The beginning

Everything has a beginning and an end. This is the beginning of `Signal From The Stars`.

• Martin
• August 12, 1993
• 5 min read

Some games affect you (consciously or unconsciously)! This can happen in several ways, the best known form is that you constantly want to win, which causes your brain to produce dopamine. This is the simplest way a game affects the player.

But there are also games that go deeper and go into your unconscious. That may sound a little vague, but it’s super interesting. Below I show a personal part of my life what the impact of such a game can be and why Signal From The Stars comes from that.

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

It was around 1993 that, as a 10-year-old child, I went to a second-hand market with my father. For me, such a visit was a search for new games for my Commodore 64.

Although it is now some 34 years ago, I still remember exactly what the market felt like. The atmosphere, the light, and especially the stall where I discovered Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders are still vivid in my mind.

In those days, games still came in beautifully designed cardboard boxes. On the front was a beautifully drawn picture, while on the back were some screenshots of the game. Inside the box was a newspaper that accompanied the game, two floppies, an anti-piracy booklet, and a manual. I was lucky, my dad let me buy it. 😊

The picture at the top of the page is what I still keep with pride after all these years.

There is someone who spends a lot of time and money faking packaging (link).

Impact Phase 1

Once home, I start the game and think, WOW! 💥 I can control a character through a real world. But a few seconds later comes the realization: ‘Oh no, this is all written in German…’ 😕

I ask my parents for a German dictionary and start playing a little every day. Soon I discover something important: you can save the game! That turned out to be crucial, because otherwise I had to start from scratch every time.

The game was about different “new age theories”. Eg.the face on Mars, Stonehenge, aliens, Elvis…. It got me thinking. Not about who Elvis was, but about the fact that there is a planet Mars with maybe a pyramid on it.

As I played, I got more and more questions. In the weeks that followed, I made regular visits to the library in search of books on such topics.

For those wondering, a library is a place where you could find information in the form of books. This was much needed, as the Internet did not exist back then.

The game had inspired me to explore outside the game as well. This happened mainly because the game itself remained neutral, without imposing anything.

I remember sometimes, after gaming, I would go to my tree house at night to look at the stars. Then came the realization of how small and puny we really are.

Impact Phase 2

Time passes, and in the following years I begin to delve more deeply into human history. At the same time, I remain fascinated by the universe. Even at a young age, therefore, I ask myself many philosophical questions: Where do we come from?' What is our purpose?’ etc.

Meanwhile, the desire to make a game (or something else creative) myself arises. Meanwhile, I have a Pentium 1 with Windows 98 on my desk. Between gaming - think Red Alert 1, Age of Empires and Worms - I try to do some programming. But let’s face it: the temptation of those games is just too great.

Fast forward to the year 2000

For the first time I read the pseudo-scientific book Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken. It feels as if I am thrown back to that moment in my tree house, looking at the stars, and to the game of my youth. But also to the big questions about life itself.

That book is a starting point. It inspires me to read many more such books, both old and new. The more I read, the clearer it becomes to me that even from a scientific perspective, there is still an awful lot we cannot explain - and may never understand.

At the same time, I realize that many people do not have access to this information, or simply show no interest in it. But when I show them some of these mysteries, you can see the interest appear on their faces.

Important: The mysteries I am talking about are factual and visible. Not stories about ghosts, UFOs or gnomes “spotted” by someone.

I was fortunate to grow up in a time when the Internet was not yet full of junk, and fake news was not yet at the forefront.

Therefore, I focus on mysteries that were covered before the Internet age, when research and discussion took place in a different way.

Fast forward to 2015

Still playing with the idea of releasing a game and showing some mysteries to the world in a fun way.

In was then still using the programming languages Blitz3D, Monkey X and Monkey 2 ¹. With these I had developed a first point-and-click adventure engine and game as a test. The community around these tools was quite active and helpful, but at some point the owner decided to stop maintaining the programming languages.

Since I thought support of the programming language was important, I stopped the project. And to be honest, I wasn’t quite ready for it either (in retrospect). You may not believe it but I also have a life besides the virtual world where I am busy with work and the family. 😄

December 30, 2019

The idea keeps playing a role anyway, my whole life as a kind of compulsion. The year is almost over and thought it's now or never, I can and will make the game.

A game centered around some of the mysteries that have fascinated me for so long.

The goal? * To introduce people to these mysteries so that their curiosity is aroused. My hope is that this will make players want to explore and appreciate life in the broadest sense of the word. “

I want to thank you already for reading this bit of history haha and this was just the beginning.