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I've always been into my games, and have wanted to make them myself since I started programming
in BASIC as a kid. I'd write to the popular magazines of the day, telling them of my ace new text
adventure that was coming soon! I'd tell them how they'd never have seen anything like it, and at
six years old, of course, I never finished a single one! Still, the seed had been planted. I would make
games, no matter what it took.
Fast forward fifteen years, and imagine my abject horror on joining the games industry proper and
discovering what a hyped up load of incompetent garbage it really was! Projects were canned on a
whim, I was surrounded (mainly) by people who didn't give a hoot about games, and were just there
for a pay cheque. Nobody had any input. The designers weren't gamers! The publishers told us what
games we made, how we made them, and by when they were done. I had to get out!
I went back to University. Scallywag started out life as a little fun alongside my final year studies at
university, and part-time contracting for big games firms (it felt like selling my soul at the time, but
I had to eat, right?).
I'd been playing around with some ASCII games and decided I wanted to write a little map
generator of my own. At the time, all the code I had at home that was up and working was 3d in
nature, so I decided to go ahead and write it like that. I never intended to make a game, and the
decision to go with 3d, and in real-time, was a total accident.
Once the maps were generating and I could fly around them, I applied some textures, and some
walls. I thought it looked neat, considered it job done, and moved onto something else (a MUD
client if I remember correctly, or was it a fractal terrain generator?)
I didn't touch it again until I'd left University and was bored sitting around at
home waiting for a job to come up. I'd work on it by day, and night, just adding basic objects, writing collision detection,
whatever took my fancy at the time. My CV was too "games" for the serious firms to take me, so
when I finally ran out of money, I took another games job in the city and waved goodbye to my free
time for another couple of years.
The project that would eventually become Scallywag was always there for me when I needed an
escape. As the industry once again took its toll on me, I started working on the game more and
more. It represented everything that for me at the time, the games industry was not. It was freedom
of design. It was an opportunity to make something others could enjoy. It was the project that could
never be canned. It was mine. Nobody could pull funding, change the design, rush it to release, or
tell me what to do with it. So I made it for myself, and I made it moddable, for others to enjoy, to
escape with.
This is why I worked on Scallywag on and off for so long. It was my secret escape. I had to fit it in
when I could. Some nights I'd get so wrapped up in it I'd still be tapping away at the keyboard when
the sun was rising outside. I'd miss work the next day. It happened all the time. Questions were
asked. People thought I didn't care, but the truth was I cared too much. I HAD to make games, and
working in the industry didn't let me do that...so I had to trade sleep for doing it at home.
Eventually, I decided they could keep their big projects, glitzy studios, and unpaid overtime. I left
the industry for the last time, took a job with a big firm doing 9 to 5 business software development,
and started to find more time for making my own games, my way.
I formally founded Chronic Reality as a part-time venture, to finish Scallywag. In time, it has
attracted people of a similar mind. We're all gamers at Chronic, and we're all mad keen to make
games.
If I had to describe Scallywag to a complete stranger, to a non-gamer, I would say this:
"Scallywag is a door into another world. It's the game you sit and play late at night with a hot
chocolate. It's a bit of fun on your lunch break at work. It's a tool for making your own ideas come
to life. It's discovering secrets. It's exploring dark caves. It's a return to the days when anybody
could make a MOD, before you needed a team of 3d modellers just to get something playable.
Scallywag is pure escapism, for gamers and game-makers."
Scott
Wakeling, Designer
Chronic Reality
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