how young were you when you started and what made you decide to go into making games?

14 started in flash and the love of unrestricted architecture. also the need for more games.

8 when I started in Flash. I could’t remember any ActionScript, so I moved to an application with minimal scripting: Al Stafferi’s GameMaker, which was a slide-based system. I got back to Flash after I realized GameMaker couldn’t do much. I found out about Unity in 2005, when I was 10, but it looked too complicated. I used Game Maker (the YoYoGames version) at camp and liked the scriptless interface, but I realized script is needed to do the more advanced things. I was used to ActionScript syntax, so I went back to Flash again. In 2008, I rediscovered Unity and immediately found my perfect match. As I’ve used Unity, I’ve discovered more about game creation from the community than I had ever learned before from any summer camp game design teacher. I’ve been using Unity for 3 – almost 4 – years and have never looked back.

wait you live in mass

yeah.

5 years old working in BASIC making text games here.

13 with flash. That’s when I learned I love programming.

Edit: Game maker before that, because I was bored one day.

Hmm, I’ve always been a “game maker” in a sense. I’d make all sorts of games for my friends to play with. The moment I came in contact with video games, I knew I wanted to make those types of computer games. I started trying to figure out how to make computer games by asking people (back then the term programmer didn’t register much to kids as it does now). Someone finally told me about computer programming, and QBASIC. After going through elementary and highschool, I finally took a computer science course in college. After dealing with real life for a couple of years, I’m now back on track and trying to become a successful game developer by relearning my long lost love, and also learning the new technologies we have now:)

11 - Apple II - BASIC - making Defender Galaxian knock-offs.

10-ish when I started, just turned 11 when I shipped my first commercial computer game. It wasn’t something I set out to do with a purpose, it was just a childhood interest that kept feeding on itself. Here I am 33 years later still creating games and solving problems. :slight_smile:

Twitchfactor and I are definitely old farts.

14 with Moya Games, realised it was going no-where so took my own path last year and since then just practicing 2d/3d

I was on a friend’s spectrum (her name was gina and we were kids) and realised that an infinite loop in basic made the screen “scroll” and started making it print out lines which would form part of the level.

It wasn’t a concious thing, it was an experimental thing with huge curiosity behind it. It didn’t occur to me I would be a game developer.

My sense of self-worth was low all through my childhood up to my teens when I started smoking pot and getting high when I should have been at school. I don’t recommend it lol and stopped long ago. Anyway, that kind of erased my troubled past and a few years later the Amiga came out. It was then I finished my first game, a shootemup. I examined shadow of the beast, and saw a flickering torch had a different colour palette right at the tip of the torch.

A week later I was resetting the copper at different lines and generally hacking around. The bug never left me since the spectrum/c64/amstrad days.

What I lack in maths skill, I make up for in experience and unstoppable self-belief. I can’t not finish games these days.

I think one of the major points which hold kids back from being great in unity is self-belief. They need to be hungry to learn from the old timers here and have a belief they can do it. A lot of doing for me, was pure trial and error, and experimentation.

Back then: no internet. no documentation.

Now you have both so you are in a better position than the old timers ever were :slight_smile:

I was in a class when I was 8 or 9 I believe it was, and we made a few games in QBASIC. Something about a mouse and cheese and another with monkey’s throwing explosive bananas at each other. After we made those games I had a lot of fun so I just continued taking classes where available in my school system. (Which was very few.) Earlier this year is when I decided to really get into programming, found Unity and fell in love :slight_smile:

somewhere between 12-14 with be beloved vic-20 ( which i still have and it works ! ) just missing one key :frowning:

I wanted to go into video games since I could remember, but started to settle into different careers like being a lawyer, or doctor. Then I played Metal Gear Solid, and that brought me right back to my focus.

I think I was 11…