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Chances are good that you’ve got at least a couple of solid video game memories. A miraculous comeback victory after a heated battle witha trash-talking friend. Discovering a secret treasure, hidden cave,invisible block, or warp zone for the first time. Controllers thrown in frustration and raised in triumph. We’ve all had our share of high scores, epic adventures, and holy crap, that was awesome moments.This is just one of those stories. The first video game system my brother and I ever owned was the Atari 7800. Xevious, Joust, Ball Blazer, Galaga, Food Fight, Ms. PacMan, Robotron - these were the games we spent countless hours playing during our elementary school afternoons (unless there was a new episode of Ducktales or TMNT on). Our cousin Jim also handed down a shoebox stuffed with old 2600 cartridges, so games like Space Invaders and Crystal Castles got some rotation as well. We never actually owned the original Nintendo Entertainment System, but had plenty of exposure through friends and neighbors. I was immediately hooked, just like every other kid of the 80s. But it was the arrival of the Super NES in 1991 that marked a point of no return. This is where my undying loyalty to Nintendo emerged, playing through some of the best games of that generation in Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid. Now where some people stopped after letting go of their controllers,for me, video games started to inspire all sorts of outside adventures and creative projects. I made a cardboard Game Boy-esque system called the Pocket Player, where you would spool bands of construction paper levels through an opening while moving a little paper character around from below (and yes, it was as cumbersome and papercut-prone as its sounds). I recorded game soundtracks by the TV with our little Radio Shack tape recorder, and then tried to learn them on the piano, playing along to themes from games like Final Fantasy and Star Fox (playing an ActRaiser composition at a recital totally blew away little Teddy Evans’ rendition of Hot Crossed Buns). And somehow I even got a photo in the Letters to the Editor sections of Nintendo Power and Gamepro. I can still remember the shock of seeing myself in there, running around the house yelling in excitement. So freakin’ awesome. My life has only gone downhill since. As high school drew to a close, the video game fanaticism seemed to reach its end. Maybe Virtual Boy made me question my faith. Maybe college applications took precedence. Maybe it was a passing teenage phase and I got burned out. Whatever the case, I slid my cartridges back into their plastic dust covers, folded up my Illusion of Gaia tee shirt, and moved on. About five years passed. It wasn’t until later in college when I got somewhat interested in VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). I started trying to develop little miniature games using the limited tools. This included Concrete World, an interactive music piece where different melodies and arrangements played based on where your character was standing (or what secret sounds you found hidden around the environment). That was followed by a much more ambitious undertaking: a three-level game called Second Nature World, based on characters from a daily comic strip I drew for our college newspaper. Finding three stars in each world was the main objective, but there were also secondary characters (with recorded voice-overs from friends and faculty), and even a few secrets and boss battles scattered about to keep things interesting. VRML was fairly basic in terms of gameplay possibilities, but the creation process was an insanely fun experience and the feedback from the student body was pretty good. I mean, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a low-polygon version of professor Larry Sabato doing a clunkily-animated backflip. second nature world SECOND NATURE WORLD, a cartoon VRML game (2002) When I went to grad school for graphic design a few years ago, it quickly became apparent just how much video games had impacted my creative sensibilities - particularly when it came to interactive design. At first I tried to shy away from those gaming influences,thinking it was maybe somehow wrong to feel more influenced by Hideo Kojima than Paul Rand. But after seeing my classmates and instructors drawing inspiration from all sorts of unique places, finding it in video games didn’t seem too out of the ordinary. One of my early projects was a hand-drawn treasure map to promote art programs in schools, which was heavily influenced from the fold-out maps that games like Chrono Trigger used to include.Cadence of Seasons, an interactive novel concept, was an attempt to mix the idea of a Choose Your Own Adventure book together with a Zelda game. Sometimes the influences were more subtle, such as a color palette from SSX or a type treatment from Pikmin, but they were usually buried in my work somewhere. Even the header treatment on this website is inspired by Mario Paint. Gaming slowly seeped back into my life. I randomly ended up getting a used Gamecube as a hand-me-down gift from a college friend, and found myself loving Nintendo all over again, if only for Metroid and Zelda nostalgia alone. Now I’ve happily made the leap to the current generation of games, and still get that childhood level of excitement when I hear news about an online Mario Kart, the dialog system in Mass Effect, or the creative ideas behind Little Big Planet. I was lucky enough to check out the Game Developer’s Conference for the first time this past spring, and my head just about exploded from the high level of innovation and talent that surrounded me (not to mention that everyone was extremely approachable and seemed to genuinely enjoy their jobs).For players or developers alike, it’s an exciting time for the industry. There is an ever-growing mainstream acceptance. The barriers for making independent games are crumbling every day. Online play, downloadable expansions, and user-created content are creating fresh new gameplay experiences. Graphics and sound are becoming ridiculously photo-realistic, but great art direction is pushing worlds beyond reality. The stories are deeper, the characters are more complex, and the environments are more detailed and expansive, holding a real sense of exploration and discovery. So where does Minor Studios fit into all of this? Well, among a few other endeavors, we’re actually experimenting with some ideas and developing our first game project. If all goes well, you should be able to play something by early next year. I’ll be updating this journal every once in a while, hopefully documenting the development experience with sketches, videos, and stories, revealing game details as they progress. I look forward to (and am counting on!) hearing your future feedback, because the creative process is always better as a dialogue. For now, thanks for your interest, and please check back every so often (or subscribe to the RSS feed). And keep playing. “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” - Carl Sagan letterletter This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 9:20 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. 18 Responses to “Why I Love Video Games.” 1. Ian Wharton Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:47 am Fantastic to read. Can’t wait to see what you cook up Dave. Always a pleasure, good luck with the new projects. 2. Vojtech Kopal Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:48 am I’m honored to be the first subscriber of your RSS at bloglines.com. :) I love your work. Really - I’ve spent hours watching your portfolio. 3. Kevin M. Scarbrough Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:49 am Dave & Minor Studios crew: I can’t wait to see what you’ve got cookin’ in the bird house. Congratulations on getting this far, everything else should be (comparatively) easy from here. 4. R. Bies Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:49 am I hope you don’t mind, but I created a Livejournal Syndication for your RSS (http://syndicated.livejournal.com/minorstudios/). I look forward to hearing more news of the project. 5. Sakari McGregor Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:50 am Good to know that your still working on different projects. Found okaydave.com a year ago, and I still think it is one of the best portfolios I have seen. Keep it up mate. Sakari, Australia 6. Dave S. Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:51 am Hey Dave, great stuff you got here. I wasn’t expecting the focus to be games considering that you worked at these great Design Agencies. Very interesting, I too can’t wait to see what you guys come up with. Keep rocking! 7. sang-kyu An Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:51 am hello!! Dave… Thank you for sending me email. I was so impressed by your portfolio.^^ I like your pretty birds!! sang from South Korea 8. Warren Blayney Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am Nice work Dave. The site looks very sharp, and no doubt I’ll be seeing a lot more of it as I love to read your journals. Always a pleasure - never a chore. Warren Alexandria VA. (but born and breed in N.Ireland!) 9. Gustave Cadet Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:54 am I have been following you work for some time now and I must that it is absolutely refreshing to see someone, not only follow their dream, but grow as an individual as well. I frequently return to okaydave.com for inspiration. I look forward to your future projects. Keep up the great work! 10. Doug Loffredo Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:54 am Wow Dave, Great article. I actually have that very same issue of Game Pro, so funny that you are in there. Minor Studios looks great! -Doug Loffredo 11. Jason J. Therrien Says: March 11th, 2008 at 9:55 am Dave, great to hear from you! Thanks for keeping me in the loop. As usual, best of luck with Minor, I’m looking forward to watching its journey. We finally updated our web site: http://www.thundertech.com and if there’s ever an opportunity to collaborate we’d love to chat.