For the last couple of years, I’ve been working toward becoming the game developer I always wanted to be. It’s a dream I’ve had since before I was ten, back when I spent endless hours on our old MS-DOS tower desktop. My siblings and I played everything we could get our hands on—Warcraft II, Wacky Wheels, Hocus Pocus, Crystal Caves, C&C: Red Alert, Day of the Tentacle, Curse of Monkey Island—you name it.
Our dad even built us a custom ASCII launcher, a game selection screen where we could press a single key and jump straight in, no need to dig through the text UI. Looking back, it was basically the MS-DOS version of Steam Big Picture Mode—very usable and way cooler for 10-year-old me. Good times.
it was basically the MS-DOS version of Steam Big Picture Mode
Some of those early games really inspired me. Add exploring a kid-friendly programming language (START) to that and it opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of game creation. I loved sketching levels for imaginary games, dreaming up action platformers, and envisioning the most beautiful pioneer cities in Anno 1602. I kept playing and loving games for years, but I never truly “got started” on making one. I didn’t have a clear vision of a game I wanted to create—there are so many great ones out there already!
I loved drawing levels of made up games
Around 2020, something changed. I came up with an idea for a game that felt exciting and clicked with me on multiple levels. Trees have always been a subtle but recurring theme in games I’ve enjoyed, and learning about Pando—the enormous tree super-colony in Utah—sparked my imagination. It gave me the push to explore this concept further and see where it might lead.
By early 2023, I decided to stop dreaming and start doing. I began teaching myself to work with Godot 4.2, committing to weekly sessions of learning and creating. It’s been a journey with plenty of ups and downs, but the idea has grown into a project I truly love. There’s still a long way to go, but I’m getting somewhere—and I’m excited to keep going. Let’s do this!