CopperBot (aka DenverDad) from Denver Colorado

[DenverDad]

Hello everyone. My name is Jay and I'm 36 years old. I'm married and have two children (a four year old girl and a one year old boy) I'm a web developer by trade for a school district just north of Denver and have been programming for a living (with different languages and frameworks) for the last 15 years. I'm also a published concept artist and have done character concept art and sprite art/animations for a handful of small games.

Now for the "on-topic" good stuff. I've been a gamer from as long as I can remember. I'm not sure how old I was but my uncle brought his Atari to my grandmother's for Christmas when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old and it made a LASTING impression on me. I've been a bit obsessed ever since.

Now that I'm a father I don't get to play as much as I used to so a lot of "big ticket" games don't get more than a passing glance from me. I used to be really into big budget massively multi-player games but that ship has sorta sailed for me. As a result I've going through a bit of a gaming renaissance right now and have been spending most of my time playing single player games with a recent and meaningful shift towards indie titles.

I discovered The Long Dark as part of a very deliberate process to find quality indie games to enjoy. This all started after I picked up a copy of Half-Way on a whim and was blown away but the retro styling and truly enjoyable experience. If you haven't played this I highly recommend it. Anyhow, something about the simplicity of the game really resonated with my inner child - no doubt playing off the feelings of nostalgia I experience anytime something even remotely resembles the 8-bit gaming era. After finishing the game I felt like my eyes had been opened anew to the joys of gaming. I had to find more indie titles to consume and a few web searches later I found The Long Dark.

I may have mentioned this elsewhere but TLD speaks to one of my earliest gaming memories - playing Zork on one of the two computers in my entire school during my "free period" in first grade. Even though TLD is "just a sandbox" right now and story mode is en route I struggle to articulate how much fun I've had playing this game. I finally tried to put my gratitude into words today with a review on Steam.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/copperbot/ ... ded/305620

Thanks to all of the Hinterland team for all their hard work. Your love for this title really comes through with each update. Cheers! - J

[Ryan CM]

Amazing thank you for sharing your story and welcome to the forums! If you need anything or have any questions, please feel free to contact me

[bethany]

Thanks for the kind Steam review!

I also often find myself hunting for quality indie games, and find it easy to fall in love with them...The good ones just feel so carefully attended to and loved, and that makes it easier for me to feel the same way when playing them. I've also been in school for the last two years, so it's been nice to have games like TLD that you can just pick up and play on a whim without having to relearn overly complicated mechanics -- Everything just seems to come so naturally.

I had never heard of Halfway, but it definitely looks interesting. Every time I see a top-down game now, I can't help but think of Hotline Miami. Have you heard the soundtrack for the sequel? Holy cow.

Thanks for sharing your experience, great to have you here!

[ObsidianRocker]

Every time I see a top-down game now, I can't help but think of Hotline Miami. Have you heard the soundtrack for the sequel? Holy cow.

I just had to reply to this and say that when I heard the Hotline Miami 2 soundtrack, I immediately thought "They actually managed to do BETTER than the first soundtrack?!". I really need to finish that game on Hard mode but I fear that my window, my monitor and my keyboard will not survive it.

[DenverDad]

I had never heard of Hotline Miami! That looks like a fun time for sure. Thanks for mentioning it!

[bethany]

Sure thing! It's one of those games where you feel super tough after managing to clear a level