When Harrison Pink was just a young child he would spend hours turning cardboard boxes into weird contraptions to keep himself busy at his parents deli on Front Street.He is now using that creativity in his job as a video game designer for California-based Telltale Games.Mr Pink has helped to produce popular games like The Walking Dead and worked alongside some of the brightest minds in the business.Speaking to The Royal Gazette about how he turned his passion for gaming into a dream job, he admitted he has come further than he even imagined.“I don’t think the younger Harrison would have believed me if I told him I’d be here,” he said.“Growing up in Bermuda, movies and video games just sort of appeared from an unknown place across the ocean. I never really thought about what went in to making them.“It’s a very surreal experience to be living on the West Coast and meeting a lot of people who created those pieces of media that helped shape me growing up. It’s incredible [and] absolutely a dream come true.“It’s a lot of work, but absolutely worth it every day,” he added.Like most teenagers of his generation, Mr Pink loved playing video games growing up and was “always entranced by them”.One in particular called Myst peaked his interest in creating fantasy worlds and genres.“Over time I started to grasp the psychological nature of designing games and that part really appealed to me as well,” he said.He went on to study 3D Animation at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and hoped to get a job working at an animation studio like Pixar. Then while taking an elective course in video game design, he decided a change in direction might be in order.“I was doing an elective in Level Design and I remember staying up until 4am tweaking it to be just right. It didn’t feel like work, it just felt natural,” he said.“I decided that night that if I was willing to put that much into one assignment, I should just do that for the rest of my life.”After graduating in 2008, he started working at a company in Atlanta doing web-graphics when out of the blue he got a call from Lukas Bradley, the President and founder of Thrust Interactive.“He found my resume online and was looking for someone with some training in game design,” Mr Pink said. “It really was serendipity, but I had been hoping to find my way into game design a long while before that.”The opportunity arose to work at Telltale Games a few years later while attending the annual Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.He saw the gaming company’s booth and got up the nerve to talk to them.Mr Pink said: “I was a big fan of the adventure game genre, and knew [Telltale] were really the biggest game in town in doing that sort of thing. I got the call and now I’m here.“The Walking Dead was my first project [with them]. I was really lucky to come on board right as it was getting its feet. The leads of the project, Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, really had a fantastic vision for what they wanted the experience to be, so I just did my best to keep true to that.“It might sound a bit hokey, but I’m most proud of getting to work with such talented people. I’m proud to be a part of a team that helps me hone my craft every day.”He said many young people have a romanticised view of what being a game designer is, but he tries to give them a more realistic perspective when he takes part in panel discussions on the topic.“Most young people imagine that you get to go into a meeting, say: ‘Here’s my idea, let’s do it’ and walk out. That’s not really what game design is.“It’s a lot of discussion with your colleagues, a lot of conversations about exactly what we’re trying to do, then helping the entire team make that vision.“It’s just one step in the process really. Then just refining that until you get a really great experience at the end.”Now that he is settling into his dream career, Mr Pink said it’s important to him to hold the door open for the next generation.The first thing he teaches young people is the importance of actually making games — be it a computer, card or board game. “Just get out there and prove you can take an idea from the beginning all the way to the end,” he said.“[What I have found is] where you went to school and what degree you hold is a lot less important than just making something you believe in.”Visit Mr Pink’s design blog at www.harrisonpink.com; aspiring young game makers can also e-mail him at harrisonpink@gmail.com to get advice.