Game Development Dedication

Let me start by introducing myself...
My name is Jeff Johnston. I am 37 years old, divorced and currently live in Saint Paul, MN. I have had the burning desire to create games for the past 16 years. I dream about them, and I have notebooks full of information and design documents. I have five children that play games and are giddy about the idea of me making games. However, I have not been able to make this dream come to fruition. I was born and grew up in a religious community (cult). In this cult, personal development and creativity is stifled. I will not go into great detail about it here, but if you would like to know more, you can email me (at the end). I finally was able to leave, which meant leaving my family (parents, 7 brothers and 2 sisters still there, grandparents, wife and children) behind. It was the hardest thing that I have ever done. My whole life I have been told that if I ever left, then I was going to hell and there was no chance of ever being saved. Kind of puts a damper on leaving.

Leaving was enough of a struggle as it is not to include the fact that in leaving, I became a newborn in the world. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about how the "real world" works and how much of a struggle it was going to be. The being said, I am still here and am still struggling. I am 37 years old and I feel like I am 18 as far as life is concerned.

Now to game development. I AM GOING TO MAKE GAMES. I do have a design and programming background through one of the businesses that the community owns. I created interactive multimedia for ten years. I think that I have a pretty strong background that is suitable in many ways to game development. I, of course, applied to many companies to get into game development only to find out that you need something called a degree to get in anywhere. That sucks... I am 37 and have no college degree. So I am going to school online at University of Advancing Computer Technology, Tempe, AZ for a Game Programming Degree. I am getting 4.0 accross the board and feeling pretty good that what I learned in designing and programming for ten years was pretty solid. By the way, everything that I know in design and programming is self taught.

When I graduate from college, I will be 40 years old and still a virgin to the game industry. I think what I need to do, and the direction that I will go is to start my own game development company and start making my own games. It is too late to get onto the corporate ladder and start climbing. I am too far behind the eight ball, as it were. This is the hardest part about having been in a cult for most of my life. I don't have anything to show for all those years of life.

Any help or suggestions from the community would be greatly appreciated. I am here to stay and I am going to make this succeed. I don't have any time left for other options that I can see. I almost feel in a panic state in this regards.

If you would like to contact me outside of the Garage Games forum, my email is:
jjnstn2002 at yahoo dot com.

Thank you for you time and I am very excited to be a part of this community of game developers.