Now that I am thirty, I am finally coming to terms with the idea that my D&D days are over, at least until Freya can play, but they do have one enduring legacy for me as a games-designer.

I think I am burning out as a player…

I like games, but they are not built for people like me any more.  I am an explorer and a builder, not a killer.  Modern games cater to a sub-culture that I cannot be a part of, one who wants to be led by the hand from one shooting gallery to the next.

I am not a good soldier.  I don’t have the reactions for Call of Duty and Medal of Honour.  I loved Delta Warrior and even Crysis for the ability to play at a slower pace, to plan and prepare, to pick off stragglers and sentries from 500m or more and then move away from the ensuing chaos.

Even Dragon Age just isn’t holding my attention right now.  This is Bioware, the epitome of everything I used to think a games studio should be, and I am not quite feeling it.

The main source of gaming fun right now?  Minecraft…

I think Minecraft is a designer’s game; it revolves around exploration and construction.  For so long, I have been a world-builder at heart.  I respect the existence of rules and preconfigured plot-lines, but I love to make my own.

My job is making games; I construct worlds.  Aurora was the best part of Neverwinter Nights for me, even if the story was a very close second.  Lady Aribeth brought me close to tears.  Twice! (when I met her in the expansion, it was hard on me)

Thinking about the worlds I want to share with my daughter, I realise that it all started in someone’s (okay, my future wife’s) dining room.  Packets of crisps and endless cups of tea drew me in.  One day, I looked at the Dungeon Master and I asked myself a question; can I have a go?

It has been ten years now, give or take, but I am glad that the answer was yes.  I made a world, I populated it with phantasms and aspects from my own psyche, then I invited a small band of adventurers to join me. 

I have been a god and now I cannot bear to play a game that casts me as a mortal man.  My greatest joy is in making other people’s experiences, so of course I find it hard to play in another persons world.

Is it just me, or does that make me sound like a bit of a megalomaniac?