Ok, I think this image being brought up is a good reason to look into Alex's programming background.
Let's start with his education. I have no info about his school years, beside him claiming to be homeschooled since age 12, so let's go straight to college. In Alex's
LinkedIN he lists himself as Associate of Arts (AA), Animation with a degree from Santa Monica College, 2006-2009.
Seems not so bad, right? Well, the devil is in details. Here is now gone
page from SMC website, where Alex talks about his time there. First paragraph is him talking about playing games, second - about learning 3D animation, because he plays games a lot. Learning through online classes! “I’ve taken some online SMC classes through the website, and they’ve really worked out for me. They were very user-friendly. I met a couple of guys who were taking online stuff for the first time, and even
they didn’t have any problems at all.”
Then there is another thing - modern
schedule for SMC college looks really unimpressive with 2-3 units for "introduction" stuff.
The one on their website looks much better, with various degrees in 2D and 3D animation, but here is a catch - they promise a certificate of Associate in Science Degree, while Alex listed himself as Associate of Arts (AA), Animation. Either their Animation course in 2006 wasn't that technically oriented as it is now, or Alex can't tell one from the other. It is also strange why he has Animation, Interactive Technology, Video Graphics and Special Effects in his degree, when they now only list "2D Animation, 3D Animation, 3D production, Animation Foundation and Visual Development" and Alex has none of them. So has Alex somehow taken a barebones Animation course or back in the day it was just that? I don't know, you are free to correct me here.
Somehow with Alex's recollections of what the fuck was he actually doing during his years at the college, it looks even worse:
Where is animation, Alex? How the fuck do you have a degree in it without actually learning it?
But maybe Alex learned to code by himself and that's where his programmer's skill finally showed itself? If only:
GameMaker? Well, it's not too bad by itself, it's a good start, what else was he learning?
"Dicking around"? Yep, he basically learned how to make models move without going into details. Keep in mind, that he probably learned programming on a basic surface level, since he was learning animation and then just jumped to writing scripts - that explains all of his rookie mistakes at coding, Speaking of coding:
"Variables and functions and use if/else statements and that's already the majority of what you need to know" - yeah, we've noticed.
Now let's go to the studio that is listed in his LinkedIN-
KungFu Factory. Previously it was called
Just Games Interactive and was responsible for three things -
Wii port of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, PSP game
Mortal Kombat: Unchained and really poorly met Wii racing game
Cruis'n. After that they rebranded themselves as KungFu Factory and began making such hits as:
- Hotel Transylvania: Blast, launched November 18, 2019 - fucking "Bejeweled" clone.
- Lego Hidden Side AR, November 18, 2019 - some AR shit with Lego blocks.
- Pacific Rim: Breach Wars, March 23, 2018 - movie licensed bugfest, that isn't on GooglePlay anymore.
- SpongeBob Moves In, June 6, 2013 - some Facebook tier game with donation put upfront.
- And their biggest hit for the meantime - WWE Champions, February 6, 2017 - Bejeweled+GACHA, which may or may not be the game, that caused DSP's crippling addiction.
At the time of me writing this, their website hasn't been updated since November 18, 2019 and their social media accounts have died almost a year before that date. But that's not the reason why I wanted to look into them. See the banner on the top of their website?
Yep, it's our boy Alex right there in Kamina glasses, like if that picture wasn't awkward enough already. On his LinkedIN, where he lists himself as Junior Game Designer, he mentions 9 titles with which he was somehow involved. Let's see what were those games, that helped him to come up with the idea of something "as complex as Hitman and Persona 5".
-
Adventure Time: Card Wars, February 7, 2014 (Prototype Engineering) - just some basic card game made with Adult Swim. Fucking dead at the moment.
-
TMNT: Rooftop Run, April 13, 2013 (Engineering Team) - your typical mobile runner game, of course, with donations.
- Slot Revolution for iOS, June 21, 2013 (Software Engineer) - typical slot machine crap, so popular and well received, that it has
only one review on Metacritic, which rates it 70/100.
Riveting gameplay demonstration:
- Domo Jump for iOS, August 22, 2013 (Gameplay Engineer) -
simple platformer, where you jump from trampoline to trampoline and collect stuff.
Gameplay video:
- Supremacy MMA: Unrestricted, Mar 27, 2012 (Quality Assurance / Production Assistant) - really weak attempt at MMA fighting game for PS3, Xbox360 and PS Vita.
Terrible reviews from critics and gamers. Somehow, critics managed to hate even story in this crap!
Awful gameplay:
- Hello Kitty Seasons, Dec 7, 2010 (Quality Assurance / Production Assistant) - some really basic adventure game about Hello, Kitty.
Has three reviews, none of them is positive.
Gameplay:
- Girl Fight, Sep 25, 2013 (Associate Designer) - another attempt at fighting game for Xbox360 and PS3, somehow even worse than Supremacy: MMA.
Critics tore it to shreds and called it a cheap rip-off of Dead or Alive.
Gameplay:
- Spartacus Legends, Jun 26, 2013 (Design and Production Support) - some F2P gladiator simulator with terrible combat, grinding and, of course, donations for Xbox360 and PS3.
Panned by critics and players alike. Server crashes and bugs didn't help all of the above.
Entertaining gameplay:
- Bellator MMA Onslaught, Jul 4, 2012 (Production Assistant) - another MMA fighting game for PS3 and Xbox360 with bad animations and overall unfinished. Got
better reviews than Gril Fight and Supremacy MMA, but only because even less people have played it.
Some gameplay:
You may say "well, but he still has 10 games in his portfolio" and you won't be entirely wrong - that's what Alex liked to say in Lunar Scythe threads!
Funny how Alex mentions this, when in an archive of his LinkedIN "Game Programming" and "JavaScript" are at the bottom of his skills and "Animation" and "Character Animation" are not even among them, even though it's what Alex was learning at college.
Funnily enough, Alex admits that his animations suck and he basically wasted three years, however, he is "much better at coding":
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
That sounds extremely funny from a guy, who is afraid of driving, since "cars work on tiny explosions".
So what exactly Alex was doing during his gamedevelopement days? Well, according to one of those threads, things weren't as bright as he likes to describe:
Yep, Alex was doing some "real" coding only on those fucking mobile apps and the rest of the time was fixing minor shit! Moreover, let's take a look at
this conversation from 2011, that was leaked from his OKcupid:
evaslastresort: After being a bug tester for Hello Kitty, I was a bug tester for Supremacy MMA, a fighting game that my company made. While I was doing QA work, they started giving me "production" tasks, like writing the subtitles for the cutscenes, and tuning the damage values, and uploading each build of the game so the publisher could verify that it's coming along well...
Him being a bug tester may be the funniest foreshadowing in history. And also:
^_^; Sorry if I never mentioned this before, but
I am an intern! =O
But, a PAID intern! =O
And I am not officially an "employee" since I am not a contract worker or full-time
Yeah, he wasn't even working full-time! "Working at a game company", my ass! But let's not get hung up on his days at KungFu Factory. After all, he worked there only for three years, maybe they just didn't let his talent and ambitions to fully develop, right? Well, if that was the case, then they were right, because his other games are:
- Some hentai dating simulator that he tried to shill on Newgrounds.
-
Some Flash game named Shayda. Antivirus detects it as
malware, which can be said about all Alex's games. Also, people who played it
called a rip-off of Iji, which is ironic, since years later Alex is going to use it as excuse for why it's taking so long.
- Speaking of Iji, it seems that Alex made a "mod" for it with Zero Suit Samus. Sadly, video is private and there is no archive on WBM.
-
BOOBIE CLICKER.
Not only he asked for advice in the development of this this shit on
Unity forums, he also was shilling it in Lunar Scythe threads to prove his mastery!
- Some
Fire Emblem clone prototype that went nowhere.
- Some GameMaker game called
Darkex.
- Some shitty attempt at
Metroidvania, that he probably used later for an epic April fools joke with Yanderevania.
-
Yandere Clicker trash, that mechanic- and graphicswise looks eerily similar to Boobie Clicker.
- His infamous
fighting game prototype that started his anime rivalry with Mike Z(more about it
here).
- Super Deepthroat 3D! Although, I am sure that by "copy" Alex just means "I made a couple of 3D models fuck, jerked-off to it and called it a day".
- And, of course,
Lunar Scythe!
So TL;DR - Alex has 0 credentials to be game developer, he learned animation at SMC and his level of skill is unknown, his job at KungFu Factory was mostly about fixing minor shit and when he was allowed to do something bigger the results were far from impressive and even outside of this all his game projects were either unfinished or outright abandoned and none of them was nearly as ambitious as Yandere Simulator.
And as the final joke, here is how he described his games after adopting YandereDev persona:
yanderedev.wordpress.com
