BobisZack.com, Motherfuckers.

About The Author:

Who am I? I figure an explanation of the self could shed much light on to the work of a creator, no matter the medium. I am Bob is Zack, the origin of that name I shall touch on later. You can call me Bob, or you can call me Zack, I don’t mind. I have been using the internet for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of spending hours with my cousins on a beige blocky “dinosaur”. This would have been around 2008 or 2009 and old youtube and Web 2.0 just fascinated me. Having my own website was always a dream of mine up until recently. I don’t know why it took me this long to get up to this task, maybe it was the fear of learning a “real” programming language, or maybe it was just the fear of obscurity. But I won't let fear dictate action any longer.

I was born in 2005 and have lived in North Carolina my entire life. I truly love it here. I currently reside in the mountains and the cool refreshing air is so soothing to the soul in a way I can’t get away from. I’m addicted.

I must say in the grand scheme of things my life is uneventful, not to say that in a self-deprecating way but in a way to say that the events in my life are not something you want to preclude your time with. I mean, I got my first job in IT at 17, I graduated high school in 2023, failed out of college due to multiple repeated health scares, and now I work. Not much to it. The major events that occupy my lifespan are still important to me but I can’t think of any reason (now) that you would want to take the time to read it. Unless you knew me personally, which at that point just ask me.

I think little things are much more important. Specific words, phrases, mannerisms, actions, expressions, the things it seems no one picks up on but me. Like why do I have my copy of “mm.. Food” at the end of my record collection instead of where it belongs alphabetically? Whose signature is on the little tool box on my shelf? Why is there a sticker of a donkey on my PC? Why do I have two names?

Well, it's a long story. It starts from when I was very little, 7 years old I believe, where my brother made our Minecraft account with a user that was the name “Zack” followed by an abbreviated version of his name. I thought he got this concept from a rapper's name but he informed me it was based on Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII. As any younger sibling does, I copied my older brother. From that point on I was “ZackMarsh” and I used the pseudonym for a while up until about 2016/2017 where a group of friends I had met on a (thankfully) dead web service, where the common connecting thread between us was a mutual enjoyment of Undertale. I had taken on a persona of being odd and strange (what's new) and I thought the character of “Bob” was a great representation of who I was. In a town full of misfits they were the strangest of them all. I made a post declaring that if I got 20 likes then I would change my name to “Bob” for a week. I got the 20 likes, I changed my name, a week passed, and the name just kinda stuck. I liked it, it was befitting. After some time had passed I wanted it to be my name across all platforms Bob. So I set my steam name to be “Bob is Zack” to basically let everyone know I was permanently changing my name. Childish, I know, but I was 12, I thought people would notice/care about that.

Ever since I have been Bob is Zack. That's just part of me. I have friends that refer to me as “Biz” and it’s the closest thing I’ve had to a nickname. I gotta say, I do think referring to me as “Biz” is much cooler than just referring to me as Bob or Zack.

I’ve always referred to it as a statement instead of a name. Bob is Zack. It’s a complete sentence. A strange name to describe a stranger(,) man. I carry that strangeness in stride. I honor it, for it is the entropy that physically makes up my smokey, shapeless, slender form. That strangeness is emboldened in my work. From obscure references to odd mechanics of unknowable processes. Both are captured in Synthetic Dreams.

Synthetic Dreams is the project I hope can be finished through this compendium. I say it’s most likely 75% finished, but it’s likely less. It’s a first person shooter developed on the ZDoom engine, starting development  back in 2021. I wanted to make a Hotline Miami influenced Doom mod that felt more like Hotline Miami than Doom. First, I started with the weapons. I did this because basing progression on weapons was “the style at the time” as Abe Simpson would put it. I wanted each one to serve a fundamentally different purpose than their Doom counterpart. When I did the movement, it had to be tight and responsive as opposed to Doom's slidey movement. The rest are the levels which I never fully completed. Each was set in New York City and around the state. I don’t feel I captured the feeling I wanted to with the levels. They never had that feeling of never-ending height to them that the real city has. If I do ever release Synthetic Dreams I will most likely redo a lot of the levels. The story was even crazier, involving an alternate history where America won the vietnam war, homosexual romance, the relationship between vigilantism and heroism, and the fall of 1987 America to a rise in racism, illegal weapons trade, and massive government cover up. But I'll touch on that another time.

Why do I cling to this strangeness? I don’t know. Maybe with more reflection and harder drugs I can pin-point the moment I succumbed to the effervescent weirdness but for now, I suppose we’ll both have to put up with the strange persona I relay to you all.