A Significantly Less Interesting Personal Account

In all likelihood you've read the semi-famous thread by Alan Noon titled "Street Fighter the Movie Broke My Heart". If not, you should go do that now. It's a personal account by the co-designer of the slightly infamous arcade game, it's a great read even if you have no interest in Street Fighter. I've known Alan for a number of years now. His younger brother Rob has been a close friend since 1993 and was the best man at my wedding. It's through this relationship that I ended-up being a background character in Street Fighter: The Movie.

Back in 1994 Rob and I were both barely attending junior college. The few hours spent on campus were largely wasted in the smoky basement arcade. Fighting games were just huge back then and we buried a mountain of quarters into Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II variants. I met Alan around this stage in life as well. Being a fighting game fanatic at the time it was cool to know someone who actually worked on them. Something called Bloodstorm was his most recent game. It was fun but never garnered much popularity, that didn't stop us from tracking it down wherever it could be found and impressing onlookers by unlocking secret characters.

One day Rob mentioned that his brother was out in Australia shooting footage for an arcade game based on an upcoming Street Fighter movie. He made it sound like a secret project but who was I going to tell? A few months later Alan was back in town with all sorts of outstanding stories and photos from the shoot (most of it recapped in the referenced thread). Again, being hooked on fighting games this was really exciting to hear about. I'll admit to being envious too. Game programming was my dream career until I found that going the boring corporate programmer route pays the same with typically shorter hours.