Timothy Courtney

Timothy Courtney
Born
💼 Occupation	Artist, Photographer
🏢 Organisation	Timothy Courtney Media
🌐 Website	https://timothycourtneymedia.com

Timothy Courtney is an American artist, writer, software developer, and photographer from Houston, Texas. He is known for creating video games such as Lucas the Game and Space Ace Assassin: Capital Galaxy. Lucas the Game also made history worldwide as the first published video game to have its art made using GIMP, a now world-renowned software. Columnists worldwide have written about how a video game was created using Gimp much to many people's surprise, and therefore demonstrating that Gimp is a powerful alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Columnist Vishal Meena wrote "The video game Lucas the Game, from developer Timothy Courtney, was made largely design-wise with Gimp version 2.6". STUDIOSS stated "GIMP 2.6 was used to create nearly all of the art in Lucas the Game, an independent video game by developer Timothy Courtney". Courtney is also known as the creator of software such as PHP News Report, as well as Open Bundle, and VIRTUAL INPUT SYSTEM Courtney also has an extensive portfolio of photography, animations, and collaborations with other artists.

Early Life

Timothy Courtney was born in Houston where he discovered art at a young age. As a painter and artist of varying mediums, Courtney won awards locally and regionally in the Greater Houston Area. His unique style and prolific creativity were discovered at a young age by many including art teachers who began to personally work with him for gallery pieces and other showcasing. He also joined a photography club and began a life of street photography and documentary photography. He would also sing in front of large audiences in school plays, public events, church gatherings, and in a regional Honor Choir in a metropolitan area known as Greater Houston. He was also a member of theatre groups and competed regionally in Solo Improvisation and Duo Improvisation. His primary and favorite Duo Improvisation acting partner soon after died in the Iraq war. Around this time, his grandmother who he was very close with was killed in a major car crash along with two of his cousins. He lost three family members at once due to an intoxicated driver, who was coming back from a fishing trip.

Video Games

In 2015, Timothy Courtney published Lucas the Game, a game about a character who learns through a prophecy at birth that he must save the world. He immediately goes on a unique adventure. In an IGN review, Terrence Sellers stated "It’s a story set in a dystopian society about a newborn sent on a quest to find secret documents that will reveal the corruption of the shadow government and ignite the people". Soon after release, Lucas the Game was mass distributed in the Groupees Psychic Pixel Party Bundle, alongside Synonymy (narrated by Richard Dawkins), Subterrarium, Hypercronius, Sword Of The Samurai, Naninights, and Pixel Poetry a Film by Richard James Cook. Lucas the Game is also notable for being the first video game to have the art made in GIMP, a now popular software. Lucas the Game included a dedicated chiptune soundtrack, composed by Austin-based band Ola Podrida member Matt Clark. Clark was given reign to create any music he wanted within the chiptune genre as long as the necessary moods were achieve. Clark expressed he was having so much fun creating the music for Lucas the Game. During development, Clark stated "Get ready for some bleepy, bloopy, chiptuney goodness". In 2016, Courtney released a new video game called Space Ace Assassin: Capital Galaxy. In Space Ace Assassin by Timothy Courtney, the player controls a spaceship in an arcade-shooter genre video game. In the game, the Earth and other inhabitable planets were destroyed in the final war. An intergalactic government now controls everything through their elaborate set of space tunnels. They believe their supreme power can no longer be challenged. That is until the Space Ace Assassin appears in his space ship. The player must navigate through 23 tunnels from beginning to end defeating the intergalactic government's robotic guards that patrol the tunnels. The game awards highscore achievements and precision play that is required to successfully beat all levels and therefore the game.

Software

Timothy Courtney has released several software applications, which includes most notably PHP News Report and Open Bundle. PHP News Report is a server application which allows the user to operate a complete curated links website. The concept is that the user can run a homepage of headlines or a homepage focused on any chosen niche subject. The user writes their own titles and inputs the corresponding links into a secure form, which then become published live on the user's homepage. Courtney also created the software Open Bundle. Open Bundle is a server application which gives the user the ability to run a curated digital products website. The operator of the Open Bundle site has the ability to group together licensed games, software, music, and movies and sell those bundles to the public. Courtney released another software called Virtual Input System, which allowed users to use a digital keyboard on-screen and respond to prompts in situations such as playing a video game on a television screen and needing the ability for advanced input. Courtney has written software in many languages including C#, Python, PHP, JavaScript, and other programming languages.

Photography

Since childhood, Timothy Courtney has felt the calling of Photography. Courtney has published many photos, which often include themes of street photography, and documentary photography. He has an extensive portfolio of photos, many of which are available for licensing.

Animation

Timothy Courtney started animation by drawing on page corners in books and then flipping through the page corners to see the drawings in motion. Now, Courtney primarily animates digitally in cartoon cutscenes, video games, media title screens, and animated Gif files. He has an extensive animation collection, some of which are available for licensing.

Game Talk

Game Talk is a series of interviews by Timothy Courtney with video game artists, musicians, and designers. Courtney talked extensively with the most influential people in video games, like Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman, Captain Forever designer Jarrad Farbs Woods, Else Heart Break developer Erik Svedäng, Fez musician Rich Vreeland, Firewatch creator Nels Anderson, Hotline Miami artist Dennis Wedin, Hotline Miami designer Jonatan Cactus Söderström, Painter Niklas Åkerblad, IndieDB founder Scott INtense Reismanis, Not a Hero artist Jake Hollands, Skytorn designer Noel Berry, Storyteller designer Daniel Benmergui, and more. Courtney had an unusual ability to pull out information from these video game influencers which had previously been unknown. Those details revealed by Courtney are now considered gems and became a piece of video game history. Courtney has credited some of the reveals to the fact that he is considered a peer and so the interviewees have been more candid and honest with him in their responses.

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