When the Wrestling Games Database started documenting every wrestling game that has ever existed, I got to thinking about how hard I worked to set my work apart from all the others. Whether you liked my games or not, there can be no doubt that I tried to innovate every step of the way! It's surprising to recall just how many "famous firsts" there were - from the concepts themselves to the way they were made. After 10 years, many of them have been lost to time - as evinced by a recent interview that claimed my work wasn't inventive at all. For the record, here's a look back at the many uncharted territories my games explored...

One Man Show ~ August 2000
Of course, the main innovation that sets the tone for all others is that I made the games single-handedly. On the surface, there's nothing "innovative" about this at all. Games had been made by solitary figures since the formative years of the 1980's. My claim to the title was that I resurrected the technique in the 21st century - at a point in time when most games were made by dozens of highly trained professionals! Even then, there were still plenty of other individuals who were using programs like Blitz and Dark BASIC to knock together games of their own. Few did it on the scale that I did though, and certainly not at the same pace. I had taken something that was meant to be a casual hobby and turned it into a productive career. My creative exploits went far beyond the usual graphics and programming too. By December 2001, I was also responsible for the music for each project - which was one of many additional steps beyond the norm that remains unmatched. I strayed even further out of reach in the summer of 2003 when I also began successfully publishing my own work. No one man had ever produced projects of that size and sophistication so quickly and effectively... 

Big Bumps ~ August 2000
My solo regime had its downsides, but creativity wasn't one of them! I was free to make any crazy idea that came into my head - and there was no shortage of those. The game that launched my public career was an innovative take on the wrestling genre. In the early days, I was utterly incapable of making a legitimate wrestling game and had to focus on one specific aspect of the sport. I chose to make a game dedicated to the art of performing high risk stunts. Players simply contorted their bodies in mid-air in a bid to land moves properly onto the props below. Although it was basic, what it did it did well and proved to be an irresistible piece of freeware for wrestling fans. The concept reappeared several times throughout my career - including a 3D version in 2003 and an online Flash version in 2009. No other wrestling game deviated from the script so effectively...

By The People, For The People ~ November 2000
The early days of my career were about innovative attitudes as well as innovative methods. As an approachable individual, I was able to enjoy an extremely close relationship with my fans. This even extended to making games at their behest! I became an intermediary between their ideas and a finished product. People would send in suggestions and we'd all be playing the finished game within a matter of weeks, buoyed by a sense of co-creative pride. Naturally, this became impossible to sustain once the games became bigger and more sophisticated. However, I attempted to keep the flame alive by allowing fans to submit characters of their own creation who would then populate the lower ranks of the wrestling games. Again, it was another chance to feel involved and allowed fans all over the world to "play against each other" virtually in the absence of a real online mode! The chance to contribute to mainstream games was practically non-existent by comparison, but I made it an integral part of the creative process...

Sure Shot ~ December 2000
Another innovative concept that I was very proud of was Sure Shot, which simply challenged players to catch enemies in the crossfire of two guns without hitting each other. It was shamelessly retro and belonged in the arcades of the 1980's. That's how most players felt too as they scratched their heads wondering what to make of it! However, as a game designer I was keen to prove that I could turn my hand to anything - including the past. The game's charms weren't lost on everybody though. Lots of older players in my age group recognized the achievement - not least the gaming journalist Martin Carroll, who wrote it up as a "gem" in PC Utilities magazine. Rather appropriately, he went on to edit a dedicated retro games magazine. Like Stunt Challenge before it, the original 2D version of Sure Shot went on to enjoy a 3D interpretation and an online Flash remake...

Make Your Entrance ~ July 2001
By the time I was making my first primitive wrestling simulators in the summer of 2001, several innovations were already starting to shine through. One of the simplest, yet most effective, was that it was possible to control your own entrances. That may sound like an unnecessary chore, but entrances had become a spectacle in wrestling and fans delighted at being able to saunter to the ring at their own pace! They could even load in music from a CD. It went on to become an integral part of all my wrestling/boxing games, and was especially effective in 3D. In a similar vein, it was also possible to linger in the arena after a match had ended and leave when you wanted to! Most wrestling games at the time used preset cut-scenes in both instances. To this day, I believe mine are the only sports sims that top and tail the action with such interactivity...

Programmed To Self-Destruct ~ July 2001
Another development in my wrestling work was that the arenas had become fully interactive. They were littered with a mixture of small handheld items and large pieces of furniture - all of which could be taken in hand and moved around. More importantly, it was also possible to smash your opponents through them for bonus damage! They could even be set alight, and drew blood when they were used as such. It practically became my trademark, as each game was filled to the brim with anarchic destruction. It reached its zenith in the 3D games of 2003 and beyond. They even allowed you to perform wrestling moves with an item in hand, which opened up yet more possibilities. It was also possible to clamber on top of them to launch attacks - like many other aspects of the scenery. Although mainstream wrestling games were taking small steps in this direction by 2001, the limitations were suffocating by comparison. There were only one or two interactive items instead of the dozens upon dozens that were available here. To this day, I don't believe my weapon-filled gameplay has ever been equalled by mainstream wrestling games...

The Sky's The Limit ~ December 2002
By the time the 2D wrestling sims had evolved a notch further the following year, an even more exciting innovation was on the cards. In addition to dozens of items, they now featured dozens of CHARACTERS on screen at once! This was a truly remarkable development, and one that wrestling fans had been gasping for. In real life, many of the best wrestling formats - such as Royal Rumble and Survivor Series - featured numerous competitors. The games, however, always had to limit the action to a mere 4 or 5. Even that was impressive when you consider most fighting games, like Tekken, had the luxury of focusing on a mere 2 combatants. Some novelty wrestling games flirted with the idea of allowing up to 8 or 10 characters on screen, so that we could at least have huge tag team matches and Battle Royals. But it was never the norm, and to this day most wrestling sims are limited in that respect. My contribution was to completely remove ANY limitations and allow the player to have as many characters on screen as their computer could handle! Huge matches finally became the norm, and for the very first time we had the spectacle of up to 30 wrestlers in one gigantic contest. Wrestling MPire 2008 even retained this option despite its sophisticated visuals, and to this day players discover a new depth to it every time they buy a new computer. My graphics were always mercilessly criticized, but few realized they were made the way they were for a reason and made more important things possible... 

Justice Is Served ~ December 2002
A similar development around this time was the very real role that referees played in my games. In a bid to keep those character counts down, very few sports games featured a visible referee at all. And even if they did, his input was significantly weaker than that of the main participants. As far back as WWF Wrestlemania and Super Fire Pro wrestling on the Super Nintendo in the early 1990's, referees had a small role to play in 2D games. They disappeared completely by the time polygons were involved though. Even THQ's beloved wrestling series on the Nintendo 64 was reduced to using a "symbolic" cartoon referee! The prominence of "special guest referees" in WWF's real-life product later forced them to shoehorn in a playable referee, but it was very much an afterthought and wasn't the norm. That all changed in my hands. From my very first wrestling simulator in 2001, referees were present in every single match and had the exact same DNA as the wrestlers themselves - which meant they could interact with each other in every conceivable way. It also meant they were fully controllable if you so desired. My fascination with big numbers also ensured there were some innovations there! I believe mine were the first games to allow MULTIPLE referees to preside over big matches. In fact, it became a significant part of the game as corrupt referees were allowed to serve their own agenda. Not only were there real referees, but they had minds of their own! It was even possible for them to burst into a match halfway through and change the course of a contest. My games were also the first to allow you to specify what these referees were looking for. Dozens of different rules were available to mix and match to create any conceivable match type. Traditionally, a player only had the suffocating choice of "Singles Match" or "Tag Team Match", etc. I put the power firmly in the player's hands...

Role-Play Wrestling ~ December 2002
Although there's nothing new about RPG-style statistics, my wrestling games were the first to make it at home in the genre. Previously, wrestling games had featured identikit wrestlers who practically had the same qualities and could only be differentiated by appearance. Even when THQ's beloved WWF No Mercy sought to forge a divide, it only amounted to a mere 3 options that ranged from "Weak" to "Strong" in any given category. By comparison, my games used precise percentages out of 100 in almost a dozen different categories. The most interesting thing was that the attributes also evolved over time. Every passing week nudged them in one direction or another and slowly changed the industry you were a part of - much like in real life. Mainstream wrestling games were stuck on pause by comparison...  

It's All Yours ~ December 2002
Another advantage I had over console games was that the media in my PC games was always available to customize. Every image, model, and sound effect was right there in the game's folder to be accessed and changed. I even programmed each game to acknowledge additions to the library and practically encouraged players to make it their own. Considering the games already had a decent built-in editing facility, this made the possibilities endless and caused modding communities to pop up all over the place. Games of this size and quality had never been so accessible...

Breaking Kayfabe ~ July 2003
I had dabbled in the art of "booking" with some early games from 2001, but 2003's Federation Booker firmly put it on the map. Up until then, wrestling games portrayed it as a real competition and wouldn't dare acknowledge the machinations that go on behind the scenes. I broke with tradition (what is known in the industry as "kayfabe") by making the politics centre-stage. It had always fascinated diehard wrestling fans as much as what happens in the ring, so it was deserving of a game in its own right. We just had to wait until a wrestling fan found himself in a position of power - and I was that wrestling fan! I should point out that many had tried in the past and even around the same time. Games like Promotion Wars and Extreme Warfare Revenge found a considerable audience as Championship Manager-style text games. However, Federation Booker and its 3D incarnations were the first to make the whole process GRAPHICAL. Wrestling fans didn't need to "pretend" anymore and could see their promotion come to life before their very eyes in a fully playable experience. It didn't do my career prospects any good though, because no publisher would touch such a niche interpretation of the wrestling genre! Fortunately, another little innovation would rectify that...

Independence Day ~ July 2003
When I claimed to be an "independent" game developer, I wasn't talking about the way the games were made so much as the way they were distributed. As we've already established, making games single-handedly was nothing new and numerous people dabbled in it. However, by the time I was developing AND publishing my own games, I became a very unique proposition indeed. Completing each project was now just the tip of the iceberg as I then turned around and designed the box art and arranged for it to be manufactured. I managed to turn a hobby into a profession and added business responsibilities to my already considerable workload. It was all worth it, though, because it meant I was the only professional that was truly "free" and could release whatever he wanted. No idea was too crazy or controversial to merit a release and creativity thrived. It also allowed me to innovate in the way the games were marketed, and I resolved to retail them at an affordable $14.99 (in line with any other form of home entertainment). Up until then, games had been sold for closer to $50 no questions asked. I made games cheaper for my players AND a source of income for myself in one deft move...

The MDickie Show ~ August 2003
The 2nd game I published with my newfound freedom was innovative and controversial in equal measure. It warrants a mention on this list for two reasons. One is that the idea of a fighting game based on a chat show was truly unique - and nothing remotely like it had been conceived of before or since. The second reason is that it yet again rose the bar on what one man could do, as I set about voicing both sides of no fewer than 32 different conversations! The results were hit and miss, to be sure, but far better than anyone expected from a solitary figure who already had graphics and programming to contend with. Whether you liked it or not, I was taking independent game development to places it had never been before...

2D Or Not 2D ~ August 2003
When I released the 3D MDickie Show immediately after the 2D Federation Booker, my work was beginning to send out yet another message. Working in 2D and 3D are two very different disciplines, and most game developers focus exclusively on either one or the other. I was arguably the first to dabble in both simultaneously and flit between them depending on what each project required. I was certainly the only one to make successful contributions to each field. Federation Booker became one of the best loved wrestling games on the PC, clocking up tens of thousands of downloads and positive reviews. As a published product, its revenue even became a source of income for me. It was a rare 2D success story - at a point in time when 3D had long since sewn up the market. But when I achieved the same success all over again in 3D with the Wrestling MPire series, I could legitimately claim to have conquered both sides of game development. It was the equivalent of winning an Oscar for an animated movie and then a live action movie! That versatility would become my trademark, and also manifested itself in the way I would move between different genres...

The Wrestling MPire ~ January 2004
One of the good things about being detached from the mainstream wrestling industry was that I had no allegiance to any one promotion in particular. Most wrestling games up until that time were glorified pieces of merchandise that focused exclusively on the company at the heart of the proceedings. Even when other factions were acknowledged, such as in WCW/nWo Vs The World, it was of no real consequence. Mine, on the other hand, were arguably the first legitimate wrestling simulators to feature numerous promotions in competition with each other! Federation Booker expanded first in July 2003 with its 4 promotions, which then grew to 6 in Wrestling MPire (plus 3 novelty talent pools such as training schools and "Hollywood"). Although they were fictitious, they each came from a different part of the world and had their own distinct style. Like the wrestlers themselves, the promotions even had their own "Popularity" and "Reputation" stats that changed over time - complete with a bank account that reflected their success! That divisive level of realism had never been seen before or since and could only come from an independent product...

Backstage Pass ~ January 2004
The conceit of rival promotions also gave rise to many other innovations that no other wrestling game had offered before. In the "Career" versions of the games, you were a legitimate employee who could aspire to progress from wrestling school to any of the 6 major promotions - complete with detailed contract negotiations that had a significant effect on how your life panned out. In the "booking" versions, this manifested itself in the opportunity to trade with other organizations - recruiting new talent and getting rid of deadweight. It was even possible to take part in "inter-promotional" contests! All the while, hundreds of meetings gave you the chance to interact with the other characters and carve your own little niche in the universe. There were even mock newspaper stories to chart developments throughout the rest of the world! The wrestling business had never been so utterly involving and compelling...

Express Yourself ~ April 2004
My solo antics were not only a goldmine of creativity but also allowed me to express myself to an extent that gaming had never seen before. In my hands, games transcended mere entertainment and became a way of commenting on the outside world. It began humbly enough with games I would make about my friends to ridicule some aspect of their personality. By the time I was at university, I even parodied the plight of my course my creating a little game that challenged you to beat resources out of the management! The trend culminated in a game I made in support of Michael Jackson when he was (falsely) accused of child molestation in 2003. It was a simplistic interpretation of events that had him grappling with his various detractors, but the gesture won his approval and made headlines in the UK. My work had become such a curiosity that it was featured in regular newspapers as much as gaming magazines! My deeply personal output remains unmatched my faceless teams who are strictly forbidden to express independent opinions...

Annual Compilations ~ July 2004
The fact that I was publishing my own work also brought forth innovations in the way the games were distributed. Since I was producing a handful of titles each year, I found myself releasing each year's produce in an annual compilation. Of course, compilations are as old as the games industry itself so there's nothing new there. However, the fact that mine captured a complete body of work by one person made them feel more like music albums than an arbitrary collection of games! They even had their own themes - such as 2005's Tour Of Duty which documented my experiments outside of wrestling, and 2006's Squared Circle which took 4 different approaches to world domination. My work had always been about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and now that was abundantly clear. It was also a wise business decision, as previously overlooked games got a chance to shine as part of a compilation. All the while, fans lapped up the chance to buy a handful of products for the price of one! It was a win-win situation that made my business model even more unique than it was before...

Top Of The Pops ~ August 2004
Having dedicated myself exclusively to the wrestling genre for the formative years of my career, I felt the need to broaden my horizons in the summer of 2004. I freshened things up by applying the same principles to a game about the music industry called Popscene. It was almost as successful and went on to become one of my most iconic games, receiving a belated sequel in 2008. This was innovative in itself, because I became one of the few independents that wasn't a "one hit wonder" and had something to offer other genres. However, the game itself was the real innovation at the time because there were no longer any music industry simulators on the scene. Those of us that could remember the cult classic A Rockstar Ate My Hamster longed for its equivalent in the 21st century, but we went a long time without one. As with the wrestling games, some took a shot at it with painfully inadequate text games that relied too heavily on the imagination. Popscene, however, was a fully 3D rendition of the entire music industry - and even featured real music loaded in on CD or MP3! Even this has now been rendered inadequate by the rise of Guitar Hero and co, but - like the music of yesteryear - it was good at the time...

Wrecked ~ January 2005
Another innovative concept followed Popscene in the January of 2005. Although movies like Castaway had made a success of life stranded on a desert island, very few games had veered in that direction. So much so that the author Terry Pratchett had declared it to be his "dream game", which was my inspiration for giving it a go. Like Popscene before it, the game that became Wrecked was first conceived as a 2D adventure way back in 2000. I wasn't able to do it justice until 4 years later though, when it enjoyed a new lease of life as a fully 3D experience. It was the first of its kind I had ever made, however, and suffered from countless novice flaws. It wasn't without its charms though, as you were left to survive with some satisfyingly open-ended gameplay. Coincidentally, the landmark TV series Lost aired the following February and desert island antics were no longer quite so innovative! Everybody was at it by the end of 2005 and Wrecked got lost in the shuffle...

Committed To Film ~ March 2005
After delivering a groundbreaking simulation of the music industry with Popscene, I was confident about repeating its success with a similar game about the movie industry. The predictably titled Popcorn came unstuck though because the filmmaking process was much harder to encapsulate in a game (especially one that was low on content, as my solo creations invariably were). It had its moments and just about worked as a concept, but it was more of a chore than a piece of entertainment. It was definitely innovative though. Music industry simulators of some kind or another had always existed in the ether, but nobody had conceived of any way of making movies work. Mine was arguably the first to even attempt it. Ironically, two came along at once though - because it turned out that Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studios had been working on a similar concept called The Movies. It was a more mainstream take on the idea and succeeded accordingly - leaving Popcorn to make do with crumbs from the master's table...

Grass Roots ~ July 2006
Commercial failure dampened my enthusiasm for innovation and caused me to seek sanctuary with a triumphant return to the wrestling genre with Wrestling Encore. By the summer of 2006, I was ready to go "balls out" again though. Quite literally, because I made my first and only soccer sim! A casual kick-around between friends was how I remembered the sport, and I sought to translate my childhood experiences to the screen with Grass Roots. Wrestling had taught me that sport could be as much about character as what takes place on the field, so I brought that idea to a soccer game that played more like an RPG than a professional simulator. You assembled a team of unusual characters to take part in unusual contests at unusual locations! At a point in time when ALL sports games automatically clamoured to recreate the professional scene, my gloriously amateurish effort was innovative on a number of levels. Although some games had taken the action to the streets for novelty value, mine was the first to turn it into a globe-trotting RPG driven by character and plot. It was a bold step forward that pre-dated the current trend for "street" versions of each sport. It ultimately lacked the polish of a mainstream product though, and could never pose as a realistic alternative...

Times Of War ~ September 2006
Towards the end of my career, the contents of my games ceased to be innovative but the concepts behind them always were. A good example was World War Alpha, which was little more than a live action interpretation of the war strategy game Risk. What was innovative about it, however, was a cinematic subtext that had an army of the present waging war on the civilizations of the past in a bid to rule the world thousands of years in advance! It would have made for an innovative movie - let alone a game - and stands out as one of the most interesting ideas that my imagination ever churned out. The execution left a lot to be desired though, so it ultimately failed to change the course of history...

Ear Shot ~ October 2006
One of my most remarkable innovations never saw the light of day. Quite literally, because it was a game that had NO visuals! I marvelled at how blind children were still somehow drawn to the world of gaming, and endeavoured to create a game that didn't rely on vision at all. Instead, the appropriately titled Ear Shot relied entirely on sound to convey an experience. It harked back to the simplistic concept of Sure Shot, as you found yourself blindfolded in the middle of a room as enemies approached from the North, East, South, and West. Listening out for their footsteps in 3-dimensional stereo sound, you simply used the cursors to fire in the appropriate direction and kill them before they could get their hands on you. Your gun only had a limited amount of ammo though, so there was no room for mistakes. This half-baked concept never resulted in a complete game, but I may look into making my prototype available one day...

Behind Bars ~ January 2007
Back in the real world, I continued to put an innovative spin on tired old genres. Television audiences were gripped by prison dramas such as Oz and Prison Break, but this tense environment had never been the setting of a decent game. In discussions with some publishers, I later discovered many studios had always wanted to make one but never envisioned how it would work. It was an understandable concern, given that the reality of prison involves not doing an awful lot for 24 hours a day! A gave it my best shot with Hard Time though, which was essentially Grand Theft Auto behind bars and turned prison life into a tensely violent fight for survival. It was embraced as such by an appreciative audience and went on to become one of my more successful games outside of wrestling. Nobody had ever turned prison life into a game before without making it some sort of bizarre backdrop for something else, but here being incarcerated was the whole point of the game. The only projects that were remotely comparable were the Prison Tycoon games where you were charged with creating and maintaining a prison in a tiresome strategy format. Hard Time turned prison into a deeply immersive, live action 3D experience...

Right Angles ~ June 2007
Another innovation that had been bubbling throughout my 3D work was my fascination with camera angles. I was always cautious about forcing a specific camera angle on the player and always allowed them to choose something else that suited them better. In the case of Grass Roots, this even extended to including two games in one as you could opt to play it as a "top-down" soccer sim instead of the usual "side-on" view. There was even my trademark "Spontaneous" camera, which randomly changed throughout the game to give interesting TV-style views of the action! This was also available in the wrestling games, but it was strictly for novelty value and made playing a chore. That all changed with the arrival of Reach's polished camera system, which tied the movement controls to the camera angle and ensured the game remained perfectly playable from ANY angle! The result was that my games had dozens upon dozens of alternative camera angles that were genuinely worth trying. By comparison, other games only gave you one or two alternatives (if any at all)...

The You Testament ~ December 2008
The controversial last game I ever made was also perhaps the most innovative. I had always been fascinated with games as a metaphor for the relationship between body and soul, and spiritual references had slowly been seeping into my work from Wrecked onwards. This all culminated at the end of 2008 in The You Testament - my first overtly religious game that allowed you to follow in the footsteps of Christ. Despite a few well-meaning projects that veered in that direction, this was the first time that a game of this size and sophistication had ever been dedicated to a religious theme. Never before (and never again) would a game developer find himself with the knowledge, skill, and freedom to produce such a project. No mainstream studio would ever dream of tackling this subject matter (in the unlikely event they were inclined to in the first place). Nor would they conceive of a design that made it work as an interactive experience. It wasn't easy and involved shoehorning hundreds of Biblical stories into a coherent narrative that remained unpredictable on account of the player's free will. The result was an innovative storytelling mechanism that combined predetermined storylines with spontaneous ones. In either case, they were acted out using the game's own engine (for better or worse) and had an authenticity that no cut-scene could ever have. Most controversially of all, the project had to speculate as to exactly how "miracles" might be possible so that the player could access them for himself. The result was a curious blend of Christianity and Indian mysticism that used "meditation" as a means of spending the spiritual energy you cultivated by living a virtuous life. It was denounced as scurrilous blasphemy by many, but such criticisms were ignorant of just how well it worked for the game - making spiritual ideas easy to understand and appreciate instead of the meaningless nonsense it could have been. Make no mistake about it - the choice religious people have is either this game or NO game! No other format will ever make spiritual principles more coherent and accessible...

Inspiration For The Interactive Generation ~ January 2009
Throughout my work as a game developer, I also sought to innovate by the way I conducted myself. Making games was more than just a job to me - it was a way of life that I tirelessly documented on one of the most informative and personal websites the world of entertainment had ever seen. I almost spent as much time writing about the games as I did making them! Indeed, it was (and remains) one of the most satisfying parts of my job. The numerous writings on the site even resulted in the odd published article in a newspaper or magazine, which was remarkable for any game developer - let alone an independent one. However, the real innovation was when my writing culminated in a published book at the turn of 2009 - something that very few game designers had got around to doing. As a wrestling fan, I was no stranger to the trend for releasing autobiographies that gave you an intimate insight into what had shaped someone's career. It made me appreciate their work on a whole other level and I would delight at revisiting it on tape with a better understanding of what was going through their minds. The same was also true of musicians and movie stars I had read up on. It occurred to me that a revealing autobiography would give my players that same heightened appreciation for the games I had toiled on, and so I set about documenting my experiences in a book - from the childhood dream to the adult that lived it out. Unfortunately, it was dismissed as a "vanity project" by many and was not received in the spirit of goodwill that I had intended. My embittered enemies merely saw it as ammunition with which they could tear me apart on a personal level as well as a professional level. It's a shame, because the project could have ushered in a whole new era of honest discourse in the world of game development - making the whole process a little more "human". The irony was that I put more effort into it than any game, as I carefully composed 60'000 words of deeply personal information. Even my critics couldn't deny it was well-written though, and it became yet another well-crafted creation in my arsenal - kick-starting a whole other career as a writer and public speaker...

Hot Source ~ January 2010
Throughout 2009, the nature of my work was gradually changing as work on new projects ceased and I set about preserving the legacy of the existing ones. One by one, they became freeware instead of published products so that I could simultaneously extricate myself from business concerns and make the games more accessible to future generations. This process of giving the games away was completed (rather appropriately) by Christmas that year, which was innovative in itself because independent games of this size and sophistication always came at a price. It simply wasn't possible to produce them otherwise, but that was no longer a concern of mine. However, the real innovation came at the turn of 2010 when I went one step further by giving the source code away too! I had contemplated charging for that instead of the games themselves which were now free, but I concluded that would defeat the whole point of making my work more accessible. Everything had to be free and easily obtained by anybody. Anything less would be a headache for me as I set about drawing a line under the past. It was a remarkable development because, as with the freeware, games of this size and sophistication had never been so accessible. Sure, there was the odd little project that studios would leave open to the public - but never before had a complete body of work been exposed to the public so brazenly. The decision is already beginning to bear fruit as a new generation of artists and programmers set about breathing new life into my old creations. My work lives on through those that obtain it freely and customize it cheerfully. Perhaps the greatest "innovation" of all is that the loner became a man of the people!