About Specalst

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Born Christian W. Johnson on Earth in the past, specalst lost his i's in a freak dotting accident - only eight characters would fit. I am a lover of good times and this game expresses my creative and intellectual genius in a fun, short, action-packed adventure. I have been making games since I was young - board games, card games, backyard games. I enjoy the fun and competition, the thrill of success or failure. Chasing until you become the chased, strategy vs luck, patience over power. They were just reindeer games though, for kids - not to be taken seriously.  Then I noticed Commodore 64.... and Atari... and Nintendo... and Genesis... I'm 10 years old and I realize somebody's taking this seriously.  Fast forward to my time in the video game industry where I saw games as a tester, and learned how they are seen by marketer vs producer vs programmer vs developer vs designer. Somewhere in there, "a game is fun" got a little lost and a game became a job. I had an idea, and I knew it was fate that I was there. However, they went bankrupt just months after my daughter was born and I left the field chasing a paycheck. Something else happened during my time as a Game Analyst: I was Gamemaster for a play-by-e-mail game with some great friends and Roughouse was born.  A superheroic comedy based on a true story I made up. Many years later I find the site still active and read through the 5000+ posts in their entirety with a smile, often chuckling, often thinking, "Now THIS would make a good story!" More years go by before I look again and decide I have to do it - I must write this book. I cut, paste, trim, edit and fill in some blanks and I've got five chapters. I just need to end it so, I write a sixth. But it doesn't end. So I write a seventh before I realize I could write a whole second book based on the momentum. So, I end the first book at six chapters and write a second book. Five more chapters and it's not ending either. And I figured it out... stories need endings, but games need players, and I can't end the story because I don't want to stop playing. Back to video games, I was sure I was onto something, so I over the years I added a makes sense here, and a really interesting there, with an easy to play hard to master fun to lose satisfying to win between the toes on the good foot. Still haven't seen it done, still playing it in my head, still can't fit anyone in there to play with me. Fast forward to almost right now ago and I've been stable, she's been grown, and Unreal Engine has been free. I decided I could just do it myself in my free time - I've got a great idea fueled by creative passion and expertise for fun interactions between overlapping systems detailed in dozens of pages outlining Concept, General and Technical Design, as well as an original story and some original music. So about three years ago I got my computer set up and tightened up the design to be competitive while taking courses on the how-to and the more I learned about Unreal I realized 3 things:

1: Unreal Engine is absolutely UNREAL and I can literally do anything I imagine with it, and I imagine a great deal.

2: Based on the scale of my undertaking (minimalist epic) I can do this by myself for myself as a hobby and it will take 7+ years - I'd be proud of myself and quite entertained.

3: I could hire and direct a small team of experts to do this in way less time, then sell it and shock the industry with game mechanics never seen before - I'd be damn proud of myself and my team, respected by my communities and having the time of my life at my second job.

So, in February 2023 I looked on Fiverr, found and linked up with a small development team (Neox Entertainment) that has as of December 2023 nearly completed two of my prototypes as current funds run low - it's said in the industry, "it always takes twice as long and costs twice as much as projected."