Ever since I was a kid, technology had been an integral part of my life. My dad was an IT, and he was the one who got me into video games. He bought some games my seven year old self could play like Little Big Planet and Ratchet and Clank (I was, admittedly, three years too young to play it, but oh well) and he let me play on the weekends when there wasn't any school. It started out as a simple pass time, but as my passion for art and creating grew, it became a point of inspiration. It also became my solace, since I didn't really have that many friends back then. With it being like a second home to me, I started merging my interests together, because what better thing is there to do than doing all your favorite things at once? In Little Big Planet, I made all sorts of levels to fit my interests. Hotels, amusement parks, even my own recreation of Ninja Warrior since I wanted to feel like those contestants too. I wanted to make something I enjoyed. As I grew older, I soon came to realize this passion was something I wasn't alone in. I grew up in the age of Indie Games. The likes of FNAF and Undertale, to name a few, showed me that one person could turn their silly creations into something life-changing. These games shaped lives, mine included, and they formed communities for people whose interests were a bit too niche for mainstream. "So," I said to myself, "why not give it a try?" My first attempt at actually making a game was in Minecraft. I taught myself how to code through copious Reddit pages. I was able to make buttons teleport me to different places, had custom messages appear in chat, and even managed to make the game's title show up and make some rudimentary cut scenes with it. It took a lot of trial and error and crying over code not working, but that's coding, isn't it? Screaming at the computer and asking God why your coding doesn't work until you find that one typo you glossed over ten times that messed everything up (and then crying even more when you realize it was that). I don't have a high amount of patience, so you can only imagine how frustrated I was with this. Though, if it meant making a game others could enjoy, it was well worth it. And the patience payed off: I had made my first ever Minecraft Map called "Curse of the Desert Temple." It had a tragic story, cut scenes, dialogue, and a puzzle at the start to make starting the game fun! Though, it wasn't done: I still had segments of platforming and puzzles to make as well as a possible final boss, but I was getting closer to making the game of my dreams. And then I accidentally deleted the game I was making. After that whole failure, I stopped trying to make games since I was so frustrated. I resorted to making game concepts instead in the hopes that I would come back to them when I was ready. It's been years now. More indie games have made their way into the world and I've learned a lot since that first attempt. If there's ever a good time to get back to making games, it's now. I've been inspired by indie games, past and present, and they've given me a dream and a purpose. About time I returned the favor and inspired others, just like they did.

Ever since I was a kid, technology had been an integral part of my life. My dad was an IT, and he was the one who got me into video games. He bought some games my seven year old self could play like Little Big Planet and Ratchet and Clank (I was, admittedly, three years too young to play it, but oh well) and he let me play on the weekends when there wasn't any school. It started out as a simple pass time, but as my passion for art and creating grew, it became a point of inspiration. It also became my solace, since I didn't really have that many friends back then. With it being like a second home to me, I started merging my interests together, because what better thing is there to do than doing all your favorite things at once? In Little Big Planet, I made all sorts of levels to fit my interests. Hotels, amusement parks, even my own recreation of Ninja Warrior since I wanted to feel like those contestants too. I wanted to make something I enjoyed. As I grew older, I soon came to realize this passion was something I wasn't alone in. I grew up in the age of Indie Games. The likes of FNAF and Undertale, to name a few, showed me that one person could turn their silly creations into something life-changing. These games shaped lives, mine included, and they formed communities for people whose interests were a bit too niche for mainstream. "So," I said to myself, "why not give it a try?" My first attempt at actually making a game was in Minecraft. I taught myself how to code through copious Reddit pages. I was able to make buttons teleport me to different places, had custom messages appear in chat, and even managed to make the game's title show up and make some rudimentary cut scenes with it. It took a lot of trial and error and crying over code not working, but that's coding, isn't it? Screaming at the computer and asking God why your coding doesn't work until you find that one typo you glossed over ten times that messed everything up (and then crying even more when you realize it was that). I don't have a high amount of patience, so you can only imagine how frustrated I was with this. Though, if it meant making a game others could enjoy, it was well worth it. And the patience payed off: I had made my first ever Minecraft Map called "Curse of the Desert Temple." It had a tragic story, cut scenes, dialogue, and a puzzle at the start to make starting the game fun! Though, it wasn't done: I still had segments of platforming and puzzles to make as well as a possible final boss, but I was getting closer to making the game of my dreams. And then I accidentally deleted the game I was making. After that whole failure, I stopped trying to make games since I was so frustrated. I resorted to making game concepts instead in the hopes that I would come back to them when I was ready. It's been years now. More indie games have made their way into the world and I've learned a lot since that first attempt. If there's ever a good time to get back to making games, it's now. I've been inspired by indie games, past and present, and they've given me a dream and a purpose. About time I returned the favor and inspired others, just like they did.

Ever since I was a kid, shows and games made up my life. I didn't really have friends, so I didn't have a lot of people to share my interests with. So, I guess it's less of "who" influenced me and more of "what" influenced me. Now, don't get me wrong, I've had many people in my life who have impacted me greatly. First off, I could never leave out the impact my family had on me. Thy raised me, they supported me, they're the whole reason I'm going to college, I only have tons of gratitude for what they did. They were the ones who loved my art when my old school would rip it to pieces before my eyes. If they hadn't gone out of their way to buy me my first sketchbooks, I probably wouldn't have this much of a passion for art as I do now. I would have believed it was a waste, like my school wanted me to believe. And, how could I forget about my friends? They were the ones that made me realized I wasn't the only one with interests that didn't involve sports or celebrities. Whereas other people in my grade would talk about popular shows or sports games, we talked about our favorite characters from Genshin Impact or Identity V and created tragic stories about them so we could cry about them more. It was our way of loving them; making them go through trauma of our own design. Writers and artists in any fandom can relate, I'm sure. So, while fiction had a huge impact on my life, that's not to say my loved ones were completely out of the picture too. They made me feel like I belonged. And that's the important part, no? Having a sense of belonging. It gives a person a sense of a purpose; a part of a reason as to why they're alive. It's why I loved fictional words so much: it gave me a place when real life wouldn't give me one. It served as a crutch for me to stay strong and have hope for myself. While now, I have given myself a purpose and sense of belonging, I know very well that what I faced is a universal problem. It's pretty much part of everyone's lives at some point, some more than others. Why else would there be character tropes and stories about feeling out of place? It's universal, and now that I've tackled that problem, what else would there be to do than pay it forward and help others going through that feeling of isolation right now? There are so many people out there, mostly young teenagers, who have been left out of friend groups and various other cliques because they happened to like something that wasn't necessarily mainstream. What I want is to create a community for these people and to show them they're not alone. There's people out there who would cry over their favorite characters, there's people who would break Geneva conventions to make sure one character was happy. No matter what, someone is bound to have the same interests as you, no matter how niche. There's too many people in the world to have one person by themselves. My only wish is to make everyone realize it and to bring them closer together through our love of fiction and our imagination.