About Me

Hi, I’m Mizarc, but I also go by Kevin in the real world. If you’ve come here to learn more about me, you’ve come to the right place. Let me tell you a little bit about myself.

And so it goes…

There was once a 10 year old boy who owned a website. As was common, websites would house anything from games, videos, stories, and more. This boy had thought, how could I make my own? A personal collection of fun, all in the palm of his hand, curated to his every desire.

A 12 year old boy had fun learning all about programming. His father worked in software development, and he developed a curosity for it. After all, people were always making mods for the games he played, and he wanted to learn how to get in on the action.

In Minecraft, a 14 year old boy flies a helicopter to the treehouse he called home. Minecraft modding was pretty funky back then, with you having to open up the .jar file, delete the META-INF folder, and hope you don’t end up with conflicts. Woops, his helicopter landed way too hard on the tree house and blew it up. There was no backup.

The student was 16 years old. Confident in the languages of Java and Python, he felt that he could master it all to shape the future of games and technology. This student would spent all holidays between school researching and developing projects well in advance of their due date, even sacrificing grades in other subjects in order to secure his grade IT class. While his friends were unsure of where to go in life, this boy knew just what to do. He proudly proclaimed to himself “I am willing to do anything to never have to work in fast food.”

An 18 year old university undergraduate saw a bright and hopeful future ahead of him. Thirty thousand dollars in debt, but if he were to get a six figure job, that would go by in a breeze. This boy studied, researched, developed, and acquired knowledge to understand the inner workings of every type of project he would come across. Front end, back end, UI, systems, cloud, AI. But he had a goal in mind, for games would be a pathway to other fields of art, music, writing, and design. Merging with art and software to create the ultimate interactive experience. Now that’s the real goal.

There was a 21 year old man who had a bachelors degree. He sat there, hands on his head, and proclaimed “I will do anything but work in fast food.” Months worth of applications, interviews, revisions. The man thought he had done everything right, took advice from friends, family, people who could guide him in the right direction. And yet he sat there, anguishing over everything he could’ve done better. The man’s standards for job applications dropped. Game development became a pipe dream, he was lucky to even get an interview for a junior or even graduate software developer position by this point. Help desk support was stooping a little low, but even those never came back with a response. Retail? That would be better than nothing, but it didn’t matter since they would either say no or not even bother to reply.

Today, and the dream beyond.

Hi, I’m Kevin, former fast food employee. I spent a good few months flipping patties and kicking dysfunctional machinery that gobbled up buns before my mental state spiralled out of control. A couple medications here, a few psychology appointments there. It was obvious what was wrong with me, but I was desperate for cash and didn’t really have much of an alternative. Being a graduate is hard. You feel like you should have everything all sorted, with plenty of skills at your disposal and a big name institution on your resume. Turns out it’s really hard to find a job when all the big tech companies figure out they overemployed during the pandemic and started laying off en masse.

At some point I quit, which was really for the best. Spent the next few months living off the remainder of my savings as I watched it drain. I’m lucky to have had a place to live, I know others are not nearly as lucky.

Eventually a stroke of luck hit me like a truck, as after countless more applications, interviews, and anxious waiting, I finally landed a software engineering position. The first stable job I have ever had in my entire life, in a field I am happy to work in, with conditions that people could only dream to have. Some would call it perfect, for me, a stepping stone to the future.

I still have my game dev dream in mind. I know big AAA studios can be quite nasty when it comes to working conditions, but I’ll find a way. Games should not only be enjoyable for the players, but also for the creators. I’ll make it happen. I’ll see you soon.