October 30th. In memory of Alec Holowka

[toth_psyche]

Today, on the 30th of October, 2019, Alec Holowka, the co-creator of “Aquaria,” could have turned 36. Rest in peace, dear Alec. You are mourned and remembered, and your creative genius is profoundly admired.

I’d like to share some links that concern Alec’s work. I’ve made similar posts in the community hubs of other games he either co-developed or contributed music to (“Night in the Woods,” “TowerFall: Ascension,” “Offspring Fling,” and “Crayon Physics Deluxe”), in case anyone is interested.

1. Interviews with Alec Holowka & Derek Yu about “Aquaria”:
https://gamecritics.com/richard-naik/interview-with-alec-holowka-and-derek-yu-creators-of-aquaria/
https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/insidejob/2814-Inside-Job-Interview-Aquaria-Creators-Derek-Yu-Alec-Holowka
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/102314/Road_To_The_IGF_Bit_Blots_Aquaria.php
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/117217/Interview_Aquaria_Piano_Jam__Alec_Holowkas_Watershed_Soundtrack_Release.php
http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/columns/interviews/bitblot.html

2. Alec talks “Aquaria” and other pre-“Night in the Woods” games (e.g. the never released “Marian”):
https://vimeo.com/29644366
https://vimeo.com/12132894
https://vimeo.com/7956342
https://vimeo.com/10591133
(text) https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AlexanderHolowka/20110214/88965/Marian_From_3D_to_2D.php
(text) http://thereticule.com/oldreti/?p=2325
(text) https://indiegamesplus.com/2011/11/interview_alec_holowka

3. An interesting analysis of various aspects of “Aquaria.” I’m linking the first (short and introductive) post in the series: https://www.wurb.com/stack/archives/1647

4. A review of “Aquaria” soundtrack: https://www.greatestgamemusic.com/soundtracks/aquaria-soundtrack/#more-3026

5. An old “Aquaria”-related blog: https://www.tigsource.com/tag/alecholowka/page/2/ (not to mention some curious stuff documenting the development & release of “Aquaria” on the official “Bit Blot” site: http://www.bit-blot.com/)

6. Before “Aquaria”: http://zaphire.ca/
+ Alec vs. aggressive trolls 8 years ago (see the comment section). It feels so sad to read these comments now:
https://indiegamesplus.com/2011/11/aquaria_for_ipad_is_available_


7. On being an indie developer: http://weaskindies.beavl.com/2013/11/13/alec-holowka/

8. Alec plays piano, incl. music from “Aquaria”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzN6KdQXvtM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zj6KM6Povk

9. Alec’s entire musical work: https://infiniteammo.bandcamp.com/

10. Alec’s YouTube channel. Contains a number of Unity Tutorial videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/infiniteammoinc/videos

11. “Infinite Ammo” [Alec’s own company] podcast about game development. Sadly, it’s everything that is (still) available, all the older episodes got taken down for reasons unknown: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/infinite-ammo/id1466431810

12. Just an old and cute post I feel like sharing: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ShaneNeville/20131007/201835/My_Invisible_Alec_Holowka.php

EDIT: found some of the otherwise missing Infinite Ammo podcasts, most links do actually work:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160729222410/http://infiniteammo.ca/podcast

[Panda]

I wish Marian materialized. I really loved the concept.

[toth_psyche]

So did I. I thought it had been abandoned, but then I read a Facebook post by the artist behind the game, which seemed to imply that at the time of Alec's tragic death, there still was a possibility that "Marian" would be completed one day.

[horrid henry]

So sad that Alec died

[Sealer Moon]

Thank you for this.

[toth_psyche]

Thank you for reading.

[Poltergeist]

Originally posted by horrid henry:

So sad that Alec died

It's sad that people still take the failed pornstar seriously. Alec wouldn't have died if everyone saw she was an abusive piece of trash and got rid of her during GG.

[toth_psyche]

Originally posted by Daymare:

It's sad that people still take the failed pornstar seriously. Alec wouldn't have died if everyone saw she was an abusive piece of trash and got rid of her during GG.

I may be behind the times, but I didn’t realize until today that unregistered users are able to quickly search through Twitter by date, too. Turns out that all those old tweets casting doubt on the initial allegations are still there, lots of them, even more than in the investigation posted after Alec’s death. Which means that literally anyone willing enough to look into the matter could have found them on day one–before it was too late–without being an approved follower. In order to see (and show) that the general picture was at least more complex than stated in the initial post, one didn’t even need to conduct a real investigation. So at least the unusual overreaction could have been prevented. My God.

[Bolt]

Imo best source on this:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/alec-holowka-sexual-abuse-allegations
Just lacks the lengthy post about his character that was made[medium.com].

In short:
Yadda yadda sexual harassment claims yadda yadda twitter mob yadda yadda company cuts ties yada yadda lengthy post about Alec's character[medium.com] yadda yadda depressed person suiciding yadda yadda

Eileen Holowka, also a developer with Infinite Ammo, on Saturday implored readers to leave Quinn, who has deleted their Twitter account, alone. “Alec specifically said he wished the best for Zoe and everyone else, so don’t use our grief as an excuse to harass people,” she said.

Bottom line for reason for suicide atm is that Alec's fears ("that a growing number of people were planning on how to ruin his life") came true thanks to Twitter. The feared consquences were there, thus the suicide. Twitter hit the trigger point(s).

Edit: Other person summarizes[medium.com]

Originally posted by toth_psyche:

Originally posted by Daymare:

It's sad that people still take the failed pornstar seriously. Alec wouldn't have died if everyone saw she was an abusive piece of trash and got rid of her during GG.

I may be behind the times, but I didn’t realize until today that unregistered users are able to quickly search through Twitter by date, too. Turns out that all those old tweets casting doubt on the initial allegations are still there, lots of them, even more than in the investigation posted after Alec’s death. Which means that literally anyone willing enough to look into the matter could have found them on day one–before it was too late–without being an approved follower. In order to see (and show) that the general picture was at least more complex than stated in the initial post, one didn’t even need to conduct a real investigation. So at least the unusual overreaction could have been prevented. My God.

Could you add a dum-dum guide how-to or post the examples you refer to ?

---

Normally I don't dive into such things but I was curious in this specific case about the facts and reasons. Apologies in any case because that's actually not my business and I've been nosy.

[toth_psyche]

Originally posted by Hollow:

Imo best source on this:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/alec-holowka-sexual-abuse-allegations
Just lacks the lengthy post about his character that was made[medium.com].

There's one more lengthy post on the same platform, and I wish it had been read by at least as many people as the one you've mentioned:

https://medium.com/@eileenholowka/for-alec-thoughts-on-transformative-justice-3e2a264dd891

Originally posted by Hollow:

Could you add a dum-dum guide how-to or post the examples you refer to ?

After Alec's death, Zoë deleted her account, and during the time it remained deactivated, this investigation was posted: https://www.thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-zoe-quinns-allegations-are-falling-apart/
Yet in fact, the Twitter history that is being analyzed here had been available to anyone (not only to Zoë's followers) all the time before she deactivated her account. Now that she's reactivated it, it is available again, so you can judge for yourself whether it contradicts her statement or not (infinite_ammo is Alec's account): https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aunburntwitch%20since%3A2012-3-26%20until%3A2012-5-5&src=typd

[toth_psyche]

Alec would have turned 37 today. A short public birthday video [www.instagram.com] from the era when everything seemed to be fine.