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My Story, Part 1: A Mostly Unfortunate But Inspiring Childhood

6 years ago4,341 words

Creators are people, and their creations come about as a result of their life experiences, in some way or another. My experiences led to the creation of a series of games called MARDEK, but that was a lifetime ago. In this series of posts, I describe those life experiences, as well as why the ones I've had since then make it inconceivable that I could continue doing now what I did back then - at least not in exactly the same way.

When I asked recently if people would be interested in reading about my history as a person who makes things, the feedback was positive, so hopefully you'll get something out of reading this! I know it's been a while since I made anything noteworthy, but I still get 'requests' to continue MARDEK, and I've got a lot of feedback over the years about how much my creative work has meant to other people. I've made a lot of stuff, but the kind of stuff that I make has changed a lot as I've grown, which is why going back to making the sorts of stuff I used to make - like MARDEK - feels impossible to me now. I do feel bad about that, though; I'd love for there to be a MARDEK 4 myself, it's just that I feel like I'm unable to make MARDEK 4, and hopefully this series of posts will explain why if nothing else.

I'll offer my explanation via a long-winded account of essentially my whole life story, which might seem unnecessarily indulgent but which I feel is crucially important to understand why I was able to make MARDEK 1 to 3 in the first place, as well as what I've been trying to do since then and the direction I want to head in the future.

So let's start at the beginning...

A Mostly Unfortunate But Inspiring Childhood

I grew up poor, living with my two brothers and my unemployed, mentally ill, alcoholic, neglectful father in squalor (that seems like a positive note to start on!). I performed well in school, and was admired for my academic and artistic abilities, but I often just didn't go because I was too scared, for what I now understand were social reasons. I remember an 'education welfare officer' coming around to my house more than once to check why I wasn't coming to school. Hmm.

My brothers and I lived with my mother and step-dad on most weekends - or maybe it was every other weekend - which seems to be a fairly typical setup for children of divorced parents. The difference between my 'normal' house and theirs was like hell and heaven. I'd actually have food every day! Proper meals, even! And a bath, in a bathroom which actually had a door that wasn't broken off its hinges! The kitchen wasn't even inaccessibly full to bursting with bin bags full of rubbish! Wow! Such luxury! Things so many people just take for granted, but which aren't available for everyone, even in Western cultures where they're assumed to be the standard.

My father wasn't aggressively abusive, but he was neglectful, and he'd spend most of his dole money on alcohol (which is why I hate it myself now), rarely changed his clothes, slept in the chair he spent his days sitting in, vomited constantly in the kitchen sink... He smoked in the kitchen, and manipulated doctors to get a steady supply of prescription medication. He was likely depressed - probably trapped by many of the mental demons that torment me now - though I didn't understand it as such at the time. I didn't know what substance abuse was back then, either; this was just my reality. Perhaps the substance abuse is what led to the psychotic episodes that he had with hallucinations; I remember one time when my brother and I were trapped in our bedroom for like two days because he was raving at invisible crocodiles or something, and another time where he took us to school in the middle of the night and had to physically rattle the closed school gates before he accepted that it wasn't the right time.

I have too much in common with him for my liking, mentally and in terms of life experiences (never having had a proper job, for example), and it's worrying.

Because of this not-exactly-nurturing environment, I missed out on many typical childhood milestones and experiences, and I didn't have access to as many fancy toys as I might have liked. I had creative urges, though, which I used to try to make for myself what hadn't been given to me. I'd been exposed to some video games - on the NES, SNES and MegaDrive ('Genesis' in the US) in those days - but as I didn't have a console myself, I'd draw platformer levels on paper, and move cut-out drawings of characters around them.

As a youngling, my favourite thing was Lego, and I'd ask for that for any gifts, and got so excited about the thought of getting any. I miss that naive, childish excitement! I wasn't particularly creative with it - I'd just make the models according to the instructions - but it was a huge part of my life and identity as a child. Unlike now, where Lego mostly seems to be based on franchises (Star Wars, Harry Potter, various films, etc), back then they used their own themes, many of which were based on space or underwater. I remember being particularly fond of things like this:



Perhaps because I felt like an outsider in the world, or I wanted to distance myself from my less-than-wonderful reality, and likely partly as a result of inspirations like that, I'd always had a particular interest in things that were distant, strange, and unknown, especially aliens. I liked designing distinct non-humanoid species and their worlds. One of these species began life as a type of monster drawn for those semi-imaginary platformer levels, which I called 'swamp monsters'. I don't have any original images remaining - they're long gone now - but I seem to remember that they looked something like this:



That brings back memories... It's interesting to me that my mind still retains the knowledge of the formulaic way I drew them, for what likely wasn't a very long period in my childhood. Eventually I got annoyed that these were too humanoid, too boring with their two arms and two legs (it still bothers me how many alien designs are humanoid, when there's a limitless number of truly alien body plans that could be explored), so I redesigned them as lingons - a name I imagine was childishly inspired by the word 'klingon', though unconsciously - which might have looked something like this:



That drawing's from just now (and it's tough to deliberately draw how I think I did before my skills were what they are now!), but I think they looked essentially like that when I first redesigned them, when I was maybe about 9 or 10? Maybe even younger? I wish I had my old childhood scribbles so then I could check... I - together, to some degree, with my younger brother, though I feel I probably took the lead and he was just sort of roped into it - designed a star system of planets, each inhabited by a different alien race, including these lingons. It was called the 'Draco System', and I'd go on to spend quite a bit of time drawing the various races that inhabited it.

It was all very shallow though, objective, and visual; I put thought into how things looked, but little to none into how they might behave, nor did I design any named individuals or their personal stories or relationships. The races were all at war with each other though, and I'd draw their space battles with lasers and explosions and casual death! Because little boys are conditioned to see violent conflict as a basic form of play. Annoying. It takes time to break out of that.



Some of the first games that I remember playing were the Commander Keen series on the PC, back in the pre-3D days when games had to be executed through some DOS command line or something. These games were about a pale young boy travelling through distant worlds full of aliens, so they very much appealed to and inspired child-me. I don't remember ever pretending to be other game characters like Sonic or Mario while playing in the real world, but I probably pretended to be Commander Keen.



Speaking of Sonic and Mario, I got access to some games consoles when I was a bit older - I got a SNES, and my older brother had a MegaDrive which I was sometimes allowed to play - and I mostly played platformers on them, as they were pretty much the dominant genre back then. I spent a lot of time with Mario World and Mario All-Stars (which was remakes of the NES Mario games, which I'd never played in their original forms); I liked the former most, especially due to features like Yoshi and the world map, and it was a direct inspiration for many of the levels that I drew on paper. I also spent a lot of time with Sonic 1, 2, 3, and & Knuckles. I didn't care for Sonic or Knuckles as characters because I hated the whole 'attitood' thing that was supposed to make them cool back in the Nineties, but I loved Tails because he seemed soft and nice, which I admired and could relate to. I had a stuffed toy of him, and it was my favourite thing!!! I played other games on those consoles too, but not many, and those are the ones I played the most and remember the most clearly. I didn't play any RPGs; I didn't know they even existed.



Oh! There was also Ristar, which is a relatively obscure MegaDrive game that I played and loved a lot. You played as this star thing (which I've since read was an earlier design for Sonic or something?), which could extend its arms to grab enemies or monkey bars, etc. The appeal for me came from the visuals - which are wonderfully bright, stylised, and have this satisfying rounded depth to them which I adored and still do - and from the music. One of the level tracks was stuck in my mind for years until the internet became more readily accessible and I was finally able to hear it again (∞ this one ∞, if you're curious). I still listen to Ristar's music occasionally, though I'm aware that most of the appeal for me comes from nostalgia. Games like this - bright, musical forays through alien worlds - were far more appealing to me than playing as a soldier shooting up faceless baddies in some real-world cityscape or whatever.



Later, when I was maybe around 10, I got a PlayStation and several games from my mother and step-dad for Christmas, which is one of the most memorable days of my life. I remember getting Spyro 1, Tomb Raider 1, Abe's Oddysee, a game called Croc, and another called Heart of Darkness, all of which I played on that day and for many days afterwards. My first experiences with 3D! Well, some of them; Abe's Oddysee and Heart of Darkness were 2D. I ended up accumulating loads of PlayStation games over the next few years, as my mother and step-dad were living in Estonia at the time (due to his job), and would bring back cheap pirated versions they'd bought from dodgy market stalls. We also used to go to Blockbuster video on weekends - that used to be a thing! - and my brother and I would rent a game, so we discovered a lot of new ones that way.



The Oddworld games - Abe's Oddysee, and Abe's Exoddus, which I got later - had ambivalent appeal to me. I'd always been scared by everything, especially gore, so their dark, gritty, violent undertones unnerved me. But the world and creature designs were unique, and I still find them appealing even now. The gameplay mechanics - talking to allies using different phrases, and possessing enemies to use their abilities to solve puzzles or talk to other enemies - were original too, and I still think they're more interesting than mindless, repetitive combat. As I write this, I'm quite interested in a remake of Exoddus called ∞ Soulstorm ∞, which should hopefully be coming out next year.

I remember having a demo disc for the PlayStation which included a snippet of Final Fantasy VII (the bit where you're running around the abandoned rollercoaster around Corel), which I was fascinated by; I'd never played an RPG before. Amusingly, I remember my older brother saying I wouldn't understand or enjoy the full game. Despite that, on my next birthday, my mother took me to a shop and allowed me to pick out a game as a present. I wasn't really sure what I wanted, but I saw Final Fantasy VII there, and chose it sort of half-heartedly, almost with disappointment that there wasn't anything better. That apathy was soon replaced by obsession, and I ended up playing it for many, many hours. I got Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX as soon as I was aware they were available (perhaps for subsequent birthdays), and played those excessively too. I must have started dozens of new save files in each one, played for hundreds of hours, familiarised myself with every nook and cranny of the game worlds... So many fond memories there.



I was especially intrigued by the card minigame, Triple Triad, from VIII, and would spend a lot of time designing cards of my own for that.

I also had an N64, and Ocarina of Time (and Majora's Mask) were pleasant experiences as well. The N64 was kept at my mother and step-dad's house, meaning that I could only play it every weekend or every other weekend, and as such I had far fewer games for it. My strongest memories are of eagerly rushing to play Ocarina of Time on a Friday night, and I'd start by listening to all the ocarina songs I'd acquired so far. Music had always been one of the most appealing aspects of visiting these game worlds for me.



Some of my first experiences with the internet - long before smartphones, social media, or even YouTube - were spent looking up Final Fantasy fansites and listening to midis of the games' soundtracks, or listening to the music from the earlier games in the series that I knew nothing about and hadn't seen. I was fascinated by how the earlier battle tracks started with a riff that I recognised from Final Fantasy IX's battle music (mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-doooh), though I didn't realise back then that IX was full of such callbacks on purpose. I loved the Final Fantasy music so much that reaching certain points was an absolute joy just because I got to hear the music that played there (the bit where Steiner and Beatrix team up is one example), and I'd just sit there for several minutes listening to it before moving on with the gameplay. As YouTube wasn't a thing back then and I could find only midis online, I'd use my PC's shoddy microphone to record the games' music so then I could listen back to it later. When my Playstation and PC weren't in the same room, I'd even record myself 'singing' the instrumental Final Fantasy music, so strong was my interest in it! Obviously that led to a desire to create my own music for my own games, years later. One track I especially liked from Final Fantasy IX was ∞ this one (You're Not Alone) ∞, and one that I liked from Final Fantasy VII was - and I know I'm odd for this because it's so forgettable to most people - ∞ this one ∞ ("Christmas you can eat, eat the head, then the feet" as I sang along as a child).

Speaking of obscure, I was also fond of a game called Pokémon, which is a long-forgotten relic of my childhood but nobody else's. You've probably never heard of it. It had something to do with smacking monsters in their faces with your balls so then they'd be your slaves, I think? I forget.



Or rather, it was a big part of childhood in general at that point, because the games, anime, and cards all exploded into enormous cultural fads, as you might remember if you were around at the time (I find it so strange that the same thing happened again relatively recently with Pokémon GO). While Pokémon inspired me an enormous amount, and has continued to be a huge chunk of my life, it didn't actually lead to much direct creative output at this time; the inspiration seemed to cook for years before I actually applied it to anything.

One of the few things I remember is vaguely designing Pokémon based on the things I saw outside, including one based on a discarded Coca-Cola can that evolved into another based on a black bin bag Pokémon... As such, I quite like Trubbish, which came many years later!

My interest in Pokémon expanded to other games, such as Monster Rancher 2 and Jade Cocoon, both of which I also spent many, many hours on. Monster Rancher 2 (which was just called 'Monster Rancher' without the 2 in Europe; I've still never seen the first one) involved acquiring monsters by scanning CDs, and you'd raise one as best as you could over many years. Jade Cocoon had an interesting mechanic where you could merge two monsters, and their actual meshes and textures were combined to form a unique, procedural hybrid in a way I've never seen since, and I still don't understand how it was done! Also, monsters didn't evolve, but they'd grow larger and less neotenously-proportioned as they levelled up. I think it's interesting looking back at how original a lot of these 'early' games were with gimmicky mechanics such as these.

I couldn't get enough of raising virtual monsters, and I became obsessed with Digimon virtual pets at around this time. These things:



Those of you of a similar age to me might remember the Tamagotchi fad (it's quite fortunate, come to think of it, that my childhood occurred during fads I genuinely liked - Pokémon, Digimon, etc - rather than, say, hula hoops or fidget spinners), and these were a sort of 'sequel' that Bandai made for those, intended to appeal to boyish sensibilities. I very much liked Tamagotchi (I suppose the plural has no s for the same reason Pokémon and Digimon don't), so - being a young boy - I liked Digimon even more. I didn't much care for the Digimon anime or anything like that - which I know some people would think of when they hear 'Digimon' - but I was really, really interested in these pets for some reason. I think it's because I was so curious about the different forms that you could evolve them into by raising them in different ways, especially the tiny, abstract pixel depictions of them, which I found fascinating.

Whenever I unlocked a new form, I'd try to capture its graphics by meticulously copying every single animation frame into Paint, pixel by pixel. It was a strange thing to do, looking back, especially since those frames were often shown for a fraction of a second, and only during certain conditions, so it took ages to 'record' them all. Here's a file I surprisingly still have from a long, long time ago (one of only a handful that survive from this period, sadly):



I had several of these digimon pets of various versions (which had different evolution trees), and those forms are some of the many I 'unlocked' from across the versions. There's so much time in this one image, considering that each form took literally days to unlock (and in many cases, several attempts, each attempt lasting about a week), and of course copying those animation frames one pixel at a time with such finicky precision wasn't quick. It was a weird thing to have done... but I mention it because I suppose it translated into the mindset and skills that I eventually incorporated into games development.

The stuff on the right of that image was mostly of my own design (I did a lot more, but no longer have the files), though it's interesting that some of those things are definitely from a few years after I thought I made this. I think I must have updated this same file for years; I seem to remember my interest in these virtual pets spanning both my final childhood years in the UK, and my first year or two in Australia.

Once I had my own room and PC - I'd shared with my younger brother until I was around 12 or 13 - I'd spend a lot of time drawing things in Paint, including levels like the ones I used to draw on paper. Some were based on Draco System lore, while others used these Digimon sprites as characters, which I'd move around using the selection and drag tools to simulate some kind of 'game' being played. I'd use the airbrush tool to draw and then erase 'explosions' which would deform the terrain. Ah, imagination. I also later drew 'bestiaries' of RPG monsters of my (naive) design, including some that I later used in games such as Deliverance or even MARDEK. I wish I still had them!

Embarrassingly, I was entering puberty at the time, and this led to attempting to draw naked women in Paint despite never having seen one and not understanding their anatomy (I thought the genitals were a slit on the front, for example). I kept these images 'secret', I thought, but looking back I bet my family saw them, though of course they never said anything. Embarrassing, though. I mention this despite the awkwardness of it because for a long time I was scared to openly draw women because of a general shyness around anything sexual, but later on I started focusing on (often naked) women a lot in my drawings, and it's interesting that that started way back when I was transitioning from childhood to my teens. Strange.

Despite all this talk of video games, I actually had friends when I was little (all boys), and I spent a lot of time with them outside, going on 'adventures' around the countryside, using sticks we found on the ground as pretend swords... I wanted to recreate in real life what I'd experienced virtually in my favourite games. I miss that, the innocent joy of childhood, rambling through the countryside, wading waist-deep through streams with a gnarled 'staff' in my hand, watching insects in little pools... The world seemed so fascinating; my mind wasn't consumed by dark clouds, as it is now.

Or I suppose that's not entirely true. As I said earlier, I was scared of everything, and I remember being quite traumatised by that. I'd have a lot of nightmares, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night sometimes shouting "mummy!" (if I was actually at my mother's house), because I was so scared that I was going to get abducted by aliens, or that I was covered in fleas (which I could feel crawling on me), or things like that. I wasn't even especially young; I must have been like 10, 12 even? I was a strange, sensitive little child. I was really frail, too, and fainted several times, probably due to malnutrition... Either way, neither my body nor my mind have ever been especially kind to me.

My transition from childhood to teenage life was fairly abrupt, when I moved from the UK to Australia at around age 14. My step-dad had a job there, so I left my father behind to go and live with him and my mother. I haven't seen my father since then. While this provided a much better quality of life, I left behind everyone and everything I knew and had to start anew in a foreign country. That was difficult, especially for one so meek and neurotic.

I became more reclusive, more rooted to a computer screen, but it's here where I feel that my 'creative journey' properly started.



I've mostly talked about my childhood inspirations so far rather than my actual output, but I'll save what I've written about those for another post so then this one doesn't get too long. It's nice reminiscing about old passions from our formative years, and if you've shared any of my childhood experiences, maybe you got some of those nice feelings from reading this too. Even if your experiences were different, hopefully there's some interest in reading about mine anyway!

Thanks for reading! I'll post the next bit in a couple of days!