It's been awhile since I've been proud of anything.

Okay, real bummer of a title, I know. But I really had been in a creative rut for quite some time.

I try out new things often, and recently it's been taking a crack at game development -- as evidenced by the Godot tutorials also on my profile right now. Games mean a lot to me. I grew up as an introverted gaming millennial in a time when it wasn't as commonplace as it is now, and I watched how they evolved in their complexity and capacity to tell a story the way no other medium can.

So -- much like many on here, I'm sure -- it's always been a dream of mine to make a game. And I don't mean just to throw something together with store assets (not that isn't a skill all its own), but to lovingly craft every single asset myself and truly sculpt an experience from the ground up. I want to make something that's truly mine.

Of course, that's a big ask. And I'm a novice at best in most of the skills needed to create a game. The only feather in my cap is that I code professionally as a web developer. But I'm not asking to be an expert in anything -- just to be okay enough to create an altogether okay game. I've learned over the years to be okay with being bad at things in pursuit of being just a little better, so I know I'm not setting out to solo-build a triple-A quality title on this (or possibly any) endeavor.

Really, my biggest obstacle is a lack of a creative voice. I have some ideas of some fan games I could make in honor of the first game I ever loved (Lucas Arts' The Dig), or to that one episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency which would make a fantastic horror game. But those aren't my ideas. It would be a rehash of someone else's creation.

I think that's why video game composition is one of the things that has scared me the most. How the heck am I supposed to get anything onto a page if I have nothing to say?

But I figured... worst case scenario I could make a simple looping song which featured an ultra basic melody and harmony that was ideally long enough to not be annoying. So I set out to find someone who could teach me how to just get some notes on a page when I found ComposerCode. And boy, did I have absolutely no idea what this man was talking about.

But I followed his suggestions about laying out a functional harmony. I ended up rather liking my experiment with just trying the Tonic -> Predominant -> Dominant -> Tonic progression in G Major, so I kept it around. I repeated the experiment with another 8 measures in B major, and felt fond of how the two pieces went together. These pieces ultimately formed the basis of the chorus and bridge of my final song. The next exercise was in exploring the rule of fifths and ii-V-I progressions, so I intentionally created that piece to feel like verse. I finally had the basis of... something.

And this is where I got a little impatient and started composing an intro, outro, and melody without the guidance of the tutorial. This isn't something I usually do unless I actually know what I'm doing. And I'll be the first to confess that I'm sure anyone with an ear for music can hear the simplicity and ignorance in the finished piece. But honestly... I can't bring myself to care. This has been the first time in a long time that I've created anything with nothing more than raw creative energy -- no plan, no prompt... just a vague idea of a feeling and a mission to voice that feeling.

It felt so good to just... "know" what needed to come next, without hesitation and wondering about what was right and proper. And I'm honestly proud of how it turned out.

That's why it's here, cheesy video montage in tow (I learned to edit videos in Adobe Express on the fly just to get a preview of the song out). I know it's not perfect... it's probably not "good" by any proper musician's standards. But it feels like me, and I love it for that. Even if it never gets downloaded and used, I think I'll always love it.

Because for the first time in a long time, I have a voice again.