Bringing my Childhood “Video Game” to Life

The Backstory

When I was eight years old I created this “video game” in my little notebook for my friends to play. It featured my imaginary Dalmatian characters, Danny and Rosses.

My friend, Paul, was my first play tester. I remember using my fingers to try to indicate where the enemies were moving while he “moved” his player character with his own finger. It was a mess of tangled fingers and the game was quite unsuccessful. I suppose little kid-me wasn’t smart enough to think about cutting out the characters and moving them with a string or magnet or something.

Alas, the game remained smudged and wrinkled in the notebook in my parents’ home where I grew up for the next two decades. I had plans to recreate this game for a couple of years now, but with the demands of daily life and lack of motivation, it never went anywhere.

It Lives!

What helped me finally kick the procrastination bug was deciding to set a deadline for myself – 20 years. I was eight years old when I drew out this game; I wouldn’t finish this game until last night, just five minutes shy of my 29th birthday when I was technically still 28 years old. Thus, I’m still allowed to say it took me 20 years to make this game instead of 21 years. 😉

Danny & Rosses (2022) has no real gameplay or any other levels because 8-year-old me knew nothing of game and level design. The only goal is to get to the bottom of the screen. You don’t even have to kill the monsters to win the game.

Regardless, I am happy this game finally came to life! I like to think 8-year-old me would think adult-me is cool for making it. 🙂 I’m proud of myself for having made everything myself too – the art, the programming, and the music. (Fun fact: the music was largely inspired by a song I made up as a kid!)

I do have future plans for this game. It’s not over yet. I want to one day expand it into a real game, even if it’ll take me another 20 years. You know I’m good for it.

Click here to play Danny & Rosses!