GameBoy Color for me only for the reason of keeping me quiet on my sister's club volleyball car trips (and to give my cousin’s back), which worked beautifully until I beat the games and needed a fresh distraction. This continued until I learned of consoles – really big GameBoys with longer games! I continued to visit more cousins so that I could play their consoles, not being able to purchase my own – I was 6, therefore no cash flow. Never in my childhood did creating video games even cross my mind. I was destined for the WNBA!

   That one didn’t pan out – reality sometimes manages to overcome our expectations. However, my mind began to consider other options, such as the stories from video games, books, and action figures that enthralled my impressionable childhood with outrageous stories. My childish adventures turned to an ambition to establish my own story, my own dream, my own imprint. How better to project my ideas than through a medium in which I could never out-grow yet held that familiar childhood wonderment. The games I had played as a child became tools for learning as well as new games I continued to explore.

   Throughout college I have learned Autodesk Maya, Unity 3D, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Blender, and a whole mess of software in order to succeed. (Now I know why games are so expensive – sweat and tears, sweat, and tears.) But my affection for creating games hasn’t diminished any less than my love of playing them. And through this I have seen growth in myself from the child who used to think nothing of breaking or discarding what a designer had so lovingly built. In time, I will be a game designer, and my games will inspire an imagination. That imagination will inspire another game designer, who will inspire more imagination. As time flows, and the river of imagination continues so will games evolve and grow as much as the people who create them.