Ah yeah, it is always inspiring to read up on John Carmack’s work. He has written about his experience converting Wolfenstein 3D to the iPhone, including how the project came to be.
In case you don’t know who John Carmack is — no, i’m not going to tell you the obvious story about the dark side of the moon where you must have been living for the last 20 years — rather i’m just going to state that John Carmack is the master mind behind Wolfenstein, DooM and Quake. If you have ever enjoyed any of these titles you will be delighted reading this book:
I know i have been.
You see, i got started with game development … no, that is not correct, my intention to get into game development got started the day i first connected to Compuserve. At that time an expensive service – a monthly fee plus (in addition – can you believe?) an hourly fee depending on where you spend your time on, plus the regular phone bill. I still went to school back then and everything had to be payed in US Dollars, which compared to German currency (Deutsche Mark) was strong and fluctuated a lot. There was always the possibility that next months bill was 20% more just because of the change in exchange rate.
So i logged on to Compuserve and after some orientation time i found the Compuserve Action Games forum – that was the place for me. Eventually i became a voluntary staffer there and later got recruited by Joe Siegler of Apogee/3D Realms as Sysop for their Compuserve forum.
But the real decisive moment was when i scanned the list of online users on the first day i logged on to Compuserve. And there, among two dozen other users, was … John Carmack. Or “jcarmack” i think his forum name was. I’ve exchanged two lines with him and was stunned – i just chatted with my hero, programmer of DooM, mano a mano! Ok, i could never proof if it was really him but the fact that he didn’t put on a show and answered in short, concise words was enough for me. From that day on i called myself “DooM Addict” (you see, with all the weird characters but not 133t speak) and having been so close (if only virtually) to one of the heroes of DooM i knew i wanted to be one of them.
Ok, eventually i realized that working for id Software isn’t ever going to happen but that realization eventually landed me a job at a small but local Gameboy Color developer. On a related note, i also got to know my long-term girlfriend on Compuserve.
And that’s how i got started in the game industry. In case you want to learn more about me… <– click here!
The Indiepinion
This blog used to be GamingHorror.net. After a one year hiatus in 2010 while I was spending most of my time on the Learn Cocos2D website and book, I decided to re-launch this blog (formerly known as GamingHorror.net) as The Indiepinion. I used to blog about all things related to games, game development and the game industry but without a clear goal the GamingHorror blog was a blend of technical info and subjective rants, and everything in between. One thing however was a core idea I’ve always had and it started to show on GamingHorror.net already: helping game developers and specifically indie developers in any way I can.
With The Indiepinion I want to give live to a blog that focuses more on general advice over technical details, opinion pieces over comparisons and charts, refreshing ideas and exciting experience reports over game reviews. I’ve gained a lot of experience since 2009 while working as independent developer, freelancer, book author and startup founder. I want to share these experiences here, as well as all the hard to find pieces of information and truly valuable but easily overlooked blogs.
About Me
My name is Steffen Itterheim, I’m a professional video game developer since 1999 and an Indie game developer since 2009. I live in Ingelheim, Germany. I was born in 1975 and apparently I’m still alive.
Recently I wrote a best-selling book about Cocos2D and started the Kobold2D initiative to boost Cocos2D’s flexibility and ease of use. I programmed several iOS games as contractor, one game to pitch the startup I was co-founding and I created a rather successful Line-Drawing Game Starterkit for iOS.
I worked for 7 years for Electronic Arts Phenomic in various positions, starting out as a Designer then moving into Management and back out to do what I love doing the most: programming. I worked on all SpellForce titles and BattleForge – the Trading Card Realtime Strategy game.
My first employment was at NEON Studios (later re-founded as keen games) where I worked on several Gameboy titles. My most beloved project to date is still Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX – mostly because I conceived the game’s design and lead the preproduction and had a lot of fun programming the entire User Interface with lots of polish.
Before working in the game industry I have been a hobby game developer since around 1993, creating FAQs, Tools and Levels for FPS games – starting with DooM of course. I was “DooM Addict” and “Duke Addict” (with weird characters – of course!) on Compuserve and was an Action Games staff member. Later I was the Co-SysOp in the Apogee/3D Realms forum until it was shut down. I was a beta-tester for Shadow Warrior and Balls of Steel. I held the #1 worldwide highscore of the Balls of Steel shareware for 6 months – I was always a sucker for Pinball games, beginning with Pinball Dreams on the Amiga. I contributed to several books including The Official Duke Nukem 3D Level Design Handbook, The Unofficial Quake Level Design Handbook and The Deathmatch Manifesto. My first experiences in Level Design and modding date back to Railroad Tycoon (Amiga) modding and Emerald Mine (Amiga) Level Design. When I applied for my job at EA Phenomic I mentioned that – not knowing that Volker Wertich, founder of Phenomic, was one of the two developers of Emerald Mine.
Some information I’m required to post by german law:
Hi And Welcome!
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