Author Topic: Does anyone have "IcyGamma: Biography of an Eventer" the book? (Read 6872 times)

Ladle · March 05, 2018, 03:07:39 AM

Quote from: Grimlock� on March 04, 2018, 03:40:42 PM

https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=153236.0

memories :')

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Barnabas · March 05, 2018, 01:58:20 PM

Oh wow, remember when someone's Dropbox was taken down over this book?

Interesting stuff from the same thread

Quote from: IcyGamma on March 05, 2018, 03:07:39 AM

I still totally stand by what this is.

The PDF itself isn't particularly exciting. Its essentially a spoof of the Steve Jobs book which is written as though the clans, videos, etc are real companies, television shows.

There is no secret that the PDF was a fraud. I revealed this pretty early on, but the likes of Boltster and whatnot decided to not believe what I said and have been purposefully burying it since.

Its essentially propaganda to fuel what was going to be a machinima. Sure, there is an element of "hey, remember when I made this ---" in it, because I liked the idea of having server stories like some others were writing, but this PDF really is just a overwritten, ridiculously cynical document about fluff builds to garner attention (and insult Seventh Sandwich due to popular demand).

The Blockland movie itself was never even half made for a few reasons. The mystery "writer" of the book was going to be a voice actor, who would narrate it as though he was talking about meeting the Icy character in the movie. But unfortunately I could never find the person to do it. Swholli used to do a lot of voicing for me but he stopped being available. I couldn't do it myself because that would be stupid.

The plot was going to be that my character dies and then his son and the writer of the book go back in time, using a hidden Blockland eventing machine, where they move through the different versions of BL to find the things that happened in the book. The characters would end up trapped in the v8 version where the eventing system didn't exist, and they'd have to find the "old me" to rebuild a time machine using Space Guys event system. Yes, its a little bit "Back to The Future" rip off but it would have been fun.

The end wasn't settled on but it'd have been something warmingly corny like "oh, somehow IcyGamma never died in xxxx" and then the last copy of the bio, as it was written and released on the forum, would reveal he was still alive and the end shot would be it in a book store or something silly. Originally I was going to write that I died in the Bio, but I took it out because there was a fear it might be reported as an elaborate "leaving post".

There were multiple types of the bio; one was a "IcyGamma diary" that was themed to look like an old leather back and it was written like "Day 1: We sold our computer for the first time today." but it was a little too contrived and about two times as long as the bio. I had also just finished reading Steve Job's book and I thought it'd be the most recognizable spoof.

I've used techniques like this before to float videos and projects through drama. The Isar Tower was another project where I had taken a Blockland story and turned it into a machinima. Isar Tower was only interesting to people because there were multiple dramas attached to it over "save stealing" and other things.

If you believe the Bio is some kind of realistic portrayal then you must also believe that The Taking of Isar tower really happened and I died in a terrorist incident.

Although I don't really get any positive mileage out of it anymore, I think there is something unique about how even a year and a half later, the interest in what it was and what it meant still burns on. This is my most enduring Blockland project, nothing else I made while playing the game has ever managed to capture the curiosity of people for so long. And I still think that is neat.

Everyone has their own theory as to what it meant. I've explained the reasons behind it before, and nobody has to accept my version of why the Bio exists. But I mean, that is it, and I've already told people before. Maybe you will find that more exciting than the made up reasons people have posted. Maybe you won't.

Swholli · March 06, 2018, 08:22:46 AM

Quote from: Barnabas on March 05, 2018, 01:58:20 PM

Quote
Swholli used to do a lot of voicing for me but he stopped being available.

This is fake news I was doing literally nothing in 2013.

TomTheGeek� · March 07, 2018, 07:05:53 PM

Quote from: Swholli on March 03, 2018, 11:23:13 AM

He did an interview with me about Block Wars and BEE. I will admit, for everything it was worth, the blockland talk show thing was actually not a terrible idea, me and hodot kind of did the same thing with the brockrand podcast a few years back. I'd totally be about bringing that idea back somehow- just get a bunch of the prevalent users together and shoot the stuff, not necessarily blockland related but with that being a through line.

the only stuffty part was that aludane (his sidekick for the show) was in the UK and icy was in NZ so the time difference was nuts. i ended up waking up at 5AM so it would be midnight in NZ and afternoon in the UK.

i'd be so down, i'm also thinking about doing a blockoworld 2018, but no random bullstuff like 2016 i'm actually thinking long and hard for this one.

McZealot · March 12, 2018, 04:54:31 PM

I used to go on server as lcygamma (Lcygamma) and impersonate him. Was pretty funny

King T�ny · March 16, 2018, 05:48:52 PM

What's he doing now

Tyler66 · March 18, 2018, 03:39:45 PM

I remember him just because my POS software was the only "competition" to Afterblock.

edit: Oh hey, I'm actually mentioned too.

"It was announced prior to Platnium Blockland, which IcyGamma always felt stole
AfterBlock's concepts. Though Tyler66, the developer of Platnium, denied this."

I still stand by that, I had no idea about the existence of AfterBlock when I was working on PBL. It all started when I had the idea make a simple "Blockland Manager" which did simple functions like automatically find the Blockland directory and open folders.

Looking back on it, both were equally terrible for one being worked on a novice Visual Basic programmer and the other being made with the GameMaker library, something which seems a rather odd platform to be developing your application on.

Overall I don't think anyone asked for either AfterBlock or PBL and both were just about useless and completely unnecessary in concept.