Karl’s Story
Karl has always loved technology since he laid his hands on the Apple ][GS his parents purchased.
Age 7: Started using the Apple ][GS his parents gave him to play games (Arkanoid II, Karateka) and, eventually, write stories. Even after spending months and months, Karl decided the world did not need Jurassic Park II… though years later, Hollywood decided otherwise.
Age 10: Created magazines for classmates about video games. The first magazine, which was only Super Nintendo, eventually changed to all platforms and was called Power Tips. Hand-made covers on every issue thanks to me and Clark Crawford.
Age 11: Made his first website, his first website for pay, and his first piece of software using HyperCard. If only creating black and white 32×32 pixel recreations of NBA logos was not copyright infringement, Karl would have released it to the world.
Age 11.5: Made a Mario Paint project about the five kingdoms. Animal, plant, fungi, protists, and monera. Lots of original Mario Paint music, included a first-person race through arteries, and concluded with some peanut butter and jelly dropping out of the person and falling into a toilet, but in the cleanest way possible… down a yellow waterfall, on a surfboard.
Age 12: Started creating The Lattimore Mystery, a game that never saw the light of day. Collaborated on it with Clark. Never finished, but had so much fun making it. Used downsampled black and white photos from the encyclopedia that came with the Mac Karl had at the time. For school projects, Karl cr a Pompeii HyperCard stack for a project about Rome.
Age 13: Created The Fishin’ Hole and released as shareware, and also made an alternate version for education. Was complemented many times by a few teachers at my middle school that kids loved to play it (a math component was worked into the fishing game). Was absolutely floored when told the normal shareware version was used as a therapy for a young child with muscular dystrophy.
Age 14 – 15: Wrote a monthly opinion page column for the local newspaper. Was complemented by the publisher of the newspaper on one or two articles. All topics were on the table, so this blog might be a little bit like that!
Age 15: Created Tiger’s Eye Pub, a trimmed down version of Tiger’s Eye Casino, a game Karl had spent many years working on but never shipped. He figured it was better to ship it than just let it sit unused. Not amazing, but
Age 16: Released One Boring Night…, a potential serialized piece of software that would have a storyline that would expand a little every week or two. It was going to start with a very tiny amount of content, then grow little by little over time. A little like the various serialized games out there now, including Tiny God. Of course… Karl never actually followed through past the first couple releases.
Age 18: Graduated high school, then afterwards created KGA Golf and entered it into uDevGames 2002. Released as shareware later that year and was the biggest shareware success for Karl to date!
Age 19: Created KTA Tennis, the fastest-action game Karl has ever made, and entered it into uDevGames 2003. Though it was trying to do too much at the time with an underpowered toolset, it was still pretty fun and was successful as a shareware title released later that year.
Age 22: Karl graduates from NDSU, then enters the corporate world. LinkedIn knows all about those details.
Age 24: Karl gets an iPhone, desperately wants to make an app, and makes an arbitrary promise to himself to have an app in the store on day 1. After many nights with little sleep, Karl hit his target and had Car Care in the app store the day it opened – and was surprised by the fairly lucrative results!
Age 26: Karl thought, “cool, I bet I can make another app whenever I want to and it will be successful then, too.” Nope. Wrong. The app store got competitive very quickly. But people still wanted Karl to make apps for them…
Age 28: Karl decided to make apps full-time for KB Productions, and also co-found Third Iron, a library technology startup.
Age 29: That’s now. Oh gosh I’m almost 30. Whaaaaaaa
When I was a teenager, I came up with this little saying that I thought was extremely deep:
All too often, art is simply the loss of practicality.
It’s not great. But I need to keep working on my words, so there it is… I’m taking attribution of that one any way.
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