JohnMasterLee

Thanks Mr. Adolf Cher.

It's the net, you likely are judging me either way! But you know, it does feel good that you said that. Thanks.

Spark Rising is a build + battle sandbox game. Imagine if Minecraft had Hanky Panky with Star Wars Battlefront, and the wonder kid being Spark Rising.

Yeah, that's not really a slogan, but it does capture the essence of the game.

A game called King of Kings. It's ultra obscure because it only came out on Japan. Ultra awesome turn based fantasy game. I'm still amazed at how in-depth the game was for an 8-bit creation. I ended up learning how to read Japanese just to play it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/King_of_Kings_(video_game_-_cover_art).jpg

NOTE: Don't get it confused with this other game! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/King_of_Kings_-_The_Early_Years_Coverart.png

Honestly, the most difficult thing initially was getting out of the day to day habits and just doing it. It's easy to work and get a pay check each day, and come home tired. Trying to learn something new, risking your comfortable status quo, are things that pretty much hold every big dream back.

From there, it's about taking small steps and gradually leveling up. I did get discouraged at first because I tried to build my first game a couple of years about in Flash, using ActionScript. That took a lot of getting use to. But I did finish the game, even if it was ultra simple. And that led to another, and etc. etc. now I'm ambitious enough to try to take on a game like Spark Rising!

Still can't tell...

ah, that was fun for the first time.

Anyways, so this is just me, so don't go taking this as if you should start a book burning club. I rarely learn stuff from books. And I studied a lot of freakin books (went on to do an MBA.) I failed statistics the first time I took it in collect. The second time I took it in grad school, I aced it. Why? Because I got hooked on Poker, and I was able to use stats in the way I played.

Studying only gets you so far. Creating something is what makes the difference! So my advice is the same things I mentioned before: Take small steps. Build something small you know you can finish (because chances are it's still a lot harder than you realize!) Each successfully completed project motivates you to take it further next time. Each time you don't finish a project sets you back further.

You are well on your way though. Learning programming is in essence the foundation for creative work.