Interview with meelWORM (Mark Gillie)

Mark Gillie (known online as meelWORM) was one half of the brains behind Conrad Sheldon. A rather cherismatic, if not so well versed, Sierra On-Line fan who burst onto the Internet scene back in March of 2003 in an attempt to liven up Chris Cromer's AGI forums. What followed were a series of projects involving the character, various hijinx and other fun activities.



Mike: Greetings, meelWORM! As hard as it is to believe, it has been 10 years since we had that late night chat on AOL Instant Messenger which led to the creation of Conrad Sheldon. Not to mention so many other projects that we started in 2003. Has your life changed much in all those years, and do you ever miss those days gone by?

meelWORM: Hi, Mike! It is indeed hard to believe that 10 years have gone by since that fateful night on IRC, when Conrad Sheldon was born. Several things have changed in my life since then, but the three biggest would be that I got married, bought a house, and got a new job. With all of that, and other things, I don't really spent a great deal of time on my computer much anymore. Back then I was online anywhere from 8-12 hours a day, and now it is more like 1-2 hours a day. I don't think I can say that I miss those days, but I certainly have a lasting fondness for all of the projects I was working on around that time, and Conrad was without a doubt, one of the most bizarre and enjoyable of those projects.

Mike: In the end, we managed to upset a number of people, and even though the computer game had better intentions, everyone had already made up their minds about hating Conrad Sheldon. It was probably for the best that we killed the project when we did, but do you ever have any regrets about things that we could have yet done with the character, and if so, anything specific?

meelWORM: First off, I don't believe that *everyone* hated Conrad, in fact, there is a very recent thread on a popular Sierra fan page where several people have posted their positive recollections of Conrad. Now, I do know that we did upset several people (I won't mention the specifics here, but some of the stories can still be read somewhere in the Conrad archives currently online), but pranks and gags always upset some people while bringing joy to others, so I guess there was no harm done, well... for the most part. My biggest regret would have to be that we never finished The Big Con. The story was great, and we had some really great people working on it with us, but in the end, there just wasn't enough motivation to continue the project. Of course, The Bigger Con would have been amazing as well.

Mike: Throughout it all, I often asked myself if my free time could be better spent on something else. Do you feel the same way, and should we have killed Conrad sooner than we did?

meelWORM: I suppose we could always find *some* way to better spend our free time, no matter what we are doing. Interestingly enough, the whole idea of the Conrad character came about because we were bored one night, and couldn't think of anything better to do. As the whole initial Conrad fiasco was taking place, I recall that we both (and later a select few others) had a very enjoyable time with Conrad's hijinks, so I guess that alone makes it time well spent. I think that we ended the original Conrad prank at just the right time, the Conrad projects after that, although enjoyable at the time, now make me wonder if maybe we did drag the whole thing out a bit too long.

Mike: In light of all the recent Sierra revivals, do you feel that now may be the right time to revive Conrad Sheldon? If so, what do you believe would be the best thing to do with the character? Besides another Kill Conrad computer game, I mean. Something similar to Pledge Quest might be fun. That was a short Adventure Game Studio game used to promote Two Guys SpaceVenture.

meelWORM: Although Conrad has ties with the Sierra community, I don't think that recent revival games really make it the time to revive Conrad. That said, I do feel the fact that it is Conrad's 10th anniversary makes it a great time for a comeback. In my mind, finishing TBC would be the best thing to do for Conrad, but for the same reasons why it didn't succeed to begin with, I don't really think it should be tackled at this time. A shorter and smaller scale game, such as Pledge Quest, would be a very nice way to bring Conrad back. All we need is a small handful of committed volunteers to help out...


Conrad Sheldon's The Big Con - Epilogue Melody (Eero Ränik)