For a long long time I was mesmerized about how console games (and in particular the old ones) were made.

Of course I knew they were written in Assembly language but always wondered how it would be like to write one, what problems would come up when working that low level.
So when it was time to do my minor I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do so.

My first idea was to make a simple space shooter but that idea was quickly turned down for being too simple.
The next idea was to make a survival horror game, I was playing the resident evil 2 remake at the time and was enjoying it very much.
That gave me the idea to make it with modern sensibilities such as auto saving and more guiding of the player.

The project was a lot of fun, it was treading on new territory and gave
me a fundamental understanding of how computers actually work.
Sure, I knew what the “new” and “delete” keywords did in c++ but it still felt like working with a black box from time to time.
Type “new” and somewhere there will be some allocated memory.
With Assembly you don’t get that luxury.
When problems arose it was a lot of fun discussing solutions with my programming teachers, if alone for their reaction of seeing a programming language they didn’t see since the late 80’s.

In the end I sadly didn’t finish it in time.
The main reason being the unknown territory of it all.
Nevertheless I showed the grading teachers my progress and a playable product (you could walk around and use an item or two) and were impressed enough to give me a 7/10.

Afterwards I continued working on it and still do whenever I find the time, it has become something I am very passionate about.