FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS
Dear Retro Gamer,
I very much enjoyed reading the article by David Crookes about game-making tools and the time he made his own game. When I was a kid I was fascinated with the prospect of being able to make a computer game and, not having any coding skills to speak of, I loved tinkering with level editors and various construction kits.
During the pandemic, with a bit more time on my hands and watching my nine-year-old son Nate code games for school in Scratch and Purple Mash, I began wondering if it would be possible to make a game for my beloved ZX Spectrum. Two months later, with the help of Jonathan Cauldwell’s MPAGD (Multi-platform Arcade Game Designer) and a lot of very clever and helpful people on the internet, my son and I made our first-ever Spectrum game.
The best thing about it has been the absolute thrill of seeing other people play our games on Twitch and Youtube. A couple of our games have even featured in the hallowed pages of Retro Gamer, thanks to Andrew Fisher’s fantastic Homebrew section. By the way, it has to be said that Andrew is doing a great job carrying on the legacy of the much-loved and missed Jason Kelk.
I strongly recommend anyone out there who has ever harboured a secret desire to make a game, to just go out there and do it! Whatever your platform of choice, there’s never been a better time to have a crack, the necessary resources and folk to steer you right could be just a quick internet search away.
Cheers,
Davey Sloan
Thanks for sharing your homebrew journey with us, Davey. It sounds really satisfying and we’re glad the magazine has helped inspire you to code. We look forward to seeing your games in future issues along with any other readers who are similarly inspired.