Sometime around 2016, my older brother showed me SimplePlanes, which he had obtained for free on his tablet via Amazon Underground, back when that was a thing. I became fascinated by watching these little creations he was messing around with, as well as watching the game on YouTube. Eventually I bought my own copy using money my parents gave me, as I had just turned 11 at the time. I had a blast downloading crafts and mods, although I never really built much myself.
Then in 2017, SimpleRockets 2 (now Juno: New Origins) gets announced. Being a big fan of SimplePlanes, I was beyond hyped for this game, eagerly following all of its development updates. Near the end of that year, my younger brother tells me about this game he found called Spaceflight Simulator. If you play mobile aerospace games nowadays you probably already know about this game, but at the time it was brand new and my brothers and I instantly became very addicted to it even in the highly simplistic form it was in at that time. All of these contributed massively to kickstarting my interest in spaceflight, driving me to get SimpleRockets in January of 2018. I spent a lot of time browsing r/srmod (which, sadly, is now mostly full of dead links).
The following months were little of note; SimpleRockets 2 gets delayed, I become an active member of the Spaceflight Simulator forums, SimpleRockets 2 gets a beta signup that I try (and fail) to get into…
In November the game finally comes out and within minutes I’m playing, having the time of my life. In the middle of 2019 I join the SimpleRockets Chat Discord server, eventually becoming a moderator there, which quickly led to becoming a moderator on simplerockets.com and simpleplanes.com.
All this leading to where I am now, having a job I’ve dreamed of for a long time. I’m very happy to be here, and I truly couldn’t have done it without my friends and family.