Mastodawn

Eduardo Pontes Nov 18

Rebecca Heineman is a goddamn legend among women. She did SO much great stuff, from getting Another World to run on 16-bit consoles not in the least bit designed to handle it, to making sure that the Kinect works when you're wearing a skirt, to tirelessly keeping the mac gaming scene alive, to making the worst version of DOOM kinda glorious in its own way.

And she did so much to boost trans visibility. By being so unapolagetically loud and proud as herself there's absolutely no goddamn way of counting how many of us she helped clear a path for.

She will be missed so goddamn hard!

@DotMaetrix wait what? this is how I find out she's gone? who's saying so?

Jacqueline Nov 17

@gothodile @DotMaetrix her mastodon account

@burnoutqueen @DotMaetrix which is...?

Jacqueline Nov 17

@gothodile @DotMaetrix

@burnoutqueen @DotMaetrix @burgerbecky what I'm reading on @mastodon.gamedev.place seems to match with what I'm reading here https://stevivor.com/news/trailblazer-rebecca-heineman-has-lost-her-battle-with-cancer/ and on her GoFundMe. thank you.

Trailblazer Rebecca Heineman has lost her battle with cancer

Rebecca Ann Heineman, transgender icon and co-founder of Interplay, has tragically lost her battle against cancer.

Stevivor

Nicole Parsons Nov 18

@burnoutqueen @gothodile @DotMaetrix

Wikipedia too. She will be missed so much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Heineman

Rebecca Heineman - Wikipedia

@Npars01 @burnoutqueen @DotMaetrix it hadn't been updated at the time, among reasons why I asked for some kind of confirmation.

Dot Maetrix Nov 17

@gothodile She'd been battling a particularly nasty bout of cancer recently. She announced last night on her gofundme and other socials that she was on her way out and friends on bsky have confirmed that she's away now.

a pile of moss Nov 17

@DotMaetrix oh man did she pass? I know she was fighting like hell :(.

Dot Maetrix Nov 17

@todd Yeah. She announced the she was on her way out last night, and her friends announced that she's away only a few hours ago

a pile of moss Nov 17

@DotMaetrix RIP to a fucking legend.

fluffy 💜Nov 18

@DotMaetrix @todd She was also being as good-spirited as her impending death as possible on bsky. https://bsky.app/profile/burgerbecky.bsky.social/post/3m5rvg72pss2z

Rebecca Heineman (@burgerbecky.bsky.social)

I never thought I’d get this wish. Odd seeing eulogies before I expire

Bluesky Social

fluffy 💜Nov 18

@DotMaetrix @todd oh actually I see now that her mastodon and bsky posts were mirrored

Natanox 🇺🇦🇵🇸Nov 18

@DotMaetrix I only learn about her and her awesome work now. Shit, this sucks. 😔 She sounds like an absolute fabulous role model.

If anyone here got the necessary creds in Wikipedia perhaps they could update her article under "personal life"? It currently says that "Around 2003 Heineman was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and began to identify as a woman". Not sure if that's a framing she preferred, it sounds awfully backwards and somewhat pathologizing (at least to my non-native german ears).

Consensus Tullyality Nov 18

@Natanox @DotMaetrix no, it totally is pathologising and gross

@DotMaetrix Out of This World is one of my favorite games. And she worked on Wasteland too!?!?? Holy crap that is a lot of great games. What a terrible loss.

Dot Maetrix Nov 18

@ezwal If you haven't yet seen her video talking about her SNES port of Another World, it's a great listen. The SNES was absolutely NOT a console built to handle that game's vector graphics and she hadn't access to any of the enhancement chips that would have proven extremely useful, but she got it going anyway.

She also did a port to the Apple II GS, a computer which, much like the snes, had absolutely zero business running Another World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiq0OL8rzso

Burgertime 8/9/2015: Out of This World

YouTube

@DotMaetrix so.... I knew her for her work porting Doom to the 3DO single handedly in a few weeks and knew she was supremely talented.

I did not know she was trans. Good for her.

David Fleetwood - RG Admin Nov 18

@DotMaetrix Huge loss, and I didn't realize her wife, a legend in her own right, left us last year. They will both be greatly missed.