Writing songs on my Game Boy for my chiptune project Sparkyboy.

Hi,

my name is Niel de la Rouviere. This is my personal website, where I showcase all my hobbies, interests, achievements and various web projects.

I’m currently 22 years old and doing research in Chinese Vocabulary Acquisition in Spaced Repetition Systems. In 2010, I finished a BA Humanities degree with majors in Chinese and General Linguistics at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

I’ve always  had a fascination with creative things. During highschool I played games till no end, Morrowind being my favourite. Although the games were fun, I’ve always wanted to be creative more than being a consumer. So I started to modify Morrowind, building my own secret lair as I quested around the world. Same with Warcraft 3. I like the game, a lot, but most of the times I would delve into the World Editor and create my own maps with tons of triggers and variables. Those maps are still somewhere. It satisfied the inner tinkerer within me.

Same happened with music. Music is one of my biggest passions. The act of creating music brings me much joy. So my search for interesting sounds went deeper and deeper until I discovered 8bit music or otherwise known as chiptunes. This unique way re-appropriating old hardware into something that was not intented to make music intrigued me immensely.

This curiosity in creating things, eventually led to websites too. I have created various blogs, sites and portals. Most of them just for fun and satisfying my joy of creating, but others a bit more serious. I doubt if I would ever stop creating websites or music. For now, I’m studying and creating things while I go that might help me sustain my future, so I can keep on creating without many pressures.

I’ve got another fascination and that is languages. This ubiquitous part of human nature intrigues me immensely. I currently speak Afrikaans, English and a bit of Mandarin. I’m getting there. I’m planning to spend the rest of my life acquiring languages. I just love the way that speaking a certain language can bridge the gaps that so few other things can do.

Besides, creating websites, writing tunes and learning languages, I love goings to gigs and chilling with my friends. Nothing like a cold beer, friends, good tunes and friendly vibes all round. On the occasion I also dabble in gaming (not as much as I used to) like Minecraft and Guitar Hero and the odd game here and there. Boardgames, Magic TGC and D&D are all also rad. Besides those you’ll probably find on me Twitter or Reddit.

But alas, if you want to know more check out My Projects.