The Strongest One Pokemon

I aspired to be. Perhaps I will get there one day. I am certainly a ludophile and very conscious of game design.

I loved video games and card games in my youth. I still do. I studied programming and computer science at university with the hope of moving into a games design career. But I didn't have much success finding work, so I moved to Japan and started teaching instead.

I still like thinking about and designing games, though. That's part of the reason I have so much to say on the Pokémon series and other games. I enjoy writing stories a lot, too, so I explore both passions playing tabletop RPGs with friends.

In university I did. I have been out of the game a while. I mostly used C++ and Java.

I love turn based play. I have enjoyed shooters like Doom and Halo, I played DOTA for a few years and I enjoyed fighting and racing games at times, but turn based strategy has always been my favourite. No time pressure or twitch aiming skills required. RPGs and card games suit me well.

And as I say, restrictions breed creativity and fun. If you can do anything, you want to do nothing. If something is a challenge, overcoming it becomes the motivation and the entertainment.

You could play a hacked Pokémon ROM with 100% capture and shiny rate, and every Pokémon on every route with all the items and HM abilities unlocked. But what would be the point? You would wonder through a world full of nothing worth doing.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: There are two great tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, and the other is getting it.