Team Member Spotlight, Lead Developer Bob
This week brings us our 3rd team member spotlight. The previous ones were done in a Q&A fashion, but our Lead Developer, Bob, wanted to take his own approach.
Read all about Bob below!
Read all about Bob below!
[Join our Discord, and get to know the team yourself firsthand.]
Bob: I started developing back in high school. At the time, my high school only had two Apple II computers, and access to the University of Minnesota educational system running on a Cray/Cray II supercomputer. This was probably before many of you reading this were even born. Back then, we learned to code by reading obscure magazines and through trial and error. We didn’t have Google, StackOverflow or any of the internet based resources we have now. We were the prototypical 1970’s geeks you’ve all seen and read about.
I graduated HS in Minnesota, and tried college for a while, but I spent most of my time playing D&D, drinking and other hobbies that mostly repelled the opposite sex. During my early adult life I moved around quite a bit. I worked many jobs, trying to land into the computer programming industry, but most of the gigs I got were either as an operator or doing side programming jobs for people who bought expensive computers that didn’t really need them.
My first full-time programming job was with Trek Bikes. While I had had jobs where I programmed prior to that, it was never my sole responsibility. But, with Trek Bikes I learned many current languages and skills that helped propel my proficiency as well my productivity. Later on, I became a consultant, and for years worked on multiple systems for large Fortune 500 companies, as well as small businesses. I eventually married and produced a batch of kids.
I’ve been a gamer since Oregon Trail was released. Yes, I was around for the launch party. It wasn’t anything like some of the AAA titles today, but it was fun. I’m not going to bore you with my history of gaming, but I’ve seen and played many games since then. As a gamer, I always wanted to get into gaming development or even make my own game, but life always demanded that I find other sources of income. So, I worked on a few other game projects when I could, some ambitious and others not so much, but there was always an air of hobby around them, and none of them ever quite got off the ground. I think many people want to say they are making a game, but really don’t put the effort into doing it.
When I met the people at Zy Universe through Reddit, they seemed like good people. They proposed the game as a business rather than a basement hobby project where we would make zillions of dollars. They came across as businessmen looking to make something more than just one game, but a universe. At first I was brought on as a technology consultant. I was asked to oversee the current developers and have a vision for a large complex system that would need to withstand a multitude of players. I had the opportunity to poke around the project and study the people, and I came away even more impressed with the amount of talent they had acquired for the price of a pb&j sandwich. Development became an issue, and I was asked to put away my VR headset and dive into their world of programming. As I stepped in to the Lead Developer role, I found that the current development team wasn’t getting things done at any quick pace, and counter to Chris and Andy’s vision, were treating the project like a hobby, not the business structure they had worked hard to establish. So, I brought on my own team to support the project around the same time we shifted away from the RPG to focus on the PvP module of Zy Universe instead.
If you ask me about the future of what Zy Universe can bring. Shrug. I don’t know. I do think there are a lot of possibilities of really neat games centered around the universe we are creating. We’ve spoken about ideas I’ve had, and other people on the team have had, and we’ve come up with some really neat ones. Time is the emotional roller-coaster of our progress. I’m hoping we do well so we can spend our time in developing these things rather than working at our day jobs for the man. But I’m hoping until then, the man can buy our vision.
Bob: I started developing back in high school. At the time, my high school only had two Apple II computers, and access to the University of Minnesota educational system running on a Cray/Cray II supercomputer. This was probably before many of you reading this were even born. Back then, we learned to code by reading obscure magazines and through trial and error. We didn’t have Google, StackOverflow or any of the internet based resources we have now. We were the prototypical 1970’s geeks you’ve all seen and read about.
I graduated HS in Minnesota, and tried college for a while, but I spent most of my time playing D&D, drinking and other hobbies that mostly repelled the opposite sex. During my early adult life I moved around quite a bit. I worked many jobs, trying to land into the computer programming industry, but most of the gigs I got were either as an operator or doing side programming jobs for people who bought expensive computers that didn’t really need them.
My first full-time programming job was with Trek Bikes. While I had had jobs where I programmed prior to that, it was never my sole responsibility. But, with Trek Bikes I learned many current languages and skills that helped propel my proficiency as well my productivity. Later on, I became a consultant, and for years worked on multiple systems for large Fortune 500 companies, as well as small businesses. I eventually married and produced a batch of kids.
I’ve been a gamer since Oregon Trail was released. Yes, I was around for the launch party. It wasn’t anything like some of the AAA titles today, but it was fun. I’m not going to bore you with my history of gaming, but I’ve seen and played many games since then. As a gamer, I always wanted to get into gaming development or even make my own game, but life always demanded that I find other sources of income. So, I worked on a few other game projects when I could, some ambitious and others not so much, but there was always an air of hobby around them, and none of them ever quite got off the ground. I think many people want to say they are making a game, but really don’t put the effort into doing it.
When I met the people at Zy Universe through Reddit, they seemed like good people. They proposed the game as a business rather than a basement hobby project where we would make zillions of dollars. They came across as businessmen looking to make something more than just one game, but a universe. At first I was brought on as a technology consultant. I was asked to oversee the current developers and have a vision for a large complex system that would need to withstand a multitude of players. I had the opportunity to poke around the project and study the people, and I came away even more impressed with the amount of talent they had acquired for the price of a pb&j sandwich. Development became an issue, and I was asked to put away my VR headset and dive into their world of programming. As I stepped in to the Lead Developer role, I found that the current development team wasn’t getting things done at any quick pace, and counter to Chris and Andy’s vision, were treating the project like a hobby, not the business structure they had worked hard to establish. So, I brought on my own team to support the project around the same time we shifted away from the RPG to focus on the PvP module of Zy Universe instead.
If you ask me about the future of what Zy Universe can bring. Shrug. I don’t know. I do think there are a lot of possibilities of really neat games centered around the universe we are creating. We’ve spoken about ideas I’ve had, and other people on the team have had, and we’ve come up with some really neat ones. Time is the emotional roller-coaster of our progress. I’m hoping we do well so we can spend our time in developing these things rather than working at our day jobs for the man. But I’m hoping until then, the man can buy our vision.
Minions is a Registered Trademark of Universal Studios, LLC, and has no affiliation with Zy Universe or 6Stack Entertainment, LLC
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