About Me
My name is Randy Mlinarcik and I live in Pittsburgh with my wife of 9 years and my 2 children (daughter 12, son 8). I’ve been into computers and gaming for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been interested in creating games, but past QBasic 7, I was forever clueless as to what to do next.
Several years back, I finally decided that once and for all I was going to figure out how to make professional quality games, and I started my journey by diving into the deep end of the pool, leading a brand new mod team on a BF2 Total Conversion. (Hindsight suggests that I probably should’ve joined an already established mod as a regular developer first.) But the mod presses on at any rate, going slow, but still going, and even releasing its first version in Feb. ‘08. The lessons I learned while leading the mod have turn out to be invaluable to my growth as an Indie Game Developer.
Besides learning how to use industry software such as 3DSMax, PhotoShop, Terragen, Sony Vegas, and the like, I learned a lot about the management of software development teams and people in general. While I in no way consider myself an expert on any of my knowledge about the industry, I am still able to look back and see where I made mission critical blunders nearly every step of the way, and I’m sure I have plenty more mistakes to come during the rest of my journey. But as long as I learn from my mistakes, I’m OK…eh…right?
I no longer lead the mod since, to help me in my game career endeavors, I decided to go back to college, and now lack the time (between family, full time work and school, I have very little extra time). I still try to contribute when I can, but that doesn’t happen often.
I’m currently enrolled in the Keller Graduate School of Management for a MBA with a Concentration in Project Management. I previously graduated from DeVry University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Game and Simulation Programming.
I started this blog as a way to keep my thoughts in order as I transition from being a regular, 9-to-5-grind employee; working for the man, into becoming an independant game developer; working for myself. There may be a stop with an already established game studio along the way, but we shall see when the time comes. Regardless of the course I take, I’m still going to document my successes and failures, and any interesting things I learn about the game industry along my path to becoming a successful “Indie”.
If any of the information I present can benefit others, that’s great, but I guess as long as it’s benefiting me, that’s pretty good, too.
