I had the opportunity of a lifetime at E3 this year. Something I never in my wildest dreams thought could or would ever happen. Growing up in the outskirts of El Paso it’s crazy to even imagine I could ever attend E3 let alone show a game that I was working on. Back in 8th grade I wanted to start a video game club where I, along with a group of my closest buddies, could write some video game reviews and debate all the latest news about video games. Much to my surprise this endeavor was entirely backed by the school and faculty. So much so that we were even listed in the year book as an official student club. Fucking crazy. I was in love with video games, as almost any kid was. I would design game concepts with my friends and of course I’m sure they all sucked. Plus we had no idea how to make them so there was definitely that. Even crazier in 5th grade I wanted to start a band. Yeah, I know.
I’m now 34 years old, created a band, quite a few of them actually, written and recorded a plethora of songs, continue to do so, and now I’m making a video game. Fucking nuts. The difference now is with a band I already knew what I was doing; creating and designing a video game is a completely new problem to solve. Not only do I have to spend time designing the game I’m spending most of my time failing and learning, reconstructing thought processes, and tons and tons of humiliation. I’m not trying to be the best video game designer in the world I’m simply aiming towards being the best that I can be. Thinking I’ve reached my limits then suddenly surpassing them without a clue of how I did it is scary as all fuck. It’s hard to explain but there are points where I hit a wall, give up, and step away wondering why I am even doing this and then I come back to a ten ton sledgehammer just waiting for me to scream “FUCK YOOOOOUUUUUU!!” at the top of my lungs and destroy the fuck out of that wall. It’s extremely rare but it happens and it’s fucking rad as all balls.
I’m still in awe and will forever be grateful to IndieCade for allowing me a spot in their booth. While those two hours I had were the result of nothing more than pure luck, IndieCade proper is a different story so it is in no way clear sailing from here on out. Not by a long shot. The seas are fucking monstrous and I’ve only got a moment or two before I have to rebuild my sail and get to the next checkpoint. ROCK.