Humble Beginnings

So, the dreaded first post. I suppose it would be best to explain my motivations for starting this blog and try to explain what it is I think I have to add to the internet. Well, it's about damn time I had some online presence to be honest. I've resisted it for so long and that's a pretty foolish thing to do. I am a student of game design and not having somewhere to post my projects and talk about aspects of the profession and industry I want to be a part of seems silly. I also feel it could be therapeutic in a way. But mostly it's the whole 'It's 2012 and you barely use Facebook, let alone have your own web presence' thing. Ok, so this isn't the place for a portfolio or a very good way of displaying my work but it's a big leap forward from the nothing I had before this. I do intend to one day create an online portfolio but I don't feel like I have enough to display on it to justify its existence. For now, a sigh and a wistful look into the distance as if trying to view future events seems appropriate.

But onward to what this blog is for. Anything I want really. I'll post random thoughts and finds, updates on any projects I'm involved in and videos and images of those things. So a little about me...

I'm a student of Game Design at the London College of Communication and am due to graduate in 2014. I love games, gaming and games and technology as art and I hope to create things I can be proud to say are mine across different mediums. I feel like I'm one of those people who's not got one thing they're particularly talented at but shares that talent across multiple disciplines, Jack of all trades, master of none as it were. As an example, I've recently become interested in open source hardware like Arduino and MaKey MaKey and the possibilities they open up for designers (but more on that another time). I have also been considering getting into Dungeons & Dragons lately, a game I played in high school once and really enjoyed but haven't had the opportunity to play since. I used to play guitar, still have dreams about my contact juggling ball, love to put heavy things on my back and squat them and will never get bored of Zombies. Aside from that though, I currently work in a pub/restaurant as a waiter and hope it won't be for too long.

Another reason it's taken so long to create this blog is my healthy respect (perhaps a little too healthy) for anonymity and solitude. While I take no specific measures to mask my identity I have always felt a little uneasy about revealing things about myself online. This is true of me in-person too. I'm not a very social creature and prefer the solitude of my bedroom and the isolation of my hobbies to a night out drinking or clubbing or some such. Odd as it may seem to some it's just the way I like things. I rarely venture out as I don't feel the need for social interaction much of the time. I'm not a complete recluse and I do crawl out of my hole now and again, but day-to-day I'm a loner at heart. It can make relationships quite a strain at times as I often don't really know how to maintain them and my joy of all things solitaire simultaneously without a drastic personality shift, not something I feel I'm capable of. But I hope people understand that about me, or that they come to understand it.

This is all getting a bit serious now so I feel perhaps it's time for a light hearted interlude. Finnish polka anyone?

So finally, what can I add to the internet and the world? Most probably not a lot. I don't necessarily subscribe to the view that originality is dead but it's certainly harder to come by these days. Perhaps then it isn't originality that I as a designer need to bring to the world but ingenuity (not that I feel I can necessarily bring that either, though I will certainly try). It seems that most good ideas in this modern era are re-toolings of existing ideas, taking something pre-made and making it better or building on the work of someone else and I for one see no shame in that. Newton himself stood on the shoulders of giants. I don't set out to change the world and anything I design I do so for me. The best I can hope is that an audience enjoys the same kind of things I do. So that's my design philosophy.

Stay tuned for updates on an upcoming project using MaKey MaKey / Arduino and some more bits from my brain.