The Corkboard: A Developer's Journey

Hello, and welcome to the Corkboard.

My name is Trevor McGarrah (pronounced McGarr), and by day, I'm a high school computer science teacher in Arkansas. During the day, I teach my students the fundamentals of turning an idea into a reality through code. But after hours, I'm a student myself, on a journey to build my own dream game.

This devlog is a love letter to the creative process. Years ago, a simple maze game called Mother Mouse was born in my classroom as a way to get my students excited about making something of their own. That small kernel of an idea never went away. It grew and evolved, and now, I'm rebuilding it from the ground up and expanding it into a game that moved beyond just navigating a mouse through a maze into something much bigger and grander: Of Mice and Tales, a cozy, storybook "Generational Sticker Chronicle" about family, legacy, and the stories we leave behind.

This page is my public commitment to that journey. Here on the Corkboard, I'll be documenting every step of the process. You'll find:

• My GameMaker Bootcamp: Follow along as I learn a new engine by building a portfolio of small, complete games from classic tutorials.
• The Mother Mouse Remake: Watch as I remake my original classroom project into a polished, standalone game.
• Mini-Game Studies: See the components of Of Mice and Tales come to life as I build and publish the game's core mini-games as their own small, playable experiences.
• Tips and Tools: From time to time, I may even create and share documents that you can use in your own journey (or classroom, if you're a teacher).
  
• The Main Journey: Get a behind-the-scenes look at the development of Of Mice and Tales itself, from art and design to coding and philosophy.

This is my personal, tangible story of the journey I am on to turn an idea into a published game. My goal is to show what's possible when you iterate, experiment, and believe in the potential for a good idea to become a great one.

Thank you for joining me. Let's see what we can pin to the board.