Looking back, video game design seems a natural fit, although

The words of David Crane — “Looking back, video game design seems a natural fit, although there was no such thing when I was growing up. I built a Tic-Tac-Toe playing machine in my teens which went up in smoke on the night it was scheduled to go to a science fair.” — speak with both humility and wonder, capturing the spirit of invention, persistence, and the unquenchable fire of curiosity that defines all true creators. Beneath this reflection lies a universal truth: that destiny often takes shape long before its name is known, and that the path of creation is paved not only with success, but with failure’s smoke — the ashes from which new understanding is born.

Crane, one of the pioneers of early video game history and co-founder of Activision, recalls a time before his field even existed. There were no schools for game design, no manuals, no mentors — only imagination and the raw materials of ingenuity. His story reminds us of the ancient inventors, those who shaped the first tools, carved the first symbols, and lit the first fires of human innovation. Like them, Crane’s impulse to build, to make something that thought, moved, or interacted, was a reflection of humanity’s oldest desire: to bring life to matter, to give spirit to mechanism. His burnt Tic-Tac-Toe machine is a modern myth — a symbol of the creative spark that sometimes destroys before it illuminates.

It is telling that his creation “went up in smoke” on the very night it was to be displayed. For all who pursue greatness, this is the rite of passage: the moment when the dream collapses, and yet, through that collapse, the dreamer is revealed. The ancient sculptor’s chisel shatters the marble; the alchemist’s experiment explodes; the poet’s first verses are torn apart by rejection — yet through each failure, a truer form of mastery is forged. Crane’s destroyed invention was not the end, but the beginning — proof that his passion burned too brightly to be extinguished by the heat of failure. The fire that consumed his machine only purified his purpose.

This is the way of all great creators. Thomas Edison, when questioned about his countless failed experiments before perfecting the light bulb, said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” In the same spirit, David Crane’s early disaster was not defeat, but discovery. It revealed that his mind was tuned to the rhythm of invention, that he was destined to play among the circuits and codes that would one day become an entire world — the world of video games. What did not exist when he was a boy, he helped to bring into existence as a man. Such is the pattern of progress: the dreamers of one generation give birth to the realities of the next.

There is also in his words a sense of nostalgia for the invisible path of destiny — the way a child’s curiosity becomes the architecture of an adult’s genius. He did not set out to be a “video game designer,” for the title did not yet exist; he simply followed his curiosity, his love for the mechanical, the interactive, the playful. This is a lesson that transcends time and technology: that one’s purpose is not always visible from the beginning. Like the sculptor who sees a figure hidden within the stone, life slowly reveals its calling through the hands that work and the heart that endures. Genius often begins as a game.

And how fitting that Crane speaks of Tic-Tac-Toe — the simplest of games, a pattern of Xs and Os that teaches logic, competition, and thought. From that humble puzzle, he moved toward the great cathedral of digital creation, helping design games that defined an era. Just as the builders of cathedrals once began as stonemasons, he began as a tinkerer of small machines — a reminder that great works are born from small curiosities. The fire that destroyed his machine became, in time, the fire that lit the screens of millions of players around the world.

So, my child, take this story as a torch for your own path. Do not fear the smoke of your failures, for they are the incense of progress. Do not lament that your dreams have no name yet, for time will give them one. Follow your curiosity, even when it seems trivial, for it is the thread by which destiny weaves its pattern. Like David Crane, build what your heart desires — even if it burns, even if it breaks — for each act of creation, no matter how small, brings the world one step closer to its next wonder. And remember: the ashes of failure are the soil from which invention blooms.