I miss TSGK

[Goemar]

First, my old account (Goemar) is tied to an email that sadly no longer exists. So, new account I guess. If some nice mod can change my email on my old account so I can get back in it. That would be great.

I doubt many people I knew are still here. 

But I don't know where else to post this. And I want someone to see it.


It'll be 17 years come 3rd February that N-finity, Webster Swenson died - at the age of 22 by a diabetic coma in his sleep.

It's a bit early, but it's been on my mind like nothing else these past few days.

To many of you this won't make sense. But years gone I was a sprite ripper/capturer. The guys who get the graphics from games so people could make Flash animations, their own fan games, animated gifs and now, mostly YouTube videos. This year I was contacted by someone using my R-Type sprite rips to make a port of the game for the Mega Drive/Genesis. It's great to know people still use my work.

Now days, The Spriter's Resource is easily the biggest sprite site on the Internet. And Dazz (who also does DYKG) did a great job of making it so. But before that The ShyGuy Kingdom was king. Not only did it have more content but it was infinitely more well organised.

Basically in the world of sprites - it was a big deal.

The first sprites I ever "ripped" were for Wacky Races on the NES. I loved that game and wanted to make something using the sprites in The Games Factory (which is now MultiMedia Fusion [2] - which is what Noitu Love 2 was made on). No where had them - so I got them myself.

I was bit by the spriting bug. I loved it. I worked with my good friend Locke_gb7 (who now mostly does NES soundtracks on YouTube) from NES-SNES-Sprites (which was a much smaller site but grew a lot after our friendship) to build up my own site RetroGameZone.co.uk - which I was stupidly proud of.

Submitting and having my work accepted at TSGK was a great feeling. And the forums there (they were the Captain N forums, as TSGK was part of the Captain N Network) became my home on the Internet. I loved that place. I guess it was like how I felt on Qtoid before Qtoid shot itself. I was on there all the time. Nesa Mouse, Stewie_for_Gov, Blue and Yellow MegaMan (I'm sure his username was Flash something), Wax - had some truly truly great times. I'd never been happier.

N-finity was my inspiration to be better at ripping/capturing sprites and in my head became a kind of mentor figure. He was the best at what he did. And had created a community I will always have fond memories of.

And then, one day, his father joined the forums and gave us the news. He was gone. I cried. I cried for a man I had never met. Who's real face I do not know. It hurt. It still hurts.

Webster, N-finity, was a coder. And The ShyGuy Kingdom was built in such a way that on paper it shouldn't work. We couldn't get it working. I became staff for a bit trying to do submissions but each one would break the website in some way. Bandwidth was a constant issue. We were kids with no money. The site was dying. The content would eventually go over to The Spriters Resource after some talks with them. One by one the forums emptied. We didn't say our goodbyes - we all just kind of drifted away. We didn't have a community to go to and we simply grew apart. I wish I had stayed in contact, even if it was simply to say hello every now and again.

I miss you Webster. You gave me my first home away from home. Our own little pocket on the Internet.

And they were truly some of the happiest times of my life.

It was such a joy.

[Ton]

I can't believe it's been 17 years already.
Web was one of the most important people I ever became friends with on the internet. He was the first person I knew who took sprite ripping seriously, the first person I knew who encouraged me to keep making pixel art, and the first openly gay person I knew.
He really helped me become a more open and accepting person, and he never knew it.

I wasn't as close to Web as you were, but I still talked to him almost daily for a few years. He was a really interesting, smart, and ambitious guy. I hope we're carrying on his legacy, and I hope he's proud of what he's inspired.

[Raccoon Sam]

Have to agree with Ton about the part "he was the first person I knew who took sprite ripping seriously."
Back in the early 2000s it felt like many people, me included, just wanted to get rips done, sheet them somehow, submit, set 'n forget, whereas I think Webster was the only one of us who actually paid an immense amount of attention to detail and ensured that everything was in top notch condition. Even going as far as having them on a transparent background, which was very rare back then.
Pretty sure it was WaxPoetic who dropped the news and I was pretty devastated, not having dealt with the loss of an internet friend before.
I could ramble on an on and I do have a lot of good memories talking with him on MSN Messenger (or was it AIM?). He left a great legacy and I think everyone remembers him very fondly. Shame he passed at such a young age :C

gone, but never forgotten
Webster Swenson 1984-2007