Early 1989 my father bought a MSX DDPlus from Gradiente, a Brazilian company that distributed the MSX spec running the Z80 CPU, the same running on the RadioShack TRS80 and ZX Spectrum.
It was the first actual computer I got my hands on, I was 10 years old. It was there I learned to work on the simple basic games it had, before venturing in the Machine Language and practical game development.
Graphics were never my interest, so I mostly made changes in game systems without working graphics. After a couple months doing this, I diverted my attention to learning how to use databases.
A couple years later, we had the PC 286, and I used to make some apps for my father to use in his office. I went on to learn C and start to gravitate back towards gaming, but it was not until the 486 that I started using to really make some worthwhile games.
Never liked graphics, so I mostly took assets around to fit in the systems I wrote. Had some platformer game made, and then a labyrinth game with moving enemies and progression.
Once more I went back to databases and learned to use SQL and MS Access.
Around 1996 I started working teaching people how to use MS Office, and then after a while, teaching PHP, HTML, Javascript, and went back to use those to make some web games like board game versions and question games.
I joined college in 1997 studying Mechatronics, a multidisciplinary engineering field that combines mechanical engineering, electronics, computer science, and control engineering to design and automate intelligent systems.
It was meant to be 4 years course when complete, but I left before the last semester. In 1999 I was already working for a company which was in Six Sigma Training, and I decided to dedicate myself to the training in the company, while working as a IT manager, and soon I left college to eventually join Production Engineering college through that company.
2003, I had the opportunity to leave Brazil, and my plans on college were postponed for a later date. I was in a relationship with a woman who worked at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, so I traveled a lot, and for that, I leveraged my knowledge in development to work wherever I might have been living at the moment.
During 2003 and 2004 I was living in Africa, and there I made a lot of web development work, but regarding games, there was where I learned a lot about mobile devices. I worked with a local communications company in a tablet spec, and through that I practiced and learned a lot on mobile devices and app development.
After that I went to live a few years in Europe, and in 2005 I started playing World of Warcraft, which soon got me into the multiplayer gaming World. I started to learn about server and client games more in depth, beyond the simple programming of it. How the people developing games solved certain problems, how they usually developed things.
After Europe I went to live in Asia, several places, and around 2011 I started developing software as a steady work. I would mostly develop software for Database and Data Analysis, focusing on that and leaving the game for entertainment playing only.
When I moved to Thailand, and I was in college again, working my way to a accounting and economics degrees, I had more time to spare, and I started making mods for games. At first I got some messy games to mod, I found Conan Exiles, in 2019. This was the game I had the best experience, as it had the modkit, and it used a modified Unreal Engine to mod, that allowed me to use regular development knowledge and tools.
It went on to be the game I made mod from then on, for years.
My Conan Exiles Screenshots on Steam
Through that game I learned a lot in terms of modern game development, and Unreal Engine itself. I went on to build a prototype RPG in Unreal Engine, although never published in any way, it taught me a lot more about Unreal Engine 4 and 5, and other techniques of game development.
I left the Conan Exiles modding in 2024 as I was preparing to return to Brazil, and I had to work on my documents to certify myself as an accountant, and then I focused exclusively to development of AI and Business related software.
As I returned in 2025, and to this day, I still focusing on my academic career and just playing games for entertainment. I would not think I will be back on modding or to the development industry outside the use of automation to my work.
I am presently a certified accountant in Brazil, specialized in Accounting and Economics of the Public Sector, and MBA in Public Sector Auditing and AI in Business.
That was just some context I wanted to share on how I got my knowledge about gaming and development in general.