The thing I love about having a hobby that I am truly passionate about is how that hobby can take you to places you would have never imagined! For years I have always had a passion about video games. IT’s been the one constant interest in my life since the age of 8. Over the years I’ve realised how deep a video game can go and how we can learn so much from them but up until recently I’d only ever really thought of it as pass time of sitting in front of a screen and playing a game.
Last year my passion of video games led me down a different path, the path of creation. I embarked on my journey as a game dev and found that my passion for video games expanded into a place where I was able to be artistic and creative with my time rather than just consuming other people’s art work. I have been able to use my skills as a software engineer and my years of playing video games to generate and build my own ideas into a video game. In some respects I would go so far as to say that I’ve enjoyed making video games more than I have enjoyed playing them. Not only has it been an internally rewarding journey in terms of the sense of creation and expression but it’s also opened me up to a wider world of socialising and communicating. In support of developing a video game I’ve stepped into the world of tweeting and blogging. Something I’d considered in the past but never really thought I’d have anything to say. Over the past year I’ve grown in confidence and started to find a voice I never thought I had. I’ve also grown more confident in work environment. Having developed and shipped a video game, presented it at an expo, communicated with press and the public about something so personal as a creation of my own thoughts, I’ve found myself with a new level of confidence and self-belief that naturally translates to other areas of my life.
Further on form the game development I’ve also started to enjoy the pastime of collecting video games. After trying to find out some info about the best Gameboy games to buy for my son I stumbled across some retro gaming YouTube series’. The nostalgia and comfort I felt watching those videos led me to decide to start taking more pride in my own collection to the point where I’ve started my own YouTube series. I’ve started doing this purely for the fun of it and did not expect to get anything form it other than sharing my love of video games in a new way. In some respects I’ve been worried it would distract form my game development as my spare time is always spread very thinly, but I’ve continued to do it as I’m enjoying it so much. But even this seemingly one dimensional hobby has led me to learn and experience ever more than I originally expected. I’ve started to become a lot more comfortable speaking in front of the camera and I’m starting to feel more natural about it, in a way I originally struggled with. But the latest path I’ve found myself on is one I would have never expected, learning Japanese.
I was looking at getting a copy of Ar Nosurge for the PS Vita but found that copies are in excess of £100! I could get a PS3 copy for about £15 but I prefer to be able to enjoy my JRPGs on the go. The only other option is a Japanese import of Ar Nosurge which is about £30, but has no English language option, gutted! However I thought to myself, if only I could read and understand Japanese I’d be fine, but that would be way too hard. Then I thought to myself, plenty of people learn Japanese, there’s no reason I can’t. It seemed a bit excessive to learn Japanese for just one game, but it’s certainly not a waste of time, it’s actually a great skill to have. So I decided to learn Japanese!
It seems a bit crazy to add another time consuming task on my already large list of things I want to do with my spare time but I guess it’s all about prioritising. Game dev does and always will take the number one spot and any decent time I get free will be used for game dev. Game collecting is something I can do as part of my relax time and I can squeeze in a little extra hunting while I’m out and about shopping. Learning Japanese is something I can do with all that little time in between; five minutes at my desk at work, on the walk to lunch etc. In just 4 days I’ve already learnt to read the 46 main characters of the Hiragana, something I thought would have taken me months to do (thanks mainly to this great online resource https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/). That already for me is a huge achievement. I’ll continue to learn Japanese as long as I have the time and enjoy it, I might go all the way, I might not. But one thing is for certain it’s another amazing path I’ve found myself on all thanks to my initial hobby of video games.