew when I played with mods, very creative modifications, that people made for Minecraft for free.
There is many modifications that can add new elements to Minecraft that anyone could choose to make in their free time. This part of the community was the first step of getting me interested in game design. Since these were everyday people unrestricted by company guidelines, they freely speak their mind with players about mods (modification) for improvement. I remember in particular I watched a series on youtube call Forgecraft hosted by Direwolf20. Forgecraft was a server that included many experimental mods not released to the public, player base made up of the developers of those same mods on the server. I was fascinated, since I was witnessing a creation of a new idea from the earliest stages, when they constantly were changing their project. I saw how certain mechanics changed and evolved over time while listening to why and how they were adjusted to better suit the player. Another interesting thing was that Direwolf20 wasn’t a developer of any mods, he helps test the mods out and find ways for them to interact with each other in ways I could have never considered of before. For example, I remembered he made a tree farm run by a robot that could be fueled by charcoal. With the robot he figured a way so that it made an infinite supply of fuel doesn’t have to be maintain since machines can’t breakdown in the game. This made me realize the potential dynamics that a game could have. Just by changing the rules of what you can or can’t do in a game, you change how players are able interact within the world of Minecraft.
Listening to the developers I heard them talk about many games they liked that I’ve never heard of before. Intrigued, I expanded watching videos of videogames in general. Another one in particular caught my eye in 2015, it was a new property by Nintendo from a set of new developers called Splatoon. The first from Nintendo in 14 years in a genre they’ve barely touched that is very mainstream. It was the multiplayer shooter genre, a genre that has been associated with extreme violence. One of a these games was Call of Duty, a series that never innovates their mechanics over the years. Even though they release a new game every year and receive huge criticism for not changing the formula enough, they still sell millions a year. Even with the huge name of Nintendo, these new developers tried to make a new experience with their own personality. Before the game came out to now, I’ve followed many interviews and videos on how this game came to be. I learned that this game’ core concept was one out of two hundred prototypes. Early Images of the game on had two black and white cubes with noses on them shooting black and white paint in an empty room. This made me really appreciate how hard these developers worked on Splatoon. They had to keep testing again and again with these prototypes until they were finally satisfied because of their high quality standard in giving an engaging experience.
he final game of Splatoon had squid-human hybrids shoot paint for territory with a 90′ aesthetic. I wondered why they chose these visuals for the game. The reason was related to gameplay and the developers’ lives surprisingly. Before I thought a game’ art was an afterthought meant to appeal their target audience. I learned they picked squids-human hybrids was because of the shape the player’ head when it transformed from humanoid to squid, it was shaped liked an arrow clearly pointing out which direction a player was moving towards to allow predicting movement. As for the 90′ look of the game, it was because that was the childhood of many of these young developers. It made me believe that games isn’t just another way to make money, they were also part of the developers’ lives. Splatoon was an experimental game that wasn’t interested in making money, it was focus more on making a unique experience in a very worn out genre of games. It was at this point that, I knew I wanted to be a game designer.
Now, I play a huge variety games. Mostly Nintendo and indie games since I’m always interested in what new ideas people make and want to support in any way possible. I can join into more conversations with other people around me and talk about the games we’ve played. In recent months, I’ve been buying at least one indie game a week and I try to finish them to experience their new ideas. Playing them, I try to analyze the ways the games teach the player about completing a certain objective based on the level design and mechanics they give.