The Story Of The Bag

tim-cain fallout interplay game-development crunch stories

Abstract

Problem: A famous photo of Tim Cain sitting at his desk with a Burger King bag on his head has circulated the internet for years — what's the story behind it?

Approach: Tim Cain explains the context directly, responding to a fan's question about the photo, and walks through the details visible in the image.

Findings: The bag incident happened during the brutal final months of Fallout 1 development (early 1997), when Tim was working 10-14 hour days, seven days a week. After an morning of relentless interruptions, he ate Burger King at his desk, put the bag on his head with the crown logo facing out, and emailed the team: stop interrupting him unless it's important — and if they must, they have to address him as "Your Highness." Programmer Jesse Reynolds then came by, called him "Your Highness," reported he'd found and fixed a crash bug in Tim's code, bowed sarcastically, and left.

Key insight: The photo captures both the absurd humor and the grueling crunch culture of 90s game development — Tim jokes that by this point in development, he had "gone completely insane."

The Context: Fallout Crunch, Early 1997

This was during the final stretch of Fallout 1 development at Interplay, probably sometime in early 1997. Tim had been working every single day — weekdays and weekends — anywhere from 10 to 14 hours a day for the last six to nine months of the project. Interplay was never empty; even at 3 or 4 AM there were always people around, though not always working. Board games, movie nights, and other activities filled the conference rooms.

The Morning of Interruptions

On this particular weekday, Tim came in early to finish some code that had to be done by end of day. But the interruptions were relentless — QA, scripters, designers, other programmers, artists. He estimates he talked to almost everybody on the team that morning. His coding habit was to type "zzz" as a comment marker whenever he got interrupted, so he could find his place again. Before lunch, he had about 15 "zzz" comments scattered through his code. He tried shutting his door, but people would knock and walk right in without waiting for a response. Leaving the door open was actually faster — at least some people would peek in, see he was busy, and leave.

The Burger King Bag

At lunch, someone ran to Burger King. Tim ate a Whopper, fries, and a Coke at his desk. After finishing, he took the Burger King paper bag, put it on his head with the crown logo facing outward, and sent an email to the team: "I really need to finish this code. Don't interrupt me unless it's super important. And if you do, you have to refer to me as 'Your Highness.'"

Jesse Reynolds and the Crash Bug

Tim coded uninterrupted for about an hour before programmer Jesse Reynolds appeared at his door. Reynolds — described as a super nice, super young guy on his first job who had shown up to his interview in a three-piece suit — stood there and said: "Your Highness, I found the crash bug in today's build. I traced it to the code you checked in last night." Tim, embarrassed, started to respond, and Reynolds continued: "Don't worry, Your Highness. I've already fixed it and checked in the fix." Tim thanked him (in royal "we" fashion), and Reynolds gave the most sarcastic bow, turned, and left.

Details in the Photo

Tim also walks through what's visible in the blurry photo, painting a vivid picture of his workspace:

  • Giant CRT monitor on a heavy metal arm — the thing weighed 30-50 pounds. Even then, Tim thought "this can't last, we can't keep getting bigger monitors like this." LCDs arrived within a couple of years.
  • A shelf of CDs behind him — he listened to ambient music through speakers (not headphones, which bugged him after too many hours) since he had his own office.
  • A Tick action figure — the team used to watch The Tick cartoons on Thursday nights. The figure could jump if you pressed it down and let go.
  • Fallout foam core board and oversized Fallout box — promotional materials from E3, displayed before the game ever shipped.
  • A Bomberman t-shirt — the team had Fallout shirts, but they said "Team GURPS" on them. After losing the GURPS license, Tim stopped wearing those and switched to his Bomberman shirt until new Fallout shirts were made without the GURPS branding.
  • A small tequila bottle with a sombrero — Tim had told himself he'd drink it when Fallout shipped, but the shipping process dragged on through rejected builds and a two-week bug hunt, and he doesn't think he ever followed through.
  • A whiteboard to-do list — Tim's productivity system was to write simple tasks on the board so he could start with easy wins each morning, then move to harder problems once he was in the zone. He wishes he could read what was on it, but the photo is too blurry.

The Conclusion

Tim signs off noting that by this point in Fallout's development, he had "gone completely insane" — a sentiment the bag-on-head photo captures perfectly.

Source: Tim Cain — "The Story Of The Bag"

References