I'm Constance Fleuriot, the new Local Editor for Gransnet Bristol, mother of five and grandmother of twin boys aged five, with another grandbaby on the way in April. When my older three children went to school full time in the late 1980s I went back into education too. I did a degree in Fine Art at Bristol Polytechnic, and in a roundabout way ended up working in IT research, involved in projects which took new technologies out of the research labs to try out around the city with artists, schoolchildren and the general public. I've spent a lot of time over the past two decades running workshops to encourage people of all ages to play with new technologies and build their own mobile apps.

Over the last few years, as offspring four and five have got older, I have had more time to be creative myself, so I have been writing fiction for fun, and somehow all my different interests have come together and now I am making computer games, which involves writing, sketching and working out how to use the software to build them. I say somehow my interests have 'come together,' but really, I mean I got interested in why games have the stories they do and went off to see what I could find out about games and how to make them with different stories, preferably with less gore and more interesting female characters. I don’t really play games myself as I don’t have enough time (and goodness knows, online Sudoku is exciting enough for me!) but I did want to try and create something that I would like to play, and that I wouldn't tut at if my own children and grandchildren played!

I nervously signed up for the XX Games Jam back in late 2012, an all-women game jam where we worked in small groups for a weekend to make games. I think I was the oldest person there and I was very unsure about resurrecting my dormant drawing skills in such a public arena but I ended up in the role of 'artist' with a games designer and a software coder, and was very pleased when our game got a special mention (It was about Ada Lovelace and a clockwork crocodile)

That gave me the confidence to go to a games jam in Bristol which was ‘mixed’ i.e. about 10% female, and yes, I was probably the oldest person at that one too. But they are a friendly bunch at Bristol Games Hub and I had fun, got to know some more people working in 'Indie games' (mostly small teams or individuals who aren't tied to big games publishers) and our game made people laugh. With most of these events around technology you sort of get used to being older than most people, and older women are especially thin on the ground. I tend to just plough on regardless and ignore the age differences (I can be wonderfully immature) though I did get cross at one event (not a games jam, at an ideas workshop) where a Young Blood Creative Type made a flippant comment about how you can’t rely on grannies on their bikes with mobiles to get data...which spurred me to set up a blog for a while called Grannies with Mobiles

That was in 2009, and I have calmed down a bit and decided that if you want to break down the stereotypes you have to get out there and challenge them. So now I am working two afternoons a week in a local community centre as a receptionist, and spending the rest of my time lurking on gransnet and facebook, and developing game ideas. Oh, and doing housework, of course…

I really believe that if there aren't games out there that you want your children or grandchildren to play then you have to get up and make some! I'm developing one at the moment about Lux, a small child who goes out to explore at midnight, but luckily Granny is keeping an eye in case there is trouble from the lurking Shadowmaker. Granny will not be a ‘little old lady’ as I am sick of older women being characterised as frail and lacking in power.

Lux and Granny Lumb and the setting of the game are all inspired by the location of a Writing for Games workshop I went on this year at Lumb Bank in Hebden Bridge, once the home of Sylvia Plath, and a magical place to be when you are dreaming up stories.

I’m really enjoying thinking up bits of the story and how it should look, and even trying to understand the software to build the game. The Shadowmaker in the game is based on a rather creepy Mother’s Day card that my last-born gave me years ago. I've also got other games ideas which will use my grandsons’ intricate drawings, but first I have to make Lux & The Shadowmaker.

I have signed up to the Queen of Code initiative to support women in the games industry, from Creative England and Crowdfunder UK. Lux & The Shadowmaker is on the Crowdfunder site until Dec 22nd, so I have until then to hit my target of £5000 which is what I need to get on with making the game. The five Queen of Code projects with the highest number of supporters get an extra £3000! So, if you want to support this granny to make games then please visit the project page and if you like it then pledges start at £2.

Find out more and support the development of Lux & The Shadowmaker here.

Every little helps!