Hello, World: The story behind This CodeTropics merch site.
Hey friends,
So I’ve always wanted to do this my whole life. I’ve had this impulse to make art and videogames since I first got my hands on an NES controller and played Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt at my friend’s house after school back in the early 90s. As a kid I also became obsessed with scifi movies and special effects. I even dreamed about making practical special effects as an adult. For decades I told myself I'd do it "someday." That someday kept getting pushed back—until this year, when life forced my hand in ways I never expected.
In April, my dad passed away. Suddenly, I was moving back to Puerto Rico from San Francisco, California to help with funeral arrangements and grieve alongside my family as well as help my brother take care of our elderly mom who has mild Alzeihmer’s and type 2 diabetes.
I’m truly blessed and I really appreciate all the support my family and friends have shown me during the hardest year of my life. But I won’t pretend it’s been easy. A few months later the company I work for goes under and I lose my marketing job really throwing me for a spin. But somewhere in the middle of all this personal loss and upheaval, it really hit me differently : If not now when?
So here I am. Building CodeTropics.
What is CodeTropics?
It's a few things at once, honestly.
It's a clothing brand making retro sci-fi t-shirts inspired by the games, anime, and films that raised me. Iria: Zeiram. Parasite Eve. Suspiria. The kind of deep cuts that make fellow 90’s kids light up when they see them.
It's a game development studio—me, learning in public, building the kind of retro action platformers and RPGs I've been dreaming about for years. (I started my You tube channel CodeTropics to document my game development projects in the fall of last year but due to my life circumstances I’ve taken a temporary break from it)
It's a personal motion graphics and design portfolio—a place to showcase what I can do and, hopefully, attract future clients who want that same retro-futurist energy in their own motion graphic and design projects.
And it's a zine. A digital space for 90s kids, sci-fi nerds, and anyone who also grew up on reading Nintendo Power Club Magazine, Cult Cinema, and Saturday Anime on the Sci Fi Channel. A place to talk about the things we love, share behind-the-scenes stories, and hopefully find a little community in the process.
So why am I telling you all this?
Because as raw and vulnerable as it feels to blog about this kind of life stuff. I do believe in the power of sharing the journey. Not just the wins—the messy, uncertain, figuring-it-out parts too. I don't have all the answers. I'm learning all this as I go. But I've realized that the more I have shared, the more I connect with folks who are on their own version of a similar path in pursuing their creative inspirations.
So my intentions with this blog is going to be a mix of things:
Dev logs from my game development learning process
Design stories behind the shirts I create
Deep cuts on the games, anime, and films that inspire me
Small business notes on what it's like to build something from scratch
It's not going to be perfect. It's going to be real.
Come along for the ride.
If you're a 90s kid who still hears the PlayStation startup sound in your head, if you love sci-fi and horror and weird cult classics, if you're building something yourself and figuring it out as you go—you're in the right place.
Welcome to CodeTropics.
Let's make something beautiful. If you made it to the end of this blog post and you have a similar project or idea that you feel you have put off for whatever reason but you just can’t shake off or you are starting your dream project now I want to hear from you and lets inspire each other together.
— Miguel
