Senior Programmer

Gordon has been involved in programming and level design since the age of six. He is the author of the immensely popular 'Bobtoolz', now a standard Quake development aid. Alas, the advent of Doom and other 3D games spelled the end of daylight activity for Gordon and he is now almost entirely nocturnal. It was for this, oh, and his programming prowess, that the Q3F development team snapped him up.

Since waving goodbye to Scary Mr. Sun he has proved time and again that he's worth his salt. Which seems an odd way to be paid these days, but there you go.

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 Gordon does, how he ended up at Splash Damage, and more.

What do you do at Splash Damage?

I'm a Senior Programmer at Splash Damage, so I get to boss around... well, Arne, and that's about that. I'm sure he enjoys it really, or at least isn't harbouring an urge to kill me quite yet. Now and then and I actually do some work in between "compiling"; mainly looking after the sound, networking and general gameplay systems.

Why did you want to work in the games industry and how did you get started?

Having been a gamer for longer than I can remember, I inevitably got the urge to tinker around with things outside of the actual games themselves. I made some levels for Doom and Quake, then got into writing little mods with QuakeC. I had been using QBasic for many years up to this point, but this was my first taste of a more adult programming language. I did more level design and programming for Quake III, discovering that I actually sucked at making levels and should stick to the programming. I wrote the BobToolz plugin for Radiant, and joined the Q3F team to give Arnout a hand with the code, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Why did you join Splash Damage?

As with many of the early members of Splash Damage, I worked on the Q3F mod. I was in my third year of university when Locki asked whether I'd like to do this thing I do for you know, actual money. (a strange concept, I know.) Up until that point I hadn't really considered it as a career choice, it was just something I did for fun in my spare time. Uni had become a bit boring though, and with another few years to go, it seemed like an obvious descision really. So after I gave it some consideration, possibly all of 10 minutes, I agreed to come visit Splash Damage Towers, so they could check I wasn't a raving lunatic. I hid this fact well enough that here I still am today.

What are the best and worst parts of your job?

The best part for me, whilst being a little clichéd, is that I get to work with a group of really talented people. Working on my own, there's only so much I can really do. Throw in a couple of artists, and some designers, and we can really make something pretty, and fun!

The worst part, I guess, would be having to go in and strip out gameplay features really aren't working. It's annoying to have to throw away code that you've spent a decent amount of time on, but if it's gotta go, it's gotta go.

What was your first gaming experience?

This is going back into the mists of time for me. We had an Amstrad CPC 464 as the family PC, and I used to play on it a lot. I can't think of any title that was certainly the first, so I'll just list a few that spring to mind as being some of my favourites back then: Colony, Tau Ceti, and Fast Food Dizzy.

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

I'm a bit of an RPG nut right now, though thankfully no longer married to World of Warcraft. I also enjoy a good FPS of course, as well as puzzle games, and the occaisional turn based strategy. I'll try and sneakily get away with naming an entire series as my favourite game of all time, so here goes... Phoenix Wright. I love it to bits. Sure, the logic can be a tiny bit convoluted in places, but that wont stop me coming back for more. If only they could make them more quickly!

What do you enjoy doing when you're not at work?

Outside of work I enjoy reading, playing DDR, and building up my Lego army bit by bit. I also walk around random bits of London, though usually not on purpose.