Hello there! My name is Eric, as you might have guessed. I currently live in Breda, in the Netherlands, where I am following a study International Game Architecture and Design (IGAD) with a focus on Programming. I started this study in September, 2013. Prior to this, I studied somewhere else (Game Design & Development at USAT in Hilversum), but quit after two years. I discovered that a focus on game design isn’t set aside for me. When I quit, I spent some time improving my math and programming skills to prepare for my current education.
Why Programming?
Since I was young (about 10), I started using the computer, learning how it works. I kept exploring the computer and even did a typing course to type blindly. Eventually, I learned enough about fixing problems with the internet, the computer itself, or printers that won’t work. In middle school, we had an assignment to create a basic HTML-website. I found it fascinating and puzzling, and stuck to making websites after this assignment. This is basically where my interest in creating software began, just getting to know the computer and creating something extremely basic.
The assignment was done, but I was still creating websites. At first creating websites in basic HTML, without CSS and Javascript. This evolved into making website layouts in Photoshop and then slicing them to export that to HTML. Thinking back, that HTML makes my eyes bleed. It used tables to place images in it. Having made some websites this way, I actually created a website for a restaurant. That was my first experience in “professional” development. Some time after creating that site, I started using CSS and proper techniques to make layouts of a page. However, this only led to static websites, sparking me to try out PHP.
PHP was a big step from just HTML and CSS. I learned how to use arrays, functions, and a lot more. PHP combined with MySQL was and is a wonderful combination. Supported on practically any webhost and webserver, and the support websites for this combination are really helpful. I messed around with PHP a bit until the end of middle school. In the mean time, I also experimented with GameMaker and FPS Creator, just messing around with the software and trying to get it to work. This sparked my interest in developing games. This is where I chose to start studying Game Design & Development.
The study Game Design & Development contained several courses which involed programming. It began with web-development, were we had to create a portfolio website, using CSS, HTML, and PHP. After that, I made a game in Flash/ActionScript 3 as part of an assignment. This was the first game I coded and where I started to figure out that programming fits me better than designing games. While making games, I struggled a lot with my math, since I only did basic mathematics in middle school. For the two years I’ve spent at the USAT, I’ve worked on my math.
In the mean time, I was a programmer on all projects I had to do and I hoped the USAT would offer more than just learning how to hack things together. Unfortunately, they didn’t. And I was already determined to become a game programmer. This resulted in an issue. I applied to two well-known companies for a programming internship and blundered majorly. I had very little experience in C++ and had to answer questions and show my prior work. I had only just read Beginning C++ Through Game Programming (one of the best books to start with, in my opinion). This convinced me I had to do something else, but the third year of Game Design & Development started quite soon already. At first, I decided to do intensive studying next to the education, but after being there for two months, creating Unity-prototypes drove me nuts. I had to do two separate things. The first was to quit Game Design & Development. The second was applying somewhere else.
I applied for IGAD in December 2012 and started in September 2013. This is where the real journey begins. I now know in what direction I want to navigate myself on this journey to becoming a game programmer.
For my professional history, I would like to forward you to my LinkedIn, since I see little added value in copy-pasting my CV here.