Howdy.
My name is Cael Hath. I used to spend most of my time at caelhath.devianart.com, but... life happened.
I have always been interested in games. When I was very young, my stepfather worked at PG&E in California, and he would bring his work home with him. I learned how to spell and write using the first few editions of Volkswriter, an unforgiving but very beautiful word processor that I found on his green-screened computer.
He inevitably brought home an orange-screened computer, which is where I discovered a rather amazing game called Tetris. I also played a few games I doubt anyone would recognize- text-based Superman, text-based Star Trek, and of course Jump Joe, which I understand is called Janitor Joe in some versions.
Because my family was strictly religious, my first Nintendo was destroyed, and I was never again allowed to keep the money I made from mowing my neighbor's lawns. However, my stepfather acquired a beastly, outdated green-screen machine in his yearly company auction, and with this, I taught myself as much as I could of BASIC, forgoing games in lieu of calculator apps which my mother used to determine the amount of taxes she was to deduct from her Avon customers. I also built clocks, timers, weather trackers and most importantly, a journal entry system that incorporated a password and my beloved Volkswriter.
Years have passed, and time has not been all that I had hoped it would. My schooling backfired, and I discovered rather bitterly that everything I learned in college was already available online. My Associates degree was stifled by a vengeful communist that insisted I write a paper against my personal beliefs. I have nothing against armchair communists, after all, it all works out on paper, but this gentleman told me that he was going to take the paper I wrote and send it to the government as the basis for his personal campaign against something I care very dearly about. My advice to anyone seriously considering school is to chuck your morality, dreams and tact at the door, and attend your courses with every intent of destroying all that is sacred and beautiful in this world. Otherwise, you're wasting your time, and that of your instructor.
My desire to create games is not as pure as my desire to write. Having said that, one could argue the purity of continuing to breathe air. I love games, and I love the fact that Construct2 has been created. I will never stop writing, nor will my desire to create cease to spill over into other mediums.
With Construct2, I aim to create a number of games that I myself would wish to play. I could waste time by trying to analyze the market, adhering to every little whim that the gaming community desires, but in the end, if you cannot entertain yourself, who can you entertain? I would like to think I have played enough games to determine what is fun and what is not.
My deep dark plot involves creating a host of games that will eventually fall into the hands of a creative, hardworking team, and that these games will fund my writing. Games today are analogous to writing in the forties and fifties. Back then, a writer could make a living off of his short stories. Look at Asimov, Heinlen, and all the other greats.
These "old-school" and "portable" and "browser" games are no different. Granted, we can't all be Angry Birds, but I have played many a free game whose site has operated unattended for weeks at a time because the developer and creator of those games is somewhere in Germany buying a Fiero with the money he's made.
I'm here because those who are happy are those who do what they love. I love to create, to entertain, to see the looks of surprise, fear, joy and emotion that my hands are capable of evoking. I once entertained a troop of missionaries who were prohibited from all forms of worldly media, simply with a notebook of stories. These were average high schoolers, no more godly than I, who resented their forced piety and would gather every Wednesday at five for an hour of stories they couldn't find anywhere else.
Construct2 is more than just a game-maker to me. It's a chance to follow in the footsteps of the old writers of yesteryear, to make my way in a world that needs hope. Some of you will see me as commercially minded. I'm not offended by this. Creating media is my passion, and if you can't make money with your passion, you're wasting your life.
I am very pleased to meet you all.