Once there was a boy who fell in love with this magical device that could bring things to life inside a glaring screen. He spent endless hours exploring imaginary worlds, fighting strange creatures, shooting pixelated spaceships, racing boxy cars. The boy kept pondering. "How is this made? I want to create my own worlds...".

Then he discovered programming. "I can finally do it!" - he thought. And he tried. And failed. Then he tried harder. He failed again and again. He was too naive to realize that those worlds he was trying to create were too sophisticated, and his knowledge was too limited. He gave up creating those worlds.

What he didn't give up is writing code for this magical device. He realized he isn't smart enough to create worlds, yet he found out he could create simpler things like small applications - web, desktop, server side or whatnot. Few years later he found himself getting paid to make those.

Applications got increasingly bigger, they spanned across multiple servers, integrated with each other, became pats of huge infrastructures. The boy, now a grown man, was all into it. It was fun and challenging enough to spend over 10000 hours learning and building what others wanted him to build.

Some of these things were useful, some where boring and pointless. Some were never finished. There were things he was proud of, there were others that he wouldn't want to talk about, nonetheless everything he built made him a better builder. Yet he never found the time, courage or reason to build what he really wanted to build since he was a little boy - his own worlds.

Until one day he realized that no one can stop him from following his dream. He felt that equipped with his current knowledge and experience he will be able to learn to create worlds of his own. And he went for it.

This boy must live in many software developers, who dream about creating games, but instead sell their software craftsmanship skills to those who need something else. This boy is me, and you. And it's time to set him free.

Welcome to the world of game development that was waiting for you all these years.

A word from the author

Hey! Are you a game developer? I am building Game Hero - an online community for indie game developers. You are welcome to join and share your work!