Mutator Memorial Site
(Kim_André_Malde)
June 2, 1980 - July 7, 2012
(December, 2000 picture)
Mutator was a multi-talented Doom
player from Stavanger, Norway; a lifelong best friend of Anders
Johnsen, and very much 'one of the crew' of doomers that lurks in that
Norwegian town.
A summary of his Doom history/involvement was written by Anders Johnsen in the Doomworld forum:
Ocelot had these comments:
The player profile I wrote of him in the early 2000's went like this:
Some of the maps he made:
Alien Vendetta Map 03 (Cargo Depot)
Alien Vendetta Map 09 (Castle Gardens)
Alien Vendetta Map 10 (Toxic Touch)
Alien Vendetta Map 20 (Misri Halek)
The Automap for AV Map 20 - (click for larger version)
Alien Vendetta Map 23 (Blood Sacrifice)
Faith Erebus
(a contributed wad for the Crucified Dreams deathmatch megawad)
Faith Erebus
(a contributed wad for the Crucified Dreams deathmatch megawad)
Singing/Music:
I got to meet Mutator at a Stavanver LANparty in December, 2000. A few years after that, I spent some time chatting with him on IM. I came to learn that Mutator had an interest in singing, and would record himself singing using Karaoke soundtracks as his background. I have some musical background and worked with him a bit, listening to his recordings and offering what advice I could.
Mutator had an amazing and versatile voice, with a large range, and he could sing in seemingly any tone he wanted. One minute he could sound like a deep, classical-styled baritone; the next he could sound like Elvis Presley; the next he could sound like a thinner-toned tenor. It's rare that someone has a voice with the type of sound that he could do.
However - - he had a problem that plagued him, and it is what prevented him from making a move professionally. He's what musicians call "tone deaf". Sometimes he would sing correct notes, and sometimes he would sing the wrong ones. Sometimes he would sing notes completely out of key, and he was unable to hear that there was a problem (even in the recordings he made).
The ability to match pitch and accurately hear pitch differences in music is largely congenital. He tried for several years to work his singing and overcome this problem, but was never able to resolve it succesfully enough to be able to perform in any professional singing capacity.
********************
Below is a multimedia tribute where I've combined pictures provided to me by Anders Johnsen with carefully-selected segments of Mutator's singing as the soundtrack.
The music segments are:
The Accident:
In late 2010 he began having issues with depression and anxiety due to unpleasent personal events which had unfolded in his life. He was prescribed medication for these problems, and by mid-2012, his personal situation had greatly improved. Mutator passed away in his sleep on July 7th. Beyond it being unintentional, the cause of death is unclear
A summary of his Doom history/involvement was written by Anders Johnsen in the Doomworld forum:
Kim was a long time member of the
Doom community, and one of the absolute reasons why Alien Vendetta came
to fruition. He will probably be best remembered for his epic Map20 in
said megawad, the hyper-detailed egyptian themed map (by far the map
that received the most feedback in the entire set). But his work
extended into every technical aspect of putting the megawad together,
and I was 100% dependent on him for this.
Mutator started playing the game all the way back in 1994, and was my personal local deathmatch training partner for a good ten years. I learnt all I knew about editing the game from sitting next to him during countless of hours in the mid nintees, using some very basic tools from that time. He developed his style into a unique blend of detail, realism and innovative light level effects, toppled by always going for absolute perfection in whatever he did. I belive he was a notch above just about any mapper when it came to this.
He was a very unique individual, often missunderstood and involuntarily distanced from other people because of his way of communicating and expressing himself. If you gained his trust and deciphered the code however, you had a friend for life.
Mutator started playing the game all the way back in 1994, and was my personal local deathmatch training partner for a good ten years. I learnt all I knew about editing the game from sitting next to him during countless of hours in the mid nintees, using some very basic tools from that time. He developed his style into a unique blend of detail, realism and innovative light level effects, toppled by always going for absolute perfection in whatever he did. I belive he was a notch above just about any mapper when it came to this.
He was a very unique individual, often missunderstood and involuntarily distanced from other people because of his way of communicating and expressing himself. If you gained his trust and deciphered the code however, you had a friend for life.
Ocelot had these comments:
My condolences to everyone who knew
him, especially to Anders, who must have played more deathmatches with
the guy than can be counted with three-digit numbers. I met Kim in 2000
at the Stavanger lanparty ("Norlan"), where he was on a good SG roll
that made him downright pesky in his strongest map1 performances.
However, as many have pointed out, Kim's exceptional talent was artistic and creative rather than cyberathletic. AV20 "Misri Halek" must be in the top 3 of the most legendary single-player Doom maps of all time, not to mention Kim's other brilliant contributions, such as the maps 11 "Castle Gardens" and 23 "Blood Sacrifice", to what just might be the best vanilla doom megawad seen to date.
However, as many have pointed out, Kim's exceptional talent was artistic and creative rather than cyberathletic. AV20 "Misri Halek" must be in the top 3 of the most legendary single-player Doom maps of all time, not to mention Kim's other brilliant contributions, such as the maps 11 "Castle Gardens" and 23 "Blood Sacrifice", to what just might be the best vanilla doom megawad seen to date.
The player profile I wrote of him in the early 2000's went like this:
Background:
I met Mutator at the year 2000 Stavanger, Norway netparty at Andy's. Mutator is one of the local players, and to my knowledge has been a part of the doom scene there since it began. He's always been an enthusiastic and persistent LAN partner for Anders Johnsen, and has the quality that he can return to games repeatedly, with a positive attitude, regardless of whether or not he is winning (or how harsh the game is going). He's a map creator as well, and probably does a lot more interesting Doom things than I am aware of.
Stylistic information:
I think I already mentioned that he has the persistence and good attitude to stand up to Anders Johnsen repeatedly, despite occasional large score differences between them. Back in 2000, Anders was beating him, on average, about as bad as he was me (50 to 15-18 or so). To be able to keep coming back to games like that, especially with Anders who has an uncommonly psychologically punishing game style, says a lot. I have heard that lately, Mutator has been doing better against Anders -- persistence and good attitude can pay off, can't they?
When I played Mutator on Map1 in 2000, our scores were similar against one another, if memory serves. The thing that stuck in my mind the most was his very keen single shotgun work. I just had to stay away from him when he had it; he knew how to use it and wasn't afraid to chase you down and kill you with it. Following him into the shotgun arena on Map1 without a BFG, once he had already picked up the shotgun, was akin to suicide.
There are some recordings circulating around of Anders Johnsen annihilating Mutator on Map1. It may be hard to realize from those demos that Mutator doesen't desperately suck - - but the case is that he doesent. Anders was just on a major steamroll session in those recordings.
I met Mutator at the year 2000 Stavanger, Norway netparty at Andy's. Mutator is one of the local players, and to my knowledge has been a part of the doom scene there since it began. He's always been an enthusiastic and persistent LAN partner for Anders Johnsen, and has the quality that he can return to games repeatedly, with a positive attitude, regardless of whether or not he is winning (or how harsh the game is going). He's a map creator as well, and probably does a lot more interesting Doom things than I am aware of.
Stylistic information:
I think I already mentioned that he has the persistence and good attitude to stand up to Anders Johnsen repeatedly, despite occasional large score differences between them. Back in 2000, Anders was beating him, on average, about as bad as he was me (50 to 15-18 or so). To be able to keep coming back to games like that, especially with Anders who has an uncommonly psychologically punishing game style, says a lot. I have heard that lately, Mutator has been doing better against Anders -- persistence and good attitude can pay off, can't they?
When I played Mutator on Map1 in 2000, our scores were similar against one another, if memory serves. The thing that stuck in my mind the most was his very keen single shotgun work. I just had to stay away from him when he had it; he knew how to use it and wasn't afraid to chase you down and kill you with it. Following him into the shotgun arena on Map1 without a BFG, once he had already picked up the shotgun, was akin to suicide.
There are some recordings circulating around of Anders Johnsen annihilating Mutator on Map1. It may be hard to realize from those demos that Mutator doesen't desperately suck - - but the case is that he doesent. Anders was just on a major steamroll session in those recordings.
Some of the maps he made:
Alien Vendetta Map 03 (Cargo Depot)
Alien Vendetta Map 09 (Castle Gardens)
Alien Vendetta Map 10 (Toxic Touch)
Alien Vendetta Map 20 (Misri Halek)
The Automap for AV Map 20 - (click for larger version)
Alien Vendetta Map 23 (Blood Sacrifice)
Faith Erebus
(a contributed wad for the Crucified Dreams deathmatch megawad)
Faith Erebus
(a contributed wad for the Crucified Dreams deathmatch megawad)
I got to meet Mutator at a Stavanver LANparty in December, 2000. A few years after that, I spent some time chatting with him on IM. I came to learn that Mutator had an interest in singing, and would record himself singing using Karaoke soundtracks as his background. I have some musical background and worked with him a bit, listening to his recordings and offering what advice I could.
Mutator had an amazing and versatile voice, with a large range, and he could sing in seemingly any tone he wanted. One minute he could sound like a deep, classical-styled baritone; the next he could sound like Elvis Presley; the next he could sound like a thinner-toned tenor. It's rare that someone has a voice with the type of sound that he could do.
However - - he had a problem that plagued him, and it is what prevented him from making a move professionally. He's what musicians call "tone deaf". Sometimes he would sing correct notes, and sometimes he would sing the wrong ones. Sometimes he would sing notes completely out of key, and he was unable to hear that there was a problem (even in the recordings he made).
The ability to match pitch and accurately hear pitch differences in music is largely congenital. He tried for several years to work his singing and overcome this problem, but was never able to resolve it succesfully enough to be able to perform in any professional singing capacity.
********************
Below is a multimedia tribute where I've combined pictures provided to me by Anders Johnsen with carefully-selected segments of Mutator's singing as the soundtrack.
The music segments are:
(1) Cat's in the Cradle
(2) Play Me
(3) Forever Young
(4) King of the Road (The Whistler & Bovine Plus The Kitten &
The Chicken)
The Accident:
In late 2010 he began having issues with depression and anxiety due to unpleasent personal events which had unfolded in his life. He was prescribed medication for these problems, and by mid-2012, his personal situation had greatly improved. Mutator passed away in his sleep on July 7th. Beyond it being unintentional, the cause of death is unclear