Hello there, (Life story follows)
So my name is Allan Moore or AJ
and I'm an alcoholic Preferably I like people to call me Alzon both here and irl.
I am 24 years old, Born on st Georges day... As such slaying dragons is a past time of mine... I live in Oxfordshire UK in a village not too far from Oxford.
I like to make games I also like to play them a lot.. but maybe not quite as much as making them.
Originally during my school life I really wanted to get into engineering, however it came towards the end of the my school days and I failed to get a placement anywhere and I was unable to physically travel to any colleges that provided it as a subject. Having to make new plans for my life two of my close friends where going to study a BTEC in IT, considering I already had friends on the course, the ease of accessibility and how I've always been quite tech savvy it seemed like a good alternative to engineering at the time. What really sold it to me in the end was the fact in had a programming module something that truly interested me, and that on the 2 year course there was even a game development module. (Secret child hood dream, being too young to be around when the BBC micro computer existed, when I herd about it when I was little it made my eyes big in my head, being able to just have a computer and have to write everything yourself made me really excited as a kid, but being born in the 90's never had that opportunity)
Anyway carrying on... I don't know when exactly but somewhere during my transition from my school life to college I suddenly knew I really wanted to make games...
As I progressed through my 3 years of study at college, I never planned to go to university, after a severe head injury in 2009 where I fractured my cheekbone and caused some minor brain damage resulting in problems with speech, general English skills and amnesia among other things... Almost immediately after having hit my head I had this revelation that In order to succeed in the world of game development I needed to go to university... as odd as this may sound I had this thought almost immediately after having waked up after the initial impact.
Because of this during my final year of study at college 2009-2010 I worked extremely hardly in order to bumped my grades up in order to get into university.
Uni Year 1 (foundation year): Programming lessons are a serious joke, easiest year of my life, most coursework done the same day handed out, easily over 70% overall mark at the end of the year... Year of study I read a lot of sciencey books, Make a clone of John Conway's game of life in c# , write random demos in c++, noobie darkbasic and c#, including a half made pixel for pixel clone of space invaders... RTS game mechanic drag select demos, top down rpg AI Demos. My "first"/second platformer for a university project known as biocrisis(not published) The game is based around a character based off lucas from Mother 3 but redrawn in paint poorly XD. The game was a 2 level demo built in torque 2d featuring general platform mechanics (Moving platforms, floating platforms, gravity switching mechanics, various traps) although the art was mostly from free sources I'm still proud of this game it was made over a 4 day period and turned out really cool.
Uni year 2 I start making a game engine in XNA and c# after several iterations it fails because I don't know what I'm doing but was fun. Work at unis stepped up a little bit, Calculus module learn about matrix maths, line equations, physics and all those wonderful things-although doing well getting around 80% marks I forget a weeks later. 3DS Max Module where everybody including myself make ugly looking high poly scenes and barely even scratch the surface when it comes to 3D content creation and animation (Have more recently homed my skills in blender thank god, learnt my own techniques - I wish someone would have slapped me while at uni). In our C and OpenGl modules I created a poorly written yet nice spider simulation as-well as a solar system simulation, in reflection they both suck. During my spare time in one evening I rolled a simple 'hombrew' app for playstation mobile in order to use my vita as a game controller. Towards the end of second year start writing a game engine in c++ which I plan to use as part as my final year project.
Uni Year 3 Good start to the year engine is going well, although using immediate mode OpenGL, I produced a little 2D demo for my project proposal, demonstrates a player moving across the screen firing flaming rocks upwards, demonstrates particle emitters, scrolling background textures(fog) among other things. In October I start getting extreme pain in abdomen, moving forward to Christmas eve pain still there after a night drinking on Christmas day I am in so much pain and feeling so sick I can barely move. Beginning January still in pain go to doctors, apparently I had appendicitis for over 6 weeks(Survivor) Turns out the pain wasn't just me being a wimp, Have surgery to remove inflamed appendix. (remember saying to the nurse I was struggling to get out of bed in hospital, where her response was pretty much man up you only had your appendix out) Feeling truly manly I walk out of the hospital by myself and return home. Week later am in more pain than before and very ill. After back and forwarding to hospital for some time find myself in hospital for over 2 months deteriorating and infection is nesting in my ilium, Being fed via IV TPN, unable to walk as muscles in legs wasted away, I spent most my time in hospital in too much pain to do anything watching studio ghibli. Infections pretty bad, stop taking paracetimal as it makes me turn head to toe yellow as my liver struggles to cope... My heart was basically starting to fail and though only weighing 47kg 6'2" at the time, had to undergo life saving surgery to remove a mass, turns out I have Crohn's Disease :D, stuck with an ileostomy(Reversed 2 years later Jan 2015). Have to repeat this year of uni, As I spent most of it in hospital.
Uni Year 3 (again) I half arsedly work through the year barely going in and retrieving a first, I do develop my game engine but its not as good as it could have been. Immediate mode basic functionality. Uni lecturer tells me to only go to programming lectures if there's something I don't know, I'm pretty ahead of the curve, attend 1 lecture, get 92% overall in c++ module.
Celebration First Class Honours in Games Development (Without breaking a sweat) Woo
After having completed uni I looked to try and get in the industry to no avail, manged to land an interview with rebellion in oxford but turns out I'm just not up to scratch yet didn't get the job... I'm not so good at communicating in general, and as I mentioned my speech was effected by head injury in 2009 which makes it really hard for me to articulate my thoughts and I am still an amateur after all. Apart from other things having a bag at the time really didn't help, it just added to the overwhelming anxiety. Anyway as is the usual deal not to divulge to much did the usual programming kinda tests... couldn't really get into the mind set to write some, well rather trivial code... I think I gave up before I started in that sense.
Other than that I haven't really managed to get any other interviews, Just seemed to get turned down left right and center... even for some laughable jobs...
So anyway I've been trying and failing so much over the years I've generally got good at what I do, I may not have the best memory, but I have a dedication to learn and work hard. I have a bad memory, but I'm a hard worker and I really do know my stuff, I have a good underpinning knowledge, I can't work off my own back all the time as these companies expect you to... When I'm working I use my knowledge, Books, google, existing code, and a general well though out and researched solution... I am good at what I do, I don't care if people think over wise. I can come up with a just as good or even better solution using my own means, my own methods and my own development workflow... SO this is why I can't get a job... I'm stupid I get it, Doesn't mean I can't be productive, That I can't learn, I'm always learning. I believe I could do anything having applied my mind to it.
So yes unable to secure a job I'm looking to start releasing my own games and work off my own back, I have a passion for making games and I know I'm good at it. I joined the forum after speaking to some devs over on Game Jolt. I'd really honestly like to meet some new people, make some friends who are just as passionate about games development as myself. Even after having spent 7 years of my life studying I can't say I personally know anyone who actually had a passion for making games. All my friends at uni although being really intelligent guys, they never really applied them self to the field or went out of there way to truly learn to program or get better, So I've always felt on my own, Its a morale breaker.
So now I'm actually slowly developing what I hope will be my first title, taking a game I created for a little game jam on Game Jolt I was looking to improve upon the original game/ Design/ artwork etc... and make a full retail game. So fun times.
If anyone wants to talk dev things...
It would be cool
Thanks For reading my life story,
Many Thanks,
Alzon
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