What I'm Currently Doing
Quick Resumé
- Translated Big Brain Academy and most of the Wii menu and channels.
- Wrote two novels, Toiletten and Sneeuwdorp — there also is a German version of Toiletten.
- Created a magazine called n3 Nintendo Magazine, one-off magazines about games hardware and websites like GameSen, Total RPG and Zelda Headquarters.
- Contributed to tons of other magazines, papers, websites and TV programmes — Autovisie, Bright, Connexie, Free Magazine, Games+, GameQuest, Gammo, Metaaljournaal, Management Team, Mister Motley, Multimediamarkt, N Gamer, N Magazine, NRC Handelsblad, NRC Next, Nu.nl, Official PlayStation Magazine, Oog & Oor, PC Consument, Power Unlimited, VPRO Gids and Webwereld, to name a few, alphabetically.
Above: the master at work. Photo by Dimme van der Hout.
Highlights
Zelda HQ
This was a website about Nintendo’s series of adventure games ‘The Legend of Zelda’. It was the first of its kind and actually made some money, during IGN’s short-lived affiliation programme, just before the dotcom bust.
The way I see it, I always made stuff, like comic magazines. But it was pretty hard to distribute what I created. So when the internet entered our household, I jumped at the opportunity to build a website that could easily be reached by thousands. It’s coincidence that it was about a Nintendo game.
Zelda HQ started in 1996 and stopped around the GameSen era. Sometime inbetween, I also made a site called ‘Total RPG’, but because it’s not even on the Wayback Machine, it feels like it never really existed. You should believe me when I say it had a really cool hand-drawn dragon in its logo.
Some years ago I foolishly let the Zelda HQ domain name (zhq.com) expire. A couple of people in the Zelda community (such a thing exists, yes – and it was kickstarted by my website) still feel miffed about this.
GameSen
Another website, but about all videogames, and in Dutch. Also the first of its kind, though Gamer.nl, still going strong today, was launched a month later.
When GameSen started, I was still living at home, though I had my own phone line. I recently found an invoice that I sent to (now defunct) Hasbro Interactive for a banner campaign during the fall of 1999. It was worth a couple hundred guilders – not bad for a site with a couple hundred visitors.
Only a short while later I found myself in an office in Schiedam, funded with a partner’s dad’s money.
Maybe the timing was off, maybe we didn’t have the commercial insights required, maybe the site I came up with was not ‘mainstream’ enough. In any case, I decided to start a printed Nintendo magazine, just as all financial support for GameSen was pulled. At least I still have the domain name.
n3 Nintendo Magazine
Adventure number three. I felt it’d be a good idea to celebrate the release of the GameCube (and the popularity of the Game Boy Advance) with a new print magazine about Nintendo. There was no Dutch Nintendo magazine then.
I also felt that the current magazines were too straightforward, which drove me to opt for short reviews and previews, big features, and hand-drawn covers. In the spirit of Total RPG, for whoever read that when it was around.
Together with Sigfrid at Impressive Arts, I created a dummy issue. Then I tried to get in touch with a publisher who’d be willing to pay us to produce it every month — and handle stuff like subscriptions, distribution, advertising, etc.
While I did succeed at finding someone, after four or five issues his money ran out, and after we finished issue eight, the plug was finally pulled. Issue eight never found its way onto store shelves, unfortunately. However, it is available online through Issuu.
Toiletten
I wrote my first novel (or rather, novella) when GameSen was still happening. At that time I’d decided that writing was probably more fun than games – so I ought to write about something not related to videogames.
I vividly remember someone at our office reading it during a lunch break and laughing out really loud. This made me feel I should try to get it published. So I sent it around, but everyone turned it down – with helpful advice in their rejection letters. I didn’t think much of it and decided to write something new some other time. As one of the rejection letters had kindly suggested.
However, behind my back, a friend had routed Toiletten to The Nederlands’ number one literary agent (which is not saying much, because we don’t have a lot of them). This guy, Paul Sebes, liked it, wanted to work on polishing it, then send it around to anyone who could possibly be interested.
Before I knew it, my first novel was in stores, I was writing a larger second novel (Sneeuwdorp), the German publication rights were sold, I was nominated for a debutant’s book prize, someone made it into a game, it was almost shredded... and now I have a huge stack of pink booklets lying around. If you read Dutch, order it from me, or download the PDF.
Wii Menu
On my most recent grand adventure, I was drafted to come to Frankfurt and translate stuff for Nintendo’s European localisation department.
First, they let me work on ‘Brain Training’, the first Nintendo game in ages to be translated to Dutch, then they let me do ‘Big Brain Academy’ all by myself. I like to think I managed to stick some idiosyncratic funniness in there.
After these two Nintendo DS games—and loads of manuals, packaging texts and other nicities—it was time for the real deal, the system menu that boots up when you power up the Wii system. This was a true luxury gig, as I had months to finetune everything, while it’s a relatively small amount of text. I even got to visit Kyoto to put on the last polish.
I haven’t done subsequent updates and downloadable extra software channels, but the fundamental Dutch stuff—including unforgettable Wii terminology like ‘Wii-afstandsbediening’—was all my job. If you find mistakes, blame the guys who tinkered with it later.
