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I've heard cool stories from game development before, but this guy is on another level. These aren't just neat hacks, these are serious engineering feats. Sever
by _bxg1 7y ago
I've heard cool stories from game development before, but this guy is on another level. These aren't just neat hacks, these are serious engineering feats. Several of them. For Crash Bandicoot.
- A custom animation compression system
- A custom memory paging system between memory and disc
- Reverse-engineering the hardware and standard lib
Edit: Apparently at the time he already had a PhD from MIT and had worked with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Gavin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Gavin
- ddingus 7y agoI love to feel SONY recognized that. "How things worked" ended up being two sheets of paper slid across a table... The SONY engineers: "We have to tell this guy..." while thinking about seeing their hardware shine, perhaps brighter than intended.
- ftvy 7y agoThe animation compression system really stood out to me as well. It seems back when hardware was the limitation, people had to be literal geniuses to develop games. Now with so much middleware and so many pre-cooked engines available, people are left less with the challenge of accomplishing the technicals and more on creating an enveloping story and challenging gameplay mechanics.