The other night, I was talking to someone while we were sitting around after playing a board game. They wondered how I got into the game industry to begin with.
It is an unlikely story. I was homeless, living in a tent in the woods, and this guy I know who was working on a D&D title for SSI - Al Qadim: the Genie's Curse - needed a play-tester. He knew I used to spend lots of time inventing games, so that's a reason he asked me. This was back before cell-phones and email and all that, so I am not even sure how I got in touch with the guy. Maybe a party in Northampton. Something like that. But I said yes, and that began my career in the computer game industry.
I used to get up from my tent, sneak into a gym nearby and shower, take the bus over to Northampton, MA, and show up for my job as a video game play-tester.
Luckily, I got along with everybody, and I had good design and computer skills. As time progressed, they let me do some design work as well, lay out some levels and side quests. It was pretty interesting work. Al-Qadim was an action Adventure game set in the Arabian Nights D&D universe. What do I remember about it at this point, 30 years later? Not much... there was a big genie, some caves to explore, some oceans to cross, and someone snuck out of the village under a sheet or something. Maybe a cyclops hid under a sheet?
It was a strange time for me. I would get checks and not know what to do, since I had been living a scavenging lifestyle for a little bit. I don't think I even had a bank account at that point. I got an electric guitar with my first paycheck and stored it in a friend's room. They even misspelled my name on the first few checks. "Jim Dubious".
After The Genie's Curse released, they signed me up for the next game - Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall, by SSI - as an assistant designer. Along the way of that game's development, they fired the lead designer, and I stepped into the role.
This was another action RPG, where you are slowly turning into a giant bug, and have to find out the reason why and reverse it. Strangely that is almost all I remember about it. But... I think there were "molemen" that lived in different caves and they were very important to the story. And there was a time traveling spider queen???
It was different coming in part way through a project as lead designer, as opposed to starting off that way, as I did for Majesty the Fantasy Kingdom Sim. I just carried things to completion and made few high level decisions. The interface and engine were already set, the story pretty much determined. Lots of game play tweaks though. That's one of the less glamorous, but vital, sides of game design and development: play it again and again, adjust some numbers, do it again. It is something I have done a lot of over the years. I would say it is central to making games. Especially to making them play well. Here's an example of how I did that with the City of Demons board game.
Read more about my history: How I got into Game Design