The Murder Of Chris Todd

WING COMMANDER III
Origin (1993)

My first job out of college was working as one of the main programmers on Wing Commander III, a title widely credited with being the first "interactive movie" due to its extensive use of non-linear, live action cut scenes filmed by a professional crew in Hollywood. My job was to design a system that could integrate hours of movie footage with a 3D spaceflight engine and the user's input to create the illusion of a coherent story. The result was Scheherazade, a completely flexible multimedia scripting system. It was a hell of an introduction to the gaming industry -- like being handed a rifle and told that you're landing at Normandy -- but an achievment of which I'm still proud. WC3 was translated into several languages, ported to a number of other platforms, and went on to become one of the best-selling computer games of all time.

I graduated with a degree in computer science about the time I decided I'd like to do something different. But somehow something different led to programming computer games, and then starting a computer game company. I founded my company with a good friend and spent two years of my life on it, not all of it easy, but in the end I gained more than I lost in the form of many friends, old and new, who have become extremely important in my life. About the time the company went under, I decided to really do something different and I knew that meant becoming a writer -- and eventually a screenwriter.

Today I make things up and sometimes get paid for it. Not a bad way to make a living.

All of the previous could have been made up. But it's not. Really. You can trust me.