by Rock Jonson

Some friendly Japanese chap who
I once gave some career advice to

It happened back in 1990. I was drinking alone in a coffee shop in Texas one warm Sunday morning when I spotted a table of young nerdy types sat around a small table in the corner. From where I was sitting, I could see that they were all hunched over pieces of paper that littered the table, talking feverishly. College students, I thought, and that was that. It wasn’t until I heard one of them mention the word “sprite” that I began to take an expressed interest in the young snipes’ conversation.

I approached the table and introduced myself, and they invited me to take a seat. I listened intently as they explained that they were bedroom game developers (meaning they made, or ‘developed’, games in their bedroom). They called themselves “idiot software”, and they were apparently going to “start a revolution in video gaming”.

They eagerly explained their latest creation, which they called Commander Keen, endearingly referring to it as one of the most “original and genre-busting games of the decade”. I smiled good-naturedly, in the way only I can, as they enthusiastically explained their “revolutionary jumping code”, and how it would set the standard in jumping sprite technology for years to come.

It was then, like many times before, a fantastic idea popped into my mind like a tornado from Saturn. “Listen guys,” I said, their eyes all looking up at me with a glint of expectation that something amazing was about to happen… and it did.

“Listen guys,” I said again, “I’ve got an idea how you can really plant your feet in the soil of this budding game industry.”

“Please, tell us!” they cried longingly,

“Okay, so you have this platform game, and it sounds great and all, it really does (especially the jumping) but there’s nothing really new about a platform game.”

“But Mr Jonson,” they protested, “You’re forgetting that Commander Keen can shoot enemies too!”

“That may be so, but what if I told you a way to make games that has never been done before. Moreso, what if I told you a way to make games that has never even been imagined before?”

It seemed they couldn’t wrap their heads around such a concept. “But surely everything that can be done has been done?” a long haired young lad pondered.

“Not at all! It sometimes takes a special mind to make such a leap into the unexplored facets of game design,” I told them. “Now I will take you on a journey into a new territory, yay, a new age, of video games. This is my gift to you.”

And so I began to explain my epiphany: “Imagine, if you will, a game in which the player is able to move not only up and down the screen, not only left to right… but also in and out of the screen?”

“That’s impossible!” a blond kid with glasses scoffed, “What you are suggesting is that a sprite could somehow move out of the monitor screen? You must be insane!”

“No,” I laughed, “I’m not suggesting that the sprites literally move out of the screen, but instead, and this is the amazing part, that you merely create the illusion of sprites moving in and out of the screen… by making them smaller or larger.”

They all sat there glassy eyed, their jaws resting on the table, an expression I’ve seen only too often in my career.

“Smaller… or larger…” the blond bespectacled kid repeated, looking at me with a look I can only describe as “wonderment”. And in the dim light of that coffee shop that fateful Sunday, a seed was planted, that would soon change the way people experienced video games for the rest of time itself.

My work here was done, and I stood up to leave at this point. But then another thought struck me and I turned back to them.

“Oh, and guys, one more thing before I go,” I said, “I’d lose the name ‘idiot software’ if I were you. You need something shorter, cooler… punchier… idio… idi….id…. I don’t know, I leave that one up to you.” - and with that, I left the coffee shop.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

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