Video Games from My Childhood
I have always been passionate about programming. It all started when I first played video games as a kid. I vividly remember how much fun I had playing Snail Mail, Tropix, Feeding Frenzy, Cars, and Hamsterball on my Dad's laptop before. I especially had fun with the Cars game, having spent hours of just roaming (or rather racing) around the open world.
My passion for gaming grew when my Dad bought a PS2. The games I played the most were Scooby-Doo! First Frights, Spongebob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, G-Force, Crash: Mind over Mutant, and Need for Speed: Underground 2 (Shout out to all the Riders on the Storm!).
Years later, my Dad bought another gaming console; this time, it was the Xbox 360. I played a lot of NBA 2K, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 4, Just Cause 2, GTA V, and Skyrim. Later on, I briefly went back to PC gaming. I would add Minecraft as an honorable mention in that regard.
My Motivation
I have always wondered how people managed to create such vast worlds inside a TV/computer screen; how they were able to make something out of nothing; how they were able to tell a computer what to do. All of these video games made me want to follow the footsteps of the game developers. I, too, wanted to create something that would have a lasting impact on people; something that would trigger nostalgia; something that would serve as a temporary relief for people going through tough times; something that is worthwhile; something that makes people happy; something that would make me happy. Combined with my passion for learning and Mathematics, the stage was set for me to begin my programming journey.
In order to make sure that I understood the basics of programming, I started with web development to keep things simple. I could say that I did not regret that decision at all. Perhaps I could even say that it was the best decision I could have made at the time. In many ways, JavaScript helped me understand what programming truly is and how it works (which I can say right now is more than just typing fast and memorizing syntax). Now that I'm learning C++ to start my journey in game development, all of my knowledge in JavaScript (and TypeScript as an honorable mention) is making the learning process easier, faster, and more intuitive.
Anyway, it's important to know why we code in the first place to prevent the dreaded burnout. Forgetting our roots will surely get us lost in the monotony of programming. With that said, who or what was your inspiration to do programming? For sure, mine were video games and the passion for learning, Mathematics, and creating things (that work, function, and serve purpose to others).
Also, if you have played any of the video games I mentioned, go ahead and tell me in the comments section. I would love to know.
Latest comments (59)
I owe my career to being an RPG nerd.
I was in college for Religious Studies and Philosophy with no plan on how I was going to turn that into money. I knew HTML/CSS/JS and made crappy websites for roleplaying games I played online through chat systems on AOL and ultimately on a site called WBS (Web Broadcasting System). It was one of the earliest web-based chats that was all in browser. They had your typical stuff for back then: teen chat, sports chat, etc. I happened to frequent the RPG chats where diceless roleplaying took place, in particular a room called Roland's Cavern.
Eventually WBS was bought out by Disney and absorbed into Disney's Go.Com platform, pushed into Java applet based chat (so we lost a lot of features we liked for RPGs like dice rolling, images, etc). Eventually Disney killed all the RPG rooms, keeping the rest.
Since I was making crappy GeoCities/Angelfire sites for our game, my friends asked if I could build our own chat system.
Enter Sam's Publishing "Teach Yourself Perl in 24 Hours". My first programming book.
So I read that. Learned some Linux stuff around Apache and tricking it into streaming content by not sending size of content to the browser allowing for constant streaming chat (this is days of frames, no one was talking about AJAX yet, no XHR being used mostly cause I didn't know about it or hell I don't know if it was around yet).
Then I built our chat system, launched our own site (NexusRP.com, funny to look at on WayBack Machine nowadays .. 640x480 website designs ftw!), and we played like that for a long time.
By then I was doing work study at college to pay for tuition. I took a job as a petri-dish-washing-floor-sweeping student assistant in the School of Neurobiology working for one of the Neurobiology professors. Besides washing petri dishes and sweeping up, they also taught me how to use a micro-tome (I think that is the name, it has been a while) to cut up cat brain slices.
She then found out I knew some web stuff, so asked me to build a site for her and her grad students. I did, then that expanded to another doctor, then the department. Then I built a web-based learning / quizzing platform for the whole Histology course where I sat in the morgue area in the basement, scanned in 1500 2x2 slides of histology "thingies" (don't know what to call them now), and made that software.
Pretty proud of that accomplishment, I realized there was going to be no money in Religious Studies (took me long enough to realize that), so I sent my resume to a local ad agency that was doing web dev and I got hired on.
tl;dr: I became a programmer so I could build a roleplaying chat system for me and my nerdy friends.
It's amazing how far the Web has come from its early days. I was especially intrigued by how you didn't include the
Content-Lengthheader to allow a constant stream of data. It's bad practice now, but that must've been really ingenious at the time.It was quite the hack but worked well and only occasionally would you have to "reconnect" but I built that in as well and the end of the stream would always include a hyperlink to reload the content area and start it up again, giving the content from the last time you saw.
I still have the source code. I should get it up and running some time to see how bad it is. Haha.
My first real job out of college was basically sales. I do not have the personality for sales. Being on the phone all day is torture. I started gravitating more toward the data management side of the job, starting with Excel and growing from there. It wasn't long before I realized I should be in tech, not sales, and was able to build the skills to make that transition. Programming suits the way my mind works very well.
I first got into programming in grade 9 of high-school (back in 2004?!? wow.. you know what they say!) when I took an intro to programming with--Visual Basic. I had no prior programming knowledge--didn't even know what a variable was!--but something "clicked" after making text appear on the screen.
After that, I was hooked! :)
Eyyyyy! I also started programming by the time I was Grade 9. Ah... the world was much simpler back then.
Definitelly it started by playing video games for me as well. Then I once opened the door of computer classroom in our elementary school and I was like punched in the face :) There was a room full of blinking computers called "PMD", few of "PP06" and one "286". (It was 1995 or 96 but I lived in post-comunistic country ok? :D). It was love on first look and I started creating my own games in Basic nonstop for next few years since then :)
Who knew that a few lines of HTML could get us here? It's all so surreal to think about.
Copying my original comment from a very similar title here:
What's your coding origin story?
Kelly Vaughn
It was the famous WinAmp MP3 Player for me that opened the doors to "coding".
It was a Pentium III running Windows 98. I was exploring WinAmp's installation folder and found a few XML files (didn't know what was that). I discovered that those files are used to configure the color and theme of WinAmp skins. I got curious, and played a lot with the XML, restart WinAmp to see the changes.
Then there was a famous HTML file that comes with Flash games, which simulates earthquake by shaking the Internet Explorer window. Somehow I discovered the "View Source Code" menu and discovered HTML and Javascript. I didn't understand that either, but I tried changing the numbers and seeing the results.
We got a super slow dial-up connection in 2000. I started looking at the source codes of websites, and started learning HTML. "Coding" looked very cool at that time, and I started investing time in learning how to "code" things up.
My first programming course was C++ in my school during 2003. That was the first time I saw an "IDE" --- a Borland Turbo C++ 1992 version on MS-DOS.
Later I self-taught Visual Basic 6 on my Pentium III machine, and later tried to learn Visual C++ with MFC but failed to understand the concepts.
Later in college we had 8086 Assembly and C. Assembly got my attention and tried some x86 assembly using NASM. Writing Operating Systems was a trend in online communities at that time.
The website "planet-source-code.com" has a major role in improving my skills in writing code. That was the times when PHP was so popular, and Macromedia Flash was the best way to build an interactive website.
Time flies.
Later in 2010 for my daily job I chose to stay with Java/Android, and now moved to Kotlin/Android.
Ever since I got my NES on my 4th or 5th birthday I spent a whole lot time in front of some screen. By 12 or so I found out how to do stuff in QBasic. Fast-forward: Ten years ago in Design-Uni we did interactive design-projects in Processing, and I got a good modern HTML/CSS course.
I was a 1 year little baby and windows 95 was waiting me on my mother's desktop computer. At the time i can sit on the chair of her desk, Win 98 say's hello to me. yes, only took me 4 years win the right to touch "the machine" without a hit in my hands. I play with "Betsy the Cow", ¿ Disney Paint ? , and so. One day, at the age of 7, after a fight with my little brother, i win a penalty for that. Then my mom's disconnected all the cables from the pc. I take a look, plug-in plug-off, and everything fit's ok, then i push the magic button and Voilá, the computer was On!. After that i was make curious, i learned to change wallpaper, screensaver and other things. For many years i played games in the computer, later i learned to "crack" some of them (copy & paste .exe files in program files folder) and eventually i look the screen that makes me REALLY see: Regedit.exe . I was around 13 then. After that i was have a mindblow. i have internet, a pc and free afternoons, so i started to read some forums, where i learn to write my first batch script. The things here start to going crazy, i make scripts for shutdown at windows start, and this kind of things. At the time i was ready to get into the high school. i know batch,html, copy-pasted js scripts to make "raining * pages" and even understand vagely wtf is "hosting". 2 years of high school was enough to know that i want to study computer science and coding. So, I finish high school with that touth. After a non-successfully degree try i get my first job as a jr dev. Learn AngularJs , C# , SQL , and when i stop to see, i am a developer.
3 years from then.
¿Bad redaction? Yes. is hard but i try my best. (can you try tell your story in spanish)
Oh, sorry. I can't speak Spanish. Don't worry. I fully understood your story. Curiosity can really bring us to many places, my friend.
i studied linguistics and i liked it, but the simple truth in this world is, you never earn much money, work in sh1tty jobs with a Master of Arts.
So basically i wanted to avoid beeing poor and gave programming a shot. now, nearly 10years after this decision i am a mid-level to senior, well payed, safe job. and the best is, i really like programming, i even do it at home, its kind of a hobby for me.
Do you use your knowledge of linguistics in any way when you do programming?
not really, its different. maybe i could use the knowledge it in other fields, like speech processing, but as webdeveloper with strong focus on consuming rest/graphql api's, {...nope}.
😂 We all have to make our compromises...
I was 17 and saw a friend making a game in C#, thought it looked dope, and wanted in. Fast forward 11 years and I still can't make games :)
Don't sweat it, man. The fact that you didn't forget how you started programming gives me a strong feeling that someday, you'll be able to make your own games (no matter how big or small). It only takes one small step forward to nudge you in the right direction.
I'm still learning the ropes of game development myself. I don't plan on learning the intricacies of a game engine anytime soon, though. However, I do have a background with Blender, so I guess that's a good start. For now, I have to master C++ if I wish to properly get into the programming side of game development. My skills in Blender only apply to the design and assets side of game development. Still pretty far to go, but just like you, I'll get there soon enough.