I wanted my portfolio to represent me in as many ways as possible. From being a very capable developer to my tastes designs as well as those things that inspire me. Or, in the case of the landing page, showing that a person with my skills and experience is often asked to do many things beyond just working on the software as was intended.
While I have made many smooth and modern websites, I was not interested in using those same repeated themes to showcase myself. My interest in retro themes and gaming may not have the most appealing inital impact, but they are as informative about who I am as any block of text.
It is also important to me to build on this portfolio as a flat site (just HTML/CSS/JS). I enjoy working with frameworks and integrating libraries, but this is my playground and everything here is written by me.