Who Am I?

I’m Richard a 32 year old type 1 diabetic with autism who has
had depression for 17 years and who has always been told, “You can’t do this.”

Why Am I Doing This?

Because I want to make a video game!

My dream is to make a video game and I have spent a lot of
time since February working towards this goal. It is an impossible goal,
because when I started I had no programming knowledge.

In June I did my initial ride, cycling the distance from Land’s
End to John O’Groats in the hopes of raising money for both the NHS and to help
fund the creation of my game.

While I completed that challenge before the end of the month,
it was an abject failure as a fundraiser, even after changing it so that all of
the funds went to the NHS.

However, I came to a realisation while I cycled the original
1,407km distance. I want my game to give back to society and since that is one
of the aims, I thought “Why not work towards that goal during the development
of my game too?”

There are two permanent destinations of the Land’s End sign,
I’ve already cycled to one of them so… Why not go for the other next?

So, my next challenge is to cycle the 5,065km distance from
Land’s End to New York to raise money for the Mental Health Foundation!

Why Mental Health is Important.

As I said, I have suffered from depression for 17 years which
is far too long. I also received a diagnosis of autism a little under a year
ago. However, mental health in general is not understood enough and is often stigmatised.

During lockdown due to Covid19 the number of people suffering
from depression and other mental health issues has risen drastically. But this
grants an opportunity for those who had not experienced these struggles before
to gain some understanding.

People have experienced what it’s like to not be able to go
out, to not see their friends and relatives and feel what it’s like to be
completely isolated. These are issues that many people with depression
experience and are also frequently belittled for at the best of times.

Nobody chooses to be depressed.

My hope is to be able to use this monumental challenge to
raise more mental health awareness so that it becomes more acceptable for
people to say they are experiencing difficulties, rather than fearing the scorn
of others for showing their weakness.

For most of my life, people only told me what I couldn’t do.
So, is it surprising that I ultimately ended up, doing nothing? I lacked the
confidence to even challenge this because it happened far too often.

Cycling from Land’s End to New York is impossible.

I’m going to do it regardless.

How Long Will It Take?

If I’m lucky, I’ll be done before Christmas! If I can manage
2 hours on my bike per day then it will take 102 days. I’m more concerned about
whether my bike will last that long though!

My Game

The video game I would like to make is a Pokémon style game,
but for people who grew up with Pokémon and would have liked to see the series
grow up with them.

I have spent a lot of time planning the various aspects of my
game, creating the world, a backstory, creating a map, coming up with ideas for
the monsters, creating attack, abilities and various game mechanics. Even
though when I began, I had no coding ability at all!

I have recently been learning Javascript so that I can code
something and right now I’m working to create a game based on an example
project but which has more personalisation than the rather generic example.
Hopefully I will have some sort of initial build created in a few weeks.

If you would like to learn more about my game you can do so
on the Facebook, GoFundMe and Patreon pages I have:

https://www.facebook.com/EmpyrealMonsters/

https://www.gofundme.com/f/empyremon-a-pokemon-inspired-game

https://www.patreon.com/Empyremon?fan_landing=true

You can also see the results of my learning Javascript here:

https://private-prinny.itch.io/

For now, my games page only has the two course examples and my
game which builds on the first course example, Squirtle Beach. But you can
check out the additional touches I added to that game!

Richard’s Ride

You can also view my original challenge of cycling from Land’s
End to John O’Groats on its JustGiving pages:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/richard-dennis-1

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/richard-dennis4

I wasn’t sure I could complete
this challenge, but I did it anyway!

I have a long way to cycle (and I’m
not entirely sure I can complete this challenge…). But I’m going to do it
anyway!

Any donations made to support me
and the Mental Health Foundation in this task will be greatly appreciated, as I
will most likely need some motivation as I suffer the fatigue from all this
cycling!

Fortunately, summer’s over so the
heat isn’t a problem!

Thank you.

Richard.