Who am I?

I’m Louis Vanhove, a 19-year-old game designer who strives for excellence and tries to make a positive difference in the world. When I’m not creating or learning about games, I like to stay physically healthy by bouldering or going to the gym. I really enjoy designing and creating games, and I’m very grateful that I got to turn my passion into my profession.

Why game design?

I started playing video games through my dad’s phone back in 2012, with my first game being Minecraft Pocket Edition. My dad wasn’t always nearby for me to play, and I ended up receiving a laptop for my birthday. Since then, I played a lot of Minecraft and really fell in love with the redstone and command blocks aspects. It was pretty much like an introduction to programming for me, and it wasn’t long before I googled how to make money online (to pay for games, obviously). This lead me to learn front-end development, including HTML, CSS, JS, and React Native. I did some freelance projects and made a couple bucks, but it wasn’t completely my thing.

Fast forward 5 years later, and I was playing a multitude of other games, for hours on end. I decided to start trying to make my own game, and started experimenting with Unity in 2019/2020. I created a basic mobile game about a monkey collecting bananas, inspired by Doodle Jump. Although it didn’t really take off, I found my passion and decided to go into game development studies at Digital Arts & Entertainment, where I’ve learned a lot about game design, programming, project management and art. I am very passionate about game design and development, and I’m planning to create more fun experiences, with some games releasing soon on Steam & IkHighFive!