Scenes From A Life Of Game Development

Context

Tim mentions he's considering writing a book focused purely on game development advice — stripping out the memoir material that tends to cause drama ("why didn't you give me credit," etc.) and compiling his ~250 videos into a practical guide with code and design examples. While reviewing his thousands of digitized photos for this project, he decided to share highlights organized by the five chapters of his career.

Cybron (1981–1986)

Tim's first company. Cybron had no logo — they started as "Pegasus" before renaming. Their only shipped game was Grand Slam Bridge, and the only place "Cybron" appears is in tiny copyright text on the disc labels.

Since no photos of Tim at Cybron survive, he shares high school and college photos instead: his valedictorian/salutatorian photo (he came second to his friend Angie, who "worked a lot harder"), and a hiking photo from the Shenandoah Valley at age 19 where he found a rock full of fossilized wormholes. After Cybron, his mom told him to take a summer off before grad school.

Interplay (1991–1998)

Tim shares several iconic photos from the Interplay era:

• The all-company photo (~1994): Everyone at Interplay went outside the building on Fitch Street in Irvine. Tim is somewhere in the middle, hard to find.
• The programmers photo: People think Tim is the one on the far right, but that's Greg Christensen, creator of Caverns of Mars for the Atari 800. Tim was in awe working alongside him.
• The Fallout team photo (~1997): Taken before shipping, likely from the Fallout web page.
• Mutant heads in the lobby: Physical prop heads displayed behind glass in Interplay's lobby. Tim has one photo showing a mutant head (possibly Morpheus) with a big reflection from the glass.
• The bag-on-head photo: Tim sitting at his desk wearing a bag on his head — a recurring theme across his career.
• Cinnamon bread: Tim baked cinnamon bread 2–3 times a week and brought it to the office. Eight hot slices, first come first served. He refused to save slices for anyone.
• The boom photo: Someone took a candid photo of Tim talking to Tay Isaac (the artist behind many Vault Boy illustrations). This photo was later used for the exploding head easter egg when you type "boom" in the Fallout credits.
• Fallout 20th anniversary (2017): Tim, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson continued meeting for lunch almost every year, even after Troika closed.

Troika (1998–2005)

Tim co-owned Troika with Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson:

• Desk photos: Tim kept a picture of Bat Boy (from Weekly World News) on his screen, printed it out as a wallet photo, and told people it was his second-grade school picture. "I was really proud of my sweater."
• More bag-wearing: With QA tester Tiffany Chu looking on, visibly concerned for his mental health. Chu went on to a career as a producer at various companies.
• Cster (the dog): Tim brought his dog to work starting around 2000. They planned a one-year anniversary party for the dog on September 11, 2001 — "well, that didn't happen."
• First Troika photo (early 1999): The founding team in a conference room. "Look how young we are."
• Arcanum press event (2001): Held at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles.
• Temple of Elemental Evil team (~2002): The full team photo, including a shy dog who wouldn't look at the camera. Daniel Alpert (bottom right) went on to become art director on The Outer Worlds.
• D&D Wednesdays: Tim ran weekly D&D sessions to teach the team 3rd Edition / 3.5 Edition rules.
• Pinchy the Crawfish: During bad rainstorms, Tim rescued crawfish that washed up and kept them in a tank in his office, feeding them peas and carrots. One day Pinchy escaped. Daniel Alpert made a shame poster. Pinchy was later found dried up under Daniel's desk. "Sadness."

Carbine (2005–2011)

• Halloween costumes: Tim went as Charlie Brown one year (shaved head, shirt bought online, an artist drew the swirl). The next year he went as a pimp, and Long Win went as a character from Reno 911 and chased him around the office. Long later worked at Troika, Carbine, and Obsidian on The Outer Worlds.
• G4 interview: Filmed at his desk — this became part of the Making of Fallout 3 DVD.
• Candy birthday (2010): Coworkers covered his entire office in candy — desk, walls, and ceiling — knowing about his sweet tooth.

Obsidian (2011–2020)

Tim was an employee until 2020, then continued as a contractor:

• Programmer meeting (2011): A photo of Dan Spitzley and Robbie Adero in what Tim labels "deep discussion about data structures."
• The wig photo recreation (2018): At an Academy Awards party, Tim recreated an old wig photo with the same wig and Oscar statue.
• Tim-ception shirt: A candid photo of Tim became a meme. Someone at work put it on a shirt. Then Tim wore the shirt, creating a recursive photo-of-a-photo-on-a-shirt situation.
• The Cysty Pig: Tim made a physical cysty pig prop for The Outer Worlds pitch in New York (winter 2017). Producer Eric Toildt had to carry it in his carry-on and explain the removable velcro cysts to airport security. Tim gave it to a Take-Two producer, who kept it until the 2019 ship party. "I warn them not to keep it in an enclosed space."
• Moonman helmet weekend: After receiving the moonman helmet award, Tim snuck it home and did a photo series called "A Day in the Life of Moonman" — brewing coffee, cooking canned saluna, doing laundry, showering, and falling down stairs. His dog Abby followed him around completely unfazed by the giant helmet.
• The Outer Worlds team photo: Taken by professional photographer friend Chang. People confuse Tim with Ryan Rosinski (who he worked with at Interplay) — they didn't look alike when young but converged in appearance as they aged.
• Game Awards 2019: A big chunk of the team attended when The Outer Worlds was nominated.

Conference Circuit

Tim became active in conferences during his Obsidian years:

• GDC 2012: The well-known Fallout postmortem talk.
• Reboot Dubrovnik (2017): Tim and Tay Isaac both spoke (Tay's talk: "Why I Hate My Job" — not about Fallout/Interplay). They did a roundtable together, toured Dubrovnik (filming location for King's Landing exteriors in Game of Thrones).
• GX Australia (2016–2017): Roundtable with Dave Gaider. Tim toured Sydney's chocolate shops — five or six in one afternoon. One shop gave him a refrigerated bag since it was Australian summer.

Source

Scenes From A Life Of Game Development — Tim Cain's YouTube channel