For Reyna to read
I have always been a very creative person, even when I was very little. One of the earliest memories I have is of me and one of my childhood friends pretending we were YouTubers doing toy reviews in front an imaginary camera. I always wanted to be a YouTuber when I was younger, but for some awful reason the best name I could come up with was “HarperTube”. It’s not too surprising though, one of my favourite YouTubers at the time was EvanTubeHD so it makes sense that little 5-year-old me would just replace his name with mine.
Speaking of my name, I’m Harper Logan. I was born here on the Gold Coast and have lived here my whole life. I was born on the 12th of February 2009 and used to live in a little apartment when I was very little. I don’t remember too much from back then; it feels like I only really gained the ability to form memories when I was about four or so. I do have very fond memories from back then though, especially of watching YouTubers. I was always super interested in internet culture when I was little, I would always watch videos of people modding the game Minecraft or playing the game Garry’s Mod with even more mods. I think it’s funny to see that both of those games were things I was obsessed with when I was little and I still play both even today. Another game that made up almost all my early childhood was the game series Five Nights at Freddy’s. I don’t remember how I found out about that game series, but I remember being so entrenched in the lore and all the rumours and theories floating around.
That was how I made my first friends at school, by talking to them about all the theories. My childhood best friend and I would always talk about FNaF, both during school and during recess. A very clear memory I have is back in year 1 of school, me and my friend Kaihi were talking to this new guy who joined the school named Cameron, and after about a minute of awkward silence he says, “so, do you guys know about Five Night at Freddy’s?”. 10 years later I still talk to him, I was talking to him just last night about random video games. That’s just how it was though when I was little, I would make friends randomly after talking about the most nonsense of topics.
My time at the school came to a close during grade four. I won’t go into it since it’s a long story, but in the end leaving for was for the better when it came to my education. I would constantly ask to read at a higher level than the books they gave me, but I was never humoured. Me and my friends would end up hording all the books about astronomy whenever we were in the library just for something interesting to read. I couldn’t even tell the time, which has still affected my ability to read clocks to this day. The next school I went to was much better, however. I was enrolled in distance education to take break from the school environment, which ended up being just the right move as soon after I joined in year 5, Covid-19 hit and shut everything down. I learnt a lot at that school and even ended up winning a medal in year 8 for “academic prowess” if I remember correctly which I still have on my desk. 2020 onwards is when I started to get into 3D modelling, picking up the program Blender somewhere around 2020-2021. The first thing I ever made in Blender was a group Five Nights at Freddy’s fan models where each character was instead one of my online friends. I’m honestly surprised I managed to make those model so quickly after only just picking the program up. I even learnt how to use the addon Cell Fracture to create extra details.
In 2023 I joined Silkwood, and I instantly knew what my project was going to be. I had already started making a “game”, my very own FNaF fan game “Five Nights at Kaiju’s”. Kaiju is my name online, and I had already started modelling characters by the time I had joined Silkwood. The original models where long, lanky robots each with different face plates to identify who’s who. Originally the other two animatronics were based off of my friends Kaihi and Cameron, named after their online usernames. However, once I started school at Silkwood and got into trying to actually make it into a game I ran into a multitude of issues with both the names, gameplay and mechanics of the game. This is when Pressure was born, the game I am still trying to make and that has been my project for my entire time at Silkwood.
The first iteration of Pressure was set on a “party submarine” and the robots were entertainers gone rouge. However, I almost immediately scrapped this idea. Instead, Pressure turned into a grittier game still set on a submarine but now with the robots being mechanics meant to help keep the old submarine running. That was the main plot for Pressure for years, and I started working on both modelling detailed environments and remodelling old character models to reflect my skill level at the time (and just to look good too). I fell into a vicious cycle of remaking things though, which with the added burnout of modelling made it impossible some weeks to do any modelling. After everything I decided to completely scrap everything and start from the ground up for year 12, with Pressure getting a complete remake.
The remake for Pressure has been one of my greatest achievements so far and has become an extremely fun project for me. I’ve grown a lot as a person too, with each year marking a new me. Coming back to school after being homeschooled for so long was very daunting, and I feel a little sad now as I feel I haven’t fully experienced all there is to experience when it comes to high school friendships. I’m hopeful for the future though, already enrolling in Bond University for next year to explore my interests and passions for filmmaking and storytelling.