In late 2010, Mark Diaz was driving home from his job as a contractor for the Army. He remembers feeling his knees creak as he pressed on the gas. 他只有23岁. He’d already served four years of active duty with the Navy, where he’d been a 3M-certified fiber optic tech. When he got out, it seemed only natural to put those skills to use. 

“I’d spent the last few years of my life learning these good, marketable skills,” recalls Mark. “I could have done that and made a good living for the rest of my life. But it was hard work — hard on the body — and I had this creative need.”

He remembered reading about 满帆大学 in a book on game design his parents had given him when he was a 13-year-old kid programming text-based adventure games into his TI-83 calculator.

“我参加了一个 幕后之旅 2011年3月. From the moment I set foot on campus, I was convinced. I told myself I was going to come through the program like a hurricane. I was going to take the school by storm,” 他说.

他报名参加了 游戏开发 bachelor’s program that same year, and he thrived — both before and after graduation. 现在，他是一名游戏玩法程序员 id软件他曾在美国开发过《 厄运目视 即将到来的 注定永恒.

作为一名程序员, Mark works closely with the design team to code in different gameplay elements like dashboard features, 武器, 或者角色能力. 自 厄运 is a horror franchise, the requests are often hilariously graphic. He recently got a note that one of the features he was working on wasn’t gory enough.

“This certain attack wasn’t exploding enough demons, so my task was to go in and add some code to make sure everything looks nice and juicy,他笑着说.

It’s stuff like that — coding in explosions or blood and guts — that make his regular programming job exciting, 他说. 马克是我的超级粉丝 厄运 小时候的特许经营, and he’s enjoyed working on the game across mediums, from traditional options like consoles and PCs to VR. Working in VR proved especially interesting.

“With so many platforms, there’s no real standard for input,” says Mark. “Each headset has a different field of view. Oculus controllers are nothing like Playstation wands. You really have to put a lot of thought into your button mapping.”

As fun as working in VR was, Mark’s excited to finish up 注定永恒, which is scheduled to release in November. He says he couldn’t imagine working anywhere else at the moment.

“If you can’t make your own games, you better be sure you’re making games that speak to you. 这就是我在id所做的. I started out wanting to make my own games, but I’ve hitched my horse to the right cart,” 他说.

As for leaning into his desire to switch careers and pursue a degree in a creative industry, Mark says he owes much of his success to his military background.

“The military put me in the mindset that I could do difficult things and succeed,” 他说. “It was a four-year commitment, and when you’re 18, that seems like a long time. But I came through it, and it taught me I could make long-term commitments and see them through. It really made me believe I can do anything.”