Hi, my name is DJ Trischler. I’m the Events and Programming Director for AIGA Chattanooga. When I was in eight or ninth grade I had to pick which language I wanted to study. I loved video games and I thought that all video games came from Japan. Because of this, I picked Japanese.

I never excelled at Japanese. In fact, I was terrible at it. But, I did befriend two classmates, Karl and Kirk. I started to skateboard and snowboard with them. It turned out they both had pirated versions of Adobe Creative Suite, and…somehow…I ended up with a copy (sorry to our sponsor, Adobe!). Together, we designed posters, skateboarding videos, and websites. We took tons of photographs and manipulated the images in Photoshop. Senior year, I replaced my Japanese classes with visual communications and video production courses. I never looked back.

I never made a video game. But, in a way, I am where I am today thanks to a fascination with video game design.

I thought of this story because of our event this weekend, Indie Game: The Afternoon. I began to wonder if there’s anyone else who’s just as curious as I was. Perhaps the kid inside of you secretly wants to be a video game designer but has no idea where to start. Let me tell you: you don’t have to learn Japanese. I want to encourage that kid to come out on Saturday, meet real-life game designer Shaun Inman, and watch Indie Game: The Movie to get a look at the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into the work. Maybe, just maybe, that kid inside will grow up to be a video game designer. Or, a graphic designer. Or, maybe you’ll just have a great time living vicariously through Shaun this Saturday.

Either way, see you there.

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