“If I can do this, you guys can do this, anybody could do this.”
At the age of 57, Chris Mandra has just released his first video game.
This is something I find truly remarkable.
But it doesn’t happen.
What Mandra has done is nothing short of extraordinary.
Mandra cheerfully admits to knowing almost nothing about games.
“I’m just not a very good gamer,” he says when we chat.
“I’ve only played a handful of games.”
“But that was it,” he says.
His passion is music.
He plays in bands.
During one memorable gig in 2012, the didgeridoo player collapsed on stage after suffering cardiac arrest.
When they got him to the hospital, they were preparing him to be an organ donor.
They went through five rounds of whatever their protocol is that ends up with the electroshock to the chest.
So they did it one more time, and his heart came back to life.”
But Mandra has tended to avoid the idea of pursuing a career as a musician.
That last job coincided with the idea of buying GTA to listen to the radio stations.
His latest job is teaching computer science at a high school.
“As a 57-year-old man, there aren’t many opportunities.”
Still, he’s enjoying his career change.
The path to the release of Mandra’s first video game started back in 2019.
That sound was originally made in 1857, which was a full 20 years before Edison invented the phonograph.
How they’re not different at all from people like Grand Wizzard Theodore, who discovered scratching and cutting.
“But it was the crank that inspired me.
If it didn’t have a crank, I wouldn’t have had the idea.”
But the turntable that supplies her backing track isn’t working.
If you crank it too slow, she’s gonna sound sharp and be mad.”
The bootlegger Sweets Mackson was voiced by Mandra’s friend Lizzy Dean Holyfield from the apartment upstairs.
The game is dedicated to his memory.
Although Mandra had a background in computer music, he needed help with programming.
“It’s funny because he’s, like, half my age,” says Mandra.
“I’m older than his dad, but I would consider him one of my best friends.”
Mandra explained his idea to make a Playdate game, and Dimitry enthusiastically agreed to come on board.
He solved problems that I didn’t even know would have been problems.
Mandra hasn’t experienced any of that.
“I have not met a single person that I thought was full of subterfuge or unkind.
He’s like, why don’t I make a game for the Sega [Dreamcast]?
Why don’t I make a game for the Game Boy?
Then he does these things like pop-up books.”
Mandra adds that Panic has been remarkably helpful over the years.
You have an idea, and they want to help you get your idea through the gate."
He adds that every game developer he has encountered has been more than happy to chat and share advice.
“But is this the games industry?
I don’t think so.
I feel like we’re cool kids on the outskirts of the games industry.”
At the age of 57, Chris Mandra has just released his first video game.
And it has done very well.
“People have noticed it and have responded to it, it’s just extraordinary,” says Mandra.
“I never would have expected it.”
He adds that working on the Playdate has been a joy.
“It’s got this incredible community where everybody wants to lift you up.
Mandra thinks there is no way he would have made his way into video games through the traditional route.
He cites a Hungarian idiom that roughly translates as ‘find a little gate’.
But let’s celebrate Mandra’s achievement.
At 57 he is making waves with his debut video game.
And I am in awe.
“I feel in a very holistic way, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
