I started coding when I was fifteen years old. Commodore 64. Made a little text adventure about a guy in a time loop. I like time loops. I’m not sure why he was having a café date in a European style country. I must have seen something on TV. It seemed fancy and adult.

I was fifteen.

Fifteen is a number that struck me recently becuase that is also the number of years I have lived in Japan. I will be forty this month. Forty. Looking through some notes recently, I realized some of my game design notes are from when I was fifteen.

Fuck.

The cliche about "writing the great American novel" applies here. Hard. And it makes me feel sad, pathetic and a little lonely. Now, I have released games. Several of them! Five or six? Quite a few! But I alway start making RPGs and then something happens and I never finish them. Because I want to make that grand thing that I dreamt of when I was fifteen? The "great American RPG"?

I’m going to die one day.

Not soon, I hope. I’m exercising a bit more to try to push that off. And eating a little bit healthier. But I’m not young. I’m no longer that fifteen year old with summer vacations of nothing at all to do, no worries other than when am I going to kiss a girl and what will the future hold.

This is that future.

And so I’m opening up a new project in Unity, my pixel art software and a text editor. And I’m making an RPG this month. From scratch.

It’s going to be short. It has to be. I have a month to finish it. It’s going to be ugly. That’s fine. I’m no artist. The music is going to be bad. That’s fine. I’m no musician. But I am going to do it. Because if I don’t start now, when am I going to?

I might fail.

I probably will, but failing to deliver an RPG in a month is a different failure than failing to do anything. I’m going to log my progress here. Will I three-day-monk this? Gosh, I hope not. If you love me, poke me with a message about how I’m doing. I welcome it. Gosh, do I ever welcome it. I wish more people would poke me with random messages.

Maybe I should go message some friends.

I think I will. And then I’m going to do some coding.

Wish me luck. I love you.