DevBlog - About Me, the new developer

Hello there! My name's Haddy, I've taken on the challenge of doing the development for this game. This article delves into more of, who I am, what excites me, and what got me where I am today...

First, to introduce myself, I am a developer by trade, work with all kinds of different development scenarios, and have loved gaming since I was a kid. I'm 32, so my childhood gaming started with an Atari, then moved to NES, SNES and Nintendo 64. I've always been fascinated with games, and have always had an interest in how they all go together.

Fast-forward to junior year in high school. I took my first computer class, which also was a programming class... our family was not wealthy (even though I lived in a very wealthy part of California at the time), and my parents got divorced just before I entered high school (my Mom worked full time as a store clerk to support us), so access to a computer was very much not an option. Once I started programming, I realized I had a knack for the stuff, and have been programming 'something' ever since.

For years I worked as a systems analyst and network engineer, but was completely bored with the topic... felt underwhelmed, and work felt monotonous. Meanwhile, I also developed sites, programs and systems for friends and acquaintances, and I ended up developing some things for the school district I worked with. From there, my development career started, I got promoted to a Web Developer, and worked on many different projects around our district. A mentor suggested I return to school, and get my degree in Software Development, which I did, and graduated with honors while working full time! After California had been having budget issues for a while, I decided to put my resume out there, and look for anther job, developing full time. I got a bite, and I'm still with that company today.

I love what I do, love developing software, and seeing people use it. I love coming up with solutions to problems, and resolving things with mathematical structures. I have quite a bit of student related debt still, so I always try to find small jobs here and there, to help pay them down a little (going to be a while! lol) I have worked with several small indie studios up until now, unfortunately none of them worked out.

I have had a strong desire to find 'something' to work on with a team of individuals, and that's where FleetCalamity comes in. Matthew, the creator of all this, put out his blog and Twitter post in look for a developer. To be honest, I've been asked to be a part of many many different teams the last 6 months, but never felt the 'fit' per-say. One reason was, a lot of the opportunities don't pay (and while trying to pay off debt, it's tough to make a commitment). A lot of these small studios don't pay (looking to push to funding), so I've learned a few things along the way:

1.  Only join a project you feel you could be passionate about
2. Make sure you get along well with other members of the team, from first meet (digital meetups included)
3. Don't ever over-commit (if you tell them you can work on a project full-time, and you don't, you're not helping)
4. Be honest (many small indiedev teams know you need to have a life, and understand you cannot commit to something that doesn't pay full time!)
5. Make sure it fits (don't just do something, to well, just do something... love what you do!)

 I am a huge Star Wars / Star Trek / Battlestar Galactica fan, so when Matthew and I discussed FleetCalamity, I got excited instantly. Even though the position is non-payed at this point, the subject is fitting for what I enjoy, the idea is solid, and I feel that we can push to release this game and make some money for all of us involved (creating a game that is fun for the customer, at the center of the equation, and will hopefully help me pay off my student debt at the same time! :) ). Designing a game from the ground up is definitely a task, but I'm really excited to be a part of the team, from the ground up, and really excited to see where this project takes us!

Future DevBlogs will have a lot less about me, and a lot more about what I'm working on... maybe even some pretty pictures and/or videos!!! (bait)

Well that's it about me for now... make sure you follow us on Twitter at @HalfHeartGames, you can also follow me personally at @Haddicus!