“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”
My first love was chess because those thirty-two monochromatic pieces presented my four year old self with the first problem I could easily understand but not easily solve. When I was young I just remember that I wanted to learn everything. I was annoyed, genuinely annoyed that my high school only offered me six class slots in my senior year. I wanted to take Mathematics, Physics, Literature, History, Sport, Visual Arts, Theatre, Economics, Religion and Politics all at once.
After high school, I started Bachelor of Advanced Mathematics at the University of Sydney in order to quench my analytical thirst; performed comically on stage to fill the theatrical desire and continued to develop a writing style in literature courses. All this considered, I am most proud of my travels during this time: North America, Europe, South-East Asia and more. In order to fund my undergraduate period I started my own small private tutoring business that successfully turned a profit for over 5 years.
During 2015 I had the opportunity to work in a premier scientific position in the Quantum Control Laboratory at the University of Sydney, producing a thesis on control feedback techniques. The following year I graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Engineering and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in order to start a Master’s Program in Game Engineering.
The purpose of this website is to collect and organise my current projects, videos, articles and personal blog in one easily accessible and manageable space. All things here are welcome to be viewed and enjoyed.
People have said to me that they don’t understand how someone with my intellect and creativity can spend so much of their time with video and board games and I’ve always felt that is flawed reasoning. I wasn’t a smart kid and then good at chess, I was in love with chess and that helped me build logic and the ability to execute precise judgment. I would argue that playing, making and studying games my entire life has helped me more than any other aspect. I could tell a story about how Roller Coaster Tycoon taught me compound interest and loan structures at the age of 9 but it runs deeper than that. Over twenty years, I been helped to understand morality, sentimentality, communication, wisdom and possibly most importantly, myself.
The world is open for play. Thanks for reading and many kind regards, Stephen Dona.