I was five when I was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of brain cancer. Rare enough that there were no statistics to go on. My parents were told there was a strong chance I wouldn't survive, and that if I did, I might be deaf or blind.
Because the condition was so rare, I was a specimen to the whole staff. They ran psychological evaluations and IQ tests on me before the surgery, to measure what removing the cancer would do to a child. It changed my mind forever. I came out running at seventy percent. Considering the alternatives, that was lucky.
I spent about a year in the hospital afterward. I couldn't move much, so I read, watched movies, listened to music.
Then I found video games.
They gave me something nothing else in that room could. Agency. A world outside four walls. I wanted to play every single one, and I tried. The characters on the screen were my friends, and they helped me survive.
Soon I was making my own, pen-and-paper games I passed around the ward. They were terrible, and most of the other kids were too sick to play them. I kept making them anyway.
Because I was considered terminally ill, Make-A-Wish offered me anything I wanted. Meet a celebrity, go to Disney, anything.
I told them Disney is a few days at most, but a computer will change my life.
It did. I taught myself to program. Then I learned to fix PCs so I could make games, networking so I could build games, woodworking so I could build arcade cabinets, electrical engineering so I could wire them up. Every road I've taken leads back to games.
None of it came easily. The surgery left severe damage to the left side of my brain. That part just doesn't work, and no medicine was going to fix it. I grew up with a learning disability, years behind the kids around me.
Then that started to change. Middle school, gifted classes. High school, the AP program and college-level courses.
Every time I get an MRI, the neurologists are amazed I can speak at all. It shouldn't be possible. My brain found another way.
Don't let anyone tell you what's possible, or what you're able to make. Games are for everyone. If I can build one, so can you. Carve your own path and show them what you are capable of.
I entered a lot of game design competitions.
- 20082nd place · Microsoft High School Programming Competition
- 20081st place, state · Technology Student Association, Game Design
- 20083rd place, nationals · TSA Game Design
- 20091st place, state · TSA Game Design
- 20151st place · GAME ON! Game Design Competition
I still never put anything out beyond my own circle, no matter how hard my friends pushed me to release it. It never felt like enough. The impostor syndrome hit hard.
That changes now.
Star
