My interest and motivation for programming all started with Excel and my interest in Pokémon cards. From a young age, I was introduced to Excel because my parents owned properties and used it for their business. After learning the basics of Excel, I started to gain knowledge by watching YouTube videos about formulas and how to do certain things. I loved teaching new things I learned to other people (mostly my parents). Watching YouTube videos and understanding Excel formulas helped me on my journey to program.

   Since I liked Pokémon, I decided to try to create a game of two Pokémon cards battling each other in Excel. I used some buttons and health numbers. I even added critical hits. However, this was a terrible game, and there were certain things I couldn’t add or fix due to Excel’s limitations. (I didn’t know VBA existed, but that still isn’t the best way to create a game). When I was 10, my cousin came over, and I showed him my progress on my Pokémon game. He said his older brother was working on a Pokémon game using Python. I researched and came across some videos of Python. My first Python video was CS Dojo I learned about variables, and they clicked in my mind, unlocking so many potential ideas. I only knew about Excel formulas at that time, so variables would be very helpful.

   I continued watching some videos, one being Tech with Tim. I never actually downloaded Python at this point, since I only knew a little. The video taught me about input(), but also made me think I couldn’t name it whatever I wanted. I thought I had to keep it as ans = input(). It took me a while until I figured out that I could name it anything.

   Eventually, I went to my cousin’s house. His older brother showed us the Pokémon game he created in Python. It was a 1v1 battle with a team of Pokemon. He explained a little about OOP and classes, but I didn’t get any of it. It would take many days and many more videos before I fully understood classes. From that day on, my goal was to create my own Pokémon game. I downloaded Python, asked my older cousin questions, and watched a bunch of more YouTube videos. At first I tried to create exactly what my older cousin had made, but I was interested in a game called Loomain Legacy. It gave me inspiration to create a larger project with maps and an adventure structure. I would later call my game Pybattle.

   Along the way, I worked on a bunch more projects (see pinned repos).

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you have any questions, advice, or if one of my projects helped you with something 🙂