About Me
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Hi my name is Colby Williams, or "Colby Cheeze" as some people call me, at least that is what I go by in most games etc...
I decided to start Cheezeworld.com to showcase my games, helpful tutorials and useful classes to help other developers who are interesting in making games.
I have always felt that part of my purpose is to help other people whenever I can, and that is partly what this website is dedicated to. I also love to see other people having a good time, so hopefully the games that I create (and help others create) will serve that purpose as well.
I believe strongly in open source and keeping things free, although I also believe that developers should make good money for what they are doing through whatever means that may be. (advertising, premium content, etc etc )
Some history about me...
I originally got into programming as I was going to college. I thought I would major in Computer Science and therefore studied the book we were given about a week or so before class started. I got through almost the whole thing, and wanted to make some games so I looked at some tutorials on how to create some cool "ASCII" effects (keep in mind this is C++, so as a new programmer without learning windows or DirectX programming that is the best I could do).
By the time class started I was already so bored with what we were learning I decided to just quit school and teach myself. Unfortunately I picked up a nasty WoW addiction and for about 2 years didn't program again and just played games all day. (meh)
Then in 2007 I picked up a job selling Cutco knives and did really well at that. So well in fact, that the company was training me to run my own district office. I moved back home to spend time with my family since I'd probably be moving somewhere farther away...
While I was hanging out with my brother we were playing some games online, and I was really fascinated by Boxhead, and some others and thought to myself how cool it would be to make my own games, which is what I had originally wanted to do when going to college. I downloaded Flash, a Lynda.com tutorial, and a game dev book and got to work.
About a week later I felt pretty good about my programming skills (lol), and started work on Break Ball. This was around Thanksgiving, and I went to Riudoso, Texas for a ski trip. Unfortunately it did not snow enough to ski, so instead I sat at the cabin and programmed some simple prototype games just to practice. You can check them out by going to my portfolio page.
I was fired up! When I got back, I worked all day and night to finish Break Ball...and about 2-3 weeks later it was pretty much done.
At this point I was wondering how to get a sponsorship for my game. I sent it around but nobody was interested at all so I got in contact with Adam from FlashGameLicense.com who gave me some great tips to improve the game. He was able to secure a $3000 sponsorship (WOOT!) as well as another $600 to pay an artist to redo the graphics for me.
At this point, I realized that I didn't want to sell knives for a living anymore. I had finally rediscovered my passion, and had a new fire for life...(things were starting to get pretty depressing before I found Flash)
Adam also introduced me to Flex builder and Colin Moocks book: Essential Actionscript 3.0. This got me started on about a month long learning where I read 2-3 books on OOP and Design patterns. I decided around mid Jan of '08 that I would start working on Space Crusade...a top down scrolling space shooter. The "Space Crusade Universe" was an idea I have had for a long time. When I was 16 I made a flash cartoon about it (never finished) and also started on a simple game about it.
For some reason though, I got stuck trying to build an all purpose "game framework" that would be used for all of my future games and I would take a very long time to plan out and program most things because I was trying to be a perfectionist with my code. In order to make some money I was doing a little bit of freelance work on the side also. Things just dragged on and on and almost a year later I am just barely coming to a close on the game. (dang!) Well I've definitely learned my lesson, and I've taught myself some ways of really buckling down and getting projects done. A hard learned lesson!
I definitely feel that I have come a long way in my programming knowledge, yet there is still much to learn. As I grow I plan to share with others my experiences so that they too can gain from what I know.
