It All Started With Some Text
It was 2 A.M. when I rushed into my wife’s room and woke her up, a huge grin on my face. I told her I’d created this little text adventure game and she just had to check it out! She wasn’t very enthused, but played along with me and tried out the game.
BAM! 2 minutes in she breaks my game by doing something I hadn’t tested for. She wasn’t that impressed with my little creation, but I was still amazed by this little text adventure. I had created it, coded it to life, and it was something I could play.
Over the next few weeks and months, that little game was on my mind all the time. While I worked I would be thinking about how to parse strings, and verify the input, and how to manage the game as it got larger and more complex.
I was hooked.
It's Never Pretty When Starting Out
For over a decade now I’ve been building games and honing my skills. But rewind time to the early days (see videos for proof), and you can see that beginning projects are never pretty, complete, or finished. And that’s ok!
Don’t worry about how a game looks, you can tell I didn’t. I wanted to create a game so I got a project up and running, something to see and play. Then I’d move onto my next big idea (maybe you know what that’s like). Each project has helped me to grow and learn, even if I never finished them.
Game Jam Time!
I can vividly remember my first game jam, and boy did I learn a lot! A game jam is a fast paced, time-limited game development competition. In my case, I worked on a team of 4, and we built Game of Bones, about learning how the TV show ends by possessing others.
It was a crazy 72 hours, because I didn’t even know how to use the Unreal game engine when we began. But my team was awesome, and I learned so much about game dev, crunch, coding, and the reality of shipping a game (even one as silly and simple as ours).
Chapter 1 - Beyond Us Games
I launched my first business in teaching GameMaker on YouTube in 2015. The intro was long, the audio was too loud, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved it. I found my passion in teaching, coding, and game development. My goal was to help others achieve their dreams of making games.
Chapter 2 - Let's Learn This Together
The Courses
Once I rebranded to LLTT, I pushed the business into high gear. I created 3 courses to teach GameMaker and sell them on Udemy and across the web. These courses were my crowning achievement for many years, as they sold well, taught hundreds of students, and inspired me to keep going.
I also published some other miscellaneous courses on Git, Web Dev, and more (none of which did too well and have since been removed). But probably the coolest thing I got to do was team up with HeartBeast to co-create a course with him. Ben’s an awesome dude, and that team-up was my highlight of that year.
The Book
One of the dreams I’ve had since I was a teenager was to publish a book. Of course back then I had thought I’d write a fantasy novel and become a best-selling author. Now that’s not the book I made, but I am still deeply proud of the effort I put in to see this book get created and printed.
It never sold super well, but the Kickstarter was a huge encouragement, and I’ve used it in teaching various classes in person which has been great. I don’t regret writing it all, and someday I hope to write another.
The Partnership
It was during this time that Zack was brought on board to help with the business. It’s his eye for design that took the YouTube thumbnails from drab to fabulous. Zack’s not only a life-long friend going back to high school, he’s also my brother-in-law!
But it wasn’t his family connection that landed him the gig, it was his skill and passion. He loves to research, to do things well, and to create top quality videos / content. With him joining, the LLTT website was refined, the book published, and so much more!
Working with YoYo Games
It was also in 2022 I got to work with YoYo Games, creating videos for their YouTube channel and hosting live webinars. They hired me to also create some tutorials, help with new student onboarding, and more happening in the background. It was a great experience to work with them, and gave me a lot of confidence in the direction they were moving with the engine.
Chapter 3 - RMC and Beyond
So what now? Great question!
We have big plans for new courses, live tutoring, and expanding the type and style of our YouTube videos. Stay tuned and stay connected to see what’s coming down the pipeline.
Personally I am most excited for the video game I’m working on to publish and sell. If you want to stay connected, then sign up for our newsletter.
Keep Making, Keep Learning, and I’ll talk to you later!
Sign up for the newsletter to stay up to date
Interested in following along in my game dev journey? Here’s my first video on it.