To start Bulletproof Outlaws I took a very compact but in-depth business course to get a handle on the business side of things. We’re near the end of the course and currently have one class a week and a business coaching session. I dig these because I always come out pumped to get to work, haha

Today’s class covered setting goals and how most of us are terrible at it.  We’re never really taught how to set a proper goal. We make really vague goals that we can’t measure… like take New Years.  “I’m going to lose weight this year.”  Well how much is that?  If you lose 1lbs, is that succeeding?  How are you going to lose that weight? Are you going to lose it in a month, or can you just do it in December and still count it? “I’m going to make a game company.” What kind of game company? How many games are you going to put out? What kind of games? When will you put out the first game?

I have a little programming skill. I’ve wanted to make videogames since I was a kid, but back then there was no Internet to collaborate with a programmer… so if I wanted to make games, I had to teach myself to program. My dad had a TRS-80 Color Computer I was playing games on when I was 4. I learned you could type right into the OS and start making a game and was fascinated. When we got our first PC, I found QBasic on it and made a few cool little demos.

In High School I was nerdy enough that I knew everything we were learning in our computer class so I asked the teacher if I could just make a game instead of doing the units. He was awesome enough to let me, and so I started figuring out C++ using DJGPP/Allegro (which I LOVED, it was so easy to make stuff).