Why start Pete Makes Games?

I'm a chemist by education, and a teacher by training. If both fields share one mantra, it's this:

We learn by doing, we teach by explaining.

I love learning and explaining, or else I wouldn't be a chemistry teacher. But that learning and explaining expands beyond the classroom for me, it's saturated every fiber of my life. So, when I decided to start making games in the summer of 2025, I quickly realized I wanted to explain what I was doing, if for no other reason that I'd have a log I could reference when I invariably forgot something.

That's what Pete Makes Games started as. The teacher in me, however, soon realized this could be a resource for others who like games as well as those who want to make games. I'm still very new to coding, and pixel art, and music production, but I'm learning by doing. If I can do that at 48, anyone can do it at any age.

So, what can you expect here? I currently have a three-days-a-week posting schedule:

• Monday Map Outs - I plan the tasks I want to complete during the upcominb week
• Thursday Turn Outs - I give a mid-week progress report on how everything's going and what, if any, setbacks I'm having
• Sunday Show Outs - I give a long-form devlog of what I did the previous week, what I learned, and what's next

There may be other, miscellanous posts as I go deeper into my game development journey, but I want to start small and be consistent, for my sake and for yours.

Why start making games?

I've always loved games. That isn't unique, but my own story is. The first game my mother bought me was The Legend of Zelda on the NES, and it's been my favorite series since then. I wanted to make a game like A Link to the Past, but about my home of Appalachian Kentucky. I want to tell a story of the people, places, and paranormal found in the mountains.

My late aunt was one of the first female computer science graduates from Eastern Kentucky University, back when COBOL was king. She bought me multiple computers, from DOS to Windows 3.1, and I never learned to code. I just couldn't understand it. But now, I'm determined and I know how to learn. I need to prove to myself that I can do this.

Who am I?

I'm a husband to a wife I don't particularly deserve. I'm a father to two girls who mean the world to me, even when we get on each other's nerves. I'm a high school chemistry teacher, a Kentucky Colonel, and a game developer.

I'm an Appalachian by birth, born in a meteorite crater older than the Rockies. I think that's pretty cool.

I'm making a game about identity, about family, about the unknown and how we deal with it. I'd like for you to join me along the journey.

Will you?