Ryan C. Gordon (also known as icculus) is a computer programmer and former Loki Software employee responsible for icculus.org, which hosts many Loki Software projects as well as others. Gordon's site hosts projects with the code from such commercial games as Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Quake III Arena and other free and open source projects for multiple platforms.
Gordon created ports of proprietary software products to the Linux and Mac OS X platforms. These include being hired to port most of the Unreal Tournament series, some of the Serious Sam series, the official Postal series, some Tripwire Interactive and Coffee Stain Studios titles, and Prey (2006). He has also been involved in porting several non-gaming products such as Second Life and Google Earth. Some, such as Candy Cruncher and Postal 2, have been published by Linux Game Publishing. He was described alongside Edward Rudd as being "instrumental" in ensuring the multi-platform nature of the Humble Indie Bundle initiatives.
Biography
Personal life
Gordon grew up just outside Philadelphia and attended college in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he resides. On January 3, 2010 he became engaged to Carrie and they were married later that year. On January 31, 2012 his wife gave birth to their first child, Olive Finch Gordon. He is also a founding member of the BareBones Theatre Group in Charlotte.
Loki Software
In 1999 Loki Software ran a contest called "Loki Hack" at the Atlanta Linux Showcase, with the goal of improving the Linux port of Civilization: Call To Power. Gordon decided to give it a try, driving the four-hour trip from his home to Atlanta. Loki was impressed with his work and decided to offer him a job. Gordon quickly rose to prominence at Loki, working as a developer on the game ports of Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, Quake III Arena, and Eric's Ultimate Solitaire, as well as being the lead developer for Descent 3 and Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.². In 2000 he also wrote several articles for the online Linux news and information website Linux.com. Around this time he founded icculus.org, made to provide hosting for various free and open source projects, and would later be used to support and continue some of Loki's free software projects and tools. While at Loki Software, Gordon picked his nickname icculus as a reference to the fictional character from Gamehendge in the song "Icculus" by Phish.
Independent contracts
The upcoming closure of Loki forced him to seek outside employment. A friend offered him a job at his cybercafe, and he was forced to move in with his parents. Desperate to escape working a cash register, he found the e-mail address of an artist working for the developer Croteam. They had recently released the first of their highly successful Serious Sam series, and Gordon asked if they would be interested in him building a Linux port. They agreed, and the port's first beta was released on December 5, 2002. From there he gained other contracts such as being hired to port Devastation and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for Linux and America's Army for Linux and Mac OS X. He was also contracted by Epic Games to port their Unreal Tournament 2003 title to Linux and Mac OS X, with the port being included with the packaged Windows version. This business relationship continued with the release of Unreal Tournament 2004, and followed from the original Unreal Tournament which was ported to Linux internally by Epic but was published by Loki.
Upon learning about the release of Postal 2 in 2003, Gordon decided to contact the developer behind it wondering if they would be interested in him making a port of the game to Linux and Mac OS X. Loki had previously ported the original Postal to Linux, and he was interested in keeping the franchise compatible. Running with Scissors agreed, and the finished port was shipped on February 14, 2005, with Linux Game Publishing initially handling the publishing of the Linux version. Soon after he was contracted to make a Linux port for the Wolfire Games title Lugaru: The Rabbit's Foot, a business relationship that would later prove fruitful for Gordon. Around this time he was also contracted to build a Linux client for the online virtual world Second Life. Google also utilized his services, with him being contracted to make a native Linux port of their Google Earth application, with Linux functionality finally becoming available starting with the release of the version 4 beta on June 12, 2006.