Startlight Foundation
Two years ago, Id was contacted by the Startlight Foundation, an organization
that tries to grant wishes to seriously ill kids. (www.starlight.org)
There was a young man with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that, instead of wanting to go
to Disneyland or other traditional wishes, wanted to visit Id and talk with
me about programming.
It turned out that Seumas McNally was already an accomplished developer.
His family company, Longbow Digital Arts (www.longbowdigitalarts.com), had
been doing quite respectably selling small games directly over the internet.
It bore a strong resemblance to the early shareware days of Apogee and Id.
We spent the evening talking about graphics programmer things — the relative
merits of voxels and triangles, procedurally generated media, level of detail
management, API and platforms.
We talked at length about the balance between technology and design, and all
the pitfalls that lie in the way of shipping a modern product.
We also took a dash out in my ferrari, thinking “this is going to be the best
excuse a cop will ever hear if we get pulled over”.
Longbow continued to be successful, and eventually the entire family was
working full time on “Treadmarks”, their new 3D tank game.
Over email about finishing the technology in Treadmarks, Seumas once said
“I hope I can make it”. Not “be a huge success” or “beat the competition”.
Just “make it”.
That is a yardstick to measure oneself by.
It is all too easy to lose your focus or give up with just the ordinary
distractions and disappointments that life brings. This wasn’t ordinary.
Seumas had cancer. Whatever problems you may be dealing with in your life,
they pale before having problems drawing your next breath.
He made it.
Treadmarks started shipping a couple months ago, and was entered in the
Independent Games Festival at the Game Developer’s Conference this last month.
It came away with the awards for technical excellence, game design, and the
grand prize.
I went out to dinner with the McNally family the next day, and had the
opportunity to introduce Anna to them. One of the projects at Anna’s new
company, Fountainhead Entertainment (www.fountainheadent.com), is a
documentary covering gaming, and she had been looking forward to meeting
Seumas after hearing me tell his story a few times. The McNallys invited
her to bring a film crew up to Canada and talk with everyone whenever she
could.
Seumas died the next week.
I am proud to have been considered an influence in Seumas’ work, and I think
his story should be a good example for others. Through talent and
determination, he took something he loved and made a success out of it in
many dimensions.
http://www.gamedev.net/community/memorial/seumas/ for more information.