Brick by Brick

I completed graduate school for video game design in the spring of 2020, a moment I had been looking forward to for the better part of a decade. While congratulations were certainly in order, the occasion was far from happy. The novel Coronavirus canceled my ceremonial first steps into adulthood, and left me without a foothold in a world that was rapidly changing before me. I had a dream of designing narrative games for my own indie video game studio, spreading joy and wonder through my handmade creations as far as I could. As the world went into lockdown, my dream followed, under lock and key as something too risky to let see the light of day. Turns out my happiness went with it, connected by a thread I didn’t yet have the eyes to see.

I spent months of the pandemic trying to coax happiness back out, with no lasting success. She wouldn’t budge without the dream. When I lured it just within my grasp, the invisibly tethered dream would follow from the shadows, and I’d fearfully drop the line. “Not now, dream, I’m not ready for you. I’m really just looking for happiness.” The dream would sulk back into the dark, heavy with the chains of my self doubt. “I will come find you later, after I’ve caught up with happiness. I promise.” I doubted.

We played that game of tug of war long enough. Happiness and the dream would not be separated or diminished, despite my efforts. Something had to give, and it turns out it was me. I was trying to control the chaos of a three-body problem without a plan. With a dream so large, and an equally sized hunger for happiness, I needed to gain some mass of my own if I wanted to bring this system back into balance.

It was time for me to level up if I wanted to find my way through this liminal space, stuck somewhere between being a recent grad and my dream career. Years of studying video game development and a lifetime as a hobby crafter taught me many useful things. One particularly useful skill developed between those two disparate worlds is the ability to identify and follow patterns. Whether those be enemy A.I. patrol routes in a stealth adventure game, or an abbreviated crochet pattern, I’ve always sought them out and gobbled them up. Who says the pursuit of happiness is exempt from containing patterns?

I started with familiar territory. As a narrative game designer, I have picked apart and put together again countless stories in search of common threads. As a DIY crafter, I have developed the patience to frog as many errant stitches as necessary to find the right string. The course of any journey you undertake, be it going to college, playing a fantasy RPG, upholstering a sofa, or starting your own games studio, follows a simple narrative arc, a pattern if you will: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The exposition, which you’ve already been reading, introduces us to the story and its players. Perhaps dull, but sets the stage. Following the exposition is an inciting incident, a pivotal moment that launches us into our main story quest.

What called this character to action? A desire to have my cake and eat it too. To experience happiness and live out my dream, not one without the other. To design and develop my own video games to share with the world, and a dissatisfaction with seeing no solution to my three body problem. If nobody was going to call me to action, I would do it myself; however, I still had no idea where I was going. I had unfurled my sails, and had the wind at my back. Now, in which direction do we launch this ship? If I had any hope of balancing my three player problem, I needed to bring the dream out of the darkness. Give it pride of place, with eyes open to the inextricable link between my happiness and my ability to pursue that dream.

But how? The task was more daunting than knitting 1,000 pairs of socks when I only know how to crochet, or playing Dark Souls to actually save my soul. My knowledge of game development and crafting had for once left me without a pattern to follow. How could I weave together my passion for designing video games, hand crafting art, and running my own game studio?

I started by weaving together advice given to me by friends and loved ones when I had been wrestling with happiness and the dream. My father once told me that you can’t build a sturdy foundation for your home in an instant. You build it brick by brick. The trouble is, that also seemed overwhelming. I don’t know how to make bricks, let alone a house… “Well, start with the brick, and take that ‘brick by brick’,” my dad would reply. My mother once told me to “enjoy the small things in life.” Afraid of committing to the wrong pattern, it seemed like a good first step when you have no idea where you’re headed, so I took it to heart. Well okay, I took their advice all literally, and I began making miniature dollhouse furniture.

I was able to carve out mini moments in my day to make miniature furniture. The diminutive size of the piece did not compare to the immense amount of joy I found in completing it. In fact, these “smaller” things in life seemed to bring me the happiness I was chasing. I find myself doing small things with great love, and in those bite-sized moments I saw a solution to my three body problem. I entered my rising action with a tiny pair of scissors in hand, determined to weave together my life’s tapestry.

I set out with the wild notion of hand crafting a doll house for use in a narrative video game of my design. Digital art is my weakness, and one of the heaviest links in my chain of self-doubt that kept my dream in the dark. I could combine my skills in game design with my hand crafted miniatures to build the set for my video game in a way that felt right for me. Introducing hand crafted miniatures into my digital game allowed me to level up as a solo game developer, and bring to life the world of my imagination. With scissors and the right supplies, photogrammetry techniques, and game development software, I am bringing analog art to a digital world with cutting edge technology.

While I haven’t yet reached the climax of my journey, which might look like publishing my first solo developed game, I have pressed start on taking my happiness back into my own hands. And as for the dream, I'm building it brick by brick, as big things often have miniature beginnings.