Unknown rock star of the entire indie gaming |Level 0

I welcome everyone, I am again in touch from the depths of the Internet. I dug up one old script when I still tried to make video reviews. I would still like to complete my work, but a little in a different format. I would like to tell you the story of one game developer, which for 25 years has made his games that have become popular among some groups of gamers, but few people know his name. I’m going to tell you about him and his games in three parts, this blog will be considered the starting point in our story.

Meet Mat Dicky, he is Mdickie! You can know him by mobile games by the type of Hard Time or Wrestling Revolution, but its story is connected not only with mobile gamed. About this a little later, but for now we will study who he is, where he was born, what he did and so on.

Briefly about Mat

There are few information on the Internet about Mdickie, unadidifying his career, but I will try to state at least something.

Mat was born in the small trade city of Brigg, which is located in Northern Lincolnshire, Great Britain. His parents worked in a small newspaper kiosk, in which he often cooled. When he was bored there, he made toys from improvised materials. The date of birth on the Internet is alas of retail, but good for 1 year: either born in 1980, or in 1981. For some reason, the full date in 1981 was even written in my script, but I do not remember the source and I will not say.

In an interview with Crill’s channel, Mat claims that his mother independently raised Little Mat and his brother. The brothers themselves often went to “self -sacrifice”, giving preferences to entertainment.

In school years, Dicky became interested in video games, at times he was so burning with them that he even filled whole notebooks with various concepts of games. This passion was also heated by his favorite rastling games: WWF No Mercy, Super Fire Pro Wrestling and WWF WrestleFest. Subsequently, for his 3D games, he will call the camera modes in their honor. Mat also, before the acquisition of the PC, was very interested in various board and card games.

When the phenomenon of wrestling appeared in our family in the early 90s, my brother and I were inspired to create a wonderful little card game. We tore our magazines into shreds and glued portraits of wrestlers with six basic characteristics to playing cards: strength, dexterity, endurance, intelligence, popularity and special techniques-each of them is evaluated on a 100-point scale. It sounds familiar? There were damn about 100 cards with the image of wrestlers from all over the world there. What you then did with cards was rather flexible. I believe that playing bones were added to the process: you threw cubes to see what statistics are compared, and then threw it again to see who can increase their skills most (88+6 endurance of Mr. Pervom surpasses 92+1 Brett Hart). Fixing also somehow worked;although after so many years it eludes me. In fact, there were a variety of types of matches – from team matches to Royal Rumbles. No matter how you play, it was a great job. With professional transformation, he probably would not look inappropriate in the store! His success consisted in simple, but effective statistics, which turned out to be frightening thanks to our obsession with this sport ..
Having played all possible options for the cards themselves, we decided to transfer them to a new environment – the world of board games! We outlined the world of wrestling in the style of “Monopoly”, which consisted of the arenas and sports halls, and my brother then perfectly coped with the task, drawing it on the old gaming board. We took the tokens and money from other games and eventually created a kind of game on the control of res of the res of, in which you purchased wrestlers and recorded them for matches. They all had a different salary, but it was their skills that brought a lot of money – they collected winnings in matches and hunted for the World Cup. As in Monopolia, in the game you can travel all over the country, visiting every city and maintaining your business. In general, it was a charming home fun, successfully uniting the world of struggle with the classical trading game

Writes Mat Dicky on his website. Auto transmission

The same cards

The same wrestling in the style of monopoly

In his free time, Mat Dicky experimented with Deluxe Paint on his Commodore Amiga, a platform that allowed him to reveal his artistic abilities and a tendency to visual creativity. However, everything changed when 1998 came in his life, then he acquired his first full PC. This event marked the official start of his career for the game developer. Since then, he began to form a legacy of unique and original games that will find a response from the world audience.

Perhaps until the end of the 90s I did not have a computer, but I had an equivalent for the poor: Commodore amiga! Although most people used their [commodore amiga] for games, I was much more interested in creative possibilities. This often led to disappointment, since I was too young and inexperienced to understand more complex programs. However, I managed to enjoy the legendary art packet “Deluxe Paint”. This thing was not much different from the Paint program, which is included in the standard Windows configuration, but at that time it was an amazing pleasure. From time to time I played with him for many years, and soon I had a good small collection of characters, props and scenery. A real breakthrough occurred with Deluxe Paint IV, which brought animation into the process! The chance to realize my graphics was insurmountable, so I spent months trying to master this function. I have not been successful, but my efforts have become an invaluable introduction to the world of 2D graphics ..

… when I finally got a computer, closer to the end of school life, I continued with Amiga from the place at which I stopped. For a few months I was fiddling with graphics – this time full -color! I copied and inserted any images that came under my arms – from pictures from Simpsons to scanned photos. My hybrid creations soon materialized in the new generation of comics and cartoons. From time to time I shot tapes about my friends, who at that time were very funny. Looking back, we can say that this was my first experience using my creative abilities to entertain the audience. Of course, I found out what was working and what was not, since some of them were a little “close to the bone” and caused an ambiguous reaction!

Writes Mat Dicky on his website. Auto transmission

Mat told Krill that now in his free time he was playing sports, or rather heavy athletics. At the moment, he is married and he has two children, Matt is still studying Chinese as a second language that he calls the most difficult in his life and not a single programming language that he studied can compare with its complexity.

Div Games Studio

You probably wondered why I called the first part zero level. So, I didn’t even call it. That is how Mdickie calls the beginning of its way of the video game developer. He began with the knowledge of Pascal, C ++ and Div Games Studio.

The first games of Mat was text games written in the Pascal programming language: “Newsround”, which read the written news (as I understand it), “Dial Me Sideways”, which imitates a telephone conversation, and “Jumble Saler”, which made you demand as much money as possible for various objects.

No matter how insignificant these games may seem, news reports on the Federal Boker and Wrestling Mpire are actually based on the same prerequisite! Another key textual game was Jumble Saler, which forced you to demand as much money as possible for various items. This spirit also lives in negotiations on a contract at the Federal Booker and Wrestling Mpire! Obviously, my work with text games was an important part of the learning process.

Writes Mat Dicky on his website. Auto transmission

When Dicky studied C ++, he did not leave his craft and made text games there, but he surpassed himself and created something more. It was a step -by -step strategy WWF JAKKED, named after one of the show on wwf.

Knowing that C ++ is an industry standard, I switched to it as soon as possible and tried my best. Throughout 1999, I slowly learned to create text games that were so simple in Pascal. At the moment, it was as good as it was possible with C ++, so I continued to release more text games, the best of which was a step -by -step game of worshiping WWF JAKKED. Looking back, I understand that in fact it was a digital version of the game in the bone, which I invented many years ago! No matter how encouraging this was, I hoped that by this moment I would go beyond the scope of the text. However, once again, mastering the basics of the language would provide me with strong ground for the future.

Writes Mat Dicky on his website. Auto transmission

I thought to launch www.magic-win.uk/ wwf jakked, but this really strained me.

And not to say what is for DosBox, because I tried to run there. In any case, this is the first time I observe when Winda even blocks objects at this level.

When Mat saw a copy of the Div Game Studio programming language in the store, which was designed to facilitate the development of games on DOS systems, he bought it. All summer he studied this language and in August 2000 created his first non -casual game, it also became his first publicly released game. This game was Hardy Boyz Stunt Challenge. The essence of the game: to break yourself. Literally, you jump from some boxes and break everything around. There are two locations that do not bring anything. The game has 3 modes: practice, 5 points and 10 points. You can also configure the number of objects on the map: without them, tables and stairs, hardcore and explosive hell.

This was the first game that I released publicly for an enthusiastic audience. Knowing my restrictions on the beginner, I decided to focus on the successful reconstruction of one aspect of the wrestling, instead of not recreating everything entirely. At that time, Hardy Boyz arrogant tricks were popular, so I just forced them to rush from a great height, performing tricks by glasses. Thanks to several different jumps and destroyed furniture that you can land on, this has become an amazingly pleasant remedy for relieving stress! I was so sure of this that I even sent him to the website of the wrestling, where he was met by thousands of fans in their news feed and literally in an instant became successful. Within 24 hours, I received hundreds of enthusiastic emails praising the game, and a positive reaction convinced me that the hobby was about to become a career

Writes Mat Dicky on his website. Yes, again, the auto-transmission

In general, Mat even then came up with the principle of complete independence, according to which he works alone, creates everything from scratch, including assets, music, gamedes, LVL design and so on. That is, he perceived the concept of independent development too literally, but he believes that thanks to this he can quickly create his games

Anticiping the success of Hardy Boyz, Mat considered that he was obliged to make a game that would be remotely connected with wrestling. By that time, The Rock began to gain even more popularity, and advertising with it appeared more and more often. Having closed a little, I created Dicky The Rock’s Promo Cutter, The 2000, published in August 2000, in which we forced Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) to say some phrases when pressing any key.

Now let’s think about how it should work. For example, I think that when you press any button with some letter rock, some phrases associated with this letter will say. As you understand, he did not do this, rock simply says and some buttons even perform the same function. In addition, part of the buttons simply does not work.

Yes, I have a trite picture of the picture from the site, but there it is in the same position. I’m too lazy to download this shield again, because it was originally written for the video, and I lost a video of the video sequence for a long time.

His third game was Fat Bastards: Live on PPV, which came out in September two thousandth. Wrestling fans have already guessed that this game is again about, sorry for the tautology, wrestling, but there is no information about the game except on the website of Mdickie and this screenshot.

Mat claims that this game was just an experiment that generally began with copying springs from Super Fire Pro Wrestling and WWF WRESTLEMANIA. In the process of creating the game, Dicky learned to move characters in 4 directions: left, right, down and up;and was also able to place two characters on the screen that could interact with each other.

Before I found my own visual style, I started with copying springs from existing 16-bit games. First from Fire Pro, and then from WWF Wrestlemania for this comic game about Earthquake and Typhoon, fighting for food! There were several interesting points in it, but the game itself was made completely not good. At this early stage, it was too big for me, but, nevertheless, it was a valuable learning process. The presence on the screen of two characters at the same time interacting with each other was a significant achievement. If only because it was the first game in which they traveled around the game world in all four directions, and not from side to side. This technique will be honed in subsequent games, but it was here that it all started.

Yes, yes, again text from the site and auto transmission. I’m lazy, remember this.

Subsequently, this experiment resulted in Case 3:16, which came out the same month. Experts have already understood about what this is a game, but for the unknowing I will explain. “3:16” is directly related to the wrestler of Steve Aka Stone Cold. In this game, we can fight for Steve Austin against his main enemies: Vints Makman, Rock, Tomb, Triple H, Sean Michaels, Bret Kharta, Kurt Engla and Big Shaw.

In this game, we will not see all the acquired skills of Mdickie with the exception of two characters who are a friend of each other, that is, there is no movement in 4 directions, only in two. You can lupu with your hands, legs and throw it through yourself, but the enemy can also. In addition, you can hit you with a chair, as well as the game there is a freezing block. Of course, this is a bug that cuts off all the bot functions with the exception of the forward button.

To be honest, the game does not even want you to win. Opponents are either very strong or immortal, and on any difficulties. I can simply humiliate the enemy, beat and throw it through myself, but he will not lose, but in the end I will lose. In general, if you are tired of SOL-LICS and want a real test, then Steve Austin personally is waiting for you, but then do not forget to take DosBox with you.

A month later, in October 2000, it comes out Edge and Christian Icon-Chair-to. The goal of the game is quite simple: hit everyone with a chair. It is here that Mat realizes his skill of creating games with the possibility of moving in four directions and even guesses before creating a regime for two players, but for this you will need a gamepad.

In general, there are 2 modes per and 4 modes for two players. For one player, this is a practice and beating for a while, and for two it is a between a person, a practice, who will kill people more in 60 seconds and the last: who will faster 25 people with a chair.

There are different Powerups in the game, but I understood how only three work: Blue takes off 3 chairs on the ring, red sets on a chair, and Green seems to make it light, as if there is a wrestling in the Star Wars Universe. In essence, the only playable mode for one, you must beat everyone in a certain time, but you need to keep in mind that some can also beat you with a chair in response.

They hit me with a chair.

In November 2000, the game was released “This love triangle“. Mat here explains that throughout the entire period he created games that were very relevant and they tried to follow the plot lines of wwf. In this game you play for Triple H and fight for the heart of Stefeni McMan vs. Kurt Engla.

Throughout this period, my games were very relevant and carefully monitored the plot lines of WWF – often for several days after they were shown on television. It was at this time that the “love triangle” was brewing between Triple H, Kurt Engle and Stefani McMan. This helped to raise the game over ordinary meaningless battles, because you actually had to compete for the location of the lady while she ran around the stage! As in some kind of stairs between people, you needed to disable your enemy for a while, sufficient to spend time alone with a girl. To this end, you could even give her instructions on where to go and what to do, which were carried out very conscientiously thanks to the impressive programming of AI. The battle was also the most difficult of all that we have ever seen: it included real seizures, a scroll through the game world and a satisfactory set of objects (which even spread to the controlled machine!). Perhaps this was the most pleasant game of that era, except for the real Simulator of Wrestling.

Mat Dicky writes on his website, auto-transmission

The game begins with the fact that Dicky decided to say goodbye to one of the greatest wrestlers of his childhood – Yokoznuna.

The game presents 3 modes: ordinary, “selection of Stef” and “to death”

In the first, the plot is such. Triple H meets Michael Cole somewhere behind the scenes and says –

I just quarreled, now I will have to deal with it!? Everything will end right here. I will do this with Kurt Engl. I like it Stef or not, Michael Cole, I knock out this upstart!

That is how he said, never offending and not swearing, because we live in the pink world of flowers and ponies, where no one can offend anyone, hit or offend anyone. Yes, Stopgame administrators?

In general, our task is to prove Stephanie that she still needs. And how can we do it? Of course, turning off Kurt for a while and taking Stephanie in his arms, but you need to be sharp, because Engl can stand at any time or you can cut Stephanie, which clearly will not appreciate our hook on the right.

Mom, I finally found you a daughter -in -law!

It was not me, Kurt just missed!

In addition, sudden guests, for example, 3 Steve Austin, can also prevent you.

It doesn’t remind you anything?

Victory is achieved in two ways: to bring HP Engla to zero or convince Stephanie.

In fact, the game is not particularly simple and you need to get a little to be a little in order to subsequently fill the Engla. For example: Stefanny constantly goes to Kurt and Hilit when he has a much more HP than me. The enemy’s captures are sent to a long knockdown, and also has increased damage. In addition to Enla himself, as I said, there may be random wrestlers who come to you with your opponents. I was most enraged by Edge and Christian, who hunted for me and sent me to a long knockdown.

The next mode is “selection of Stef”. In fact, the same regime is exactly the same, only without HP and for a certain time.

The latter is “to death”. As you understand, this is the same “selection of Stef”, but already vice versa: victory only upon achieving the beating of Engla. In fact, one of the lightest modes, because Stefani usually on your side and regenerates your health.

December 2000. Mdickie releasing the “this love triangle”, in his opinion, as well as fans, made a great jump in the gameplay plan. Fans asked to make a wrestling simulator, but Mat was not ready to create such a large project and released a pen for testing Intersports One: Wrestling vs Boxing.

“This love triangle” became a step forward in the gameplay and prompted people to invite me to finally make a real struggle simulator. I knew that it was still far away, but decided to go as far as I could. I arranged a competition of only two characters: the fighter of Rocky Mayvy [Dwayne Johnson] and the boxer “Rocky Balboa”. Inspired by the films “Rocky”, this was to be a decisive test to determine who the best athlete. My new website played a role well, since the features of the game were gradually presented through small cartoons and parody interviews! This caused more excitement than usual, and the game managed to justify this. I made the player move along a small arena with the ring, and the fighting was a certain step forward. The game even had a worthy format: each test was revealed in a backstage confrontation! Soon he was overshadowed by his successors, but this project became a great achievement for his time. Moreover, at that time I thought over all this in weeks, since this was the first of three projects to be released only in December!

Mat Dick about the game on his website. You guessed, Auto -transmission again!