It's funny, you know how a lot of method acting draws on putting yourself into the moment or remembering a vivid memory that takes you back to a similar moment? For example, you need to cry so you think of that one time that destroyed your soul?
I totally have one of those.
Last week I finished Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Again, a decent game that wasn't near perfect but charming all the same. As the last cinematic ended, the end credits opened up with a message:
In Memory of Brian Wood
1977-2010
Designer, mentor, father, and friend.
We miss you still.
I had just spent about 20 minutes quite gleefully surviving (and gibbing) an onslaught of extra-dimensional daemons and daemonically-afflicted superhumans followed by punching the face out of a falling daemonic demigod. And then I saw that dedication, and all the excessive violence in the world wouldn't pull me back from suddenly feeling a tightness in my chest and a misting in the corner of my eyes.
It's been a little over a year now since it happened, but every time I think about the story of Brian Wood's death . . . even if I'm at work, if I randomly start thinking about it for one reason or another while I pace back and forth bored - I'll feel tears welling up almost instantly. I don't know, something about it just breaks my heart at such a deep level.
Well, his daughter Sierra is alive and healthy, and I know she's going to grow up knowing how amazing her father was. For Brian and Sierra's mother Erin, I hope that's enough for now.
