 Micah McGonagall's jaw hit the floor. He was watching a video of the popular YouTuber Vinnie from the channel Vinesauce, playing a game that he had made. When Micah had started work on Baldi's basics in education and learning for a game jam, he could never have imagined that his game would get this much attention. Micah had created the character of Baldi years previously, and had always enjoyed playing around with him in comics and games of his own creation. Now the wider world was also embracing Baldi, and Micah, better known as Mistman 12, was seeing an outpouring of love for his mascot. Micah assumed that being featured on Vinesauce would be the peak of his popularity, and that attention surrounding Baldi would die off soon after. He had no idea just how big the Baldi explosion was about to get. Soon some of the biggest YouTubers on the planet would be playing his game. This is the story of Mistman 12, Baldi's basics, and how a simple homemade comic strip created a viral game sensation. Micah McGonagall was always a big fan of video game design. Whenever he got the chance, he would try out making his own simple games. In 2008, his brother rented a copy of Pinball Hall of Fame, the Williams Collection, for Wii, which Micah fell in love with. Eventually, he found a program called Future Pinball that allowed him to make his very own pinball games, and this started him on the path to working on Hobby Project as an indie developer. If ever there was a video game that came with its own customization mode, or some kind of game development tool, Micah wanted to try it. He eagerly awaited the release of WarioWare DIY for the Nintendo DS, and when it released, he spent hours making his own minigames. The biggest help to his early game design education came from Petite Computer for the DSi. As he played around with this tool, Micah slowly learned the ins and outs of programming in basic. This was his first introduction to concepts like variables, loops, arrays and binary, and it helped him to develop a solid foundation in programming, all the while having fun on his DS. The only game he completed was called Revenge of the Crazy Baby, but he had a lot of fun experimenting. Micah also played as many games as he could, enjoying plenty of titles such as Mario Party, Spelunky, and his favourite multiplayer game of all time, Kirby Air Ride. The game that Micah loved the most was the classic point and click adventure game, Mist. He enjoyed this game so much that he used it for his online handle, naming himself Mistman 12. He also tried his hand at making a few point and click games that borrowed the Mist formula. It was ultimately comics though that led Micah to create the character that he would become most famous for. Micah's sister was working on drawing her own comic strip, and not wanting to be left out, Micah decided to join in the fun by making one too. His character was named Baldi because he had no hair, and Micah had fun coming up with weird scenarios for him to end up in. Micah only drew around 11 Baldi comics before putting down the idea for a while, and when he returned to try and draw Baldi again, he found that he couldn't quite get things right. He'd essentially forgotten how to get the design correct, so that every time he tried to draw Baldi, he was frustrated with his work. Ultimately, Micah started treating Baldi a lot less seriously, where previously he'd been earnest in his comic strip efforts. Now Baldi became something of a joke that would turn up wherever Micah felt he could use him. This included trying to make a video game. Micah made a small attempt at building a prototype of Baldi's basics in education and learning while playing around with the 3DS programming tool, SmileBasic. He didn't get further than changing a texture and recording a voice clip, as he ultimately found the existing Raycaster engine too much effort to work with. Micah kept working on various projects over the next few years. Every few months, he would make progress working on a new pinball game called Joe's Ultimate Bus Ride, and he still hopes to finish it someday. Then, Micah was browsing on Reddit. The Game Dev subreddit was set as his homepage on his computer, and so he spotted when people started discussing an upcoming game jam. The point of the meta game jam was to make something that would appeal to game developers. Games entered into the contest should in some way reference the ins and outs of game design, breaking the fourth wall as they explored the wider world of gaming in a self-aware fashion. What really caught Micah's eye was the two-week time limit on the project. Everything needed to be completed in a very short period of time, which meant that there was a clear, fixed goal for the game. This meant the project couldn't drag on endlessly. It was perfect for him. Going into his game jam experiment, Micah had the feeling that he might be about to bite off more than he could chew. Game design was a slow, laborious process, so he didn't want to overburden himself. He ultimately decided to work in Unity, which is he wasn't very familiar with the game engine, he wanted something that was nice and simple. Then Micah remembered Baldi's Basics, a game that he'd been meaning to make for a while, but had never had the time for. This felt like a pretty perfect way to approach the meta game jam. The whole point of Baldi's Basics was that the game was meant to emulate Sonic Schoolhouse and other edutainment games of the 90s. In other words, the production value needed to be fairly low. This was the whole point of the joke. And so, Micah began working on his little game. There were small hiccups along the way. Sometimes Micah would get stuck working with Unity, thinking that something didn't quite work because of the engine, before eventually discovering that the fault was his own. Eventually, he would simply find an optional setting that he had missed that fixed the issue. There were discouraging moments in the project. On his second day of work, Micah only managed to make a few textures for the hallways in his game, and he was only really pleased with one of them. Nevertheless, he kept pushing forward, trying his best. All in all, the process was fairly smooth. Thanks to the small scope of the game, and the fact that Micah already knew approximately what he was doing, there were no big challenges along the way. Some game modes had to be scaled back, but ultimately, Micah managed to fit pretty much every planned feature into the game. In just two weeks, the game was finished, and Micah shared it with the world. He was not prepared for the wave of attention that followed. When Micah first saw Vinny of Vinesource fame, playing his game, he was floored. Soon after, he began seeing more and more videos popping up on YouTube, notably from Korean players. His game wasn't just growing in popularity, it was an international sensation. Every time Micah thought that things were about to die down, he instead saw Baldi's popularity rise. The numbers just kept growing, and soon, some of the most popular YouTubers in the world were playing his game. Somehow, inexplicably, Baldi had conquered the world. Micah had created a hugely popular video game, and in just two weeks, in his spare time. The moral of the story is that there's no barrier to entry in video game development. If you want to learn to make games, there's nothing stopping you from throwing yourself in, as Micah did. Start small, practice, learn, and don't be afraid to fail. Take part in game jams, or other similar contests, as a way of honing your skills. All creative skills require time and effort. As you continue to improve, you'll be able to see yourself advance as you look back on your older work. Plus, if you find some truly special ideas while you're experimenting, you can come back later to build them into something that's even more noteworthy. Ultimately, game making, as with all other creative endeavours, is its own reward. Keep making things for the sake of learning and growing, and you'll find satisfaction in what you're doing. There's nothing stopping you. Go and make something today that you can be proud of.