Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamal Wright.
Hi Jamal, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
While I was a kid living in Germany, I watched a lot of basketball. Seeing Michael Jordan and the Dream Team, I told myself back then I wanted to play in the NBA. But with my hoop dreams, I’ve always had my creative side whether it was drawing, building with LEGOs or just making whatever out of anything I could get my hands on.
If I wasn’t occupied with creating things with my hands, a controller would be in them. I can’t remember how old I was when I received them, but my first gaming experiences came with the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear. The thought of how to make the games I played on them never occurred to me until much later.
When my family moved to the United States, I was still set on playing in the NBA. Even more inspired by Kobe Bryant. I can’t say I was the best on the court, but my hoop dreams were eventually crushed when my parents enrolled me into an art high school without a basketball team.
I was definitely upset because I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do with my life at the young age of 14. Late one night, I was watching Toonami on Cartoon Network and I saw this weird commercial for a game. It was Final Fantasy/anime and Disney characters running around in the same world. Every time I heard this commercial on, I would run and slide in front of the TV. I eventually recorded it on a VHS tape and watched it over and over again. It was for this Playstation 2 game called Kingdom Hearts (which is still my favorite game to this day!). Then it finally hit me. I wanted to make video games. My mind ran wild with ideas. I didn’t know how to make video games at the time, but I would write stories, create and draw characters. Just coming up with whatever I thought would be a “good” game in my eyes.
Towards the end of high school, I was looking for the best possible way to achieve my goals so I applied to Full Sail University in Florida which had a two year program for game development. My parents didn’t quite see eye to eye with my plans. They refunded my application and enrolled me in another college without me knowing. I fled to Atlanta from Savannah briefly out of anger before being convinced by other family members to return. I spent the next couple of years collecting debt at a college I had no desire to be at. But I was still creating game concepts the entire time.
It wasn’t until December 2019 where something finally clicked in my mind. An idea for a game that I saw as so much more. From there everything just kinda lined up accordingly. I picked up a new art style after my best friend introduced me to the world of voxels. From there, I ran across another developer on Twitter that was looking for work. After about a month of development, Hi-Score Boi was born. I spent the next few months polishing the game. On July 13th, 2020, Hi-Score Boi was officially released on PC under the studio I founded, Moonryse Studios.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a smooth road at all. Besides not having support from family, I’d have to say my biggest setback was getting robbed months prior to my game’s release. Welcome to Atlanta right? It took so much to get back on track. Before taking a break two years ago, I was heavily involved with streaming and the Twitch community. Returning to that community is what gave me the energy to keep going while working on my game. I would be developing on one monitor and have one of my favorite streamers on the other. Xmiramira, bettynixx, SenseiCJ and keekeexbabyy to name a few. I remember another of my favorites, Samora, was having a birthday stream. Her viewers made a special video for her. I ended up following some of the viewers that were streamers because I was also looking for more black streamers to watch. That opened a huge door for me. So I want to give a special thanks to two Georgia creatives. First, Kendra Malone (TGIKendra). Kendra is an amazing streamer and content creator. She’s always been supportive of my game since its release. Advertising it on her channel every time she streams and making all the promo material for it every time there’s a sale. Second, I want to thank the extraordinary music producer Marques Govan aka N3ku/N3ktunes. I recently released a large update for my game and N3ku breathed new life into it with two new tracks he produced.
I have some very close friends that have been keeping me anchored on this journey as well. At times where I thought of about giving up, they’ve had my back. Lastly, I want to thank my ace, Weston McNamara, an official/unofficial member of my dev team, for everything he’s done for Hi-Score Boi.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a game designer. I specialize mostly on the artistic side of game development. Character design, story writing and asset creation. Besides creating Hi-Score Boi, I’m also known for creating a Final Fantasy Gangnam Style video years ago on YouTube. One of the things I’m most proud of is releasing my game after going through so much.
If there’s anything that sets me apart from others, it’d have to be my creativity. My brain never turns off so I’m constantly coming up with ideas. At the cost of sleep sometimes sadly.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
As generic as this may sound, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to never give up. While coping with the loss of my belongings, I spent many days lying on the floor doing absolutely nothing. I was done. Ready to be taken away. I’m glad I didn’t give up. I found the strength to pick myself back up, rejuvenate my creativity and come up with even better ideas. I have a whole game out now!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1283000/HiScore_Boi/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/88domo_/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoonryseStudios/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/88domo_
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/88Domo
- Other: https://88domo.itch.io/hi-score-boi
Image Credits:
Personal Photo: Christina Nwaokoro / @christinathebarber
