Just modded my laptop.  Now it’s super sweet!

I suppose an introduction post is a necessary first step.  Instead of trying to sum myself up in a few short (actually long, probably) paragraphs, I’m more or less going to give you a “stream of consciousness”-style about me post.  Maybe it will be a bullet point list, maybe it will be a Frankenstein monster post of disjointed sentences, I don’t really know, we’re about to find out though!

My name is Ben Cabot, and I’m a game designer in Chicago, IL.  I love Chicago, but I really want to move to the west coast.  I graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in game design.  Before studying there, I studied pre-med at Taylor University.  I love science (thus the blog title… sorta, I’m sure you’ll find out more about that later).  By day,  I am employed as a graphic/web designer; I spend my nights and weekends doing game design.  I think that web design and game design are actually very similar (and I don’t know if I’d get a lot of support from either side if I claimed that).  My dream job is one of two things: a) starting my own indie game studio and making the games that I want, or b) working as a lead designer — hey, we said dream job right? — at my favorite and most respected game company VALVe (Nintendo is a close second).  I tend to be a megalomaniac.  I might be a little verbose in type.  I think transparency is one of the best, most important things for people on the internet, and will strive for that in everything I write here.

I don’t think I’ve actually figured out exactly what I want to use this blog for.  Ideally, I’d like to use it to promote interesting discussions revolving around game design.  I’m not sure if that means discussion current industry issues, design problems, etc, or coming up with new design ideas based on interesting constraints or something.  Either way, I hope you’ll stick around, because at the end of the day, I’d much rather this be a conversation with like- (or unlike-) minded people than me just talking by myself.