Online Services Programmer

Joining us from the interior of a colossal loofah comes Ed 'MrEd' Reid. He was grown from cuttings in the man-hothouses of Derby before he jogged to Liverpool to coax a BSc in Computer Science from their eponymous university. After residing at Pivotal Games for two years working on Conflict: Denied Ops, Ed is now safely penned in the programming pen here in the SD isthmus.

Ed has one of the largest collections of strigils in private hands and wants to start a small monkey sanctuary. It's unclear if he means a small sanctuary for monkeys or...yeah...well, yes, he could mean a sanctuary for small...yeah...no, I don't...no...no, I don't care, I still don't...look...look, you're creeping me out now...I'm putting the phone down, OK? OK.

Things You Were Too Afraid To Ask...

Every once in a while, we interrogate one of our own and put their answers up for all the world to see. Read on to find out more about what Ed does, how he ended up at Splash Damage, and more.

What do you do at Splash Damage?

I'm an Online Services Programmer which means it's my job to play with [censored], [censored], [censored] and generally find new ways for our fans to idle away the lonely hours between [censored] looking at all their lovely [censored] and [censored].

Why did you want to work in the games industry and how did you get started? Do you have any tips for people wanting to break in?

Reading is good, music is fun and film is involving but only games let you keep exploring and finding new experiences every time you play.

I was always a bit of a computer nut so eventually I ended up studying computer science at university. I guess I’d always wanted to make games really so when my friends went off to lectures on formal proofs and advanced database design I signed up to the AI, graphics and networking modules.

My top tip would have to be to make sure you know what you want to do and then work out what you need to do to get there. Making games is a strange thing to just drift into; you really need to want to make games and work hard at it. The same applies for most things really.

What other games have you worked on?

I previously worked for Eidos at Pivotal Games where we released Conflict: Denied Ops. Have you ever played it? No? Then it’s brilliant… well, my bits were, anyway! ;)

I also worked on a bunch of other things but unfortunately they never got to see the light of day.

How did you end up at Splash Damage?

Well for about two years I car shared with a couple of guys who jabbered endlessly in my ears about this awesome game they couldn't stop playing called Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. So when I got the opportunity of an interview I jumped at the chance.

What is it like to work at Splash Damage?

It's brilliant. I get to work with some extremely creative people, in a great office, with wall-to-wall tech, super comfy chairs, free Coca-Cola and what’s more I get paid to do it. That bit still amazes me every time I think about it.

What are the best and worst parts of your job?

The best part of this job is when you've been working at something for ages, thinking you've got there so many times to feel frustration as it doesn't quite work out but then it all just falls in to place. That's when you get to stand back and feel a real sense of pride at knowing you've got a little bit of ownership on that game as it takes shape in front of your eyes.

The worst bit has definitely got to be the noise coming out of Hoffa's PC. My PC is as quiet as a mouse who just fell off the dresser into the cat basket but when he hits the power switch on that monstrosity, half the company have a panic attack!

What was your first gaming experience?

My first gaming experience was feeling the elation of watching my brother fly from platform to platform being chased by a giant, fat canary and squishing flamingo eggs in Chuckie Egg, before having to feel the despair of enduring Happy Numbers, a game based on the high concept of pressing the same number on the keyboard as was displayed on the screen. This was followed by watching a 30 second animation of such tedium that my brain regressed by a month at every viewing, an experience made less painful only by intentionally pressing the wrong key.

What types of games do you like, and what's your favorite game of all time?

I like almost all games really, whether it's twitch play or ponderous tactical affairs. The one thing that turns me off are slow, turgid, pretentious cutscenes just as I'm starting to get into a game.

Syndicate Wars is a close call for my favourite game of all time. I remember playing it in awe of the way it could take what appeared to be a quiet stroll and unleash all manner of havoc onto the world: nuclear satellite rain, bank demolition and of course the screaming of sirens and the hapless victims caught out on their way to work.

The best though has to be System Shock 2. That game was a revelation. It didn't look as good as some of the other games around at its time but nothing touched it for atmosphere; every object could be picked up, most could be used and it was just terrifying. In BioShock you were a god, in System Shock 2 you were one missed shot away from an empty clip, a jammed gun and a slab of marauding meat the likes of which were not seen again until Left 4 Dead's Tanks. After dying for the first time, I couldn't bring myself to reload the game for an hour. No other game has ever managed that for me.

The best bit though has to be the e-mail from the game's psi-monkies, "While you've been stockpiling ammo, med hypos and hi tech gadgets, we've collected every last piece of nuts, bananas and coconuts onboard. Just say the word, and you'll get plenty to eat, an attractive hirsute companion, and a tire swing of your own. In the end, isn't that what really matters?"

I think we can all learn something from that.

What's the meaning behind your nickname?

Well MrEd comes from the talking horse of course but Mengis unfortunately is slightly less flattering being as it's a Franglais-isation of the word 'mange' which my brother so kindly associated with me as a child – sometimes also Menge le Bag meaning 'the mange bag.' Yeah thanks for that one!

Finally, what do you enjoy doing when you're not at work?

Well I enjoy a whole bunch of things really and there just aren't enough hours in the day. I love flailing my legs around a football pitch or any other sport and sometimes there's nothing better than sitting at a café table on a sunny day chatting about what's in the paper or spouting increasing amounts of drivel over a pint with my friends. If all that fails, there's always that gamerscore to chase!