Inspirational Gaming

Of course Skyrim is one of my favorites, how did you know?

I’ve talked a little about games I grew up with in a previous post. Some of those games had a more profound effect on me than others did, especially when it comes to my drive to make my own games.

The biggest inspirations behind my desire to create games are not too unique - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of my favorite RPGs out there. I spent a lot of my free time as a kid playing this, but I only got my own copy after playing it at my grandparents’ house on my uncle’s Xbox 360 for countless hours while everyone else would be playing 5000 (my family’s favorite card game). I wish I had a count of how many hours I put into that game, but it may rival my all-time top played game (Team Fortress 2 over the past 16 years). The amount of content in Skyrim amazed me, and so did its environment. Something about it, even to this day, just makes me feel so happy and inspired. I’ve been enjoying revisiting it from the comfort of my couch in between working on projects around the house, cleaning, and interview prep.

Before I played Skyrim, I played a lot of Mario games. When I got into my teenage years I started to get into Call of Duty with friends. I never had Halo, but playing the recent remaster makes me wish I had experienced that game in its prime. Of the Mario series, Mario 64 always stood out. I’ve always had a fascination with 3D games, from how they’re designed to how they play. Mario is unique in that I don’t really enjoy many other 3D platformers, the platformers I play tend to just come from the Mario franchise.

I mentioned playing Call of Duty with friends, I almost always had fun with it. Of course, I played these when I was still a young teenager, which came with a lot of rage-quits and frustration. Modern Warfare 2 always had a really unique charm to it, something that other shooters never felt like they had. I’m still not entirely sure what that is, but I do plan on making a shooter game or two to experiment with the genre.

My gaming skill peaked around the time that Battlefield 4 came out on Xbox 360. I really only had one friend that would play that with me at the time (thanks, James 🙂). It was always so fun doing the stupidest things we could think of and still winning the game.

I loved the concept of destructible environments and bullet drop in games, making long-range combat so much more skillful and satisfying. I’m not sure if I care too much about recreating these features at the moment, though. While I may have loved these features in Battlefield, I just don’t think I’d want them in any shooter I make. Maybe that’ll change.

If you know me personally, you’ll know that I’m a huge Valve fanboy. I’ve played most of their games, from Half-Life, TF2 & Counter Strike, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and even a little Deadlock. While I’d love to make something akin to Team Fortress 2, I don’t foresee myself being interested in paying for server infrastructure. Playing these games and knowing the history behind a lot of them always leaves me in awe. I can always count on games like Half-Life and Skyrim to remind me just how much I want to make my own games, and maybe even one that will have a generational impact like these games have. I’ve got big dreams, and I’m going to keep dreaming big.