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- Tell us a little about yourself, what have you accomplished in life?
Well, I went to UC Irvine to get a PhD in Artificial Intelligence. I left before finishing though. When I was deciding whether to leave or not, I talked with Tim Cain. He had been in the PhD program with me and had left to work at Interplay. After talking with him, I decided to do the same.
Two months after starting work at Interplay, I got married to an amazing woman. After Interplay, I worked for Quicksilver Software doing more games. After working on the AI for Master of Orion III, I went to work for Boeing. Last year, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri. I grew up in Iowa and Missouri, so it is kind of like moving home again.
Before going to work for Boeing, I took the stage name of Albert Hammond, Jr. My new solo CD, Yours To Keep, is available now. I worked on it in my spare time.
I think my greatest accomplishment, though, was the result of just being in the right place at the right time. You know how there is the stereotype of the game programmer geek that doesn't have the best hygiene? Well, I won't name names, but there was one of those on Fallout. I made that work for me by turning it into a study. This led to me eventually winning a Nobel Prize in 2004 in Medicine.
- What are your favourite computer games/board games and why?
My favorite computer game of all time is StarCraft. I love the variety in the ways they combined abilities. I think the last game that I really liked and played a ton was Neverwinter Nights. I still use a Mac at home, so if a game doesn't have a Mac version, then I probably haven't played it much. I haven't played much over the past year; I've been busy with the move to St. Louis, making my CD (Yours To Keep - available now!), etc.
I like playing Magic: The Gathering. I got introduced to Magic through Bill Dugan when we were at Interplay/MacPlay. While at Quicksilver, I got into it much more. That continued at Boeing in SoCal, but I haven't been playing it either since moving here.
- What hobbies do you have besides computer games?
My main hobbies now are running in the morning (which is less of a hobby and more just exercise), and playing guitar at night. I play fingerstyle and am hoping to find a band to join this year.
- What are your favourite bands/artists (music)?
I have a lot of favorites. Have I mentioned my new CD, Yours To Keep? I like Chris Isaak, Los Lobos, Lyle Lovett, Otis Redding, The Lovin' Spoonful, Uncle Walt's Band, Feist, Greg Brown, John Hiatt, Jet, The Thrills, Alison Krauss, Amos Lee, & Ray LaMontagne,
- Tell us a little about your role in the making of Fallout 1/2/3 (Van Buren)/Tactics?
I made the Mac version of Fallout 1.
- What's your favourite Fallout memory?
My favorite memory was when a reporter from the Orange County Register came to do an interview on us at MacPlay. Reading what he wrote was amazing -- he got about as much wrong as he got right. No kidding. Half of what he wrote was just wrong. I've been much more skeptical since then about what I read in newspapers.
- How was it to be a part of the Fallout team?
It was great! It was a lot of hard work, but it was fun. We all thought we were making a good, fun game. We didn't know if anyone else would think so.
- Were there things that you wished you had added to either Fallouts?
I just wish the other versions had had Mac versions come out when the PC versions did.
- Tell us a little bit about the process of porting Fallout to the Mac. Any specific problems you bumped into?
I did all the programming, of course. But my job also involved proof-reading the manual, getting someone to do a desktop theme in the Fallout style, and doing a few interviews.
My main role was programming. I had to get the sound, graphics, game play, etc. to work on the Mac. This was the first game that I had that much responsibility for. It was a lot of work.
I had a lot of problems getting the performance to be good enough. All the design and development decisions were based on the PC's strengths and weaknesses. The waves and fire were done using palette switching. That was fast on the PC, but slow on the Mac. It would have been faster on the Mac to animate it using frames. The Mac wasn't limited to 8-bit color like the PC was at the time.
Other bugs showed up from using a different compiler for a different operating system on a different CPU. I was using CodeWarrior on the Mac, and they were using Microsoft Visual C on the PC. Of course, a good thing with this was that these two versions would uncover bugs that might not have been caught if there had just been the PC version. This helped the PC development go a little faster. The problem for me was that I was the only one tracking down all the ones that showed up only on the Mac, and there were a dozen to find the ones showing up on the PC.
One of the fun things I added to the Mac version that wasn't in the PC version was having the Pipboy talk. I used the Mac's Text to Speech capability. When the Pipboy came up, it would say hello. It would have different greetings on various holidays. I'm not sure if many people noticed it. When the game was ported to OS X, they dropped that. I don't know why.
- What was Interplay's attitude towards the port? Did you have proper time and support to work with?
Interplay didn't seem too concerned. (This was when Apple was at its low point -- it was during the period they were allowing Mac clones.) Tim Cain said that he was almost never asked by the higher-ups how the Mac version was progressing. So, Interplay wasn't pressuring me, but I was pressuring myself to get the Mac version done at the same time as the PC version. Trying to keep up with all the PC programmers was tough. Most Mac games come out months after the PC version, and I didn't want that to happen with Fallout. I wanted to the Mac to benefit from the same initial excitement that the PC version would have. I ended up getting the Mac version done one week after the PC version. Of course, that was due to a bug that was crashing the Mac, but wasn't showing up so bad on the PC. I don't think the Mac version sold well though. I don't remember Interplay even publicizing it.
While I was finishing Fallout, I had to start looking for another job. Interplay was basically abandoning its Mac development and viewed me as just a Mac programmer. My Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence from UC Irvine didn't matter to them. So, I was going to be out of work after Fallout was done. I'm thankful to Feargus Urquhart for letting me know ahead of time so I could get another job lined up. I ended up starting my new job before Fallout was done. I had to finish it in the evenings as a contractor. That was pretty hard, emotionally. I had worked a lot of extra hours and a lot of weekends, and then I was going to be out of a job. Not much of a "Thank You."
- What is your hope for future Fallout games? Would you like to be a part of a future Fo team?
I would love to see more Fallout games if they would do Mac versions. I don't see myself being involved due to the nature of the games industry. It is too much work for too little pay right now. I can't afford the pay cut that would come with returning to working on games. It's a lot of fun, but it doesn't generally pay well.
- In your opinion, what are the key ingredients that every RPG should have?
There's got to be a sense of humor. I think that was one thing that Fallout had a lot of that is missing in most games. When I got into gaming, I expected there to be more of it.
- Where do you see computer RPGs going?
They seem to be getting bigger. The market for them doesn't seem to be getting bigger though.
- How does the fan base hinder/help the projects that you’ve worked on?
The fans are always a big help. Knowing that people are interested in what I am working on is a tremendous encouragement.
- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I'll probably still be working at Boeing. Maybe I'll have another few CDs out by then. Maybe win a Grammy or something.
- Any last word to the Fallout fan base?
Keep the faith that Fallout 3 will come out!!