I’m Peter and this is my origin.

I first started dabbling with games somewhere when I found a Doom editor. I can’t even remember what it was called since I was quite young when Doom came out. A few years later, Quake was released and soon after I found Qoole.

Qoole was (is) a crude but simple level editor and I made maps for both regular quake but mostly for total conversion mods. TC’s like Quake Navy Seals and AirQuake. Me and some friend even decided to try to make our own TC with the working title “Operation Bratwurst” (serious business, I know).

It was a World War II inspired mod that actually felt quite serious with a dedicated programmer, level designer and graphics artist. Me being a hybrid between graphics and level editor. A few maps were started but alas, never finished.

Later I played and made some levels for half-life and was mostly inspired by Day of Defeat. Not anything worth mention but around this time is also where I first studied programming in upper secondary school. It was simple Visual Basic and Basic Assembly so it was not the most advanced, but it made me realize you can make much magic with code. Still not enough to convince me to start programming but a seed was sown.

After this I found another game with a great editor called Warcraft III. This is the editor I grew most in and learned some JASS (Just Another Scripting Syntax) while also embracing the simple yet elegant trigger system. I created quite a few maps myself (nothing that I find worth mentioning) but the one that was received and loved by many was a co-project with a friend.

It was called Dark Invasion II and was an overly ambitious project that almost transformed the Warcraft engine into a totally different game. I made the terrain and co-wrote story and quests.

The Warcraft scene really embraced this map and got a very high rating from the whole community. Our official forum was filled with active players and a lot of willing testers and moderators. When you searched custom games on Battle.Net, you were sure to see our map being hosted and there was a lot of talk about which RPG-map which was the best.

The feeling of other people’s appreciation of what I had done and put my love into was a very pleasant feeling. And it made me realize that the passion I have for creating games and content was enjoyed by others.

I had heard that getting into the game development scene was really hard. But the advice I got that it was never wrong to get a Master in Computer Science, since then you’d learn some programming. I started studying at Lund in 2010 and continued this for three years. The Java we initially learned was educational but I never felt that it could be put into good use for gaming (Tell that to Notch).

I learned from a friend that they had started a Game Development program at Malmö Högskola that had been ongoing for a few years. Even though the Computer Science was interesting it was not my goal.

In 2014 I enrolled at Malmö Högskola and was thrown into C# programming immediately. I had little problem understanding the basics of the new language and our classes, but their way of tutoring was not what I was used to. I quickly grew restless and bored and applied for The Game Assembly the following spring.

The Game Assembly was a education I’ve heard about from friends that had been studying there but I thought it was near impossible to get in so I had never done it before. I applied for both Level design and Programming and actually had my hopes up for level designer, since I felt that I was more at home there. When the result came back I found that I had been accepted as a programmer and not a level designer. At first, I was a little disappointed, but that soon changed.

When the classes started I really felt at home. The hands on approach and the system of projects and tasks challenged me as well and quickly made me embrace C++. Compared to previous programming courses I felt that I really got to use what they taught me in a practical way. Now I really felt the power of a programmer and realized that if I want to create games, I need to learn to code. The rest can come later for me.

After doing two courses parallel with a total of eight 8-10 week projects for two years, learning everything from networking, optimization, shaders and linear algebra. I can easily say that I’ve written my fair share of code. And as we all know, practice makes perfect and oh boy, we’ve practiced.

I have focused mainly on gameplay programming since I want the game the progress as fast as possible. In the beginning I also made simple in-game editing tools for our level designers. Just to make it easier for both them and us so we were able to playtest as quickly as possible. 

In the beginning of a game I always try to get content in as quickly as I can. Get the character to move, make the character controllable and attach a camera. And just like that, you get some gameplay with motivates everyone and increases the morale. Always playable is something I aim for.

And I guess that’s a short but long story about how I got into the game programming business. Being able to create has always been a passion of mine along with games, and now I’m able to combine both. Something I wish I can continue with for a long time ahead.