BrokenBlog

My name’s Max. I play lots of video games, I’m (mostly) an amateur programmer, and I’m in college to become a video game programmer. Maybe you’ve noticed the pattern here. I’m sure there’s other interesting things about me too, but I’m uninterested in them right now.

All my experiences with programming have been heavily influenced by my interest in making video games. I owe my start in programming in bizarre way, due to a game I never actually played called Graal. I loved Zelda (which it resembled) and was continually fascinated by the level designer in Graal but not the game itself. The level designer taught me the very basics of programming which mostly resembled Javascript from what I can remember. A while later I noticed the website for the very same game had an animated menu that didn’t use Java or Flash. I knew enough about HTML to know that wasn’t possible with basic HTML and that’s how I found out about Javascript. The site used an old version of DynAPI which was pretty confusing to me, but I learned Javascript from it and a site called Javascript Source. I experimented my way into understanding the language and started making dozens of little projects.

Eventually I fully taught myself the language and started bigger projects, most of which went nowhere as I became continually distracted by bigger projects. After playing a game called Golden Sun and being influenced by a group of RPG creators called “Darkness Ethereal” I tried to create a generic Javascript RPG Engine. As it grew larger I had an epiphany, I understood I could never create what I was aiming for in Javascript and the project was a dead end. I stopped programming for nearly a year.

For a long time I was unimpressed by Flash, but after seeing some particularly impressive animations I downloaded Flash MX on a whim. When I discovered that the built in language, Actionscript, used the same language as Javascript (both are based on ECMAscript) I immediately began my largest complete project to date. I decided to use video game sprites originally as a placeholder for whatever it was I was creating (I wasn’t really sure for a long time). A Contra-like game turned to a Megaman-like game turned into a Metroid-like game. Eventually I mixed Megaman and Metroid, which I liked, and forced myself to finish what would become Megaman vs Metroid. I was thrilled that people enjoyed it and started a sequel which I called Megaman vs Ghosts ‘n Goblins.

Since then I’ve worked on FZip with Claus Wahlers, something I’m particularly proud of. Lack of time and college life has made me busy, but I am always working on something.