I was born in Vienna in October 1983, the son of a teacher and an engineer. I spent my early childhood watching animated series like "Masters of the Universe" and "The Transformers". I also drew my own comic strips, though I didn't exactly show much artistic talent.
A week before I started school, my father bought me my first computer, a Commodore 64. He got the idea to buy me a computer when he saw how much I enjoyed playing with Tricotronics (small portable computers with built-in games). My favorite games on the C64 were "The Great Giana Sisters", "Tapper" and "Cock'in". But I didn't just play games - I also read computer magazines and sketched out my own video game ideas. Soon I was given a few video game consoles as gifts, including a Nintendo Game Boy and a Sega Mega Drive. I still remember very well what it was like to play "Sonic the Hedgehog" for the first time. With graphics and music that were very advanced for the time, it felt downright magical - like being absorbed into my own fantasy world. Eventually, I felt a growing urge to put my ideas into practice, and at the age of eight, I taught myself to program in BASIC with the help of computer magazines and books.
In addition to programming, writing essays was also a great passion of mine, and that's how the German video game magazine "SEGA Magazin" came to publish my first article - a review of the game "The Story of Thor" - when I was ten years old. But what really proved decisive for my future development was when my father brought home an issue of the magazine "PC-Heimwerker" when I was eleven years old. This magazine was based on an innovative concept: It didn't have a permanent editorial staff; instead, all the articles were contributed by the readers. I became a regular contributor to "PC-Heimwerker" and struck up pen-pal relationships with other writers. Through these pen-pal relationships, I was introduced to the international computer art community, known as the "demoscene". However, I was more fascinated by the electronic magazines of this scene - the so-called "diskmags" - than by the demos and intros themselves. Then a teenager from Saxony-Anhalt contacted me; he wanted to create his own diskmag. I developed a custom graphical user interface for him and was subsequently named co-editor at the age of twelve. On May 25, 1996, the first issue of our diskmag, Hugi, was published. For eighteen years, working on Hugi would take up most of my free time.
I had access to the Internet starting in 1997. I spent a lot of time on Internet Relay Chat and communicated with numerous members of the demoscene. Some of them really liked Hugi, and they suggested that Hugi should focus more on the demoscene in its content. At the time, I was also in contact with the editor of the diskmag Cream, who also wanted to devote more attention to the demoscene. When my co-editor stepped down and I took full control of Hugi, I decided to publish Hugi in English and to focus the content primarily on the demo scene. In June 1998, the eleventh issue of Hugi was published - the first to follow this new concept. It was based on an engine I had developed in C++ that used SVGA mode and featured graphics by a German artist who went by the name Hellfire, as well as a music track by an Englishman with the nickname Smash. Hugi #11 was well-received in the scene. That motivated me to keep going. Soon, Hugi reached second place in relevant charts, behind the diskmag Imphobia. Imphobia was published from 1992 to 1996 and was then unexpectedly discontinued. After that, there hadn't been a comparable diskmag until Hugi #11 came out. So I had really filled a gap in the market.
So for many years, I did something that brought joy not only to myself but also to many others. The only thing was: I didn't make any money from it. I had planned to earn a living as a programmer. However, after graduating from high school, I was unsettled by media reports claiming that the IT industry was only looking for top talent, so my father managed to persuade me to study medicine. After three years of medical school, I realized that I lacked the manual dexterity required for a career in medicine (among other things, I found it difficult to draw blood). So I ultimately switched to computer science. By the age of 29, I had earned my engineering degree and a doctorate. Some time later, I joined a private company that developed software for building physicists. The flagship product was a program for calculating and visualizing thermal bridges. I really enjoyed working at that company. I remember that, among other things, I developed a method for simplifying the input of slopes and curves, an algorithm for scanning room surfaces, and a mesh voxelizer for converting arbitrary geometric shapes into cuboid objects. After that, I wrote programs for another company to analyze sensor data in warehouses. This was followed by a stint at a company that specialized in software for planning photovoltaic systems. Finally, I ended up at a company that offers solutions for managing libraries.
On the side, I also pursued academic work and published several scholarly articles in peer-reviewed medical journals. Toward the end of my studies, I also resumed developing video games. I took a year off to work on a game engine for turn-based, tactical role-playing games in the style of my favorite game, "Shining Force 2" for the Sega Mega Drive. This led to the creation of several games of my own in this genre, some of which incorporated new ideas. I also programmed, among other things, a version of the Rubik's Cube with particularly intuitive controls and a number maze game based on an idea of my own - there probably hadn't been a similar game before.
Imprint: This website is owned by Claus D. Volko, Vienna, Austria. No liability is taken for the contents of any of the linked websites. Claus D. Volko does not collect any personal information on the visitors of this website. Contact via email: mail (at) cdvolko (dot) net. http://www.cdvolko.net/