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Osama Dorias is a senior game designer at Warner Bros. Games Montreal, and he asked a simple but interesting question on Twitter: Do you remember a personal detail you put into a video game you were working on?
Gamedevs, can you name and describe an instance when you put something really personal about you or your life into a videogame?
— Osama Dorias (@osamadorias) June 13, 2019
The answers were illuminating, sometimes moving, and some are even silly.
Here are some examples, but it’s worth your time to read the entire thread. The games we play are made by people, and those people put much of themselves into so many different aspects of the experience that it can be hard to see it at all until the details are pointed out.
This is a great hobby, by the way, and reading stories like these helps me enjoy it more.
Destiny 2
Guess what date my wedding anniversary is.
— Andrew Weldon (@kungfusquirrel) June 14, 2019
Also found in the Mayhem mode description text in D2, plus on in-world decals in one of my Quake 4 campaign maps and tucked away under the station in the Starhawk campaign mission, "Harvest Season" https://t.co/QJEFYCxXcI pic.twitter.com/69TkvPUXJE
The Walking Dead
The memorial wall for lost loved ones at the end of The Walking Dead Season 3, has a picture of my best friend that passed away in 2009. Other devs also added people they lost to the memorial.
— juancow (@juancow) June 13, 2019
Rise of the Tomb Raider
I put the memory my father said he never wanted to forget (the night I was born) into Rise of the Tomb Raider. It’s in one of Richard Croft’s letters to young Lara. https://t.co/TdGTlFQSs3
— Rhianna Pratchett (@rhipratchett) June 13, 2019
Fract
The heartbeat of our first daughter, in utero, from an early sonogram, is pounding away in the beginning of FRACT. It is the source of all the energy in the world
— Richard E Flanagan (@phosfiend) June 14, 2019
Outward
I have strong views against organized religion. The Holy Mission of Elatt in Outward came from the idea of coming up with a religion I could get behind. It features a humble, manifest god, who admits his wrong doings, tries to correct them, and accepts those who doubt him.
— Guillaume B-Vidal (@Gheeyom) June 13, 2019
Everquest 2
In an #EQ2 expansion with cat people, I named crafting questgivers after cats of team members & a long-time fansite owner whose cat had just passed away. Also my cat Chinook, who has since passed, but still lives on in Norrath. She's a Tailor because my last name is Taylor pic.twitter.com/OTnWWHBYU6
— Emily (aka Domino) Taylor (@pentapod) June 13, 2019
Destiny
A Destiny 1 holiday event has a character talking about her discomfort with the festivities, which came out of my experiences with having depression during holidays
— Jill Scharr (@JillScharr) June 13, 2019
And I wrote the lines to be funny because as the great Carrie Fisher said, "If my life wasn't funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable."
— Jill Scharr (@JillScharr) June 13, 2019
Unknown Ubisoft game
in some faraway corner of the map, i got to write a short monologue for a female character acknowledging the child/madonna/whore trope she was forced into. it was a precursor to me speaking up more in the workplace, so even though it's tiny, it's *there* and it comforts me.
— Olivia Alexander ✨ (@oyassialex) June 14, 2019
Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
I put every bit of heart and soul I had into playing Glint Gardnersonson in Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear. I put all my of delight, wonder, and romance into that gnome. I wanted someone to see the first male gay romance in a D&D game and feel welcomed. That they belonged.
— Jacob Burgess ️ Home (@JacobBurgessVO) June 13, 2019
Elder Scrolls Online
High King Emeric, lord of the Daggerfall Covenant in Elder Scrolls Online, has a dog named Watson in a few special rare scenes. My dog who passed away three years ago was named Watson.
— Blake Rebouche (@Bigrebo) June 13, 2019
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