A Manifesto of My Own

Back in the summer of 2002, during a summer session at Upward Bound, I played Halo... A lot. It was the thing to do for that summer, and the summer that followed. Not just because it was cool as hell, but because it was fun as hell. I have many a fond memory of system link battles crossing the hallways of our dorm and 8 people duking it out in Blood Gulch. Sniping someone out of a tank, stealing said tank, and raining down pwnage until some bastard managed to return the favor...Ah, those were good times.

By the end of that summer, I decided I HAD to have an Xbox so I could play Halo at home. When I finally succeeded, I proceeded to break the game. Inspired by the epic Warthog Jump by Randall Glass and the amazing Frogblast explorations, I did my best to make the Halo engine kneel.

During my summer sessions at Upward Bound, I was also exposed to programming for the first time. I'm from a small town and a small school, and this was really cool and new stuff for me. It was just BASIC, but it occurred to me that's how games like Halo were made, and I knew then what I wanted to do with my life. I was 16.

Now it's one thing to have a dream, and another thing to have the skills and abilities to achieve that dream. I'm no fool; I knew then that this wasn't going to be easy. I originally wanted to go to The DigiPen Institute of Technology, a school co-founded by Nintendo of America for the purpose of educating aspiring game designers, programmers, and animators in the tools of the trade. At the time I was applying for colleges, however, they did not have a financial aid program (they do now) and the tuition and other expenses were far too expensive for me. I ended up going to UW-Oshkosh, which turned out to have a rather good Computer Science department.

In the meantime, I delved into the community, and learned more about the Bungie team: the traditions(starts at 4:40), the inside jokes (Frog blast the vent core!), and yes, the music (first commercial only). I've seen the tours of their new digs; I've been watching the job postings like a hawk; And lately I've been looking up all sorts of stuff on the area, like climate and housing costs. It may have been a dream 6 years ago, but now its fast approaching the time where I have to make a choice: Do I pursue my long held dream?

Back then, it seemed like a no-brainer. I've never been a very social person, and at the time, it never occurred to me that making such a change in my life would affect me so drastically. But things changed for me in college. I have beautiful 3-year-old niece now. I have a lot of good friends that I just don't want to lose. I have no illusions about it, I'm probably not going to see as much of my friends as I do now after graduation no matter what I end up doing, but at least they wouldn't necessarily be 1000 miles away. Yeah, I'll make new friends wherever I go. I just don't want to go alone :/

Well that's what's on my plate this year. I figure I have to make a final decision by the end of fall semester so I can start on the job/apartment hunt, whether it be local or not. For now, though, I've decided I'm going to work towards making that dream a reality. My practicum will be geared towards game programming and design, and I'm planning on my own 7 step plan to Bungie domination, as an homage to Bungie's 7 step plan for world domination(scroll down to the heading "The Plan"). I'm hoping that by creating a game plan it will keep me as focused and determined as I am now. Stay tuned, as I'm sure my usual sense of humor will be in full swing when I write that one :)