Defiant

 Hello. C J here. Don’t read my stories or play my games seeking escapism. I don’t make games to escape. Fundamentally I think that’s the wrong approach to take in a game. I make stories that challenge people. They have motives that I don’t explain. I want my audience to think and to gain something from what I do, something both tangible and also without a name. I make art you can read. Why? Let me explain.

I never went to university for my craft. I don’t trust universities these days. I went to a normal trade college and it wasn’t for computers. I have no love for computer science or coder courses. These new flashy learn to game design diplomas people are pushing are crud. You learn code, you learn storytelling, you learn game design, you learn to carve a walking stick, you learn to paint by doing. Just make something with your hands. That’s it.

I do not do this job for accolades. I do it because I am a craftsman. Code is an art form. It has infinite incorrect versions and one correct one. It’s like paint made of numerals and brackets. I never studied it. I learned it by shoving myself and my words into video game design software until it did what I wanted it to do and then looking up the actual proper way of doing it later. Often my way was better. Code is art when it runs.

There is something deeply, disturbingly wrong with our world here that we think you’re not smart if you didn’t graduate university. I don’t care for their arrogance. I have family who have worked in this environment before. It’s all ego. That’s all they’ll say because that’s all you can find there. It’s just old entitled people running the place into the ground on purpose. No, I have some college courses behind me and a lot of high school. I learn everything I know by doing it. There are exceptions but they’re rare.

Most of my family are craftsmen. We make things. Recipes, chemistry, walls, language, numbers, we’ve got family members who can do one or more of these things in ways no one can but us. We’re the makers of things. We the craftspeople run this world. We the human race have just invented some new digital trade skills like AI artwork and 3D asset design. Craftsmen tend to live longer than everyone else. We do not decline when we get older in Clan Macpherson. We get stronger, more vibrant and more poignant.

I’m making a free educational card game called Quantum. This is my answer to what education should be. Quantum is a game but it’s also a complete curriculum in one subject matter per Expansion. The first Expansion is the complete periodic table of elements and the basics of atomic chemistry. Age of Eternity, the first steampunk Expansion and the second planned Expansion, is about formal algebra and calculus. It’s a game. There are no tests. You understand a card if you can play it and win the story you’re in. Education is a basic human right and so I’m making it free to download and print.

Why? Because I’m a maker of things. It’s what I have in me that I know how to do. I don’t need money to be happy as a person. I’m making a numerical, mathematical statement here. I’ve designed my life to have as low a price tag as possible and as a result my life runs clean and smooth. I walk everywhere. I buy Canadian. I pay cash when I can. I make the best coffee. I eat simple food I like making. Simple. Easy. No pretense. No need to prove something. Craftsmanship. We all have it in us.

I’ve always said that we all have a song in us. Don’t die with yours still in you.

C J Mcpherson