Usually I edit the posts down to just the best part of the submission, but this wall of text was so personal and awesome that I have to just post it as it arrived:

The First Video Game that I have Designed, Sketched!

What you see above is a sketch I draw back when I was about 4-5 years old. And it is actually a video game! All started when a cousin of mine gave me his Sega Master System II. Back then I wad delighted and so passionate about playing video games. It was like breath in - breath out to me. I could not stop thinking about it. I could not stop talking about it. It was the only video game console I had and I was loving it. Bundled with that console was the video game Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Countless and countless are the hours that I had spent playing this game, me and/with my family. It was indeed a miracle to me. Video games are always kindle my imagination and, this were not an exception, instead it was the beginning, what started all. Surely, it was not the first video game that I have played in my life, the first I think was Sneak n’ Peek on Atari 2600. But the previous mentioned game was not mine, but Alex Kidd was and so I could play it any time. Now, I have to mention another game that was so important as Alex Kidd and that was Sonic the Hedgehog. A friend of mine borrow that game to me for some time. Both of these games were the sparkle that kindle on me the fire of my desire to one day become a video game designer. Epilogically, what you see above is the product of the beginning of that desire. That sketch is heavily influenced and based on these two games: Alex Kidd and Sonic. I remember pausing from playing Sonic so I can adapt the design of this game (especially the design of the Factory Levels / Scrap Brain Zone) up to my sketch and also trying my best to copy all the detail. Not surprisingly, the design of my sketch it has one element that comes from Super Mario Bros. and that is the 3D transparent box as you can see. Years and years I was dreaming one day to design my own game. I remember I was day-dreaming (and maybe and night-dreaming) video games of my fantasy, with plot, levels, characters, animations et cetera. When I were telling people (especially kids of my age) that this is my dream and this is what I want to be when I will grow up, they were laughing at me, because they thought that is something that only “high-level” people can do, because it is so hard. It is hard. But today, thanks to all the tools we got in our hands, that is something plausible. Maybe you will not make something that will be in all major consoles and on the markets, but now there is an independent community out there that you can share your creations (even selling them), and thus you can be an independent video game developer and, by that way, fulfil your dream!