I've been thinking a lot lately about the things in life that I enjoy looking back at. It seems to me that they're mostly weighted to be between my late teens and mid 20s. Is this a universal rule? What were the most interesting projects or events you have been involved with?
In my early 20s, I posted a video to YouTube showing how to replace sound effects in video games. A few months later, I was contacted about it by someone working for a small hardware company. They were making a haptics feedback controller for games and needed someone to help drive their product with some demos. They sent over a prototype PC-XBox controller that was wired up so that any audio signal would be split into mono: one channel would be heard by the player while the other channel would rumble the controller at set frequencies or with certain "textures". I ended up modding Half-Life 2 and Rayman: Origins to suit their demos. So for example, picking up items, attacking, or taking damage would all have their own sensations that they would trigger in the player's hands. They had a spot for a booth reserved at E3 and said that if I could make my way over there, they could get me into the expo. Long story short, I had my highest-paying gig at the time and was able to go to E3 for a couple of days just because of some fun I was having online. It was certainly one of the coolest experiences I've ever had.