Home is where the development environment is
(Edit: Hey, somebody Dugg me! Go Digg it up! Hooray internet!)
This man wants to become the best game designer ever.
As such, he’s making a game. He is also homeless, buried in credit card debt with nearly no money to his name, and living out of a shelter, equipped with nothing but a computer and a copy of Game Maker 7.0. As he states in his blog profile, “I hate working!”
At first, it is difficult to know whether to believe his claims, this being the internet. A bit of investigation reveals that he asked on the GameDev forums, “Is it possible to design and/or program games, while being homeless?” In that post, dated September 5, he noted he was “losing my place of residence soon.” Two days later, he created his blog. In the inaugural post, he says, “I’m broke, homeless, and I don’t have a job,” and lays out his plan to develop his own game, without necessarily getting a job dedicated to “making someone else rich.”
He also welcomes monetary donations, explaining, “I’m broke niggas. I’m broke.”
Early on, I fluctuated between being belief and skepticism. These days, the default reaction to this sort of thing is that viral marketing is afoot, but it seems too self-contained to be that. His GameDev posts don’t promote or link to his blog in any way, not even subtly, nor do the scant few other posts I was able to dig up elsewhere, all of which seem to be earnest game development inquiries.
The game was originally a platformer entitled The NeoVerse, and included moving platforms, the ability to swim “exactly like it is in Super Mario,” and a rocket launcher. This game seems intertwined with another idea, “a blend of old school Castlevania 2D type of game with Super Mario RPG,” which eventually became more focused on the platforming elements and was redubbed Me Vs. My Robots.
Simultaneously, he began work on a new design, Pocket Dungeon: an “old school, Gauntlet style game. 2 buttons. I don’t know how many levels. 16 X 16 bit tiles for everything.” As he notes, “I wanted to use 8 X 8 but Game Maker wouldn’t let me zoom in to make levels for 8 X 8 tiles).”
While developing these games, he maintains a separate blog, The Five Minute Game Review (on which he alternates excoriating and praising indie games), and applies to various Chicago-area development firms such as Day 1 Studios. He also claims to have had a meeting with one Michael Mendheim, whom Google reveals to be the creator of Mutant League Football.
Mendheim declined to hire our man as a producer. “He doesn’t want to RISK the MONEY on an unproven designer,” it is explained. At that point, he is about to lose his short-term lodging with an ex-girlfriend (this does end up happening a few days later), and his already dire finances are getting worse.
“He cares a lot about money,” the designer notes ruefully about Mendheim, who he calls “friggin’ Jew.” He understands Mondheim’s stance, but doesn’t respect it. (”Fucking poor black people,” he exclaims in a later post describing a sleepless night at the shelter. For what it’s worth, the ex-girlfriend is black as well.)
Thanks to the increasing number of details specific to the Chicago area video game industry scene (a scene of which our man apparently has a low opinion), I was becoming more convinced of the veracity of the story.
After following the saga for a few weeks, I did some slightly more in-depth Internet Detective Work and found evidence that jibes with the various scraps of personal information that can be inferred from throughout his blog. (I’m choosing to keep my methods and info unpublished for privacy reasons.) I contacted him via email as well, but was told, “I’d prefer to not answer any questions until after the game is finished.”
In late September, The NeoVerse and Me Vs. My Robots get shelved and all attention is turned to Pocket Dungeon. The game is given a release date of February 28, 2009.
Along with updates regarding his living situation, our designer includes notes on Pocket Dungeon’s progress, sometimes in the context of his own design evolution. “I usually don’t like putting in items in games that don’t affect the enemy in any way,” he writes. “Take, for example, the raft. You can only use it in thick water. If there’s no thick water, than having that weapon equipped is useless. I’m not a big fan of that. In my younger days (not spent in a fucking homeless shelter), I would make it so that you can use the raft to wack people with it. That was an idea I had.”
The game’s influences begin changing. It is described as a meeting of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Diablo, and Zelda. “That probably sounds confusing and unlike anything you’ve ever played,” he says. “And, it is.”
“I don’t want to overhype anything,” he adds, “but I will make the most unique indie game EVER.”
An earlier post extolls the virtues of games being stripped down to their basics, but by this point the ambitious design calls for a total of 350 weapons (of seven types), as well as 100 each of armor, head gear, amulets, and rings.
As it turns out, “Pocket Dungeon” is the name of a Japan-only PlayStation game, so our man’s title becomes The Fire Mage. He’s got a contingency plan, too: if it turns out that’s already in use, it will become The Fire Mage of Azul. Hopefully not, though—as he points out, “that’s kind of a gay name.”
Soon, a blog post announces a return to simplicity and a Diablo-inspired story “along the lines of ‘You’re a hero sent on a long mission to destroy all evil.’” Except that “the story isn’t actually about that at all,” he says. “I want the story to be a bit more personal. But, I also want it to have a run and gun shooter type of feel to it. Needless to say, trying to achieve all of that is gonna be difficult.”
He has espoused something of a manifesto:
“I want people to be able to turn off their brains while playing the game. Just like old school games - I want people to just play the fucking thing. You don’t need to sit there watching cut scene after cut scene to explore why you have to collect X amount of bandannas and how it affects the characters feelings. You just pick up bandannas because they’re spinning. And, because you CAN. That’s what they’re there for.
“But, I want to make a deep game. Something that gets people thinking IF they WANT TO. But, the thing is, even if they don’t want to, I still want people to get the message of something deep. While they’re mindlessly playing my game, I want them to get the message that something is going on in a real kind of way.”
It’s a tall order, particularly working out of a homeless shelter.
“It’ll be tough, but I’m gonna be considered one of the best designers ever no matter what,” he swears. “I promise you that.”
“I’ll have to make a lot of cuts and I’ll have to work hard,” he acknowledges in yesterday’s post. “But, I’m sure I can do it.
“Or, maybe not. We shall see.”
Tags: best game designer ever, game design, internet, pc gaming
October 6th, 2008 at 3:11 am
So Derek Smart is finally homeless, and has changed tack on his chosen genre?
October 6th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I was actually there for that GameDev.net thread and I believe I posted something along the lines of “there’s a fine line between dedication or stupidity.”
October 8th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Am I the only person who felt sorry for this guy? Losing your home is one thing, but clinging to a dream like that in the aftermath is really sad.
Has this guy released a single game, ever? If he hasn’t, what chance could he possibly have to be the next big indie designer?
October 9th, 2008 at 2:02 am
@Jose:
It really sounds like the game making process, however strange and disjointed it may sound from the blog posts, is one of the factors in his life that he’s keeping hold of to keep him afloat. I’m glad he has that life preserver because without it who know what might become of him.
Good luck homeless developer!
October 9th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Game Maker 7? Tile based?
With all the money there is in making Flash games, this guy has me pretty confused.. Then again, I guess he kinda sounds like me in college, if I uh, wasn’t in college.
Has he ever actually released a game before?
October 9th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Sounds more like ADD or something.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Okay, sucks to lose everything you’ve got, but it also depends on the circumstances. In some cases, it sucks, and I feel bad for the guy. In other cases, screw it, you reap what you sow. The racism really precludes any sympathy, though, and the worst part is that none of his ideas are interesting. At all.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:36 am
I hardly think his old-school attitude towards racism is something that should preclude him from sympathy. It’s hardly a befitting situation: you’re racist, therefore you deserve to be homeless. !?
As for his ideas. Seems to me he’s stuck in his nostalgic 16bit bubble, hoping to pull together all the bits he loved about his favourite titles, producing some wondergame that he’s played in his dreams. I fear his vision may be much harder to realise than he thinks… but then from where he is, all aspirations would seem just as likely or unlikely. Though I fail to see how sheer determination is going to win him the success he’s hoping for - after all, if it were that simple, you’d think he would’ve been astute enough to avoid getting into this situation in the first place.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:38 am
I was certain this was a friend of mine, one J_S_ who is also fairly certifiable and prone to endless ranting and reshaping of his own universe. My friend is also brilliant and intellectually hyperactive, but victim to the same type of unfocused, occasionally parabolic thinking. This same insanity that generates countless ideas, a few of them actually good, is the fire that burns up all reason and rationality at the same time. My friend has no sense of boundaries, of limits, of the seemingly superfluous need to get along with the rest of the world. To him, all ideas are at the same priority level (one, of course), and being convinced of his own super-ego, none are worth abandoning.
Ain’t bein’ too smart a bitch?
October 10th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Hasn’t every gamer entertained similar notions before?
October 10th, 2008 at 8:16 am
People who allow themselves to become homeless in this fashion are almost always clinically insane. At the same time, if the man can find food and keep chugging away at his crazy game ideas… why not. Wonder what happens to him when his laptop breaks though…
October 10th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I’m calling bullshit. You can’t design games from the streets. What does he plug his PC into? All the time he spends programing is time spent away from getting food and shelter or even a job.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Oh yeah, he says he’s in a shelter, guess what? Shelters don’t let you just hang out all day. The shelters that don’t make you participate in a program of some sort kick you out during the day. The ones that allow you inside during the day make you do stuff like job training and such.
This guy is full of shit and the writer of this article is in cahoots with him.
As for how I know, I’ll tell you. I’m 33 years old and a college student. At age 25 I joined the military. But I was homeless from 16 to 22.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Wow, I’m pretty shocked at the lack of compassion to be found in this comments section. I live in Philadelphia and have lived in some pretty terrible neighborhoods here. Given that, I’ve seen more than I ever wanted to in the realm of poverty’s effect on human beings. Racism, prejudice, poor vocabulary — this all stems from lack of education, a byproduct of having no money. You truly don’t understand how bad it can really get until you don’t know where you’re sleeping tonight, don’t know where your next meal comes from (problems I’ve luckily never grappled with in my privileged life, like most of you I’m willing to bet, right?).
He’s lucky to be holding onto something so closely while struggling with such larger problems. He’s lucky to have a computer at all — do you know how many impoverished folks don’t? Hell, the mere fact that he’s operating a blog is proof that the digital divide is closing thankfully, though it’s still a heavy order to ask of most folks who are more concerned with putting food on their childrens plates than letting the internet know how their game is coming.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
reminds me of bullet ball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOOw2yWMSfk
October 10th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
All libraries allow anyone to use their computers, so even if his broke he could continue to work on his game and get it online. Second of all, free wi-fi is readily available as is power at most restaurants, including McDonalds, which often serve as places for homeless to wash up, beg, and of course buy cheap food. So this man has everything available to physically make a game and publish it, provided he can find free or cheap web hosting (which it appears he has) and software with which to make it (which it seems he also has). I worked in a homeless shelter and community building organization for the last year and a half and it’s 100% possible this man could be homeless and making a game. You don’t need to be in a shelter to find internet, an electrical outlet, or free time.
Also, there could be a number of reasons this man is homeless, and racism is likely not one of them. It does probably show that he does lack certain social skills that are required for most jobs. Also his erratic behavior implies he might have a psychological disorder which is statistically much more prominent in the homeless population.
I say let the man make his game. Remember, Kurt Cobain was homeless too, once. (see: Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of kurt Cobain, by Charles R. Cross, 2001)
October 12th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Usually you’re not homeless until AFTER you start making a game.
October 12th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I think the man has a chance at least im only 18 i dont know everything and thats my dream also to become a game developer some day and its alot of hard work.So lets say this story is true and he pulls this off and gets sumthing good out of it to start a new life.Then good for him that shows that anyone can do anything if they stay to it and keep their will and mind set right to it.Yeah the man looks to have sum “issues” but they can be fixed the hole idea about him makeing a game like he is has got me woundering tho.Yeah it takes alot of time and money to make a game but this game has got to be like the grand daddy of all flash games. If thats what excatly he is makeing. I kinda got lost a bit half way threw the story but anyway theirs gotta be a developer out their that will be just shocked so bad that they will need a diaper in case they shit their selves over this game to hire him in other words. I support this man and what hes doing.
October 13th, 2008 at 6:54 am
[...] Homeless man says he could make best game ever. VERY rough language here folks. [...]
October 20th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
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October 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 am
I had been casually reading his blog fr the last 2 weeks and I noticed over the weekend that it changed from open to the public to by invite only.