This week I’ve worked on setting up the Steam store for Final Storm and the Itch.io Final Storm page is setup to take pre-orders. I have a release date set for November 2nd, 2017. This is to finish polishing the game, knocking some bugs off of it, and allowing all of the Steam vetting process to occur. I’m really excited at this point because it is so close to release!
Fourteen years ago I embarked on a major life change. This was largely due to the encouragement and support of my incredible wife who asked me one day:
“If you could do anything you wanted as a career what would it be?”
I didn’t hesitate before saying “I’d make video games!”
“Well” she said, “let’s get you back in school and make that happen.”
And so I transitioned from working in the healthcare profession to developing software. More specifically I jumped in on the indie game scene before there was a big indie game scene. After a whopping 3 community college courses in software development I foolishly thought I knew enough and formed a company. Then I connected with an indie publisher out of the U.K. who liked my work, and together we published a game and support content for other indie game developers. Money started to trickle in, and I was in business.
It took less than a year for my publisher to go out of business and me to realize I had very little knowledge or skill in the software publishing industry at the time. And so Forest Mark Studios closed shop.
Despite failing, I am so grateful for that experience because it taught me so many things. I learned about product life cycles, feature prioritization, customer management, and many other skills entrepreneurs must learn. Most importantly I learned that I LOVED building software, but I realized that I had major gaps in my education.
So I got serious about learning. Going back to work in healthcare part time, I went back to school and built my education from the ground up, going thru undergraduate and graduate level computer science courses. During this period I began working as a software engineer for a machine learning company, and my career grew from there.
For the last fourteen years I have been very blessed to work for some incredible companies. More importantly I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some unbelievably talented people. There were awesome opportunities to work on cutting edge research and I was fortunate enough to experience tremendous growth with my previous two employers. To be honest, I felt like I was living the dream.
However, those who know me have seen a seed germinating recently. An intense emotion or drive that’s difficult to explain, but pushing me to build or begin something anew. So at the end of May this year I left my corporate job to start this company. It was a decision that didn’t come lightly. That said I’m very excited to embark on this new journey! After spending June taking a long vacation and some extended family time, I began putting together the plans, parts and pieces that will make up my business. And today, Bit Bionic is born!
I formed this company to build exciting software and with a little luck and hard work, enrich the lives of others. This enrichment could be thru the software or by helping others understand more about the technical environments they live in. I’m currently working on an image recognition application using convolutional neural networks for outdoor enthusiasts and online course material. Details will be posted soon.
