In 1984, when I was just five years old, my parents bought me a Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2. To them, it was a way to support their child’s odd obsession with “becoming a computer programmer” — an idea I’d gotten from a cartoon where a computer takes over the world. To my teachers, it seemed a strange choice: “Why buy a child a business computer instead of a toy?” But to me, it was magic.
I copied programs from the user manual, played early games, and soon realized I didn’t just want to play them — I wanted to make them. That passion carried me through the Commodore 64 (in BASIC and assembler), the Amiga 1200 (AMOS, MC68k assembly, and Pascal), and eventually into the world of PCs where I discovered Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and FreePascal. That path led me into a long and fruitful career in application development.
And yet, I never stopped wanting to make video games.
The Missed Gate at Codemasters
One of my earliest bold moves was driving to the Codemasters office near my hometown. I was 17, had no interview scheduled, but drove up to the gate anyway and actually talked my way inside, claiming to have an interview. I had parked in the parking lot, when the security guard came running, red-faced, to tell me there were no interviews that day and promptly sent me home. Looking back, it’s funny — but it also says a lot: I wanted in badly enough to risk looking ridiculous.
Life took me elsewhere. I built a career in applications software — steady, profitable, even rewarding in its own right. But the itch to make games never went away.
Rediscovering the Classics with My Son
Recently, I started digging into my vintage computer collection. I fired up some of the classics I grew up with — from Monkey Island to Dreamweb. I shared them with my son, who’s eight now. Honestly, I expected him to shrug them off. After all, he has a modern PC and a tablet overflowing with games.
But to my surprise, he loved them. He got hooked on point-and-click adventures, laughed at old platformers, and showed me that those decades-old pixels still had life in them. Watching his enjoyment flipped a switch for me: I bet I could make games like this.
Enter: Studio Vandalism
So here we are. I’ve started Studio Vandalism — my indie game studio. To call it a “studio” today is generous: it’s just me, a PC, some half-formed prototypes, and an eight-year-old critic eager to give feedback. But this is where I’ll document my journey to becoming an indie game developer. I dream of turning this into a functional business which I can share with my son.
I’m not coming into this as a seasoned game dev. I’ve dabbled with Unity, Godot, Blender, Inkscape, and Moho Studio — just enough to be dangerous, not enough to be fluent. I know I have a lot to learn. But that’s the point of this blog (and the YouTube channel that will follow): to share the process, not just the result.
Join me as I chronicle my journey.