The Dig Museum - GO BACK

Exclusive interview with Ryan "Thrik" Williams.

BEHIND THE MAGIC
by Santiago Méndez (Sam)

I started this interview on March 25th and I finished it last week, so try to understand that my questions where made in different moments.
I'm sure you all have visited Ryan "Thrik" Williams sites (Grim Fandango Network and Razputin's Domain). Prepare yourself to jump inside his mind, in a very Psychonautic way.

Well, come on in, have a sit. How are you today?

I'm as fine as fine can get. I am sat in my chair (which is very soft, by the way) whilst snacking on the mighty meal that is marmite on cheese on toast on cheese on toast. It's very unhealthy, and is the perfect way to begin my evening. I'm doing web design, which is mostly what my life seems to consist of these days. ¬

So, why don't you tell us a little bit about your (distinguished) life?

My life? What is this, some kind of interrogation? But since you asked so nicely, I'll explain. I'm a very nice person who goes by the name Ryan Williams in the real world, currently residing in the glorious area of England that is Nottinghamshire. I'm on year two of a three year stint at college, studying multimedia. The college is full of goths and emos, who make me weep on a daily basis. One day I will go and shoot them all, I swear by the Gods. [Not another Columbine. I'm just tired of cliches]

I like to spend my spare home time doing constructive things, ranging from highly exciting tasks such as scooping out the latest PSYCHONAUTS information, to producing music, to level design. In the future, I intend to either move into University and take further study with 3D modeling and animation, or go for an internship in the games industry. That's where I'm planning to end up, you see. Be nice to me and I may put your name on a beer can. Wouldn't that be hot?

Ok, stop it. That was enough. Too much information. This is a PG-13 website did you know that? There are families with their children reading what you say. So watch your mouth. Now tell me about your websites.

Oh man, my websites? Well, I've had far too many to count off hand, but the ones you're probably the most familiar with are the Grim Fandango Network (grimfandango.net) and Razputin's Domain (razputin.net). The former of the two is pretty much where I started off in the Mojo community, back in the wonderful year that was 2001. Or maybe it was 2000. I really do forget which.

ANYWAY.. I approached the webmaster of the GFN's most popular hosted site, Grim Fandango Central, and asked if I could join them in their plans for dominance of the Grim Fandango world. They said I could be their links section updater. Yes, their links section updater. Being the naive little barely pubescent git that I was, I took this role very seriously. I even designed a whole flash interface and everything for this links section, man. I felt so important. So appreciated. So needed. So.. loved.

Moving on, I got a taste for this whole "being part of a site" thing, and decided to ask to be a news poster. Eventually, I moved onto doing news for the GFN, and ultimately had the webmaster role handed down to me once the existing chap had gotten burnt out from the role. Unfortunately, there is little to no new GF news ever anymore, which leaves the GFN in a slightly obsolete position. It's not a network anymore, and it has nothing to post about. It's really quite upsetting. You may have to hold me.

Why didn't you wait (10 years, like I did) to release Razputin.net once the game was available?

Often before a game's release, there's at least one site around which becomes a sort of hub for that game. It highlights media coverage from other sites, saving people interested in the game from having to go and track all that down themselves, and usually comes up with its own news and content. It also goes into a lot more depth than generic gaming media sites.



I noticed that although some sites were covering Psychonauts to an extent, none were giving it to the undivided attention that it deserves. So, backed up by the mighty Mojo and a total wealth of information on the game, I decided to go ahead and do it myself.

I could have waited, but there's often a lot of interest in a game before its release, causing people to resort to Googling and such to get more information on it. If there's nowhere to go, they might get the impression that the game isn't as cool as they first thought because nobody's got a site about it. Plus, most of them crave easy to download screenshots, videos and information without any dodgy signup procedures like most other sites require.

So, yeah. I released it early so that I could give gamers all the information they need in relation to the game, hopefully convincing them to walk into a shop and buy it in a month's time. And I don't get paid by Majesco for this. How kind am I?


Razputin.net is linked on Psychonauts official website and at Double Fine Productions, and it was remarked by Tim Schafer. And is also linked in The Dig Museum as well. How do you feel about this?

It was pretty surprising to see so much support so soon. Within a week or so of the site being up, I was linked to from two high traffic sites that are obviously a lot higher on the food chain than myself, which was a really nice encourager to put my absolute best into the site. Not only that, but probably the man I respect the most in the gaming industry pimped the site by mouth in front of a live audience on one of the largest gaming sites ever. "I feel good about it" would be putting it very bluntly. :-P

Do you smoke a pipe (like Sherlock) while you design your websites?

No. I'm not really one for smokey things. Once I had a cigar, and it left this really bad taste in my mouth for a few days. There's also the traumatic story of when I was microwaving a boxed pizza which was half eaten from the delivery earlier, which then promptly set on fire while I upstairs having a piss. I returned to find the top of the microwave completely scorched black, with flames all over the top of the box. I soon resolved the situation with some water, but it was a total adrenaline rush.

Needless to say, I don't microwave pizza anymore.

You have the insanity... of a Manatee, don't you agree? (entire catchphrase ©2002 Double Fine Productions. Used without permission)

Yeah. Probably.

Tell us the truth, you are just a monkey with a keyboard, aren't you? AREN'T YOU!?

Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

I'm just happy to see you. Perv.
Are you constantly fighting against Mixnmojo for the most fresh news about Psychonauts?

I don't consider Mojo a competitor, no. I'm in constant touch with the guys who run Mojo via IRC, and we're pretty good friends anyway. Any links that either of us get are generally slapped into the IRC channel anyway, at which point the other is either "Pfft, we're too good to post that garbage!" or ":D". Not only that, but we're always advertising each other anyway. The idea is that people visit both.

Are you planning on selling Razputin.net mugs?

No. I was once drinking a cup of PG Tips tea from a mug, when the handle fell off and completely burnt all of my "area". It's not even funny either. I had to get all sorts of surgery done to rectify the situation.

Have you pre-ordered Psychonauts?

No. I'm holding on for the PC demo, so that I can gauge whether or not my (shoddy) computer will be able to run the game on its highest graphical settings. If it can't, then I'll have to resort to using my emergency money on a new Xbox so that I can play the slightly less pretty version smoothly.

Why do you have a fancy domain like razputin.net? Do you pay for it?

I wanted a domain that is easily memorable, instantly identifyable as a Psychonauts site, and short. I generally buy full domains for any site that I run, since they're.. well, fancy. The domain was helpfully paid for by Huz, a Worms Armageddon and Mojo enthusiast, who refused to let me send him the money for it. He's so lovely.

We originally tried to get a psychonauts.extension, domain but unfortunately there were no top level domains available of that particular word at the time. So, we settled with the second to most obvious thing associated with Psychonauts. The main character.

Why did you choose to have the uncreative name of: 'Razputin's Domain'?

There wasn't really any consideration put into the site's name at all when the domain was registered. The idea of "Razputin's Domain" simply came to me while I was designing it due to its ability to be related to the domain name itself, or the more literal interpretation of being Razputin's territory.

Here are some free samples of names you could have used:
- Bootcamp
- Psychic Scumm
- Interactive Psychology
- Freud Interpretation
- Microsoft rejections
- PSY FI
- Razputin's wakoland
- Psycholand
- Psychonet
- Pssssssssss
- Untitled
- RAZ MY A*#
- Frontal Lobotomy
- Eat my pants, Sigmund!
- I don't wanna go to school
- Triple fine
- Shake the brain
- Yellow is a color (ok, COLOUR...you english fellow)
- Razputin's Dignity
- Psychonauts Museum
- 875 ways of saying 'pig'
- The Dig Museum
- Psychonauts for Dummies
- Analyze THIS
- Stuanohcysp
- Saving private Ryan
and so on.......
Do you like any of this titles?

Simply beautiful! Tell you what, the next time I set up a site, I'll let you take care of the naming process. Deal?

Why not?
Tell me about your latest dream you can remember.

In my attempts to learn how to lucid dream, I have utterly failed. However, a side-effect of writing down my dreams every morning is that I now have almost flawless dream recall on a daily basis, assuming that I get a decent 8~ hours of sleep. Last night's was a little strange, though. For some reason I was in a building resembling the Half-Life 2 map, "Lockdown". There was an incredibly attractive woman in the room too, getting beaten to death by two vortigaunts (google it if you haven't played HL2) with.. blankets. However, the more they beat her, the more intense pleasure she seemed to derive from it. After she was bleeding, on the floor, and on the verge of death, they came along to me and hit me with the.. blankets. Then the dream ended.

I have very disturbing dreams.

Now let's talk about your childhood...let's go back in time...(time travel music)

There really isn't a lot to my childhood. I didn't have any horrific accidents, I didn't lose any parents, and it was generally very uneventful. I did however grow up with the Dizzy games, which gave me endless hours of joy. I remember inviting all my friends around for some group Dizzying, which was just great. I used to play Scorched Earth a lot, which probably relates to why I now play at least an hour of Worms Armageddon on a daily basis.

Your new Razputin.net design is really great and professional. Do you work as a webdesigner? (if you don't you should)

Man, thanks. I don't get compliments very often. Usually people either just nod in acknowledgement and usher me into some other kind of labour, or tell me to go and eat a trout. I don't work as a webdesigner, and I probably never will, despite being on a multimedia course at college which has a huge web design element to it. Some people probably think that's kind of weird. The fools, they fail to see my logic.

Are you naked right now?....Wait! I don't wanna know! LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOUU!!!

No, but I wish I was. I love the feeling of freeness and liberty that sitting at the desk naked gives you. Although, the leather seat doesn't really agree with my philosophy too well.

Let's talk about your favourite things:

Movie?

In all honesty, probably Saving Private Ryan. I've always admired World War 2 films, and this is a damn good one. That's not to exclude all the other past classics though, such as Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes! Watch them.

Director?

Spielburg [It's Spielberg. The "E" and the "U" are three keys away from each other. What where you thinking?]. Whilst there's always some shitcocky films with any director, he's outputted too many classics in my book to really not consider him my favourite.

Book?

I really don't read very often, so I can't give a truly valid response to this. I read Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers a few years ago though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So, I guess that'd have to fit into this slot.

Author?

See above.

Musician?

Hans Zimmer is probably my favouriter composer, with Danny Elfman coming close behind. I'm a huge soundtrack junkie, as the people who I haunt on IRC know due to my constant "Man, X is so awesome. God." comments. Hans has just created some awesome stuff during his time, although in recent years he's failed to really do anything groundbreaking, covering past ground more than anything else. The same goes for Elfman.

TV series?

Band of Brothers, without a doubt. I mean, there really isn't room to describe the sheer brilliance of that programme. It's like a thousand varieties of good all squished into one series. It's like a mountain of magnificence. The pinnacle of perfection. The epitome of excellence. The onslaught of awe. The.. you get the point, no? [Totally]

Food?

Whilst it's a guilty pleasure, there's a stunning chip shop in town. For those of you not fully equipped with knowledge on the workings of the British man, a chip shop is a small building which sells bags of thick, tasty, greasy, salty, vinegary, dripping chips. They are made on the fly, and taste awesome. There's hundreds upon hundreds of them to every square mile of the country, and the food produced would make Mother Teresa come flying out of her grave in an orgasmic frenzy at the mere mention of the matter. When chips from the aforementioned chip shop are combined with the curry they sell, it becomes the physical, edible manifestation of sex.

Ok, now let's go back to your dream. I think it's very interesting so let's analyze it.
Do you felt attracted by the incredibly attractive woman?

It's a pretty weird concept, really. I never could remember the face of the woman in the dream, so it's difficult to tell whether she really was attractive or not. However, I seemed to just know that she was. Dreams can do that kind of thing, you see. So whilst I was being told to find her attractive, I really cannot remember if I should have or not. In the dream itself I never really did anything more than acknowledge her attractiveness, though. Man, why did you have to and bring up that dream? I've only just finished speaking with the counsillor about it...

Are you afraid of the Vortigaunts [I have altavisted it (altavista.com beats google.com which beats yahoo.com which beats cia.gov)]?

GOD DAMN!!

Nah, I'm not really afraid of vortigaunts. In fact, it's completely the opposite. Whilst most other people that I speak with find them utterly unsavoury, I personally find them to be extremely cute. There's something about their one eye and the way they look at you which is darling. Additionally, they have a really funky yoda-type voice which just seals them in the halls of radicalania. Vortigaunts rule.

Are you a masochist?

No. I do, however, thoroughly enjoy watching others' misfortune and misery. There's something about it which sends ripples of laughter throughout even the hardiest of people. I mean, come on. Let's say you're walking down the street about ten feet behind another bloke, on your way to work or something. Now imagine that he, without any warning or indications of the event whatsoever, suddenly falls to the ground and instantly breaks his jaw on the pavement. How could you NOT laugh at that?! It'd just be so random and unexpected, and only after you've had at least two seconds of amusement would your face suddenly move from ":D" to ":o", and your care/sympathy emotions kick in.

When I say....blanket, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

A baby.

If you could turn this dream into a very perfect relaxed and lovely dream, how would it be?

The vortigaunts would use their crazy alien powers to teleport themselves, myself and the woman to a beautiful, tropical beach somewhere. Assuming that the woman in question doesn't resemble one of the beached whales also residing on the beach, then she would be pleasuring me immensely. The pleasure being unleashed upon me would send wave after wave of ecstasy through my body. I would be barely able to breathe due to the intense pleasure. Yes, she would be feeding me a gigantic bowl of chips from the chip shop mentioned several questions above. The vortigaunts would be using their powers to fish the local aquatic wildlife out of the water and into the frier of the beach chip shop (imported from Britain). I would eat the fish. This dream is good.

Ok, I have my conclution but if you want to know it you will have to pay me...

Do you accept fkus?

I accept MasterCard (For everthing else, there is MasterCard)
Psychonauts is finished and april 19th is drawing very near. How do you feel about this?

It is now May 13th, so I have hindsight to my advantage here. However, when this question was sent I was feeling very excited. In fact, I was more excited than I'd been in a long time. I couldn't wait for the game to be delivered. It had been preordered (shortly after you reminded me), my computer had a new video card, and I was ready 'n' waiting. Then, disaster struck.

My video card turned out to be incompatible with my motherboard. Psychonauts got delayed on GameStop for two weeks. I missed the delivery to my house when it did arrive by being at college, and had to wait another two days for it. The box arrived with a slight rip at the top, taking away from the perfection of the otherwise perfect box. The game's cutscenes turned out to have some strange stutter every 20 seconds. The graphics were utterly corrupted and ruined due to my video card incompatibility, which caused me to format in order to see if a fresh machine would resolve it. It didn't. My motherboard then died forever. I had to buy a new motherboard, and wait for its delivery. The motherboard arrived. My processor was not compatible. I decided to just get a new processor, and wait for its delivery. It arrived.

After that lot though, the game ran gloriously, and it really did deserve all the hype and attention that it got. God damn, it did.

Any plans for the future?

Yes. On a life level, my ultimate plan is to move into game development in the 3D arena -- at least, intially. My current skills involve level/environment design, although character modelling and animation are going to accompany those traits. You never know, one day I may end up at Double Fine, working alongside the man himself. Or maybe not. Either way, my ultimate aim to end up doing that job, because god damn would I hate to end up in some kind of mundane career path like web design. Oh man.

On a community level, I'll just continue making Razputin.net a thorough resource for new players to enjoy as they get the game. That type of site is always good, as I'm sure you know with the whole Dig Museum thing [Thing? You call it a "thing"?]. We still get people on the Grim Fandango forums and IRC channel saying how they just got the game, and are glad there's still a site around full of all the easter eggs and downloads and such. It's so sad when a classic game just gets forgotten. After that, who knows? Mojo has a bright future ahead of it, particularly with more games to cover coming into existence, which I'm hoping to get more involved with as time goes on. And then there's whatever Tim does next.

Ok, thanks a lot for coming to my show.

No problem. I hope this path into the mind of Ryan Williams hasn't been too exciting for you. Although my lawyers may sue you for cracking me open like this. Be warned.

Oh... I'm so scared...