Tim Sweeney

We didn't really know what we were doing at the time. None of us had ever shipped a 3D game, and most of us were still learning, but everybody was trying different disciplines to see what they were best at, and It was a combination of a bunch of people who came together to make Unreal. I'd initially volunteered to make the 3D editor for the thing, and James Schmaltz had made Epic Pinball.

We didn't really know what we were doing at the time. None of us had ever shipped a 3D game, and most of us were still learning, but everybody was trying different disciplines to see what they were best at, and It was a combination of a bunch of people who came together to make Unreal. I'd initially volunteered to make the 3D editor for the thing, and James Schmaltz had made Epic Pinball.

We didn't really know what we were doing at the time. None of us had ever shipped a 3D game, and most of us were still learning, but everybody was trying different disciplines to see what they were best at, and It was a combination of a bunch of people who came together to make Unreal. I'd initially volunteered to make the 3D editor for the thing, and James Schmaltz had made Epic Pinball.

Epic Pinball. Now, that wasn't a crazy game. This was one of the 2D shareware games. He made it while he was in college, and he was making like $30,000 a month from the royalties from this game, because everybody had wanted an awesome pinball game. It was massively successful. But it was He was a multidisciplinary person.

Epic Pinball. Now, that wasn't a crazy game. This was one of the 2D shareware games. He made it while he was in college, and he was making like $30,000 a month from the royalties from this game, because everybody had wanted an awesome pinball game. It was massively successful. But it was He was a multidisciplinary person.

Epic Pinball. Now, that wasn't a crazy game. This was one of the 2D shareware games. He made it while he was in college, and he was making like $30,000 a month from the royalties from this game, because everybody had wanted an awesome pinball game. It was massively successful. But it was He was a multidisciplinary person.

He wrote the code for the game, the art for the game, and did basically everything. And the code was 30,000 lines of assembly language. And so he was initially going to write the 3D engine, and I was going to write the editor, and he sent me his code so I could integrate it into the editor. It was like this giant pile of assembly code. I was like, hmm, why don't I just write this myself?

He wrote the code for the game, the art for the game, and did basically everything. And the code was 30,000 lines of assembly language. And so he was initially going to write the 3D engine, and I was going to write the editor, and he sent me his code so I could integrate it into the editor. It was like this giant pile of assembly code. I was like, hmm, why don't I just write this myself?

He wrote the code for the game, the art for the game, and did basically everything. And the code was 30,000 lines of assembly language. And so he was initially going to write the 3D engine, and I was going to write the editor, and he sent me his code so I could integrate it into the editor. It was like this giant pile of assembly code. I was like, hmm, why don't I just write this myself?

And so James instead started going off and building 3D models and 3D animations using the tools at the time. And so... And Cliff had done a lot of design work and built the levels on Jazz Jacket, went off and started learning basics of level design. And so I was writing this editor and Cliff Blizinski was customer number one for it, starting to go off and build levels.

And so James instead started going off and building 3D models and 3D animations using the tools at the time. And so... And Cliff had done a lot of design work and built the levels on Jazz Jacket, went off and started learning basics of level design. And so I was writing this editor and Cliff Blizinski was customer number one for it, starting to go off and build levels.

And so James instead started going off and building 3D models and 3D animations using the tools at the time. And so... And Cliff had done a lot of design work and built the levels on Jazz Jacket, went off and started learning basics of level design. And so I was writing this editor and Cliff Blizinski was customer number one for it, starting to go off and build levels.

And James Schmaltz was building awesome creatures, sending them to me, I'd get them implemented in game. And we brought in an animator to bring them into life. And we brought in More and more people until at the peak of Unreal 1 development, we had about 20 people working on it, which was a huge team for the time. It was really stretching Epic's finances nearly to the breaking point.

And James Schmaltz was building awesome creatures, sending them to me, I'd get them implemented in game. And we brought in an animator to bring them into life. And we brought in More and more people until at the peak of Unreal 1 development, we had about 20 people working on it, which was a huge team for the time. It was really stretching Epic's finances nearly to the breaking point.

And James Schmaltz was building awesome creatures, sending them to me, I'd get them implemented in game. And we brought in an animator to bring them into life. And we brought in More and more people until at the peak of Unreal 1 development, we had about 20 people working on it, which was a huge team for the time. It was really stretching Epic's finances nearly to the breaking point.

We barely survived and almost ran out of money a number of times, but somehow we always pulled through. It was a crazy project because it was three and a half years of development in a game that we always thought was six months from shipping. And... It was like three and a half years of 70 or 80 hour weeks for most everybody working on the project.

We barely survived and almost ran out of money a number of times, but somehow we always pulled through. It was a crazy project because it was three and a half years of development in a game that we always thought was six months from shipping. And... It was like three and a half years of 70 or 80 hour weeks for most everybody working on the project.

We barely survived and almost ran out of money a number of times, but somehow we always pulled through. It was a crazy project because it was three and a half years of development in a game that we always thought was six months from shipping. And... It was like three and a half years of 70 or 80 hour weeks for most everybody working on the project.

Not even knowing what problems we'd need to solve next because we were so immersed in the current ones.

Not even knowing what problems we'd need to solve next because we were so immersed in the current ones.