Blogs - Richyro0

Hi everyone, so a short story... My names Richard I'm 25 and I've always wanted to get into video game design since I played Red Alert on my PC as a little kid, I went to University to study the subject in the hopes of becoming a level designer one day. After University, I worked at a few small IT companies but could never really crack into the mainstream gaming scene without the dreaded "must have experience" card.

Two years ago, the IT company I was working for closed a whole division and made a tonne of redundancies and I was one of them.

At the time, I was quite lost as to what to do next. However, one day I came up with this crazy and extremely unlikely plan. Aim for my wildest dream and apply for a job at Valve. After all, I had nothing to lose.

So, shortly after, I got a job in a cocktail bar on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. During the rest of the week, I was working full time on a mod to apply with. I knew the standard for Valve would be incredible so I tried my best to make something exceptional to send. I've been creating this Source mod called Project-X, its around 2 hours in length and follows the story of Adrian Shephard and what's been going on with him since Half-Life 2.

Eventually after months and months of hard work and the creation of over 1 million mojitos, I finished it. I designed this cool little opposing force metal brief case and sent it to Valve along with my dissertation on puzzle design for first person shooters, 2 copies of the game and a cover letter.

I airmailed it from the UK to the US and crossed my fingers and toes that it would be good enough.

However, it's been 4 months since it arrived, I've emailed, phoned and left messages over and over to try and find out what the outcome was but unfortunately, have had no response. So eventually I cracked and accepted defeat. I must not have cut the mustard in some way shape or form. I always went into this plan of mine knowing the odds were extremely unfavourable but I like to aim high and I wanted to give it a shot, give it my all and see if I could do it.

On the plus side, I learned tonnes about creating and designing games. During this process, there has been both excitement and rage and in the end, I have a completely finished game that I have now put on Greenlight.

So I would really appreciate it if you guys and girls could help me get it out to the world so everyone can enjoy it and also help me in my continued endeavour to become a designer so I can help make some awesome video games for everyone to play.

So yeah that's my story :)