Creativity.
It's there in all of us in one form or another. The need to express ourselves through art, it's what sets us apart from the animals (that, and opposable thumbs). Whether it be painting, literature, music, performance, photography, anything. Creating something for the sake of creation. It's a natural human desire.
You might be thinking "what the hell is this?" right about now. Well I'll tell you. I am no "spring chicken" as they say. I'm not getting any younger. I'm on the wrong side of Forty. You get the idea. The thing is, I need to keep my brain active. A healthly mind supports a healthy body, or something.
I sit in IRC each night, socialising with friends, sometimes playing multiplayer games. It's great that I can do that, but I feel that my mind is becoming "stale". I feel the urge to create something, to start a project into which I can pour my creative juices. Something I can get my teeth into, to keep my brain working, with the only reward for my toils being the knowledge that I am making something, creating something from nothing. So I have decided to embark on a journey, a journey through something that will hopefully broaden my mind and make me think about things.
I have decided to create a videogame.
No, it won't be a huge blockbuster with super-fancy graphics and a massive budget, it will be a small but playable game with dodgy graphics and iffy sound effects, bedroom coded as opposed to being created by a team of Fifty people in a dedicated building. It will, most likely, be not very good at all. But it will be a creation. Something I (possibly with the help of some friends) have created, brought into this world from the confines of my mind.
I have big ideas but I'm also realistic in what I am able to achieve. The last thing I coded was in 1994 which was a fair while back, so I'm pretty much going to have to re-learn everything I once knew. So now to look at the pro's and con's of what's available to me as a development platform...
