Making and playing games
Here is an interesting article on making a career out of designing & developing computer / video games… This is something I am very interested in, but most likely just as a hobbyist. Perhaps once I get to be wealthy enough through other means that I can pursue this full time, that would be fun.
I am interested in developing games mainly for two reasons:
- It is an artistic pursuit, and ultimately it is the creative part of engineering that I enjoy most.
- There just aren’t enough games that fit what I want to do with my boys.
The type of games I’m interested in making are very much family oriented — but it seems to me that current ‘family oriented’ games are geared at ages 3-6… there’s not much there for pre-teen, even into teenage years. I want games that I can play together with all of my boys, something low-key but engaging. It needs to be easy to get into the action, and play for 1/2 to 1 hour — say in the evenings after homework and such is done. Most games I see are just to large in scope to fit that, not to mention that most ‘high action’ games are too violent for my taste.
Anyway, it’s a dream to work towards, hopefully before all my kids are grown and out of the house 
What do we like to play now?
- Battlefield 1942 — fun, but not enough team focus and not enough ‘arcade’ action to be real fun for my kids now. They aren’t into completing missions yet, don’t have the reading skills for it. And it is beyond my 3-year old, and he hates being left out
- bzflag — nice freeware, relatively fun action. Killing each other over and over again gets boring, the bots are no good to play with. But the controls are simple enough that my 3-year old can play (at least be involved)… now we just need one more computer for everyone (except mom) to have a seat.
- StarCraft — I’ve got my oldest son (8) into playing this a bit, but he doesn’t quite have the patience and sense of strategy to really get into it yet. But it is a great multi-player game… I wish it were faster to get into the action, though.