Oh joy, the “About Me” page. I always hate writing in these things mostly because I never know where or how to start. I mean, I could tell you my whole life story – how I got myself in this whole situation with Flash and all this nonsense – but I know alot of you guys really don’t care about that. Hmm, alright. Let’s break it down into two different parts, shall we? I’ll write two sections – one will be a somewhat detailed story about my escapades with the internets and the other will be a tl;dr summary.
The Boring Life Story
I gotta say, it’s kinda weird to think about, but I firmly believe that had I not seen a certain commercial one night back when I was, oh, 9 or so years old, my entire life would be different. It was a commercial advertising a website full of kiddie games called MaMaMedia.com. Upon visiting this site a few times, I stumbled across a certain game. Well, I use the term “game” loosely. Anyway, it was a small game where you could animate a stick figure in 5 frames. It sounds kind of dull but when you’re 9 and you’ve never seen anything like this before, it’s loads of fun.
This is what sparked my interest in animation and led me to Google around for a “stick figure animation program,” I was able to find an application called Pivot. It was a very simple (but still powerful if used creatively) program that allowed you to easily create gif animations of stick figures. I also found and joined a great forum community focused on Pivot and animation in general. It was inevitable that I would soon learn of Flash and when I did, boy did my world change.
I spe
nt a good few years of my life doing nothing else other than playing with Flash, making small animations, watching Flash animations online, and contributing in Flash/animation-based forums. Eventually I began wanting to create games with Flash (because I knew it was possible). Sadly though, I knew it was too complicated for me at the time. Once again Google came to the rescue and I discovered another great program called Game Maker.
I had loads of fun using Flash to make sprites to use in my games (made in Game Maker) for quite a while. Eventually, though, I became bored of it. This is when I began getting into website design and development. I wanted a website of my own – somewhere where I can showcase all of my animations and games in one place. Well, needless to say I had a few websites but they all failed miserably (bad design, crappy updates, free host/domain, lack of motivation, etc). Eventually I got it right with my site ForTheLose.org (not ForTheLoss.org).
ForTheLose.org was the home of me and my buddy Rid. We made new posts every week and hosted our Flash works on it. Eventually the community grew but my intentions changed. I began to be drawn into the world of making money online. I started learning how to design websites and sell them to various buyers online. I also was able to build a few websites and flip those for profit as well. Eventually the core of ForTheLose.org changed from animation and randomness to WordPress and “making money online.”
Again, however, I became bored of what I was doing and wanted a change. This is where I am now. I am now focusing on Flash once again. My goal is to teach myself how to work with Flash to make quality animations and fun games. That’s why I created ForTheLoss.org – so I can once again have a home for all of my random Flash creations.
Addition: February 18th, 2012
I’m currently in the process of updating the design of this site (old version) so I figured I’d note that here. Why? Couldn’t tell you, bored I guess.
Addition: March 19th, 2014
Wow time flies. Anyway, after developing a little more than a half-dozen Flash games for the web, I’ve moved over to mobile development. I’m currently working with Java and LibGDX to create mobile games for Android.
TL;DR Summary
After playing a game online at a young age, I began looking for programs for animating stick figures. This led me to an application called Pivot and a forum community based around it and animation in general. It was inevitable that I would bump into Flash, and when I did I became intrigued. After playing around with it for a while and getting (somewhat) talented with it, I set it aside and took up web design and development. Eventually, the part of me that missed Flash overcame me and now here I am starting my journey of learning how to develop good ol’ reliable Flash games.
Wow, that was still kinda long for a tl;dr summary. Eh, you’ll be alright.
