As I sit here at my extended dining table, lamp aflame to my left, coffee and Tolkien and the remnants of an almond croissant to my right, I am feeling a swelling of my soul to embark on a journey through the tangled briars of attentions so that I may, if even just a bit, mold pathways of joy with which I can occupy future hours. Those pathways need definition, but more than that, they need love.
A game was afoot as many a late programmer such as myself began to concrete in his or her memory the minutes of JavaScript. A study done by the website “HackerRank” in 2019 (this year) suggests the makeup of first projects of developers given their age range. The overwhelming majority for those 37 and under is a calculator or a website, however for those 38 to 72 the study suggests that a game is what people take their time to undergo.
Myself, a ripe programmer at the age of 27, took on my first project about which I was immensely proud — a Pokémon-style game — and made amends to its design over the next few years. If nothing else, stability and consistency of routine helped my mind to relax enough to glide into the development of it. In fact, there was even a time when I began to sketch designs for levels that possessed architectural specificity.
Now, game schools do not exists for mere social delights, just at schools of architecture don’t exist without good reason. The methodology behind crafts of enormous complexity should not be taken lightly, though one’s desire to jump into a creative endeavor with only the skin of their yellow country teeth is an admirable trait and one that will payoff dividends in the product’s final actuality. So then, the question becomes how one strikes a balance between individual creative grit and professional regiment in design and development.
Though I don’t claim the last word on that question, I do profess to the knowledge that one’s individual creative grit may be best summarized in the swift implementation of some certain skill. For instance, I am a hobby sketch artist at best and the only pieces I find worthwhile, though they be very few indeed, are those that were implemented quickly, with lightness of spirit, and free of attachment to their actuality. Now, if I had possessed any sort of professional sketch training upon drawing those pieces, they would no doubt be much better and possibly even marketable. But the question of better should not be relevant when we critique art and games. The only quality, if it be even called a quality, is that the piece was made with love.
References
- HackerRank’s 2019 Developer Skills Report. HackerRank.com. https://info.hackerrank.com/rs/487-WAY-049/images/HackerRank_2019-2018_Developer-Skills-Report.pdf. Retrieved Friday, April 26, 2019.
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