Now not to make Mr. Braben feel old 
I shall regale you all with a story.
Imagine a work-shop at work, where colleagues had to introduce themselves, again, despite working together for some time. Awkward would be a good term to describe the exercise.
Some people took this seriously, photo's of influential family members, CV's, brochures from older companies, describing their motivations, drives, dreams and how that shaped their careers, life choices.... the works - a whole biography.
Slacker me, did none of that. I've got no life plan, my life's ambitions and drives are based around food, sleep, and surviving. I'm a grasshopper leaping from plant to plant trying to avoid the approaching flood water of unemployment.
I drew a Timeline, marked in birth. (1977) and todays date at the other end.
Then I wrote Star Wars.
And I explained that my earliest memory I have is loving Star Wars,
(that and my mum explaining to her friends that all men are *******s because they are only interested in sex so I didn't quite grow up with the normal rough and tumble, lager lout mentality, that a normal English Boy should have, much to the disgrace of my peers, parents and teachers)
And so my life goal, was that I wanted to be Luke Skywalker - my chosen career was space hero. (try explaining this to a group of adults in suits sat around table).
And so I carried on explaining that "space hero" doesn't really have a career path as such, there are no extended courses at shcool that might lead to x-wing piloting, and general swashbuckling.
Then I explained, when i was 6/7 years old, my friend invited me home and they had a BBC micro, (his parents where university lecturers)
and I was shown Elite, I was shown how to fly, and dock.
That little moment, showed me that I could live out my dream on this computer.
That I could be involved in this "endless virtual world".
That with the help of this computer , I could live out my fantasies.
That moment just took me.
I just knew then, *this* is what I want to do with my life.
And that little moment has shaped me.
I maintained my love of computers, which coming from a tiny village in the North of England, I didn't get much luck or support in my passion for games, technology, or science fiction (go outside and play football).
I didn't even learn to program "officially" in basic until I hit uni, although that didn't stop me from trying to build games on my commodore 128 when I was a kid.
After uni and the computer crash of 2000, so I've been bouncing between bouts of unemployment, moving country, and web development since then. And with the web I went unsteadily from strength to strength, making a name for myself.
In recently years I have been making flash games for kids, and play testing sites/games for html5 and mobile for one of the worlds most prestigious digital companies. I did okay for myself.
But now, despite my age, I'm back at school learning to program, for real this time, for mobiles....sigh.
And in all this time,
no one has ever made "that" game, that game that totally captured that feeling in that moment.
And here is Braben, doing video blogs, like a fatherly figure, talking about
Flying through clouds scooping up fuel, sling-shotting your ship around a planet, with your sub-system drive, going cold and stealthing your opponents, mining, exploration, loans and other deep-subsets of creating a universe to live in world,
and he's saying all the thing the little boy in my ever dreamed of in a science fiction game, (and others like mercenary, damocles, i-war, freespace, freelancer, never quite delivered 100%).
I find myself without a PC gaming rig, and a pauper.
I can't back the project with money,
and even if I could, I'm on a mac, I wouldn't even be able to play the alpha/beta (plus with kids, so I wouldn't have time anyway....lol)
All I can do is stand on the side and dream, and watch on you-tube, and listen, to one of the men who changed my life and set me up for life so I could land in this miserable position of being a half-okay-unemployed-developer - and the funny thing is, I wouldn't have me any other way !
I shall regale you all with a story.
Imagine a work-shop at work, where colleagues had to introduce themselves, again, despite working together for some time. Awkward would be a good term to describe the exercise.
Some people took this seriously, photo's of influential family members, CV's, brochures from older companies, describing their motivations, drives, dreams and how that shaped their careers, life choices.... the works - a whole biography.
Slacker me, did none of that. I've got no life plan, my life's ambitions and drives are based around food, sleep, and surviving. I'm a grasshopper leaping from plant to plant trying to avoid the approaching flood water of unemployment.
I drew a Timeline, marked in birth. (1977) and todays date at the other end.
Then I wrote Star Wars.
And I explained that my earliest memory I have is loving Star Wars,
(that and my mum explaining to her friends that all men are *******s because they are only interested in sex
so I didn't quite grow up with the normal rough and tumble, lager lout mentality, that a normal English Boy should have, much to the disgrace of my peers, parents and teachers)And so my life goal, was that I wanted to be Luke Skywalker - my chosen career was space hero. (try explaining this to a group of adults in suits sat around table).
And so I carried on explaining that "space hero" doesn't really have a career path as such, there are no extended courses at shcool that might lead to x-wing piloting, and general swashbuckling.
Then I explained, when i was 6/7 years old, my friend invited me home and they had a BBC micro, (his parents where university lecturers)
and I was shown Elite, I was shown how to fly, and dock.
That little moment, showed me that I could live out my dream on this computer.
That I could be involved in this "endless virtual world".
That with the help of this computer , I could live out my fantasies.
That moment just took me.
I just knew then, *this* is what I want to do with my life.
And that little moment has shaped me.
I maintained my love of computers, which coming from a tiny village in the North of England, I didn't get much luck or support in my passion for games, technology, or science fiction (go outside and play football).
I didn't even learn to program "officially" in basic until I hit uni, although that didn't stop me from trying to build games on my commodore 128 when I was a kid.
After uni and the computer crash of 2000, so I've been bouncing between bouts of unemployment, moving country, and web development since then. And with the web I went unsteadily from strength to strength, making a name for myself.
In recently years I have been making flash games for kids, and play testing sites/games for html5 and mobile for one of the worlds most prestigious digital companies. I did okay for myself.
But now, despite my age, I'm back at school learning to program, for real this time, for mobiles....sigh.
And in all this time,
no one has ever made "that" game, that game that totally captured that feeling in that moment.
And here is Braben, doing video blogs, like a fatherly figure, talking about
Flying through clouds scooping up fuel, sling-shotting your ship around a planet, with your sub-system drive, going cold and stealthing your opponents, mining, exploration, loans and other deep-subsets of creating a universe to live in world,
and he's saying all the thing the little boy in my ever dreamed of in a science fiction game, (and others like mercenary, damocles, i-war, freespace, freelancer, never quite delivered 100%).
I find myself without a PC gaming rig, and a pauper.
I can't back the project with money,
and even if I could, I'm on a mac, I wouldn't even be able to play the alpha/beta (plus with kids, so I wouldn't have time anyway....lol)
All I can do is stand on the side and dream, and watch on you-tube, and listen, to one of the men who changed my life and set me up for life so I could land in this miserable position of being a half-okay-unemployed-developer - and the funny thing is, I wouldn't have me any other way !
Last edited:
