When I first became involved in the game development arena, it was as a hobby - an interesting distraction from my increasingly-specialised and frequently-boring business application programming career. I enjoyed my work, and I still do (playing with computers and numbers all day - what’s not to enjoy?)  But I needed something a little more interesting to work on than last financial year’s department expenses.

I knew a whole one person who made games for a living - what a great job he had!  But I’m not a book learner - tell me and I’m ok, show me and I’m better, but give me a book and I get lost in the sea of words.  So when Mark mentioned that our local uni was offering a Bachelor in Game Design/Programming I jumped at the chance!  For two years I studied, worked, got to know people in the game dev community, and helped my son start school, with all the trials, tribulations and rewards that came along with all those things.  Then I took a year off study as I couldn’t keep up with the pace, and spent that time instead learning more about making games.

I set myself a challenge to remake an old game that I loved as a kid - Panic 64, for the Commodore 64, my introduction to the world of computers.  If I could make that game from start to finish, then I knew I could make other games, and not just as a hobby.  I had realised by now that this was the dream, and that there were people around who were living their dream by making games, and that I could too.

Well, I finished that game - Nuts About Nuts.  Over time and over budget.  But my design doc rocked, and I finished it.  And it’s an amazing feeling when you see that the game has been downloaded by thousands of people (the fact that it’s free might have something to do with that), and that they’re actually enjoying it!  Over that time I learned a whole lot about game development - though there’s a whole lot more I have yet to learn, and made some great friends.

This is only the beginning…

When I first set about creating a website, the hardest part was the name.  Part of it was choosing a good name, but most of it was choosing a good name that was available as a domain.  When Puppetry Games finally worked its way out of the jumble, the image was an almost automatic thing.

Meet Rocky and Genny

Mark and I were engaged in November of 1995.  During that year as we dated, his pet cat passed away (total coincidence - stop thinking what you’re thinking).  In April, I happened to be with a friend who was looking for a pet kitten, and I took a liking to one as well, and bought her as a gift for Mark.  In our early years of marriage Genny (derived from Genesis - the beginning) spent more time with me, so though she was officially Mark’s cat, she was really mine…  He got his own back though, getting a kitten for me a few years later, who turned out to be a real daddy’s boy.

In August of the same year, we were having lunch together at a park, when a car pulled off the road, mum, dad and young son climbed out with their little pup, tied pup to a park bench with some old rope, climbed back into the car and drove away.  I’m still astounded that people would do that, especially with a young child present.  Being the gorgeous little dog that he was, and being the big animal-loving softies that we were, a family was born.  Rocky was about 3 months old at the time and easily sat on my lap, though his immense paws warned us that he was going to be a big boy!

Other pets have come and gone, but these first two have always been with us - 7 moves over 13 years, and a baby boy along the way (who absolutely adored both of them).  Sadly though, the frailties of age have plagued them both, and in December ‘08 we said goodye to Rocky.  Genny is still with us, as dainty as ever, though much less tolerant of our new baby, Jack, who you might meet another day.

The Puppetry Games image perfectly captures these two in their younger days: Rocky full of beans and wanting nothing more than to play, Genny in her most relaxed state and trying to ignore him as best she can.  The artist, Mateo (who did the art for Nuts About Nuts), was given a photo of each, with specific details about the final outcome, and managed to pull it off almost perfectly.  The only issue, which we realised and accepted at the time, is that Genny’s patches are too dark.  They’re most definitely grey, not black, despite what some may say to the contrary…