Welcome to Gaming Daydreams!

Hello, and welcome to my new blog! My name is Johannes, and these are my Gaming Daydreams. 

And what exactly does that mean? Simply put, this blog is dedicated to ruminating about potential video game concepts that I personally would find interesting to play or make, but do not (to my knowledge) actually exist yet. These can be anything from detailed descriptions of a game concept with a full story outline and individual mechanics thought out in depth, or just very surface level ideas of something that has popped into my head recently. 

To be absolutely clear, I AM NOT A VIDEO GAME DEVELOPER. I have never actually made anything resembling a proper video game other than a few short "choose your own adventure" text-based games, and most of them were never finished. Over the years I have also played around with some level-editors and other similar tools in games to make my own missions or stages. For example, I once made a fairly basic Survival map for Left 4 Dead 2 while learning to use the Source Hammer editor with a friend, and I have spent probably way over a 100 hours in the military sim Arma 3's Editor making my own little combat scenarios for myself and my buddies. 

However, I do not have the skills or the knowledge to actually make any of the games I write about on this blog. I do not know how to write code, create or rig character models or make graphics. In addition to the previously mentioned experience, my actual knowledge of game development is mostly based on reading game journalist Jason Schreier's books Blood, Sweat and Pixels and Press Reset (highly recommended reads, both), game development documentaries and podcasts like video game writer Alanah Pearce's Play, Watch, Listen, featuring game director Mike Bithell, composer Austin Wintory and voice actor Troy Baker. I have also watched probably hundreds of YouTube videos about how games are made over the years and several recorded GDC talks (GDC as in Game Developer Conference). But no matter my interest in the matter, I am still not actually a game developer.

Instead, in reality I'm an aspiring Finnish screenwriter and editor, currently working as an editing intern at a television production company. More importantly for this blog, I'm also an avid video game enthusiast (my jokingly preferred term over the word "gamer"), as I have played video games since I was probably around 6 years old.  I've played countless different games and genres over the years, from RPGs, RTS games, "walking simulators" to racing games and military simulators. I get bored fairly quickly and move from game to game at a fairly rapid pace, which in turn means I also have a lot of experience with different kinds of games instead of putting a thousand hours into a single one like League of Legends or Counter-Strike. (Which, I must stress, is not in any way a bad thing to do either.)  In the past, in addition to consuming a lot of game reviews and critiques, I've also dabbled in writing my own video game reviews and making game related YouTube videos, but in the end I preferred simply playing games for my own enjoyment over making them my "job." 

Why then make this blog? Well, ever since I was a little kid, I've had the habit of sometimes daydreaming about interesting video game concepts I hoped would one day be a reality. Especially back in the day, most of them were simply way too ambitious to be feasible with the technology available at the time, but that didn't stop me from thinking about them. As a fairly lonely kid, I used to do long walks outside by myself, simply thinking about cool video game ideas. Might sound pretty sad to some people, but I prefer to think I was exercising my imagination and creativity, which is much preferable to simply spending all my free time with a smartphone in hand like a lot of people do these days. (Damn, I'm starting to sound old.) Plus, I was outside, getting fresh air. 

Although that habit has sort of died down quite a bit as I've gotten older, made more friends and simply spent more of my free time doing other stuff, it's still not completely gone. To this day I sometimes think about these things, and as I now have a lot more actual understanding about games, what goes into making them, what's possible and what makes them good or engaging, my concepts have become more realistic and actually viable, at least to some extent. 

So... Instead of just bottling up all those ideas inside my head, forgetting them over time or keeping them private in some chaotic notes, I thought I might actually really write some of them down and put them out for the world to read. After all, as much as I would be interested in one day working on a game as a writer, I have no intention of changing my whole career path into suddenly becoming a game designer, meaning I will probably never actually work on any of these ideas for real. They've always simply been a fun time sink for me, and if by a slim chance an actual game dev someday finds these ideas and likes some of them, at least I've inspired someone else. Possibly some may try to "steal" these concepts and claim them as their own, but it's not really a loss for me as I wasn't planning on acting on them. Obviously any kind of credit or shoutout would be absolutely fantastic, but that's only if anyone ever actually even wants to use any of these ideas. In the end, all I want is to someday be able to play these games. 

Also, as literally hundreds of new games are released every week these days, there's no way of me knowing each and every one that exists. So, if ever there's a concept I write about that's awfully similar to something that already has been made, I probably didn't know about it, in which case I would love to be informed that such a game is already real! (There have also been times when I've noticed a new game release that has similar concepts to something I've thought about years prior.) 

I already have my first game concept ready to write about, so I'll probably put that out very soon after this post is published. Expect to see it in the next few days, maybe even tomorrow! The one hint I can tell you, is that it's going to be huge, even monstrous! 

(...And no, it's not a sex thing. You pervert.) 

Edit 23.05.22: Corrected Jason Schreier's book's name to Press Reset instead of Press Restart.