In Memory of
Seumas McNally
Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
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3/27/00
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Two years ago, Id was contacted by the Startlight Foundation,
an organization that tries to grant wishes to seriously ill kids. (www.starlight.org)
There was a young man with Hodgkin's Lymphoma that, instead
of wanting to go to Disneyland or other traditional wishes, wanted to
visit Id and talk with me about programming.
It turned out that Seumas McNally was already an accomplished
developer. His family company, Longbow Digital Arts (www.longbowdigitalarts.com),
had been doing quite respectably selling small games directly over the
internet. It bore a strong resemblance to the early shareware days of
Apogee and Id.
We spent the evening talking about graphics programmer
things -- the relative merits of voxels and triangles, procedurally
generated media, level of detail management, API and platforms.
We talked at length about the balance between technology
and design, and all the pitfalls that lie in the way of shipping a modern
product.
We also took a dash out in my ferrari, thinking "this
is going to be the best excuse a cop will ever hear if we get pulled
over".
Longbow continued to be successful, and eventually the
entire family was working full time on "Treadmarks", their new 3D tank
game.
Over email about finishing the technology in Treadmarks,
Seumas once said "I hope I can make it". Not "be a huge success" or
"beat the competition". Just "make it".
That is a yardstick to measure oneself by.
It is all too easy to lose your focus or give up with
just the ordinary distractions and disappointments that life brings.
This wasn't ordinary. Seumas had cancer. Whatever problems you may be
dealing with in your life, they pale before having problems drawing
your next breath.
He made it.
Treadmarks started shipping a couple months ago, and was
entered in the Independent Games Festival at the Game Developer's Conference
this last month. It came away with the awards for technical excellence,
game design, and the grand prize.
I went out to dinner with the McNally family the next
day, and had the opportunity to introduce Anna to them. One of the projects
at Anna's new company, Fountainhead Entertainment (www.fountainheadent.com),
is a documentary covering gaming, and she had been looking forward to
meeting Seumas after hearing me tell his story a few times. The McNallys
invited her to bring a film crew up to Canada and talk with everyone
whenever she could.
Seumas died the next week.
I am proud to have been considered an influence in Seumas'
work, and I think his story should be a good example for others. Through
talent and determination, he took something he loved and made a success
out of it in many dimensions.