Why is it a pipe dream??? Don't put yourself down. The limitation is yourself and your own prejudices.
Why not join your two passions together?
Create a blog or a book for that matter, about your triumphs and failures in creating the idea for a game, developing it, rolling it out, marketing, etc, etc.
Who do you like to write for? preteens, teenagers, young adults, older adults? Target the book to them. Who knows, you might inspire someone to create the next super dupper flappy birds.
What do you get excited about? Be clean this is a family web site. :D
What burns you out? What do you hate about what you do or can't do? If you want to stay with technology, you can. The field is so big, YOUR CAN find your niche that gets you excited.
If you are, let's say, into rescuing animals or even more specific, a certain breed of dog, look at the technology that is being used currently in that field and see how you can make it better. Or, invent a new technology for it.
Use it as a hobby/side job/calling/distraction. Use that distraction to make the regular day bearable. Before you know it people will be coming to you.
I made the switch from Fire/EMS into full time "computers". You can switch too.
Irrespective of the language or tier, a developer needs to know how to problem solve. You have to know how to get the requirements even if the customer doesn't know what they want. You have to be good at coming up with what-if scenarios. Then tell me how you pitched your solution to the customer. Did your solution resolve the customer's problem.
Remember, as a developer, everyone who asks you for "help" is your customer. Be it a CIO or your cube-mate.
If I am interviewing you, I want to know how YOU will solve my problem. Tell me about a time when you helped a customer solve a problem. What the problem was and how you gathered the requirements even when the customer didn't know what they wanted. Tell me how you helped a customer think about different what-if scenarios.
By you telling me a few stories like that, it will allow me to dive deeper into areas both soft and hard skills.
Having gee-wiz things in your portfolio is good but if that doesn't help the customer solve their problem, what good was it. Tell me how your gee-wiz things solved a customer's problem.
paul and cruiz did not go