Dark Cities (SNES): An Oral History

Fiction: A retrospective on the obsessive development of a forgotten game.

This story is one of two runners up of the Dispatches competition. Because of the length, the email version may be cut off, but the web version is complete.

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Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

Devin was a type that was just starting to go extinct when we hired him. The brilliant, maniac programmer with a deep relationship with machines. The kind of guy who would make a whole game in machine code. Back then, people like that were all over the place in the computer industry. And really, it had to be that way—computers were weird nerd stuff. Programmers didn’t make much money. It’s not like now where half the college football team is in the CS program.

Jennifer Dodwin, Software Engineer, Broderbund

Devin was truly irritating, special even for a company and industry filled with maladjusted pricks. Not only was he sure he was right about everything—that was perfectly normal—but he also loved to take the contrary position on everything. He really was just trying to provoke arguments. He would just attach onto something and argue and argue. Could be as simple as some piece of kludge, or like, an abstruse point about Oliver North. It was unprofessional. Pretty much everyone on the team learned to just not talk to Devin about anything. You couldn’t get him started.

Jim Mallory, Director, Broderbund

First project I worked on with Devin was King's Quest 4: The Perils of Rosella. He was a new hire, had a thin resume—mostly project work from college, a few contract positions around town. So I assigned him the hair. This was the first game we had featuring a female protagonist, and she had this long blonde hair. I felt like we needed to get it right. With the other games, the hair was basically like a helmet, but here it needed to have a little swish, you know?

Jennifer Dodwin, Software Engineer, Broderbund

Oh god, the hair thing. He was suddenly an expert on women's hair. Told me I should get a shag. Said that Marilyn Monroe had hideous hair. Spent hours rewinding the scene in 10 when Bo Derek gets out of the water. I hate that fucking movie.

Jim Mallory, Director, Broderbund

Devin did pretty good and then I got involved in Achilles Resurrected. Basically a hack and slash rip off of Dungeon. Achilles had to fight his way out of Hades—we did that so we could reuse some skeleton animations. I brought Devin in as team lead on it. At the time, this stepped on some toes—people who had been there longer, people who were easier to deal with—but Devin did the work.

Jennifer Dodwin, Software Engineer, Broderbund

As a lead, Devin was even more impossible. After hours, he’d annotate your code. You’d come in in the morning, first thing you’d get would be a list of ‘fixes.’ A lot of this by the way was grammatical or formatting. And not even standard stuff, he just wanted it exactly his way.

Jim Mallory, Director, Broderbund

Devin certainly had some maturing to do.

Jennifer Dodwin, Software Engineer, Broderbund

Halfway through Achilles, I went to lunch and never came back. My final commit was a comment: “FUCK YOU DEVIN.” I went to work at Microsoft.

Jim Mallory, Director, Broderbund

We finished Achilles Resurrected and to our pleasant surprise, it was a small hit. So of course the sequel was greenlighted. At that point, I was starting work on King’s Quest 6.

Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

We wanted to seize on the hype that Achilles had and get a sequel out the door- basically just using the same underlying assets with a new adventure. This time Achilles was going to climb Mount Olympus and kill Zeus. So Jim recommended Devin to direct.

Jim Mallory, Director, Broderbund

For the record, I never recommended Devin to direct anything. I think at one point Roger asked how Devin was, and I probably said, “Oh, he’s fine,” or something.

Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

It was crazy but Devin turned me down. He said he had a new project, and was going to quit Broderbund.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Devin was always into freaky shit—H.P. Lovecraft, Harlan Ellison, Phillip K. Dick—all that negative, trippy science fiction. He also… well, he had other things too. He was really into the whole POW/MIA thing. He was sure that Watergate happened because Nixon refused to end the Vietnam war on the terms Hanoi demanded, and that’s why Gerald Ford let Saigon fall. If you asked him ok, how did the Communists have this leverage he’d wave his hands and say, “The money of course.”

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

I hadn’t heard about this guy Devin one way or the other. I was mostly on the promotions/concept side. I didn’t really care what the guys coding were doing. But one day Roger comes to me and says I need to see this thing that someone who used to work for us was building.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Devin moved back home and set up in our old bedroom. He called me and said he was working on something big, and he wasn’t going to leave the house until he finished it. He said it was a game that was going to tell the truth. I know how that sounds now, like all paranoid, but he wasn’t saying it like that. He said this to me like… Like it was something joyful.

Linda McKay, Devin’s mother (Diary extract)

Devin moved home. He said he wanted to save money and work on a project. A game. Told him he needs to walk the dog and be responsible for the dishes while he’s living with me. I asked him how long he thought all this would take. He said six months. Today, he spent all day in his room on his computer.

Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

What was it, eight months or something after he left, I get a call, it’s Devin. He says he has something he wants to show me. A demo for a game.

I’m not really capturing this call though, that’s not all he said. He actually said something like, “Roger, Roger, I got something, something that’s going to blow the lid off of it all. It’s a game, but it’s so much more. It’s like, emotional, like a movie, but it’s also real. You think you’re in control, but really the game plays you.” Something like that.

I knew Devin was a talented kid, so I was intrigued. I mean, honestly, if Devin had called me in the middle of the night and said he needed me to pick him up from the airport, I’d probably go. I’d just be so curious.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

When I started in the video game space, it was just the Wild West. You had developers making games, execs approving them based on gut, totally unsystematic. I came from McKinsey where I had run cost/benefit analysis for new military hardware—body/dollar ratios, alternative effectiveness scores, etc.

My innovation was bringing rigorous cutting edge analysis to what were frankly companies run by hippies and wash outs. For example, instead of just putting a machine out and hoping for the best, I’d have us test alternative machines in demographically identical locations. Instead of assessing it based on subjective ideas of fun, I had us use objective metrics of quarters per minute—QPM—the more quarters a player pumped into a machine, the more they liked it. That’s obvious right? Interestingly, we found that when games were harder and included random dynamics, QPM drastically increased with higher player churn. From their spending habits, we could see players loved it. We also found it was important that you make levels short, so players feel like they are almost there.

After my success in the Arcades division, I was put in charge of the Nintendo After Dark project. The Genesis had launched, and frankly, it was just kicking our asses in America. Sure, we had Link and Mario, but Sega just had so much… attitude. We were popular with kids, but teenagers and increasingly adults were gravitating to the Genesis. We also heard about the CD peripheral they were developing, which apparently was going to have full on adult content. We needed to compete—both at a graphical and content level if we wanted to stay competitive.

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

Roger calls me into his office one day—well, his secretary calls my secretary who then tells me Roger has something he wants me to see. So I walk over and in Mike’s office there’s a whole extra PC set up on the desk, and there’s this skinny twerp banging on a keyboard. That was Devin.

Roger introduces me to Devin. I really remember how Devin looked at me. Like I was some kind of animal. I stuck my hand out and he gave me the limpest hand shake. I made some small talk, oh you used to work for us, and he just says yeah. That’s it—yeah, just one word answers. Finally Roger says, “Devin, show him the game.”

So Devin shows me it. It’s rough but… yeah, it was Dark Cities. It looked amazing. Fun. And it had something else. Like it made me feel… scared or something. The first level—that’s all he showed me, was just a guy—really good animation, very lifelike—platforming through an abandoned city.

So I asked him, you made this yourself at home?

“Yeah.” At this point, I wasn’t even annoyed with the yeahs. I was interested in the game. I asked him to show me the controls.

I played through the first level. It was much harder than it had looked when Devin was playing it. Hard in the way that made me want to keep going. And creepy. Like something was hunting me.

We had to have it.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Devin based the movement on me. I played D2 basketball at Cal State Dominguez Hills. He took all this footage on a camcorder of me running, jumping, punching, turning. So if you look at Dark Cities, you see me.

Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

Mike called me a few hours later. He was over the moon.

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

I was not over the moon. I saw a business opportunity. It was a great game.

Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

Mike said we should buy it right now, and to quote, “while it’s cheap.” Which, looking back, he was right. We should’ve bought it.

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

I had a contract drawn up, but I wanted to see a few more levels. I’d seen enough games that started off with a bang and then turned to complete garbage.

You know the joke, Bill Gates dies and gets to the afterlife. St. Peter tells him that he did pretty much the same amount of good as bad in his life, so he can spend one day in heaven and one day in hell and choose.

In Hell, he finds all his friends. They’re playing mini golf, eating lobster and having a great time. In Heaven, it’s all harps and clouds and it’s nice but his friends aren’t there. Ultimately it’s not that fun. So he goes back to St. Peter and says, after everything, I think I’ll choose Hell. St. Peter says OK and sends Bill Gates on his way.

When Bill Gates gets there, demons grab him, start pulling out his insides and poking him in the butt with a pitchfork. He screams to St. Peter, “What about what I saw? Where are my friends? Where’s the lobster?”

St. Peter says, “Oh, that was the demo.”

I’ve released a few demos like that in my life too. So we needed to be careful.

Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

In my opinion, Mike screwed the pooch on the negotations. Too hot, too heavy, but not heavy enough.

Billy McKay, Devin’s Brother

Devin called me and said that he got an offer for the game. Broderbund wanted to pay him twenty grand for it. I was in the last year of my Business Administration degree and was in the middle of my Negotiations and Contracts seminar, and the first thing that popped out of my mouth was, “Don’t ever take the first offer.”

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

I found out after asking around that Devin was… difficult. But $20,000 for an unfinished game, plus support to finish it, a job back at Broderbund—it was a generous offer. I began to think there was something not right with him when he got back to me and said “$100,000 and points on the game.”

Points? Where had he even heard that phrase?

Billy McKay, Devin’s Brother

I told my negotiations professor about my brother's situation, and he connected me to his cousin Frank who was an entertainment lawyer in LA. The advice was to shop it around and to be aggressive with the counter offers.

Adam Greenberg, Head of US Software, NEC

The TurboGrafx16 was 3rd place at best, 4th place if you count the Game Boy. Bonk was a cut-rate Sonic, let alone a Mario. We just didn’t have anything really unique or compelling for the system that would resonate in a mass culture way. The TurboGrafx16 was popular in Japan, (called the PC Engine there) but you know they have a connoisseur culture over there. Americans are well… dumb. I’m an American, I can say that. We’re stupid. We like big things. Blue hedgehogs, Italian plumbers. Obvious stuff. Big colors. What I needed was a hit, but it had to be outside the box—we couldn’t just try to do something that everyone else was doing.

So my brother Frank, he was a lawyer, he told me that apparently there was some game that was getting a lot of hype. Some kid out of nowhere. The guys at Broderbund were desperate to close it. Sounded exactly like what I was looking for.

Linda McKay, Devin’s mother (Diary extract)

Devin had cooked tonight—steaks, salad, potatoes. During dinner, the phone rang. It went to the answering machine. At first I wasn’t listening, but I could see Devin perk up, like he was spooked. He stood up, knocking over his soda and ran to the phone. He screamed, “Hello, hello?” into the phone.

Adam Greenberg, Head of US Software, NEC

I wanted to fly the kid down to my office so we could talk, see the game. It’s a good tactic to let them see the beautiful office with ocean front views. Let them see all the people working here, let them see how expensive my suit is. TurboGrafx16 may not be the biggest player on the block, but we are for real.

Unfortunately, he said that he needed to bring his computer to show me the game. I said he could just put it on a disk—we have computers—but he said no, that was impossible. He needed the whole computer. Well he didn’t say any of this to me—he said this to my assistant who communicated it back to me. I hadn’t actually talked to him.

So then we had to explore what it would take to ship the computer to the office and then back. He was real protective of this computer—when we suggested he back up his work, he said no way then it can be stolen. Like you can’t steal a computer? Didn’t make any sense. Anyways, with how he wanted to ship it—basically express air freight, direct delivery—one step down from an armored car—it was going to cost two thousand bucks. Ridiculous. So anyways after wasting a week like this, we finally agreed to reimburse him for driving down with the computer in his back seat.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

How’d I hear about Dark Cities? It was this guy, a kid, just out of B-school, working at NEC. He was trying to get out, wanted to come over to us, recognized a loser when he saw one. He was interviewing with me for an executive analyst role. I asked him what he thought the hottest property for Nintendo After Dark was going to be. Usually someone says something about a movie—Die Hard was a popular answer—or sometimes they’d say that Wolfenstein should be ported over—but this guy leaned over and said, well no one knows about this yet, but my bosses, they’re excited about this new game, it’s not even finished yet. He said they are bidding hard on it, Dark Cities. Sounded fresh and new, and also, not like a Nintendo game. I want to check it out.

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

I didn’t respond immediately. $100,000 and points? I decided to sweat him a little. A few days go by—I thought I’d hear from him. A few more. Finally, my secretary reaches out to Devin. His mom answers the phone, says he’s driving to LA to meet with NEC.

Adam Greenberg, Head of US Software, NEC

Devin arrived at the office for our 9:30. I had sent a few of our guards out to help him carry his computer, but he insisted on doing it himself. I offered him a tour of the office, but he said no, he wanted to get everything set up. We had a conference room set aside for him. Thirty minutes go by. My assistant goes to check on him. One of his cables was wrecked in transit. Another twenty minutes to find a replacement, which unbelievably we don’t have. A whole building full of cutting edge tech and we don’t have his exact cable. I send my assistant to Radio Shack. In the meantime, I talked to Devin a little bit. I asked him about his game. He says the game is going to show the truth. It’s going to blow the lid off of everything. I love that confidence, though I don’t know what he means. My assistant gets back. Finally the computer is set up. Devin brings up his game. It’s rough—no intro screen yet, it definitely needs a polish. Immediately I’m thinking of studios in Japan that can help. Real grotesque stuff only the Japs can do. The game starts.

And I'll tell you, I'm blown away. It’s 16 bit, but it doesn’t look 16 bit. It looks like it’s from the future. It’s fluid, like watching a movie. I ask him about specs, I’m worried it won’t even run on the TurboGrafx, but he jumps ahead of me on the question. He says it’ll run, he knows how to make it happen. I ask him how much of the game is done—he says it’s mostly done. 75%. I clear my schedule, and ask him to show me the whole thing.

By the end, this is it. I know it. I tell him that we can do this deal, anyway he wants. He can be an independent publisher and license it to us. If he wants to work through someone else, we can connect him to whoever—Activision, EA, Konami, LJN, whoever he wants to work with. He can come on board with HudsonSoft/NEC. Devin says that he’s got other offers, and he’ll get back to me. Just like that, doesn’t even acknowledge what I said. I ask if he wants to get dinner. He’s already packing his computer. He says no, he’s going to drive back right now.

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

Finally, I get Devin on the phone. He tells me that NEC is offering him $200,000 and ownership. He asks if I can do better. Which I know I can’t, but I tell him that he should think about why they’re making him that offer. It’s because they’re desperate. Because they have a loser system no one wants to use. I tell him to look at the sales number for their console. Do you really want your game locked into a platform no one uses? Devin said, “Uh huh, sure OK. Thanks.”

Billy McKay, Devin’s Brother

My brother said that he wasn’t surprised by this attention. I mean, I was. He’d never made a game before, and suddenly—I thought the Broderbund thing was a fluke, that maybe if he negotiated a bit he could get a better title and some extra money. I didn’t expect…

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

I tracked down the guy, Devin McKay. I called, a woman answered. Wife? Girlfriend? No, turned out to be the mother. So I told her that I heard her son was very talented. She said he was a good boy. I told her that I was sure he was. We chatted for a few minutes—turned out she had gone to U of M also. Eventually she said, do you want to talk to Devin.

I told Devin who I was, mentioned that I was trying to find the next groundbreaking title for the SNES. He said he had a lot of offers right now. Said that they were pretty good, he was pretty close to taking one.

I asked if Sega was one of them. He said no, but he was expecting to hear from them soon. I asked why he was expecting that. I’ll never forget what he said:

“Well, you’re on the phone aren’t you?”

I told him Sega was a great company, and it would be great if he ended up with them. But I wanted him to hear me out. He didn’t really respond—just said, “Yeah?”

We sat there, no one saying anything. Then I said, can I come see it?

I remember he said, see what. What do you mean. I said, I wanted to come see the game. I told him I’d fly down the next day. Devin sounded shocked. He said:

“You want to come here?” Devin said. “To my house?”

I said I didn’t care where it was. I just had to see this game.

So I caught a red eye to SFO, checked in at the Hyatt Regency and the next morning drove out to Devin’s house. Well, his mom’s house. Just a normal suburban house.

Linda answered the door. She was about to walk the dog, Rufo. She called Devin out. He was wearing a long black t-shirt and sweatpants. He smelled like BO. He took me into his room. There was laundry on the floor, posters with Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair on the wall. On his desk was a bust of Nixon.

He seemed like he was trying to be on his best behavior, but it was hard. Like he didn’t know what to do with someone in his room. He asked if I wanted anything to drink. I just said no, I want to see your game.

He fired it up. It was rough looking, but I immediately saw what the hype was about. He started to play it in front of me, but I stopped him. I said I wanted to play it, feel it for myself.

It was great.

I played through the first two levels. The sense of lift when you got the rocket boots in level two felt like… It didn’t feel like anything I’d ever seen in a game. It felt like flying, not clumsy, not difficult, but, well… like you gravity had failed and you were free. Yet also, the game was creepy. The enemies seemed to stalk you. This was before there were survival horror games or anything, but it wasn’t like that. It was something else.

By the time I got to level three, Linda had come home. She knocked on the door and asked if we wanted lunch. I said yeah, I was famished. Tuna fish sandwiches and potato chips and coke.

Devin asked what I thought. And I told him:

“I think you have a hit.”

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

Nintendo. May as well have said “Godzilla.” I just gave up. We were so trivial compared to them.

Adam Greenberg, Head of US Software, NEC

We offered him a great deal. He would’ve had total freedom with us. Who knows what he could’ve done.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

I told Devin that as far as I was concerned, this was the new Mario—Mario After Dark. Zelda After Dark. This would carry us past Sega to a whole new category of gamers. And I wanted it out for Christmas, which at this point was about five months away. We’d put our full weight behind it. But we couldn’t fuck around with protracted negotiations. If he didn’t want Dark Cities to be the anchor title for our holiday season, then I needed to find something else. I offered him a great deal: half a million dollar advance against royalties, ownership of the game with exclusive distribution rights for Nintendo and the creation of a new imprint for his games. A whole independent studio for him.

I looked at him and I saw a DaVinci, a Spielberg. Imagine you could sign an exclusive with Spielberg at the beginning of his career. So that’s what I did. Threw an extra $200k for the exclusive rights to his games for the next ten years. I gave him a week to sign.

Billy McKay, Devin’s Brother

My brother was ecstatic. Nintendo didn’t just want his game. They wanted him. We took the contract down to Frank to review. Frank told us he wasn’t that familiar with the game industry. He also said that it was a pretty restrictive contract, which can be fine if you want to be exclusive to Nintendo. He told us he wouldn’t do ten years though. He said maybe two or three, but ten years is basically forever.

So Devin called Bill, and said that the 10 years was too long. Bill said that if we lost the exclusive—Bill said two, three years was basically nothing, it was one game—that they were a lot less excited. Probably have to reduce all the pay outs.

So Devin said fuck it. He signed.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

My biggest challenge at this point was that we needed to spin up the whole marketing machine with basically no time. For a major release, we’d usually be planning for a year or more, but there wasn’t time. We needed to make a huge splash before the SegaCD came out and dominated the adult gamer market. We’d be working overnight, the weekend, seven days a week to get this rolling.

Also, we needed to port the game to SNES from Devin’s computer. Well, and Devin needed to finish the game. I told him to just send whatever levels he had so they could get started. Of course all the major studios were busy with their own holiday tentpoles at the time, but I was recommended a team in Korea that had done some work on Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball. I forget the name of the studio now. They said they could get the port done in three months, which would give us barely enough to manufacture the carts and get them into stores by December 5th.

Mike Kelly, VP of Games, Broderbund

A few weeks later Devin called me. He thanked me.

Linda McKay, Devin’s mother (Diary extract)

Devin hasn’t been sleeping. Since the Nintendo thing, I’m finding him awake at all kinds of odd hours. He needs to shower. He told me he had a month to finish his game, which just meant the last two levels. He said it normally takes six weeks per level, so this is a real rush.

He’s also been calling Korea. The phone bill is going to look horrible this month. Devin said that he asked Bill to put him in touch with the Korean programmers, but Bill told Devin to just focus on the game. Bill’s probably right, but Devin just gets fixated and doesn’t let go.

It’s amazing sometimes what Devin will do, when he gets fixated. He took a break, actually left the house, which he hasn’t done for a while. Went to Waldens at Serramonte Center, came back with a Korean-English phrasebook. That’s how he’s calling—he’s dialing Seoul and trying to ask their operators in his broken Korean about game developers. He told me he even talked to a few! But no one related to his game.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

The campaign was coming together beautifully. Right at the jump, I pulled a few strings and got us a profile in Rolling Stone—headline: “Nintendo, Not Just for Kids Anymore.” Sure Sega was outselling us at the time, but Nintendo was still a byword for video games in general. We had to reclaim that mantle. The profile featured me, Devin and some of the guys from Rare, who were developing a Die Hard 2 game for us.

Devin was a terrible interview. He wasn’t nervous or anything. In fact, he probably should have been more nervous. When they asked him about the game, instead of highlighting its action or how it put you in the driver seat, made you feel like you were in the movie, he started going on about how it was going to reveal the truth, show people how the world really worked, just nonsense. Not what we’re trying to emphasize. The theme of the article was that gaming is for everyone and that in the future, people will be lifelong gamers.

Lynn, the reporter, she was very gracious and agreed to leave all that stuff out.

Adam Greenberg, Head of US Software, NEC

The idea of “Nintendo After Dark” was absurd. Look even here we are, twenty years later and what does Nintendo sell? Link, Mario, kids stuff. Where’s Nintendo’s Resident Evil? Hell, where is its Call of Duty? It was never going to work. Nintendo just didn’t have the brand flexibility, I don’t know what they were thinking.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Devin was tearing himself apart about the Korean developers. No one would tell him anything about them, and he was sure they were stealing his work. One time on the phone he said that he might start sending them fake code and just port it himself. I told him not to do that, that was insane. I told him, look, they’re probably great, Nintendo’s putting a lot of money into this—this was right after the Rolling Stone interview, and shortly after that, there was an issue of Nintendo Power featuring Dark Cities on the cover. They even shipped those issues in a plastic bag, like a porno magazine with a red bar across the front that said 18+.

I came home for break, and he was freaking out about it again. He looked like shit, lost a lot of weight, wasn’t brushing his teeth, staying up all night coding. He said he was almost done. I said look, why don’t we go look at these people’s work. They’re pros. I asked what games they had made, and Devin said, well the only one he knew about was Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball. So we went to the mall, went to KB’s and they had it.

Have you ever played Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball? Horrible. Now it’s notorious as one of the worst Super Nintendo titles, but back then we didn’t have any lists. We were just shocked. It looked like shit. Played like shit. And these were the people porting my brother's game?

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

Devin was like a lot of sensitive creative types, high strung, didn’t understand the business. We were busy running this launch—successfully I might add. Shipping Nintendo Power in a plastic bag—huge coup, my idea. Kyoto hated it, but it got us articles in the New York Times, Tribune, LA Times. There was some real hype around this game. It was building towards being not just another video game, but a cultural event.

So yeah, I didn’t take Devin’s calls. He was calling me two to three times a day, what’s the name of the studio, how’s it coming, can I see what they’re working on, when can I see it, blah blah blah. We didn’t have time for that.

Mindy Stone, Development Manager, Nintendo

It was my job to liaise between Devin McKay and the contractors who were porting it. The company who we hired? Their name? Family Computing. Why did we choose them? They were known for being fast and pretty cheap. And they gave us a 360 deal, where they would do all the QA work too. The time constraints were brutal. I didn’t think they were realistic, but Family Computing swore up and down they could do it.

Devin McKay was easily the worst dev I’d ever dealt with. First he was different. Mostly I dealt with other people like me from other companies. It was their job, they understood what was going on etc. Devin McKay wasn’t like that at all. He was obviously just a guy in his room. He’d be on the phone with me, and I’d hear his mom watching Oprah in the background.

Let me stop here for a second: I’ll get to what was awful, but let me start with what was good about Devin. He sent everything in quickly. It was all on time. His documentation was immaculate, incredibly clear and helpful. He’d done his homework- he understood the SNES architecture in and out.

The problem was everything else. Like I said, mostly I’m dealing with other companies. They just send over whatever you need, and then that’s it. You only hear from them if there’s a problem. But Devin, every day, multiple times a day. I think Bill stopped talking to him. So I was his only contact at Nintendo. He’d ask me about when he would be receiving payment—I had nothing to do with that. He’d ask me if the contractors at Family had any comments. He’d ask me to set up a meeting with Family, he’d ask for their phone number. When I said I couldn’t do any of that, he’d say that it was unreasonable, that it’d be no big deal, just to make sure everything was going smoothly.

The worst part wasn’t just that he did this, but that he did it every day. I even told him at one point, you ask me every day and every day I say no, and he’d say well I’m hoping today is the day you say yes. He didn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t do the things he was asking, I didn’t have the power to do it.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

The Koreans finished on time, sending it to the factory. For the box art, I found these guys who had worked on this hot piece of Japanese animation—it was called Akira, great movie. Very futuristic. I wanted that energy for the box. We kept the Nintendo box stylings—the black outline, but pushed it to its limit. This was going to stand out on a rack.

The image was my idea: we had the protagonist with spiky blond hair jumping into the air, rocket boots on, with a tentacle wrapped around his ankle, and behind him, an ominous shadow. There was something scary about it, but also, thrilling. It had horror, but also high tech, flight, the future. But he can’t escape.

It’s one of the pieces I’m most proud of. I still keep the box in my cabinet.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

I was home for Thanksgiving when FedEx came with a review copy of Dark Cities SNES. Nintendo had already sent it out to EGM, GamePro, NextGen, GameFan and Tips & Tricks so it could be included in the December issues. Devin also told me that a bunch of non-gaming publications—the kind that don’t normally review games—were going to review it. The New York Times, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Magazine, Variety. He said it was going to be a major event.

Nintendo did a great job on the packaging. The box art was really cool, really captured everything Devin had put it into it.

Devin seemed freaked out. He kept turning the box over and over and in his hand, muttering is this real?

I didn’t really understand. Of course it was, it was right there. I said let’s play it.

Devin nodded but didn’t say anything. He handed me the box. I opened it up carefully, pulled out the grey cartridge, a big “REVIEW COPY” sticker on it. I slotted it into the SNES and booted it.

It was beautiful. Whatever doubts he had about the programmers melted as soon as we saw the first screen. It looked incredible. I offered Devin the controller but he shook his head. He wanted to watch.

It was smooth. Responsive. It was just like what Devin had built on his computer. I got through the first level, and started the second. Devin was smiling. Then I got to the first high jump.

And the rocket boots were missing.

This is the key thing: you needed the boots at this point. You could not go farther without the boots. You had to do a rocket jump to get to the street level of the city—you were chased into the sewers by reptoids, who were these suit-wearing reptilian aliens.

The boots just weren’t there. I figured maybe they got put in a different spot, so I ran back and forth across the second level. Nowhere. I attacked the walls. I deployed my explosive. I restarted the game, and crawled through the first level. No boots. I rescanned the second level, section by section. Nothing.

Devin took the controller from me. I said something like, maybe it’s just this copy. Lame, right? I watched him play for a while. It seemed wrong to walk away. I was saying things like “what the fuck”, but Devin was just staring at the TV, exploring pixel by pixel. I don’t think he heard me. Mom came in and asked how the game was. I told her there was a problem.

Devin was still at it the next morning.

Mindy Stone, Development Manager, Nintendo

My job ends when everything in a development cycle has been delivered. I don’t do QA or have anything to do with manufacture or distribution. That’s another department. Anyways, my crunch time goes through mid-October. I was on vacation for the two weeks after Thanksgiving. Yeah, I was at Club Med. I didn’t get any of Devin’s messages until I got back in December.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

It was a boy who cried wolf situation. Sure I knew Devin was calling me incessantly, but he had always done that. He was a pain in the ass. Also, I had played the game when I got my review copy. Just the first few minutes. It was beautiful. Look you just don’t expect anything like that, so yeah I found out when I got a call from Rick Stone in PR. He had a few off the record calls with a buddy from Tips and Tricks. Said we were going to get savaged. The game was “unplayable” and the “most ridiculous piece of corporate laziness since ET.” It was really unfair actually.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Devin started vomiting midway through Thanksgiving dinner. Obviously ruined the whole thing. He had been up all night trying to reach Nintendo HQ in Japan. He said that it had to be stopped, the game couldn’t be released like this. It couldn’t happen. He said they were trying to stop it. I really remember that, he kept saying they, they, like we all knew who he was talking about.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

Did I know we had a problem on our hands? Of course. This was a major problem, but the choices were really bad. We had already manufactured 200,000 copies of it. Sure, sure, we could have recalled it, but what good would that have done, really? Pull back all the copies, and then remake them? That wouldn’t have stopped the bad reviews. People talk like oh we could’ve just redone it and put it out again in I don’t know, April, but why even bother to release it then? Its reputation was already totally poisoned.

So I made the tough call. It’s possible there was a work around. Maybe the boots were just invisible, or maybe there was a way to work it. Hell, we figure it out, put it in Nintendo Power! And anyways, even if there wasn’t a work around, given the campaign we could probably move at least 50,000 copies. That’s better than nothing given the investment. It’s just a game, it’s not like someone’s gonna die from it. This isn’t like putting out a defective car.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Morning after Thanksgiving, Devin was going to drive to Redmond to talk to Bill in person. He said it had to be stopped, it couldn’t be released like this. I convinced him to wait the weekend, calm down a little. I nearly had a degree in Business Administration. These corporate types wouldn’t listen to you if you were coming in all crazy. You had to be cool. Also anyways no one was going to be there on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

But by Monday, there was no restraining him. I told him maybe he should send another letter. But Devin wasn’t going to be stopped.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

Of course I worked through Thanksgiving—it’s a Nintendo America tradition. Instead we give our employees what we call ‘Mariosgiving’ off on the 2nd Thursday of December. Thanksgiving is the high tide for us—Black Friday, the first few weeks of the holiday season—it’s the moment when we see what bets we’ve placed are going to hit. That year, we had the Zelda game, we had Actraiser, we had F-Zero and of course Dark Cities. Major properties.

I think that’s the thing, everyone really focuses on the Dark Cities thing, but you don’t think about all the successful launches we had. It was just one title amongst dozens we had coming out. It wasn’t even the most important title, you think some random game by some random designer is going to take more of our attention than Zelda?

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

By Monday night, Devin was in Redmond. He called me from a Motel 6. I calculated it—he must’ve stopped for no more than an hour in total. He asked how mom was—I said she was fine. He asked if she was upset—I said, well she put a lot of work into Thanksgiving dinner—I remember this so distinctly. He said:

“No, about my game. Is she upset about what happened to me?”

I said I don’t know, you know how Mom is.

“Yeah.” Devin said.

Mindy Stone, Development Manager, Nintendo

Mariosgiving? I’ve never heard of that. Who told you about that? Maybe it’s a marketing department thing. I know marketing and distribution are hard at it into December.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

I was at my desk by eight on Tuesday. It was turning out to be a great year for us overall. Zelda was turning into a big hit, no surprise there. The only hard spot was the Nintendo After Dark launch. The reviews for Dark Cities were embargoed until the 6th, but the hype was still strong. The launch date had been December 5th, but I decided to move it forward. Just get into stores now. Doing that—moving a launch date up like that—is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. But damned if we didn’t do it. My team and I got our hands in the weeds, calling warehouses, re-ordering delivery schedules, talking to the factory. There was some confusion for sure, but we got Dark Cities in stores fast.

What? Oh, I don’t want to talk about that. Listen, it’s not right. He was very troubled. Billy McKay said that? No, no. No one hurt him. No one got rough with him. He was out of control.

OK fine, here’s what happened. I was in my office, and my assistant Katie comes in. No, not my secretary—my secretary was Jennifer. This was my assistant. Katie comes in and says that Devin McKay is downstairs, and he wants to come see me. I couldn’t believe it. He was here? I told her to say that I was on vacation—that I was out of the country.

I’m in the office til around seven, as I had a couple calls with Kyoto. Apparently they just got their review copies of Dark Cities and they aren’t happy. Asking me how this could happen. I tell them it was the studio they suggested who are responsible, and I’m cleaning up the mess. It’s a real headache. I go to my car, and as I’m opening my door, Devin pops up. He had been hiding behind my car. He says, “Bill, I need to talk to you.” He looked very disturbed.

I tell this isn’t the time or place, or the way of doing this.

He starts jabbering on about how we can’t do this, we can’t launch the game, it’s fucked, it’s so fucked, they destroyed my game and so on etc.

I’m tired and also a little scared. He looked like a bum. I just didn’t even want to deal with it. I said something like, he can call me tomorrow and schedule a meeting or whatever. I just wanted to get him out of my face.

Then he says, and I couldn’t believe this, that we don’t have time, and that we need to go back inside, and stop the launch. Like there was some button at my desk I could press. As if I hadn’t spent all day speeding up the launch. Devin was walking towards me. One of his hands was in his pocket. I was worried he might have a knife.

I told him there were a lot of moving parts, that you can’t just turn it off, and that I had to leave, I had reservations.

Devin took another step close to me. He was close enough that I could smell him. He smelled like urine.

He was still going on as if I hadn’t said anything, about how there must be something we could do, a recall, and I raised my voice and interrupted him. I said, shut up and listen to me. You have a bright career ahead of you. Just forget about this and focus on the future.

And he said to me, it was so strange, he looked me in the eye and said, “What future?” Actually, he was yelling.

So that was it for me. I got in my car, and he said you can’t leave, we haven’t fixed this. He jammed his arm into my car door. Like that was going to stop me. I slammed my car door hard on his arm. I told him to get his damn arm out, and I started back the car up.

He yelled, you can’t leave, you can’t leave. I told him to remove his arm, though I was actually holding it in place. I was dragging him slowly with me. I’m not a violent person, but I really wanted to accelerate.

He suddenly realized the situation and started saying what are you doing. When he said that, I released the door, and he pulled his arm back. I drove off.

The next morning I called in around eight and asked security to check if Devin was anywhere nearby. They called me back thirty minutes later saying there was no sign of him. I told them that he was permanently banned from the campus.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

The game came out. I saw it at Toys “R” Us. It flopped. Sold maybe 20,000 copies.

Mindy Stone, Development Manager, Nintendo

Yeah, of course I heard about it. Total belly flop. The reviews were stunningly bad. I read them all. Worst game of the year. A total ripoff. A giant Nintendon't.

Linda McKay, Devin’s mother (Diary extract)

Since the game came out a few weeks ago, Devin has been on my phone constantly. No one can get through to me. He’s been calling the Nintendo office in Japan, game magazines, looking up journalists in the phone book. It seems he’s calling everyone he knows. His breath smells like rotten tuna fish. And the phone smells like that too. Today I had to insist he clean himself up, it’s disgusting. I gave him fresh clothes.

Adam Greenberg, Head of US Software, NEC

I got a call from Devin. It was such a fiasco. Never really expected something like that from Nintendo. To give context, this was probably the most notorious video game flop since ET.

Back then, video games were a big business but they weren’t taken seriously. They weren’t thought of as art, people didn’t identify as gamers. So it was rare for something to cross over into the mainstream consciousness. Obviously it was because of the hype around Dark Cities. It was some kind of Al Capone's vault situation.

How did Devin sound? Distraught, maybe drunk. I really felt for the guy. They screwed him bad. He kept talking about how Bill had tricked him. I knew Bill, he wasn’t a bad guy. It all just seemed like a gigantic mistake. I told Devin that it was terrible but he needs to dust himself off. He still had a publishing deal, and everyone knew he was talented. He just needed to come back with another game. I’ve had career setbacks, everyone does. I told him this wasn’t the end.

Mindy Stone, Development Manager, Nintendo

I had been told not to talk to Devin and to report any contact I had with him. But he kept calling me. He didn’t have anyone else to call at Nintendo. I felt sorry for him. So yeah, I took some of his calls. He seemed to really hate Bill. I didn’t know Bill at all. He said Bill had assaulted him in the parking lot, that Bill had conned him, stolen his game.

He kept asking me to talk to people on his behalf. It was amazing, how thorough he was. I have no idea how he knew who these people were—it’s not like we published the org chart. He asked for example if I could put him through to Glen Eagles, who was the VP of Distribution, or Kazuo Mori, who headed US Creative. Of course I told him no, I couldn’t do any of that. I told him I could only listen to him.

The lawsuit? Yeah he mentioned it to me. I didn’t really care. I wasn’t going to get involved. I just asked Devin to keep me out of it.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

The lawsuit came up a few weeks after the release. Devin kept saying how they couldn’t do this to him, it was against his contract, he had rights—all the stuff people say when they’re going to sue someone. He said he was going to sue Bill personally for deception and lying—which I told him wasn’t against the law, but he didn’t listen to me. He was going to sue Nintendo to force them to “make it right.” I wasn’t super clear on exactly what that meant, but I think he wanted them to fix the game and release it again. He also had $700,000. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea, but he was determined. So we went to see Frank Greenberg.

Frank Greenberg, Partner, Greenberg & Daniels

I want to make it clear that I have permission from Billy for everything I’m about to say. I’d never break confidentiality in any kind of normal circumstance.

Billy and Devin met me in my office. Devin had brought along a copy of his contract with Nintendo. Obviously I was familiar with it. He wanted to bring suit with the aim of getting full rights back to his game, and also to require Nintendo to re-release the game in working order.

I was clear with him: first, that he did not have a strong case. Nintendo in my opinion had fully fulfilled their side of the bargain. They had paid him out, they had released his game. I pointed out to him that they had a right to make changes to the game for distribution on their platform. They didn’t have to be good changes. Of course the whole situation was a mess, but that doesn’t mean the law offers a remedy. The law isn’t about justice, it’s just a set of rules for conducting business.

I told him that the very best he could get- assuming everything broke his way, that he had a great lawyer and a sympathetic judge would for him to be released from his contract. He would probably have to give back some of his advance in that situation. I was clear that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted.

Of course I didn’t take the case, it was a loser.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

I told Devin to listen to Frank. But he didn’t. He just did what he always does. Eventually he did find a lawyer who would take his case. Some shyster, Harold Morris I think.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

I was in Kyoto when Nintendo got served. I had to wait until I got back to get personally served. Nintendo America graciously covered my attorney’s fees. In my opinion, the Japanese were too upset about it. They don’t understand how litigious Americans are. To them, this was embarrassing.

At my personal settlement conference, part of what Devin was demanding from me was $50,000 for emotional suffering and an apology. In the apology, he wanted me to say that I had tricked him, that I had taken advantage of him, and that I had ruined his game intentionally and that I was very sorry. It was crazy. I offered him the deal of a lifetime.

Instead, we offered to let Devin out of his contract, and that he could keep $100,000. We wouldn’t give up rights to Dark Cities—it was Nintendo policy to hold onto all IP, but otherwise you know, we weren’t that interested in continuing the relationship. He said no.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

The lawsuit dragged on for two years. I don’t know if Harold Morris was just bad or if the case was hopeless, but it got dismissed with prejudice about three months in. Then they appealed that, which meant bringing on another lawyer to help work that, where the dismissal was affirmed after a few more hearings. So then they appealed it again, to the California Supreme Court, which after a few more months decided to not hear the case. Devin wanted to go federal, but by that point the money was gone, so that was it.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

The last communication we received about the lawsuit was a request to let him out of the contract, like we had offered before. At this point it had been a few years, and given everything, we declined to cancel the contract. It was thought that while we probably did not want to work with him, we did not want a talent like that going to any of our competitors.

Devin McKay (from S01/E22 ‘The Game Masters’ interview, 2003)

I thought that the release and the lawsuit was going to be the low point of my life, but it turned out to be the first of many low points.

Linda McKay, Devin’s mother (Diary extract)

Devin has been trying to get work. I tell him he should look for an apartment, get his life together. It was supposed to be six months, but it’s been two years now. He says that no one would return his calls. Billy thinks it’s because of the suit, that his name is mud. Probably. Stupid.

Roger Dyne, Head of Development, Broderbund

I ran into Devin at Serramonte Center. He was looking disheveled and drinking an Orange Julius. I was there with my kids. We chatted for a bit, and he asked if he could come back to Broderbund. Personally, I was open to it. I felt really sorry for him. Just a disaster.

The problem though is that when I brought up the idea of him coming back, the issue of his contract came up. The details of his agreement with Nintendo were well known in the industry at that point. It was unclear if Nintendo would have an exclusive right to any work he did, even if it was for another company. Personally, I don't think that would’ve held up, but more importantly, at Broderbund we didn’t have the resources or desire to find out. Just the fact that Nintendo could raise a stink made it so hiring Devin just wouldn’t make sense.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

I know after Devin couldn’t get a job, he decided to try to mend fences with Nintendo. He put together a demo for a Castlevania game. He made two levels using assets from Dark Cities. One where you play as Victor Belmont, the vampire hunter and another where you play Dracula. The idea was you alternated between them until they both met. He had some crazy idea about the player controlling both of them in the final fight.

He also worked on a puzzle game he called Bubble where you tried to grow a bubble bigger and bigger. You could make the bubble out of different materials—soap and water and eventually bubbles made of steel, and then fill it with different things. I remember he spent a lot of time reading about fluid dynamics to get the physics right.

Anyways, he sent them off to Nintendo but never heard back from them.

Bill Letherrer, Executive Vice President, Nintendo

I don’t know if we ever received any work from Devin. We refused all deliveries from him. I know there were a few but I don’t know what the content was.

But yeah, after that Nintendo After Dark was done. The Die Hard game was cancelled, although that eventually evolved into Goldeneye so that was a win. I was moved onto the Super Kid Icarus project, which was very exciting. I didn’t end up staying that much longer, as I moved over to Sega to work on the 32x project. Really amazing, totally ahead of its time. Then after that, I actually came back to Nintendo for a bit to work on the CD console we were exploring, but then I ended up at Sony to work on the Playstation. Currently, I’m the President of Gaming Ecosystems at Microsoft.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Eventually Devin gave in and just got a programming job. I think he worked at PeopleSoft. Then he worked at Oracle, then Cisco, then Intel. He never lasted that long. Ten years passed, and his contract expired. I also think just everyone forgot about him by that point. By then the Playstation 2 was out, everything was so different. Devin tried to go back to video games, and ended up at Microsoft actually. But it didn’t take. I think he lasted a year there.

Linda McKay, Devin’s mother (Diary extract)

Feeling terrible today. Devin is back, thank god. I was not happy about it at first, but it turned out to be a blessing. He’s being helpful. Since this all started, I can barely take care of anything. The house is a mess. I need to balance my checkbook, but I get foggy just looking at it. Devin’s been so caring and helpful. He’s been cleaning the house, handling my medication and keeping track of it all. He’s a good son.

Billy McKay, Devin’s brother

Mom died in 2007 from breast cancer. Devin had been taking care of her, which I really appreciated. I had my own family and everything. Devin was really upset when mom died—I was sad too obviously, but he was on a whole other level. After the funeral, I asked if he wanted to come stay with us for a while, but he said he wanted to go back to the house. I was a little annoyed because I wanted to start getting the house ready to sell and I didn’t think he had any plans to move out.

I didn’t hear from Devin for a few days, which wasn’t unusual. It was a really busy time for me, we had a few new openings happening all at once, so I was dashing around like a mad man. A week went by, and I called him. He didn’t pick up. He didn’t call me back. Which was strange because Devin always returned calls. I called again.

I decided to go by the house on the weekend. Immediately I knew something was wrong when I went inside. The house smelled really bad. I found Devin in the bathtub. He was grey and blotchy.

The autopsy found an overdose of oxycodone. I guess he had taken mom’s pills. I don’t know if it was an accident.

Bumble Bob, YouTube Streamer

I have a series called Unbeatable, about those annoyingly hard/confusing NES and SNES games. I did Jurassic Park, Silver Surfer, The Lion King, TMNT. Of course I had heard about Dark Cities, but never played it. I kept getting requests, I think because of a meme that had been going around that separated games into Dark Souls Hard (grindy, precise, difficult) vs Dark Cities Hard (totally impossible).

I figured this would be a short stream. Just play through the first level, then comedically run around the second level screaming until I threw my chair and turned it off in frustration. Easy content.

Definitely started that way, definitely got really frustrated, but then something happened: somehow, I hit a glitch that sent you up through the un-passable pipe. And at the top of the pipe what’s there? The rocket boots. They had been there the whole time, in a nearly inaccessible location. I couldn’t believe it.

This of course became a big thing. It was the video game equivalent of finding the missing footage from The Magnificent Ambersons. This game that had been basically lost was now open. So I became the first person to ever play all the way through Dark Cities SNES.

The reason no one had found this before is because the glitch required just stupid precision. I couldn’t recreate it—thank God for save states—and it took months before someone figured out exactly what I had done to trigger it.

After this, Dark Cities SNES became a thing for a moment. Unopened copies of the original cartridge would go for I don’t know, $10,000 dollars. They were very rare. It became a real collectible. And once this trick became available, people played it.

Oh, what? OK, I’ll speak on that. Here’s the thing. I think the reason why people at the time or whatever said oh this is so different, this is so spooky or whatever is because back then, well, it was really different. There were no horror games, no games about secret conspiracies or mind control. It’s like when you see an old horror movie, and it’s so boring and schlocky now, but at the time this was the scariest shit ever! But no, this isn’t Silent Hill 2. Mostly now, I think people reacting to it, like that it’s so messed up, I think it’s a bit.

How was the game? I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite, but yeah, it’s a good game. Kinda falls apart after the second level. I’d rate it 6.5/10.