I don’t know what it is about game design that pulls me in so violently. Maybe it’s the illusion of control (as if I have even a shred of control over my actual life) crafting systems, laying out rules, deciding how things work. Maybe it’s the unpredictability; watching a player completely ignore my carefully designed path and instead spend three hours doing the same thing.
I get lost in the mechanics, the logic, the invisible threads that make a world feel real. I get excited (really excited) when I talk about them. The kind of excitement that spills over, that makes my mind race so fast my words start tripping over themselves. The kind that makes me forget, for a moment, that I was ever stuck at all.
And then there’s the game-related conversations. Sitting across from one of the greatest game designers in the world working in Ubisoft or EA, absorbing every word like it’s oxygen. The kind of conversation that makes everything in me light up, that makes me remember why I want to create at all.
It’s not just about games. Hell, I don’t even call myself a gamer. I mean, I play, but not in the ‘screaming into a headset over Call of Duty’ kind of way. It’s about making something that breathes, that moves, that tells a story. It’s about possibility.
And for once, I don’t feel trapped in my own head. I feel like I’m part of something bigger. A world I don’t want to leave.