The Indispensable Man
"Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego’s in bloom
Sometime when you take it for granted
You’re the best qualified in the room,
Sometime when you feel that your going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions
And see how they humble your soul;
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining
Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop and you’ll find that in no time
It looks quite the same as before.
The moral of this quaint example
Is do just the best that you can.
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There's no indispensable man."
- Saxon White Kessinger
Too Much Information ~ 18th May 2010
From the
moment I made an impact in the games industry and found myself with an audience,
I made a vow to myself that I would be the kind of developer I wish existed when
I was a mere player. In amongst the soulless corporations, I always wished there
was a real human being with real thoughts and feelings - and I wanted to know
what those thoughts and feelings were. That, to me, is what made all the other
art forms just that little bit more interesting than gaming (which continues to
be the case!). And so began one of the most personal websites the industry had
ever known, in which I regularly took time out of my busy schedule to pour out
my heart about what I was doing and why (the culmination of which was this very
blog). Not that it ever did me any favours! The more you speak out, the more you
risk being misinterpreted. The more you open up, the more ammunition you hand
your enemies. I often found myself wondering why I was bothering, as I spent hours
poring over every single word - only to have them regurgitated at me the next
day with additional bile! It made me wonder how my life and career would have
turned out if I blended into the crowd and became a soulless robot like all the
others? I'm of the opinion that it wouldn't have been a life worth living, so I
don't regret my blaze of glory. Darwinism
dictates that the most highly evolved beings are the ones that have lived and
died and been reborn. Only inanimate rocks go through life without incident. I'd
much rather be the former than the latter, and that's what every experience in
my life has been working towards. I've been sub-consciously attracting into my
life everything I needed to evolve. I've been praised by thousands of people and
I've been criticized by thousands of people - and I've emerged as a strong
character that's capable of handling both. So although that means I'll never
be the same person again, it also means I can't regret how I conducted myself. It was a necessary experience to go through.
As the philosopher Osho once mused, it's one of life's little ironies that we
have to believe something is necessary before we realize it WASN'T necessary!
And yet that conviction is worth arriving at. It's rather like when Buddhist
monks spend days creating an intricate work of art only to destroy it upon
completion. The taking part is more important than being attached to the
results. But once the lesson has been learnt, school is over! If you'll forgive
the irony of me "explaining" as much, I no longer feel the need to "explain
myself" and look forward to a future where my actions speak louder than words.
Thanks to those of you that paid attention from time to time, but the optimistic
man who famously ended every paragraph with ellipses is finally putting a
full-stop on this website.
If I Can Be Serious For A Minute... ~ 17th May 2010
I
received an extraordinary piece of hate mail today which simply read, "Learn
that you're not as special or important as you think you are." Learn that you're
NOT special and important? What a depressingly negative philosophy to live by!
Perhaps my critics would do well to learn that they're MORE "special and
important" than they think they are? Then perhaps they would be motivated to
achieve more and wouldn't be so bitter about the exploits of others. It's a myth
that I'm some sort of insufferable egotist who thinks he's better than everybody
else. My outrageous optimism was always a party that everybody was invited to!
To be fair, I do actually accept the criticism that I took myself too seriously.
As I conceded in the opening chapter of my book, "This may sound melodramatic when
we're talking about a few silly games." Looking back, I can't believe I got so
worked up about things that don't particularly matter and was so proud of games
that weren't particularly good. Although I reject any criticism of the games
from Reach onwards, I can see why people were flabbergasted by the stock
I put in earlier efforts. What you have to appreciate is that they were stepping
stones to a distant destination that I had in my mind. While you were playing
Wrestling Encore, I knew that Wrestling MPire 2008 was possible. I
was always thinking 2 steps ahead, so my thoughts never quite correlated with
those of my
audience. It invariably resulted in me being dismissed as "deluded". If that's true then it's
OK to be "deluded" from time to time! If I didn't take a disproportionate
amount of pride in my earlier games, I never would have stuck at it long enough
to evolve to the extent that I did. It's a case of "fake it 'til you make it".
If you hold an optimistic vision in your head and work towards it, by the time
anybody realizes you were wrong... you're right! So no, I won't "learn that I'm
not special or important", thanks. I'll keep on believing that I am - and you'll
see that it's the difference between success and failure...
One On One With The Great One ~ 16th May 2010
Earlier in the
year I was singing the praises of Street Fighter IV's revolutionary
visual style and called for wrestling games to receive the same treatment. Well,
it looks like THQ have already answered my prayers by rolling the dice on
a truly "new" wrestling series that does just that! The breathtakingly beautiful
WWE
All Stars replaces the usual photo-realistic graphics with
larger-than-life muscle-bound freaks. It harks back to their N64 heyday, where
their games were a notch short of reality - and were all the better for it.
Unfortunately, graphics were never my strong point as an independent - but if I
could have clicked my fingers and magically conjured up anything, it wouldn't
look so different to this. My only gripe is that the proposed "arcade" concept
may not use these great visuals in a particularly involving sim. We'll be lucky
if we see more than 3 or 4 of these beasts in the ring at once, and you can expect a
similarly depleted range of characters since so much work has gone into each
one. Even so, it's a definite step in the right direction and finally has me
excited about mainstream wrestling games again - just as I'm free to enjoy them
objectively! The genre may be in safe hands after all...
The Best There Never Will Be ~ 15th May 2010
Since
I retired from making my own wrestling games, I've joined the millions of people
who have the misfortune of owning Smackdown Vs Raw. People had been
(unfairly) comparing my independent efforts to it for as long as I can remember,
so I thought I might as well see what all the fuss is about. A sim better than
Wrestling MPire 2008? This I have to see! I came to it objectively and
with the best of intentions, recalling fond memories of how much I enjoyed
WWF Warzone and WWF Attitude back in 1998. However, I have to say
that I was genuinely disappointed to see that the franchise has barely
progressed since those times. The same "photo-realistic" graphics that look good
at a glance but move awkwardly and interact terribly. It's no exaggeration to
say that I found SVR downright unplayable. It's more like triggering a
series of video clips than interacting with a virtual world! And even this is
not entirely satisfactory. What happens before and after the bell rings is still
not interactive - and has so little to do with the action that the game sees fit
to "load" every little segment?! And the less said about the painfully tame
"career" mode the better. Although the flourishes of WWE presentation are
a good thing, the endorsement is also a curse that forbids anything
controversial to take place. Just about the only thing that impressed me was the
incredible "morphing" feature in the editor that allows you to fine tune a
character model to perfection. Even this was a victim of its own success though,
and was so tiresome that I couldn't be bothered to create more than one
wrestler! Is this vacuous eye candy really so much better than what I was doing
that it deserves to be played by 10 times as many people? I can't believe I
allowed you people to make me feel bad about what I was doing all these years
when THIS is the only competition I ever had. I single-handedly made a better
game in a matter of months than this team of highly-trained professionals do
each year! I don't know whether to be elated at rediscovering the magnitude of
my achievement or depressed that nobody ever acknowledged it...
The Next Generation ~ 14th May 2010
Although
it amuses me to hear conspiracy theories about who I am and what I do now (which
is part of the reason I did it!), I feel I must quash the rumour that I am a
fellow independent game developer who has a career of his own to carve out.
Although the guy who legally changed his name to "Cobra Blade" is the same age
as me and cites my work as an inspiration, I can categorically confirm that I am
NOT this person. It is true, however, that he owns the rights to my 2D wrestling
game engine - so let's all look forward to what he achieves with that. His
stylized graphics have already been used to great effect in the atmospheric
scrolling shoot 'em-up
Soulless
(look it up on YouTube). I'd also like to draw your attention to a recent
interview the developer gave, which reminds me of my younger self! He
shares my dismay at how "thankless" game development can be at a point in time
when independent efforts are unfairly compared to mainstream console releases.
For those who think piracy is a victimless crime, there's also a poignant
reminder of how damaging it can be to a career in the making...
TV Appearance ~ 10th May 2010
Within 2
weeks of claiming I would reach you through television, I've inadvertently done
just that by having my games featured on G4TV's
Web Soup! The good thing about everybody mocking my work is that so many
people are doing it that I've officially gone "viral". So much so that video
footage of my games has started to appear on TV shows that scour the Internet
for interesting material. The You Testament is obviously a hot favourite,
along with other ground-breaking concepts like Hard Time, Grass Roots,
and World War Alpha. It's just a shame that my wrestling games tend to
get lost in the shuffle wherever the media is concerned. But hey, they say
there's no such thing as "bad publicity" so maybe the renewed interest will rub
off on my work as a whole. I don't read my own press anymore, but I'm told you
can catch the program on G4TV or online at the following times:
Mondays @ 3:30am, 8pm
Wednesdays @ 1:30pm
Thursdays @ 11:30pm
Saturdays @ 5:00pm
Dickie Is Dead ~ 25th April 2010
No, I'm not literally
"dead" - although there are some that would wish death on me on account of the
fact that they don't happen to like a few games I made! I have legally changed
my name, however, so the "Mat Dickie" that you've known for the past 10 years no
longer exists. There are many reasons for the name change - some professional,
some personal. It's certainly true that I'm a "different person" to the guy that
made all those games, so it's quite apt that I should draw a line under it and
consign "MDickie" to the history books. I don't do so lightly, nor am I
motivated by any degree of "shame" about what I did for a living. I remain
extremely proud of what I achieved against the odds - and even the name under
which I did it. Although some delighted in ridiculing the name "Dickie", it
always amused me that they failed to see its two-fold significance. One was that
I wore it as a kind of battle scar that proved you could give me the most
ridiculous name possible and I would still make people respect it. A classic
case of turning the smallest of molehills into the biggest of mountains (which
is what my entire career was about). Secondly, the name was memorable and
actually served as a fantastic marketing tool. You wouldn't believe how many
doors it opened in a digital world where names get lost in the crowd even more
easily than faces! Once you heard my name you never forgot it - nor the work it
was attached to. It's no exaggeration to say that half of my opportunities
probably wouldn't have come to fruition under any other name.
But perhaps that's what we're about to find out? As entertaining as Mat Dickie's rollercoaster ride of a career was, it wasn't without its downsides and rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Now I have a chance to conduct myself differently over the next 10 years and allow the work to speak for itself for once. You see, the last "game" I will ever play with you is one of hide and seek! I will continue to make games and works of entertainment of all kinds (indeed I have been since the turn of 2010), but you won't know it's me unless you pay close attention. I could be mastering the latest version of Blitz to bring you new games for the PC (and befriending the Blitz developers who are supposed to hate me!). I could be getting at you with some innovative Flash games that everybody is swarming to in their lunch break. I could be helping to bring independent games to the X-Box and PSP (as we've already seen). Or I might have even swallowed my pride and taken a job with a professional company, working with others to create state-of-the-art entertainment. Along the way, you can be sure I'll have written the odd book or two and given the odd lecture. You might even find me appearing on TV to share my enthusiasm about one thing or another. Rest assured that we WILL meet again! The catch is that you'll never know. This isn't the beginning of the end so much as the end of the beginning...
Woe To Those Who Laugh ~ 24th April 2010
Although
I've often been dismissed as an "arrogant" cretin by those whose only exercise
is jumping to conclusions, the truth is that I can actually laugh at myself more
than most (unless that's an arrogant claim?!). This is plain to see in a recent
montage of my animated
intros,
which invariably show me coming unstuck by idolizing my own name. It's hardly a
"hidden" message is it? From day one, I've criticized myself as much as I've
promoted myself (if not more so). It's just that those with a vendetta choose to
ignore the former and focus on the latter. It's the online equivalent of
"selective hearing". I suppose it could be argued that an obsession with one's
faults is still an obsessions with one's SELF, but that still falls short of the
full-blown egotism of which I stand accused. One contributor on YouTube
recently compared my ego to the volcanic dust that was clouding out air traffic
- which I thought was rather apt because that means it's not as bad as people
make out! Touché.
Anyway, I digress. In the spirit of laughing at myself, the reason for this post is that I wanted to draw your attention to a new YouTube video that does just that - mocks me mercilessly. I normally have a strict policy of ignoring negativity lest it acquire a status that it doesn't deserve, but every so often a sharp arrow shoots through the sticks & stones and takes on a life of its own - at which point it's better to treat the wound than to pretend it doesn't exist. The video in question is a parody of this very blog, recited in a suitably smug voice - as a crude modification of The You Testament plays out in the background. As far as criticizing other people goes, it's actually a very witty approach to it and meets with my approval. However, there are one or two things I would like to say in my defence to those who have been (and continue to be) poisoned against me because of it. The first is that they've obviously fished out the most provocative material they could find and have then wilfully taken it out of context - endowing it with more "smugness" than was ever intended. Indeed, by its very nature the blog is a collection of spontaneous rants and doesn't show me at my best. I would much prefer to see the same thing done with my interviews, which were famed for their cogent arguments and poetic turns of phrase. It always amuses me when people go overboard in criticizing something I've said or done, because it betrays the fact that they don't know what it's like to achieve anything for themselves or to give something of themselves. Those that do are slower to criticize. I know I certainly am. Whenever somebody is quoted as saying something with which I disagree, my first thought is that they were misunderstood or taken out of context in some way. It happens to many people on a daily basis - from politicians to popstars. As I've always said, "the first to criticize are the last to contribute" (quote that line!).
Another point I'd like to make is that the negative response to the video is NOT representative of public opinion. It's not as if a few thousand people have "accidentally" stumbled across the video and decreed that I'm mental (although they would be forgiven for doing so). Rather, it's more accurate to say that a few hundred people who disliked me already have merely descended on one place to vent their spleens. This video (and others like it) is a co-ordinated attack from the Something Awful forum, which describes the people who visit it as much as the material they gather to ridicule! I do hope they're all 10 year old boys. I shall shed a tear for the future of humanity if a single one of these supposed "men" is over the age of 16. I suppose it would qualify as "cyber bullying" if it were possible for me to be "bullied" - except that jars with the fact that it would never happen in real life. I once met a guy from the Blitz forums in person after he had ridiculed my work. All he did was stare at my shoes at mumble. Strange. It makes me appreciate how fortunate I am to finally be free of this bizarre circus. It's a relief to switch off the computer and step out into the real world, where cowardice on this scale simply doesn't exist. Nowadays, those that criticize my work have to do so to my face while I'm looking them in the eye - which means it's proportionately less common (or at least more polite). As Christ himself said towards the end, "Don't weep for me - weep for yourselves."
Up Mainstream Without A Paddle ~ 8th April 2010
Having
returned to playing games instead of making them, I'm reminded why I got into
making my own games in the first place! It's extremely frustrating to be
subjected to badly designed games when you know how easy it would have been to
make them better. A particularly disappointing release is Tekken 6, which
is practically a "demo" of the game it could have been. Although it looks
spectacular, plays smoothly, and has a huge cast, the distinct lack of any
decent game modes means you can only play it for 5 minutes at a time. You pick a
character, fight a few random opponents, and - having honed your martial arts
skills - are then subjected to a bizarre boss that's bigger than the screen and
has nothing to do with the fighting you just did?! How easy would it have been
to offer a long and winding RPG-style story mode, where each character takes you
to a particular part of the world for a particular reason? How about breaking
the characters down into leagues or staging a real 32-man knock-out tournament?
Hell, I'm not even allowed to stage a fight between 2 characters of my choice in
an Exhibition mode?! And the less said about the "customization" mode the
better. Why go to the trouble of making the characters malleable if you have to
play for 10 hours just to change someone's sunglasses?! Make the feature fully
accessible from the start and allow us to create our own brand new characters.
It amazes me how these people get the hard part right when it comes to making a state-of-the-art game engine, only to stumble at the easy stuff that the work experience kid could have nailed! It's a similar story with the soccer franchise, FIFA 10. The graphics and gameplay are perfectly fine, but then the game modes attached to it are frustratingly weak. A "career" mode where your player CAN'T migrate to a different team and CAN'T negotiate a contract to make a living?! I thought it was just wrestling games that were deliberately tame to appease their sponsors, but it seems all mainstream releases are shackled by cowardice. Nothing else feels right either. Due to a lazy screen layout, the vitally important stats of each player are hidden by default instead of being available at a glance. And even when you do search them out, you're horrified to see a mess of attributes that include "Reflexes" AND "Reactions"?! Is the difference between them so great that both have to be squeezed onto an already cluttered screen? It would be funny if wasn't for the fact that these so-called "professionals" are being paid ridiculous sums of money! I'm not entirely sure there isn't a connection between the guaranteed payday and the shoddy workmanship. The only game that has met with my approval thus far is the 3D Grand Theft Auto series, which has evolved to perfection after all these years. It's no coincidence that it's a "free-roaming" game that trusts players to entertain themselves in the world they're given. That was always my stance too, and it's actually harder to design something like that than it is to make a game run on rails. The more precious game studios should take note and go that extra mile to make a gaming experience fulfil its potential. All these years I thought they had something on me, but it seems I'll have to take a job at a mainstream studio to show them how it's done! I've still got contacts I could call on to make it happen...
The Next Big Thing ~ 6th April 2010
I'm pleased to reveal that my
2009 book, Sportuality, has seen me short-listed for the
Next Top
Spiritual Author prize! It's a great opportunity to give my independent
exploits mainstream recognition (which I never quite managed to achieve in the
world of gaming). And the good news is that this competition is largely based on
public votes, so I'd like to invoke your support to help me sidestep the powers
that be and stand out from the crowd. Although very few of you read
my books or approve of how much it distracts me from game development, my
progress in this field is part of the reason you don't have to pay for the games
anymore - so I'd
appreciate it if fans of the games could log on and cast a vote for me. You did a great job of
taking Wrestling MPire 2008 to the top of Gaming Ring's
Wrestling Games
Database poll, and now I need one last push to achieve similar things with
this book. It's a very simple process and only takes a matter of seconds. You do
need to register your e-mail address to prevent spamming, but rest assured it
won't be used for tiresome marketing purposes. As the title implies, the
competition is entirely honourable and there are no catches. It's just a
celebration of interesting work being done, and I hope you prove that my efforts
still qualify...
The Lost Interviews ~ 2nd April 2010
I'm
in a nostalgic mood as I set about making sure my website has every kilobyte of
information about my work that ever existed like some sort of digital museum! My
many interviews are what I've been looking back on most recently. For the first
few years of my career I neglected to archive them (or even link to them), so
half of them have been lost to time. I've managed to salvage 4 original ones
that haven't been seen since 2001 though. Knowing what we know now, it makes for interesting reading. They
were conducted within my first year as a game designer, so they're full of
naivety and wild ambition - but also the odd spookily accurate prediction! Here
you can find the first
interview I EVER gave way back in December 2000, which came courtesy of
my university's local Shock FM radio station (hence me crediting the
course with being useful when it in fact wasn't). Then we move onto a revealing
interview conducted by
Baileyk85 in August 2001, just as I was phasing out 2D work and
experimenting with 3D projects. There you'll find talk of my ambitions of making
games for Gameboy Advance and my insatiable desire to work for a
mainstream company?! Things have certainly changed since then. Another poignant
interview conducted just a month later captures my initial response to the
9/11 terrorist attacks -
and ends with a poetic gesture about still wanting to live in America (although
it was my brother that ended up going instead of me). And finally, we're back on
familiar territory with an even earlier
Wrestling Gamers United
interview to the one I had originally posted. It comes from July 2003, just as I
had made a success of my own publishing of Federation Booker and had yet
to make a 3D wrestling sim. I seemed to have it all figured out from that moment
onwards...
The Joy Of Text ~ 2nd April 2010
While we're
digging up the past, I noticed that there was a half-decent
C++ text game in amongst the
collection of DOS ones (the first I ever
made of any kind). Given that the DOS games don't work without
special software,
it's a shame that the C++ one should be tossed in with them because it's always
guaranteed to work! Load it up now if you're curious to see the very first seed
that would grow into Wrestling MPire 2008. It's a surprisingly playable
little wrestling game with multiple characters with their own stats and plenty
of unpredictable moments. I never recalled being capable of that as far back as
1999?!
MD On PSP ~ 1st April 2010
I
may have stopped making new games, but I never said I had stopped working on new
ways to enjoy the existing ones! After making them free and open source, I'm now
in the process of making them available on consoles like the PSP,
Nintendo Wii, and X-Box 360 with my own M-Ulator software that
gives PC programs a better chance of working. The handheld PSP is the
only option that has born fruit so far, given that its innards are easy to take
advantage of. Or at least they WERE! Sony have been closing loopholes on
a regular basis for the past 4 years. I arrived to the scene so late that I
could only get an old PSP 2000 model to run custom software - and even
that had to be "downgraded" to the original v1.5 operating system. The result is
that it's not at all easy to run my games on the average PSP - and the
chances of "bricking" it beyond repair are high, so I can't go public with this
in good conscience. Another problem is that the games lag terribly even when you
DO manage to get them to work. The potential is there though if Sony
happen to loosen up over the next 12 months. In the meantime, you can at least
enjoy a video
of me trying to have a match in Wrestling MPire 2008 on my own PSP.
Apologies for the poor camera work - it's not exactly easy to film yourself
stabbing at a handheld console!
Video Created The Radio Star ~ 30th March 2010
Yet
another game that I'd like to file under "better than anybody gave it credit
for" is the 2008 remake of Popscene. I've been revisiting all of my older
games to make videos of them to preserve their posterity (as we head into a
future where they may no longer load up!). When I booted up Popscene: Track 2
to take some videos of some famous faces performing, I was surprised by how
effective the process was. So long as you choose the right song and the right
settings, everything synchronizes quite nicely. The graphics aren't so bad
either, following as they do from the advances made in Reach and
Wrestling MPire 2008. Check out some choice performances I've uploaded to
YouTube to form the
game's own video page. The only problem is that the sound quality is absolutely
horrendous by the time they've been converted! Hopefully it'll still be enough
to bring the game to a wider audience. If you're a music fan and haven't checked
the game out in a while, now may be a good time to return to it. It's a shame
people never took to modding it to the same extent as Wrestling MPire?
The basic principle is the same and it's just as easy. I'm also continuing to
link to fan footage that I spot online. Even the
2D classics like Federation
Wrestling are starting to appear now...
Face To Face ~ 30th March 2010
Although
I can't accept players as "friends" on my own FaceBook page, a small fan
group has emerged under the
MPire Mall banner - which might be the next best thing. It allows
you to put faces to the names you'll have come across on the fan sites and gives
players yet more ways to stay connected! I encourage you to join it if you're a
fan of the games. It also seems peace has been declared between several warring
factions, so it's all very positive and welcoming...
The Prodigal Son ~ 22nd March 2010
One
of the good things about stepping back from making games is that I'm looking
forward to getting back into PLAYING them for once! Believe it or not, it's not
actually possible to do both. If you spend 12 hours a day staring at a screen,
it's the last thing you want to do with your leisure time. In my case, it would
have also been bad for my development because I had to remain focused on my own
humble brand of game development. I never would have released anything if I had
been playing mainstream games all weekend and felt the need to single-handedly
produce something of that calibre! But that's no longer a concern of mine and
I'm thinking of buying a PS3 to enjoy some of the advances that have been
taking place. Believe it or not, the last console I bought was the Nintendo
64 way back in 1996! I played it through 'til 2001 though, before my own
work became somewhat more engaging. I also dabbled in the odd PC game throughout
that time. Other than that, I managed to sidestep the frenzy surrounding the
X-Box and PS2 - and now find myself thoroughly out of the loop. It's
actually a great place to be, though, because there are dozens of classics just
waiting for me to play - rather like the people that have only just discovered
my work and can wade into 10 year's worth.
It's been a long time since I got excited about a console game, but one that stands out for me is the jaw-droppingly spectacular new Street Fighter 4. It's got to be the most ridiculously beautiful creation I've ever seen. I haven't got a clue why it's not taking over the world all over again? Whenever I see a shot of it, I have to remind myself that it's NOT a still from the animated movie! You can keep your photo-realistic, motion-captured graphics. There's always something not quite right about them. But when your working with fiction, it's possible to achieve perfection in your own little way. The Simpsons did it on TV and Street Fighter 4 has done it for gaming. I'm not sure who's responsible for it (I heard that Capcom aren't technically involved anymore?), but whoever it is should be trusted to remake dozens of classic games in the same style. Hell, give them the WWE license and give us the No Mercy look again! One thing I'm still NOT impressed with is the state of mainstream wrestling games. Call me biased, but no matter how good those graphics look on the back of a box, they simply aren't attached to a decent game engine. The animation and character interaction is actually surprisingly poor. I was intimidated by them all these years, but I don't know why I bothered! It seems I single-handedly made games that were bigger (only 67 wrestlers?) and more playable. If only I effortlessly shifted millions of copies the way they inexplicably do! Come on, let's get Wrestling MPire 2008 played by even more people - especially now that it's free - so that wrestling fans don't have to go on needlessly suffering. Until then, if you must resort to mainstream alternatives please make sure the wrestling is done by Zangief and E Honda...
The Best Of Both Worlds ~ 19th March 2010
Fans
of the 2D wrestling games will be pleased to know that they haven't been left
out of the modding revolution. The Australian developer, "Cobra Blade", is hard
at work on a complete visual overhaul of Federation Wrestling/Booker. It
replaces my deliberately retro Fire Pro inspired sprites with cleaner and
more realistic body shapes. The arena and its contents also looks set to improve
with a crisper visual style. This new game is tentatively titled Powerslam.
Look out for more info (and possibly a dedicated website) later in the year as
the project progresses...
The Indian Interview ~ 19th March 2010
As
the world's most courageous game developer, I'm no stranger to being mocked by
the ignorant masses. In fact, I take it as a compliment! As Mark Twain once
remarked, "When you find yourself on the side of the majority it's time to pause
and reflect." If you've joined the hordes of zombies who are cackling maniacally
at The You Testament and The Making Of A Prophet, you may be
surprised to find that it is YOU who is failing to understand something. But
what I was trying to achieve wasn't lost on everybody. In
this brief interview one
of my Indian players, "Mr Centurian", reveals that there was something rather
special about the spiritual games. It's almost as if I study philosophy for a
living or something! Players who are genuinely interested in the logic behind
the games should look out for a link to the very book that inspired The You
Testament - which is acknowledged here for the first time. For everyone
else, there are also some parting thoughts on the wrestling sims and my
retirement...
Compilation Re-Released ~ 15th March 2010
To accommodate the changes that
have taken place in the past 12 months, my epic Rise & Fall Of The MPire
compilation has been re-released to include even MORE content! Not only does it
feature each game in its most up to date form, but new projects such as The
Making Of A Prophet are in there right alongside them. Offline versions of
the little Flash games are also included for your convenience, and
there's even the prototype of my Ear Shot game that nobody has EVER
loaded up before! It's worth investigating just to hear my uncanny impression of
Tom Cruise in the voice acting department - and the source code is included for
those who wish to take the concept further. In fact, the source code for ALL
games is neatly provided on this disc for your convenience. The games may be
free to download now, but if you want to own them properly then this compilation
is worth owning. At the even lower rock-bottom price of
$9.99 there's no excuse not to! I also have copies I can post
within the UK and Europe if international customers want to avoid shipping
costs/delays...
The Lesser Of Two Evils ~ 11th March 2010
Further to
an earlier post, to put my game in perspective I'd like to remind everybody how
Islam has previously been portrayed by the games industry. A quick search on the
Internet reveals an erudite theological masterpiece called
Muslim Massacre, which challenges the player to slaughter as many
Arabic individuals as possible. It makes the lazy stereotyping of Arabs in
mainstream games look progressive by comparison! Its unspeakably crude content
is surpassed only by the crude visuals that it uses to deliver its message. I
had reservations about whether MY graphics were good enough, but it looks like I
needn't have feared! Most offensively of all, the creator of this monstrosity
seems incapable of explaining himself - lurching wildly from basking in the
praise of fans to nodding in agreement as journalists ask whether it might be an
ironic satire of American foreign policy? It's not the latter and has nothing to
offer the debate. There's only one game developer that ever does - and it's the
guy that put his reputation on the line to break with convention and put a
POSITIVE spin on the world's most misunderstood faith. I hope the Muslim
community bears that in mind when judgment is passed on my contribution. The
"truth" has indeed come and "falsehood" has indeed been
shown up for what it is...
The Making Of A Prophet ~ 11th March 2010
As
I prepare to release a game about Islam, my experience with The You Testament
has taught me that it can expect to be criticized by believers and non-believers
alike. It's rather like turning a book into a movie (quite literally in fact!),
where nothing you produce can do justice to what someone else has in their
imagination. This is no doubt one of the reasons that depictions of the Prophet
Muhammad are frowned upon in the Islamic community. It's especially true of a
work of entertainment, such as my game, which has to take liberties with the
source material in order to produce a coherent experience. The result is a
half-baked "interpretation" of Islam that many will feel compelled to dismiss as
being recklessly inadequate. But that would be "missing the point" (quite
literally). My depiction of Muhammad is not supposed to be the focus of
attention in itself so much as a finger pointing to something else entirely.
Indeed, all religious icons and all religious injunctions were designed to
make us look BEYOND them. It's what Islamic mystics refer to as deciphering the
"inner reality" rather than blindly following the "outer law". As Jesus himself
said when admonishing dogmatic Jews, "You should honour the former without the
leaving the latter undone" (Matthew 23:23). In the irony to end all ironies,
those that would accuse others of "blasphemy" are guilty of the far greater
blasphemy of misunderstanding a religion entirely! This is what caused George
Bernard Shaw to slyly observe that "all great truths begin as blasphemy." An
insecure human is liable to reject and then crucify anybody that makes them feel
uncomfortable - including the very prophets sent for their betterment. In the
case of Islam, one of the greatest blasphemies is that we assume it's about
looking a certain way and acting a certain way. It isn't and never was. The
backbone of Islam is that there's a divine order that all creatures should
identify and then live in harmony with. If you pay attention, you'll find this
simple premise is at the heart of all the world's major faiths - which is why
Islam claims to be the "religion of unity". Far from being a divisive "new"
idea, it is in fact the only religion that ever really existed. My game unearths
this original premise and puts it back in the spotlight where it belongs at this
crucial time. It may not be a perfect representation of Islam as a cultural and
historical phenomenon, but the metaphor of a computer program captures its
essence better than any other form of entertainment. You can find more
discussion about the implications of the project in this
dedicated article...
People Power ~ 4th March 2010
No, that's not a shot of a new mainstream wrestling
game in development. It is, in fact, Wrestling MPire 2008 with a complete
visual overhaul courtesy of the talented artists at the
MPire Mall. I go
away for a month and come back to find that the fan site has re-launched as the
best my work has ever been associated with! The humble forum has evolved into a
well designed website that has more activity than my own. Discussion is now just
one of the many things it offers, as the downloads are interspersed with video
links and articles to read. The latest download in question is the "TWC4" patch,
which painstakingly replaces every single image in the game to produce the above
effect (and more besides). Many of you have been asking me to come back and
update Wrestling MPire for 2010, and this might just be the fix you're
looking for. This is exactly what I wanted to achieve by releasing the source
code and making the games more accessible. Now I can rest in peace and leave my
hard work to blossom in the hands of others...
Hot Source ~ 17th January 2010
For
years I've looked on aghast as people "guessed" how much work went into my
games... and guessed wrong. Now the last piece of the puzzle can finally be
slotted into place as the thousands of lines of code that went into each project
are made available to inspect! To draw a line under 10 years of game
development, the many games I produced are not only FREE to download but are
also OPEN SOURCE. It's a remarkable development because these were once among
the biggest and most popular releases on the independent scene, enjoying over
100'000 downloads as published products. Now the gloves are off and it's time to
deliver the knock-out blow! Never before have games of this size and quality
been so accessible. If there was any justice, the code would of course be
displayed in an art gallery or science museum somewhere. Living in the ignorant times that we do, I suspect it will
have to endure a rather different fate. For the vultures that prey on my work,
it will of course be one more thing to criticize as they set about convincing
themselves the code is "deficient" in some way. But this isn't about them. It's
not even about me. This is about YOU. For fans of the games, this is an
opportunity to enjoy them on a whole other level. The possibilities for customization are truly mind-boggling, as every
aspect of any given project is finally made available for you to tinker with and
add to as you see fit. For the fighting games, that means new moves. For the
RPG's, it means your own personalized storylines. And in some instances, it
might very well mean new games entirely!
When I was coming up, I took a lot of solace from editing existing games beyond recognition. Now I grant that opportunity to you as you begin sharpening your claws in the world of interactive entertainment. My games may not have ended up as the best that money can buy, but they're surely the best that hands can meddle with! It doesn't promise to be easy, I hasten to add. Nothing worth doing ever is. Making sense of another man's code is like trying to raise another man's child! I'll try to offer guidance wherever I can, and may knock up some tutorials if the demand is there, but for the most part it will involve treading carefully around a complex network of code. Don't expect much help from the Blitz community either. They still haven't accepted me as their saviour and will respond negatively to any suggestion that my work is worth getting excited about. Nonetheless, it goes without saying that you'll need to own the Blitz 3D programming language itself (preferably running at the latest version to avoid any discrepancies). Simply place the code in an installation of the game in question and it should have everything it needs to work. Although you're free to modify the games and re-release your creations, please acknowledge that you must do so for FREE and must credit my original work (unless written permission states otherwise). I suspect you're duty-bound to anyway because no customer would tolerate being charged for an existing piece of freeware! Advances in technology may have left independent games with no market value, but advances in attitude will ensure they remain relevant on a whole different level. May the source be with you...
Booking Is Back! ~ 13th January 2010
As
you may have gathered from the many games I released on the subject, I'm a
booker at heart when it comes to wrestling. So it's with great interest that I
watched the simultaneous arrivals of Bret Hart in WWE and Hulk Hogan in
TNA. Although it was great to see Bret back where he belongs and looking
healthy, I was a little disappointed by how his return was handled. As you'd
expect with McMahon at the helm, he came off the worst and ended up looking like
a has-been jumping through hoops to get back in the limelight. If he thought
Montreal was bad, I suspect he'll be even more cut up once this "screw-job" has
run its course! I'm not sure if this is already on the cards, but if it was up
to me I would have involved Triple H a lot more. Show footage of his smug face
being reprimanded by Karen Hart in Wrestling With Shadows, and then have
him come out in 2010 claiming to have been behind it all along! The master
manipulator pulling the strings of Vince and Shawn even back then; eliminating
Bret to ensure his own meteoric rise to the top. It would have even more
resonance now that he really is a powerful player who is literally part of the
McMahon family. He could claim to be the "son" to Vince that Bret always thought
he was - but wasn't. The heat between him and Bret would be immense (as I
understand it is in real life), and would cleverly sidestep the predictable
spats with Vince and Shawn. HBK could even take Bret's side after being
manipulated by Triple H! The newly formed DX have to split up some time anyway,
so what better opportunity?
As for Hogan in TNA, I was pleasantly surprised by how that panned out. Although I'm not sure how long they can keep up the pretence that it's all about the young guys. Why bring the old guys back at all if that's the case? I can't see them jobbing week after week! They'll need their fair share of victories. After a few weeks of good intentions, I suspect this will backfire like WCW's final moments and the botched WWE "invasion". I'm just praying that AJ Styles survives intact. He really is the greatest wrestler in the west today - and proved it on Monday night with those amazing springboard 450 splashes?! Unbelievably talented human being. I almost got to work with him one time when I was lined up to make the very, very first TNA game way back when it first started and had links to the UK. I must admit I never thought the company would come this far! In any case, all this excitement surrounding booking is the perfect opportunity to get back into the new and improved Wrestling MPire 2008: Management Edition if you haven't done so in a while. There you can act out your dreams for real and get a taste of what Hulk Hogan is up against! You may also want to check out the DVD's about booking that Kayfabe Commentaries put out. I was on the brink of collaborating with them as well at one point, but it was too late and my career was already winding down by then. They're great guys though - putting themselves on the line to deliver innovative entertainment to wrestling fans. I'm happy to promote them with or without my involvement...
The Show Must Go Online ~ 8th January 2010
It's been a while
since I had cause to say "due to popular demand" on this site - and The
MDickie Show is the last game I ever thought it would be said about! But
from the day the games were starting to be given away for free, all anybody
could talk about was the lesser known one that was missing. There were several
reasons it was left out in the cold. One is that the speech samples made it 10
times bigger than any other game of that era, which was always hard to justify
uploading (even on a broadband connection). I've got around it by putting out a
censored version of the game, which means there are only half as many sound
files. If you want the uncut original, you'll have to pick it up on disc. The
game is modified in several other respects too. I tidied up a few textures (not
that you'd notice because the graphics are still shamelessly awful!) and
recompiled the executable to work as well as any modern release. The other
reason the game kept a low profile is simply that I wasn't that proud of it. As
the title would suggest, it came at the height of my self-indulgence and sees a
maverick game designer at his most "out of control". I always assumed that was a
bad thing, and cringed at my attempts to single-handedly produce a legitimate
piece of entertainment - with voice acting and all. However, as with most games
I've revisited in recent months, there were surprises in store for me. Upon
returning to the game to prepare it for its re-release as a piece of freeware,
it turns out the dialogue is just about the ONLY thing that holds up! The
fighting gameplay itself is predictably dire (although not a bad effort for one
of the first 3D games I ever made), and the less said about the feeble visuals
the better. The voice acting at the heart of it all wasn't so bad though -
especially considering I had to do it all off the top of my head. It's possibly
some of the most creative work I've ever done, and I certainly have fond
memories of putting it together. The innovative concept itself isn't that bad
either. I wish I had time to recreate it with Wrestling MPire 2008's game
engine - and improved voice acting from a man 7 years older (and wiser!). That
window has closed now though, and I'll never be able to justify working on a big
3D project again. It's a shame the voice acting was attached to such a weak
project because I would have liked to see it evolve throughout the other games.
My confidence was knocked by The MDickie Show's lukewarm reception
though, and I never set foot near a microphone again. In any case, that unique
project is finally available to load up again - and there are even video clips
of the key moments...
Ignorance From The Negative Generation ~ 5th January 2010
I
almost didn't acknowledge the release of my 3rd book, A-fear-ism, on this
site because it has even less to do with games than 2009's Sportuality.
It's a scholarly text which is entirely about religious attitudes and has little
to offer people who don't have strong feelings either way. But then it occurred
to me that it couldn't be more relevant to what took place on this site, because
it exposes the folly of ignorance - the sheer gall to have strong opinions about
things you know little about! It also hacks away at the cancers of cynicism and
negativity, which I've become all too familiar with over the years. If there's
one theme that runs throughout my multi-faceted career, it's the desire to
confront ignorance and lessen its poisonous impact. As I acknowledge in the
foreword of the book, I was first exposed to it as a young wrestling fan. "You
do realize it's FAKE?!" came the taunts. "You do realize it's MEANT to be
fake?!" came my incredulous response. My fellow wrestling fans and I knew better
than anybody else how the sport was deliberately theatrical for the sake of
entertainment. But there we were being told what's what by a group of ignorant
onlookers - whose knowledge about the sport wouldn't even fill a wrestler's
jockstrap! It's a prejudice I went on to tackle valiantly as I put wrestling at
the forefront of my gaming work and celebrated it as an art form. Speaking of
which, my work with games brought my next taste of ignorance - and what a strong
dose it was this time! First I had to contend with the bizarre assumption that
it made me some sort of "geek", which didn't ring true on any level because I
was a perfectly healthy and articulate young man. It made for some awkward
back-tracking whenever I came face to face with my cowardly detractors! Then
there was the games themselves, which were criticized mercilessly by people who
either didn't know how much work went into a game or didn't prove as much by
making better ones in the same circumstances. It was all guesswork that fell far
short of the mark. The dictionary definition of "ignorance". And now the trend
has come full circle as I find myself
confronting the most poisonous ignorance of all - that which causes people to
ridicule other cultures and belief systems. As with all prejudices, those that
do so invariably have a slender grasp of the subject matter in question and tend
to be incapable of contributing anything of value themselves. As I always said
about the games, "The first to criticize are the last to contribute."
Copyright © MDickie 2000 - 2010