Game Development Grandparents

Kim Swift

While certainly not a grandparent irl, I've chosen Kim Swift as my first "gaming grandparent." Swift was formerly a designer at Valve, most known for being the lead designer behind Portal. She also worked on other popular Valve games Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, and Half Life 2: Episodes 1&2. Outside of Valve, she directed Soul Fyord, a flagship game for the failed, but beloved (by me,) Ouya console.

I chose Swift because of her work on Portal. Growing up I was a Nintendo kid through and through - my first game ever was Pokémon Blue, I loved Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Zelda, and Animal Crossing. Portal was the first game not on a Nintendo console that really got me hooked. I enjoyed the puzzles in Zelda games, and Portal was a game built entirely on puzzles, and on a kind of puzzle I (and I'm sure many others) had never even thought about before. The concept itself was so genious that the game hardly needed anything else. And it hardly had anything else - almost all of the game's story was conveyed through GLaDOS, the game's main narrator/antagonist. The game's brilliance was really all in the design, and Swift was the lead level designer, so I think I can safely attribute the game's impact to her.

While I really don't know how much Swift contributed to other games at Valve, her influence through Portal alone is huge. I don't think Portal would've been made without her, which means that Portal 2, which she did not personally work on, would also have never been made. If you don't already know, Portal and Portal 2 are huge. They're some of the best-selling games on Steam, and both were also released on Xbox 360 and PS3. Portal spawned many copies: flash games, console homebrew games, even a Mario/Portal crossover. Even the puzzles in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild resemble Portal's puzzles, in their color scheme, their plain, reused assets, and their separation from the rest of the game world.  So next time you really appreciate a puzzle in Breath of the Wild, thank Kim Swift.

Satoru Iwata

For my second gaming grandparent, I've chosen Satoru Iwata. Best known for being the president of Nintendo, he was also a skilled game developer, having worked on Nintendo titles such as Balloon Fight, Kirby's Dream Land, Earthbound, Pokémon Gold and Silver, and Super Smash Bros.

While most Nintendo fans probably know the name Shigeru Miyamoto, I chose Iwata because he was, like me, a software developer. He famously saved Pokémon Gold and Silver right before release - the story goes that the developers at Game Freak couldn't get all the game's data to fit on a single Game Boy cartridge. In comes Iwata, who single-handedly compressed the game to the point where it was possible to include the entire Kanto region as post-game content. It's also said that he adapted Pokémon Red and Blue's battle system to the N64 in just a week during the development of Pokémon Stadium. Iwata also took a large personal salary cut during the Wii U's lifetime, so that his employees would not have to suffer. Iwata inspires me as a software developer and as a person, and I would be proud to call him a grandparent.

Iwata's contributions to gaming cannot possibly be overstated. While he directly worked on several beloved titles, he oversaw the development of many more as company president. He spoke directly to the fans at in-person E3 events and Nintendo Direct videos, where he was famous for his light-hearted approach to being the president of a major gaming company (hence the bananas.) At the 2005 Game Developer's Conference, Iwata delivered a speech known since as the Heart of a Gamer speech, delivering what is probably his most famous quote: "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." Iwata's death in 2015 was a loss felt around the world. News of his death spread quickly via grieving gamers everywhere on the internet, from Facebook and Reddit to small fan forums. I'd like to take this moment to say thank you, Satoru Iwata, for everything you've done for gaming, and everything you've done for me.