About Me (The Apprentice)

My name is Raymond Skinner, although I prefer to be called Ray.   A software engineering student at Cleveland Institute of Electronics, I have recently decided to pursue my love of video games as a career.

Video games have always been a huge part of my life.  I first became interested in video games at a young age.  My grade school had these silly, fun adventure typing games.  These typing adventures were the first video games I played.  My interests later developed when my brother let me borrow his old Sega genesis and I became consumed with Sonic the Hedgehog 3.  I used to enjoy playing with the Sonic and Knuckles game because it was expandable and could be combined with other Sonic games to create a "new" Sonic experience.

The year before I started middle school I finally bought my very first game console, the Super Nintendo.  The first game I bought for my SNES was Donky Kong country 2, although my favorite super Nintendo game has always been Super Mario World.  I had many other games on the SNES, but those were the most memorable.

Once the Playstation came out I had became obsessed with the Final Fantasy series. That has been a defining series for me as a gamer.  The games always move me emotionally and I just really get involved in these worlds and the lore.  Final fantasy 8 was my favorite game in the series.  Most people liked 7, I thought 7 was great but 8 really stole my heart.

During my high school years I started modifying games.  I would use NES and SNES tile editors, hex editors, and level editors to modify game roms.  When Unreal Tournament 2004 released with a level editor I had to check it out.  Unfortunately I was unable to make sense of the majority of the program and quickly gave up.

After I graduated high school, I bought Neverwinter Nights 2.  The game was absolutely fascinating to me.  We had finally gotten high speed internet at my parents, and I was online!  What I found there was not what I had expected.  Players from around world could post their own custom levels online for anyone to play! 

I had to try the NWN2 level editor.  I was hesitant at first because of my experience with the Unreal 2 engine.  My hesitation quickly turned to curiosity and I was off making quests and environments on my favorite game. I didn't make much more than a few unfinished quests but I truly enjoyed the experience. 

Now I am using Cryptics Neverwinter Foundry editor.  I made a campaign of quests called 4 Orbs, if you want to check them out there are 4 quests published right now.  It is possible to play them but they are in early beta and quite glitchy at this time.  I could always use tips and criticism so check them out in the game Neverwinter by Cryptic.

I am taking classes at the Game Institute online.  Currently I am working on the c++ module I game programming course. It is not easy! I am learning game maker studio as well as taking an ethics in information technology course at CIE.

That's about it! I'm a gamer, I love game design, and I want to learn more!!