When I was about ten or eleven years old, I distinctly remember playing Minecraft on my mother’s ancient iMac. I was a fairly innocent kid, and I had a love for creation, which is what drew me to a game like Minecraft in the first place. I was playing with my online friends at the time, and I remember being extremely enamored by the latest update to the game. I thought to myself, “I wish I could make a game.” It was a fleeting thought, and I didn’t think much of it at the time, but that memory has stuck with me throughout my entire life thus far.

Fast forward about seven years, and I’m at the precipice of graduating high school, and everyone I knew was asking me the same question: “What are you going to college for?” That question rang in my mind constantly, and I really did not know what I wanted to be. “Psychology,” I’d answer, not fully believing the words leaving my mouth. Next thing I knew, I was in the Psychology program, and I couldn’t help but feel this tugging in my gut, telling me, “This isn’t right for you. This isn’t what you want.” I truly had no idea what I wanted. I felt lost, stuck, and like I was drifting aimlessly, being strung along by the whims of those who expected me to get a “real” job, not being an artist. But I’ve always loved art, and by art I truly do mean art in the broadest sense. From the moment I was able to pick up a crayon, I was drawing. I’d often get grand daydreams of my original characters, either in an animated series, a game, or a film. Not to mention my fascination with software and hardware. I desperately wanted these dreams to become a reality, and I decided to voice these far-off dreams to my advisor at the time. “I think you’re looking for New Media,” she told me. Surely not, I hadn’t even heard of what New Media was. What even is New Media anyway? “I’m very certain you’re talking about New Media,” she insisted. “Just give it a try. You can always just switch back to Psychology if New Media isn’t for you.” I hesitated at first, but eventually I asked, “Why not?”

The rest? History.

My first semester as a New Media student was spent in Programming Games, Intro to Digital Design (previously Design Principles), and Programming for Visual Artists. Beginning with Programming Games, I was quite excited to start my programming journey with making games, as that’s what I have the most passion for. Previously, I had never touched a line of code (excluding Minecraft commands), and was under the assumption that one had to be a mathematician in order to become a good programmer. We started simple at first, going over what variables were, how to get a ball to move on screen, and eventually making a pong demo in Pico 8. I felt very at home with programming, despite never actually doing any before that point. One of my first games I made was a simple game, titled “Car Game,” in which the player, a red race car, has to collect fuel whilst avoiding the cop cars. With this being my first real game, there’s a lot I took out of it. Namely, that even small projects can be beneficial and enjoyable! It was practice with for loops in Lua, a concept I, at the time, found to be quite difficult to understand.

After a couple more Pico 8 games, we transitioned to a game framework called LOVE 2D, which was more complex and offered more advanced features than Pico 8, although it was still built on the same language, Lua. “Center for Burden Control” was my official final project for the class. I worked on it for a significant amount of time, asking my professor, Lee Tusman, if I was allowed to dive into LOVE 2D early, to get a head start on making my final project, to which he enthusiastically agreed. I started development on the game only a couple of weeks into the semester, and initially wanted the game to be a mix between a rhythm game and a beat ‘em up game. However, this proved to be quite the challenge, and was extremely ambitious for the timeframe I had, along with my programming skills still being intermediate at best. I decided to primarily focus on the art for the game, as that’s how I tend to envision my projects: visuals first, then reverse-engineered into code and gameplay. I made all the art and assets myself, along with being the programmer. The game turned out to be a horde beat ‘em up game with a party of three characters to choose from. I worked extensively on a story for the game as well. Each character has its own unique moves, art, animations, etc. I’m overall very proud of the work I did for the game, although by today’s standards, I would say I could do much better given how my skills have grown since then. This game taught me a very hard lesson overall about scope creep in development in general. I let the ideas I had for the game balloon until it felt unmanageable. I learned to pace myself and to add features slowly, to finish a feature before trying to make something else, and that sometimes less is more.

Alongside Programming Games, I also took Programming for Visual Artists, which helped me understand object-oriented programming. I got a grasp of JavaScript, and by the end of the semester, I was confident in my ability to create unique and interesting software in p5.js. One standout project was my drawing program, titled “Awesome Cat.” Originally, the project was an assignment for homework, but I decided to go back to the project after I had learned more programming fundamentals and used it as a base for my final project for the class. Awesome Cat 2.0 is less of a traditional drawing program, but rather a program where you can stamp stickers on different cats to create holy works of art. It’s meant to be limiting, to further push the creativity of the user, and is intentionally presented in such a manner that it feels like a retro painting software, such as KidPix. I treated this class not as just a way to express myself artistically, but as a means to learn the fundamentals of programming, outside of a single language. I’m extremely grateful I took this class alongside Programming Games, since it gave me a better understanding of how coding languages differ, and to pay attention to the similarities and differences in languages, which helped me become much more versatile when it comes to what programming languages I can actually code in.

Digital Design gave me a firm grasp on the Adobe Creative Suite, allowing me to stretch my creative muscles and push myself to create clean, minimalist logos and other vector-based art. I am especially proud of my work on my logo, as well as the advocacy campaign posters. I really began to grasp the principles of graphic design with those projects, especially taking advantage of the Gestalt principle for my logo, to create simple silhouettes that imply greater form.

While I’m still currently taking Intro to Web at the time of writing, it has already given me a strong understanding of how web development works. I am also able to transfer skills and insights from different classes and programming languages. Just having a concept of how parenting and child classes work from working in Unity and C# over the summer has impacted my understanding and my ability to pick up web development so quickly. We haven’t done any major projects as of yet, but I’m finding that web development clicks extremely well for me, and I’m able to express myself artistically through the web. I especially love the aesthetic of old 80s and 90s computer interfaces, and look to integrate that into my web development style, of course, with quality of life features and some modern flair.

If childhood me could see who I am now, along with what I’m pursuing at Purchase, I’m sure she’d be beyond elated to know that I decided to follow that dream. With these recent experiences, I have gained not only technical fluency in various programming languages but also the adaptability, the necessary teamwork skills, and especially the creative vision in order to thrive in Advanced Standing. This has been a culmination of not only me as an artist, but me as a person. I finally have the confidence to pursue my dream of being an artist, and I hope to continue forward to make that dream a reality.

Addendum: While these aren’t a part of any particular class, I’ll share some experiences I’ve had that have contributed to my desire to pursue programming and game creation specifically. Over winter break, I decided to make a game with my friends in LOVE 2D. The gameplay primarily consisted of walking to locations, interacting with objects, and receiving dialogue. Similar to “Center for Burden Control,” it mostly acts as an artistic representation of what a full game could look like in its current state. It provided me with a great deal of insight into how games are developed, how to manage a team, and how to communicate and collaborate with others on a project effectively. I also worked on my own in Unity to make a prototype for a Visual Novel over the summer break, to get more experience before my time in Experimental Game Lab.