This is it. I have done it. 17 years of education later, I am entering the 'real' world. The sun shines and the birds sing and I can do whatever I want. This would be irrefutably perfect, if not for one thing: I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

Posted by joshyaxley on Jun 9th, 2015

This is it. I have done it. 17 years of education later, I am entering the 'real' world. The sun shines and the birds sing and I can do whatever I want. This would be irrefutably perfect, if not for one thing:

I have no idea what I want to do with my life.





It turns out that, not only was I supposed to juggle the various academic pressures of university with the basic social needs of vodka and chit-chat, I was also supposed to frame some sort of plan for the coming years!

When I was younger, I knew exactly what I wanted to do: become a legendary rockstar, buy increasingly expensive guitars, and perform endless concerts consisting of headbanging and other sweat-related activities, until I died happily in my sleep with at least four groupies. Unfortunately, growing up has made me realise two key things: (1) The likelihood of making any money from being in a band, particularly when you haven't performed in a group for about 5 years, and have probably forgotten how to play the guitar anyway, tends rapidly towards zero the more that you think about it, and (2), one man being able to satisfy four women simultaneously is the kind of thing that only happens in the raunchiest corners of the internet, or the episodes of Game of Thrones that you accidentally decide to watch with your parents.





Okay, so I'm probably not going to become a rockstar. What other options are there? For a year or two I wanted to write novels for a living, but a good novel takes a long time to write, and sometimes even longer to get published and get to the point where you can start to make a profit out of it. Of course, it's not all about the money (wait... did I just say that?), but if you've got nothing saved up (oops) then you can't afford to just go out on a limb without any financial security.

I suppose I am missing quite an important point: there is that degree that I just got. After hearing years of "oh wow I wish I could do maths" and "maths will open so many doors for you!", you'd think that I could just click my fingers and a job would appear. It would seem that this is not the case (yes, I just tried). Don't get me wrong, there are thousands of jobs that I am now 'qualified' for, but they all seem to have names like 'Business Service Commercial Data Analysis Consultant' or 'Financial Sales Systems Developer Assistant', and despite the job descriptions telling me that they are 'fantastic opportunities for ambitious and eager-to-learn candidates in a supportive working environment', I'm not sold that I'm going to enjoy my time there.

I suppose I'm being unnecessarily picky, but the idea of a 9-to-5 job, sat at a desk doing pretty much the same thing all day, every day, just doesn't excite me. I want to be creative. I want to make something. I want to be able to produce something that I can be proud of years later.





So, I want to pursue a career in one of my hobbies, but I've ruled out music and writing. Is there anything else left? Actually, yes: video games. I love them. I can play them for hours (40 straight being the most I've ever 'accidentally' played for). And I want a job where I can be creative and produce something. Putting these two together tells me that I want to make video games, and I do! I've been programming on and off since the age of 11, and I've always enjoyed it. So it's settled then, I'll become a programmer!

Oh... wait... it's not that easy.

I've never properly learned any mainstream programming languages (at least, not massively in depth). Whenever I programmed, I used tools such as 'Game Maker: Studio', which uses its own in-built language, so I don't know enough of C or Java etc to be able to land a job straight away. This isn't an issue though, because I've made the decision that I would rather work for myself anyway! I'm going to be an independent game developer, and use 'Game Maker: Studio' to make my own games, which I will then publish in as many places as possible. I'm going to follow my dream, and I've never been more excited! It will be hard, and I'll need to source some money from crowdfunding so that I have the finance for food and rent, but if I put my all into it, I know I can do it!

I'm going to continue a project that I've been working on since January, a game named (possibly temporarily) 'Faerie', in which the player is transported to a magical fantasy world, and has to defeat evil spirits and other enemies on their journey to save the land. When I sum it up like that, it sounds like a lot of other games, but my focus will be on making a game with simple controls and ideas, that combine to produce gameplay with depth (as opposed to having difficult controls and complex ideas to force complicated gameplay, which would be another direction a game of this type could take). I also plan on making it available for mobile devices, which would be significant, as there are not many games like this available to mobile gamers.





If you are at all interested, then feel free to follow my progress on social media:

Tumblr: Electric-sheep-studio.tumblr.com

Twitter: Twitter.com

Facebook: Facebook.com

I plan on having a playable demo available by the end of the month, and I'll welcome all the feedback that I can get!

Thanks for reading, and I encourage anyone to pursue the things that they truly enjoy!

Josh