Las Vegas, Nevada
A life isn't one thing. I've spent years teaching kids to build video games, and everything else I care about grew up around that classroom. The words I write, the beats I make, and the software I put together by hand.
The Human
I've spent my life moving between rooms that look unrelated from the outside. Classroom and recording booth, code editor and kitchen table. They've always felt like the same thing to me.
Underneath all of it is one instinct: pay close attention to a person, then make something that genuinely helps them. A lesson that finally clicks. A sentence that says the thing they couldn't. A beat that holds a feeling. A game that runs on the first try.
I try to lead with compassion and stay curious longer than is comfortable. The depth is the point. I'd rather make a few things well, and mean them, than a hundred things in a hurry.
People before output. The kindest version is usually also the most useful one.
Slow down, look closer, and care about the part nobody sees.
Craft you can feel, built carefully so it lasts and feels good to use.
Teaching and learning are the same motion. I never want to stop doing both.
Devotions
Five rooms in one house. None of them cancel the others out. Together, they're the whole of me.
Patience as a craft.
Whatever the subject, teaching is mostly listening. Finding the one door a person can actually walk through, then holding it open without rushing them. I care less about being impressive than about someone leaving the room more capable, and more sure of themselves, than they came in.
The work that outlasts me.
Everything else is rehearsal for this one. Being a parent rearranged what I think matters. It taught me that attention is the realest form of love, and that the small, unglamorous, repeated acts are the ones that build a person.
Trying to say the true thing.
I write to find out what I actually think. Essays, strange little fables, half-jokes that turn out to be serious. The goal is always the same: get closer to something honest, and make it warm enough that someone wants to stay.
Feeling, arranged.
Making beats is the same instinct as writing. I shape feeling into a form other people can step inside. I love the moment a loop stops being sound and starts being a mood you can live in for three minutes.
Useful things, made well.
I build websites and small software the way I'd build a piece of furniture. Carefully, so it lasts and feels good to use. The craft is invisible when it works, and that invisibility is the whole point.
Teaching
Career and Technical Education is the heart of what I do. I teach high schoolers how to build video games, and along the way, how to build careers.
I teach Digital Game Development at a career and technical high school here in Las Vegas. CTE means the skills are real and job ready, not theoretical. My students learn Unity, source control, how to work on a team, and how to actually ship something that runs.
For a lot of them, games are the thing they already love. My job is to take that love and turn it into a craft, a portfolio, and a path. We tour real game studios right here in Vegas, talk QA and internships, and treat the work the way the industry does.
Outside my own room, I lead the Nevada Digital Game Development Teachers PLC, helping teachers across the state build stronger programs so more kids get this shot.
A Unity-first curriculum where students design, build, and ship real games.
I lead the Nevada Digital Game Development Teachers PLC, supporting programs across Nevada.
I coach competitive gaming and advise the esports club, FBLA, and more.
I advise student clubs so every kid has somewhere they belong.
Attention is the realest form of love. Everything I make is just a way of paying it.– RJ Barranco
Writing
Essays, fables, half-jokes that turned out to be serious, and the YA novels I write under Mojave Publishing. New pieces land here.
A childhood spent roaming the tunnels, creek, and rooftops of a quirky 1960s apartment complex in Pinole, California.
On being the last analog-native generation: the dial-up handshake, the Walkman, and translating between two worlds.
On parenting, presence, and the unglamorous acts that quietly build a person.
Work
Websites, products, and small software, made the way I'd build a piece of furniture.
An engine-agnostic path to real game development skills, built from what actually works in my classroom.
Case study soonA secure, embeddable AI chatbot widget. A small script tag that drops a careful, well-behaved assistant onto any site.
Visit →A utility that helps people see what they're exposing online and quietly take it back.
Case study soonAn AI decision companion for the small forks in the road, built to nudge, not to bully.
Case study soonA family of small, sharp local-business websites built on one shared, well-engineered framework.
Case study soonSay hello
Teaching, a project, a piece of writing, a track, or just a kind note. I read everything and I write back.
Leave a note with the form and I'll reply to the email you give me. It's the surest way to reach me.
Mood