My ambigram
Someone in the Forum grabbed this Ambigram by Scott Kim off the web to use as their avatar. It’s been a few years since I saw it so I thought I’d tell you the story.
Many years ago–maybe 1992–I was invited to a ‘thinktank’ for a proposed computer game company called Rocket Science. At the time there was a strong feeling among intelligent creative people that computer and video games had the potential to be more than just mindless shoot-’em-ups. (This was strongly reminescent of the early days of MTV when a comparable feeling existed about music videos!) A group of clever types got together at a retreat in Napa to talk about the possibilities. Among the invitees was Scott Kim, a brilliant mathemetician, graphic artist and puzzle designer. But at the time I had never heard of Scott.
The first evening of the event, were all at a fine restaurant seated at a long table. I was at one end. Halfway through the meal a man walked over to my end and put a paper napkin in front of me with my name ‘Thomas’ written on it. He said nothing. I thanked him. He just stood there patiently. I looked again at the napkin, stared at it, and then it dawned on me. I turned it upside down and now it said ‘Dolby’! Scott had come up with it as we sat there at dinner.
Scott was kind enough to let me use it on my Flat Earth Society web site. Later we ended up living about 4 miles away from each other on the California coast, and every now and then I bump into him and his wife the talented Amy.
BTW Rocket Science was a spectacular supernova of a company that blew through hundreds of millions of dollars in VC money then exploded leaving nothing more than a smouldering crater. Its greatest achievement was a game called Obsidian, which was revered by a handful of quirky gamers but failed to ignite in the commercial marketplace. However, it’s where the founders of WebTV met, which led me to Steve Hales, creator of the Beatnik Audio Engine; also where I met Andrew Rostaing, now chief engineer at Beatnik; and indirectly resulted in Danger Inc, who make my favourite PDA/phone.
That’s so cool!!
I want one
Great story! u could have give Dan Brown a new idea for the next bestsellers
..silly & sorry, still recovering from yesterday great night..
being an avid gamer and lovers of puzzles…
very awesome!
If I can recall, you did the soundtrack to a game titled ‘Syberia’?
I have never been able to track the game down, but it twas a Sega / Amiga CD32 game.
God I miss when games where enjoyable!
The only game I play now is EvE online. It’s like Elite from the BBC micro only with online interaction, true econemy and depth
Thank you Thomas! I printed out a copy from the website years ago. But It didn’t spin!
Thank you again!!!
Apparently Mr. Kim has written a whole book on the subject :
http://www.keypress.com/catalog/products/supplementals/Prod_Inversions.html
I wonder if it’s a interesting as a read as something like “Godel,Escher,Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter.
Steve Hales is also one of the Elder Gods of the Atari 2600. Wrote some great stuff for the Supercharger.
Wow, I had forgotten that you had anything to do with Rocket Science. As with many things in the industry, there were many talented people involved, I’m sure. But for hardworking grunts like me, seeing a company flare up out of nowhere with tons of money and little more than handwaving behind it was difficult to swallow.
Somehow they went from “computer and video games had the potential to be more than just mindless shoot-’em-ups” to Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine. Within 2 years, I might add.
My favorite Rocket Science story was thus: They were working on Lodestar, and I saw it at a show. It was little more than streaming video with sprites over the top (a la Rebel Assault). However, whenever you fired your weapons, the video framerate would drop for a second and the game would chug. At the show they said they were working on it.
Well, when the game released, the weapon description was changed in the manual so that your weapon was now some sort of sonic device. What that meant was that the sprites that would draw when you fired were removed to avoid the slowdown! Guess the FMV took precident over the gameplay. Typical of the attitude at the time.
I actually celebrated when they flamed out, because it seemed that substance had won over style for a change. I mean, they made the cover of Wired before they had released a thing. If that wasn’t a bad sign (repeated by Romero/Ion Storm, if I remember correctly), I don’t know what was.
I remember I was in a meeting once in the mid 90′s with a “creative” type who came from the Hollywood/Games camp. We were talking about a game where you trained your fighter by fighting against him. Then you would let your fighter fight against other trained fighters. It was all very vague. Phrases with no practical application figured out like “neural networks” and “inverse kinematics” were being thrown around, when I started to ask solid questions about how it would all work.
The creative type cut in and said (and I’ll remember this quote to my dying day):
“What, you hit a button and he punches. What’s so hard about that? Now, we need to get Burgess Meredith to be the voice of the trainer…”
I quit immediately after that meeting.
Anyway, glad you didn’t get dragged down with all of that, TDR.
Thomas!!
Hey – How odd I would find my way here at 1am. Googled Rostaing because I wanted to say hello to him, and this blog was one of the first links.
I’m reading for all of 2 minutes when the Scott Kim story leads me to Rocket Science memories.
Won’t bother addressing RS baggage mentioned above. It was a cluster-fuck of a company with hype to spare. But those of us that sweated through Obsidian know that at least one interesting project came out of there.
I was really thrilled to see you back on the road. Technology has caught up with you somewhat and you can do your thing in a cost effective way.
I was wondering when that would happen.
Would LOVE to catch up with you. I’m working on a multi-person jamming device with some great folks I met at Burning Man.
“Social Music Tools” is what they want to make. You’d dig it.
I’m itching to return to start-mode on something I feel good about.
I stay in touch with Blake Leyh now and then.
Obsidian was a real “6 degrees” hub for me.
Anyway, my best to you and your family -
Matthew
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Very interesting back story!
Technology has come a long way from then, hasn’t it?
- Nate of Wow Tattoos
Ambigram Tattoo Designs by Mark Palmer