Goodbye Gys

I’ve known Gys, whom most of you fondly address as Runsheng or Sam for 9 years. Gys is actually a nickname he gave himself; it’s actually made up of his initial “Goh Yoon Sing”.

Actually, Gys was in the same secondary school as I am but it was only during my poly days that I got to know him. I still remember the first question I asked him when we were waiting for our class on the first day of school. It was a lame question and sometimes he still “suan” me for asking him such a question.

I asked him, “Are you in this class also?” Ha. Of course lah, or else why the heck would he be waiting outside the classroom?

It was our mutual love for programming that brought us so close together. That class we attended was Programming in C++. Straight after that lab, we were already looking forward to programming our first Role-playing game. Ha.

It was also during that time that we met Alan and we developed a close friendship and even called ourselves the three musketeers.

From the beginning, Gys was very hardworking. Because his family was not really very well off, Gys would work part-time after school. He would work at the NUS Central Lib attending to the photocopy machines there and sometimes I would visit him after school to talk crap. He never complained a bit about his situation and would pay off his school fees and other expenses with his own money. Even after graduation, his hardworking trait and attitude is something I will always admire.

It is not common for him to go for days without sleep rushing for projects during our poly days and even when he was working, he didn’t changed a bit.

Gys is also a very filial son. I witnessed his filial piety to his parents throughout the years. I’m not very sure how to describe it but some example would be that he would bring his father to his medical appointments and he made it a point to say goodbye to his parents whenever he went out. He would not say once or twice he would say it a lot of times.

Gys is also fiercely loyal to his friend. To him nothing in the world is more important than his family and friends.

Gys is also one smart guy. His programming skills are really damn good. Sometimes I really have no idea what he is talking about when he tries to explain how a particular function works. I will simply tell him, “Just tell me how to use it. I don’t need to know the details.” Ha. That is encapsulation for you.

Gys is a perfectionist. When doing our final year project together, we were always fearful of his “magic word”, “Redo”. Ha. Because he wanted everything to be perfect, we actually had to redo our project a lot of times. He was our unofficial leader during the time of our final year project. I was actually the “Group Leader” in name but Gys was actually the one planning and making sure everything worked.

He was also my advisor when it came to the matters of the heart during the poly days. Then, I needed some advice on how to chase a girl, who else could I turn to but him. Ha. Till now, I have no clue how he managed to convince me to execute his crappy ideas. Ha. But it was also this crap talking that bonded our friendship.

The few of us including Edwin, Alan, Figo and Koksing became close buddies towards year 3 of poly days. We would often sit at the canteen watching pretty gals walk pass and finding our “target”. Then we will just sit there and talk crap for hours. Ha.

As the years went by, we became closer still and often met up every weekend to tour Orchard road, talk crap or simply just hang out together. We even called ourselves the “Losers” for our lack of luck when it comes to girls.

Yes, I think girls were our common topic then. We always lamented how we were so unlucky not to be attached and we always longed for the one. Gys is a true romantic, some of his favorite movies were You’ve got Mail, Lost in Seattle and the recent Music and Lyrics…

Sadly for Gys, he didn’t manage to find himself his true mate. He came close a few times but the girl never said yes. I must say that Gys is a dedicated and good man. I truly believe he would have made a good boyfriend, husband and soulmate. It is tragic that no girls caught a fancy to him… well, I guess life is unfair.

Even at work, Gys was such a good guy that he had always been taken advantage of. There were a couple of times when he did freelance and the company who hired him refused to pay him the money. Even when he started a company with 2 other partners, they cheated him of his shares and kicked him out of the company.

I remember I was just telling him this a few days ago, I said, “Next time when you are rich and successful, you must get back at these people, sue the hell out of them.” And his answer was, “No, I can’t do that. I would rather the whole world do me injustice then if I do injustice to one person.”

Talking crap is one of Gys forte. He gave himself a title of Master of Crap and his nonsense always make us laugh. Though sometimes it sure irritates the heck out of us but it is always funny… We’ll miss his crap…

Playing soccer was also one of Gys’s passion. We would play our Sunday soccer at a street soccer court near his place, we call it the Commonwealth League. Ha. We even had a nick for him; Gys was Roy Keane – The captain and anchorman for the team. Though Koksing might want to challenge that. Ha.

Yes, sometimes he makes mistakes in the game and we will scold him like crazy. But he always goes on to “redeem” himself and help us to win the match. At times when the team is tired and unmotivated, he is one who continues to run about and chase the ball tirelessly, at the same time spurring us on. The same work attitude he applied to his life, he applied it to his passion.

Another passion of Gys was he wanted to develop a PC game; that was what made him enroll for our Multimedia course in the first place. He pursed that passion throughout his life. From the Poly days, he created game projects like “The Mystery of Hillview” which was really fun to play. Then, with Yingseng and me, we created the Awaken Chaos a fantasy role-playing game. You know, it was Gys and my dream to make Awaken Chaos into a real 3D game by the year 2012… we were even planning to write a book, me the author while he provided the idea….

Gys is really a man who we can draw our inspiration from and who never fails to inspire and motivate me. It was only 3 months back that we decided to team up to develop our first commercial game.

Throughout these 3 months, it was like we went back to the poly days. The same dedication, passion and determination were still there, if not stronger. We even motivated each other to come up with some goals we wanted to achieve in five years time and when I read the goals now, I feel very sad that he can never accomplish them now… He really had so much to look forward to in his life, a promising future.

I think he would not mind if I shared with you some goals he set for himself.

1. I must earn S$300,000 by 31st Dec 2008.
2. I must have savings of at least S$150,000 by 31st Dec 2008.
3. I must earn my first S$1,000,000 by 31st Dec 2010 in 3 years time.
4. I must have savings of at least S$3 million by 31st Dec 2012.
5. I must develop Defy Interactive into a company with a profit of S$100,000 based on projects other than the in-house game projects by 31st Dec, 2008.
6. I must develop Defy Interactive into a company with an office space at least 40 square metre, with a conference room, by 31st Dec, 2008.
8. I must expand the Singapore office of Defy Interactive to at least 200 square metre, in a near-central area with a conference room, a pantry, 2 office rooms for me and Kaichong each with a window with a big, beautiful view, an area for waiting guests and a 2m x 3m wall with the company logo on it, by 31st Dec 2012, in 5 years time.
9. I must expand the company to overseas so that there will be office in China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia by 31st Dec 2012. (to be elaborated)
10. I must develop and ship a Nintendo DS title by 31st Dec 2010 which all game review website will have an average rating of 8 and above and also will generate a profit of at least S$100,000.
11. I must develop and ship a successful 3D game for hardcore gamers which will has a total profit of S$1 million and an average rating of 9 and above by 31st Dec 2012.
12. I must complete the Marathon of 42 km in less than 6 hours for year 2008.
13. I must buy a 120 square-metre 4-room flat for my parents in Tanglin Halt Area in 3 years time by 31st Dec 2010.
14. I want to bring both of my parents to Hong Kong for a one week vacation by 31st Jun 2008 and spent at least S$5000 there.
15. I must to support my parents better by giving them a monthly allowance of S$1500 every month from 31st Jun 2008 onwards and S$2000 every month from 31st Dec 2008 onwards.
16. I must treat my parent dinner outside at least twice a week by 31st June 2008.
17. I must find a girlfriend by 17th Feb 2008 before I am 26.
18. I must win 3 consecutive matches of Eight Balls over Kok Sing by 31st Jun 2008.
19. I must be able to put in all nine balls of a Nine Balls game in the first turn by 31st Jun 2008.
20. I want to take a vacation to Japan for a one week holiday during winter and spend at least $$5000 there by 31st Dec 2008.
21. I want to backpack travel throughout Europe for 3 weeks by 30th Jun 2009.
22. I must to donate S$10,000 in total to Singapore charities by 31st Dec 2008.
23. I must to hold a campaign to raise funds at least S$1 million for Singapore charities in one day by 31st Dec 2009.
24. I must to help to encourage the game development market in Singapore by being involved in at least 1 games development event in Singapore by 31st Dec 2008.

I met Gys 3 days ago, Tuesday 29 Jan. I was at his house early morning to discuss about the changes to our game. I still remember his last words to me, “I’ll promise I’ll finish the program structure by this Friday.”

I’ll miss you man. Your departure is really too sudden liao. I wonder what were your last thoughts… or did you just fell into a deep sleep? I wonder where you are now? Are you in another dimension, another realm or are you just gone?

Sometimes I really wished that this was just a cruel joke you are playing on us, I wished that I would receive an sms from you telling me “Gotcha!” I wished that you would suddenly just come back to life again, a medical miracle… I wish…

So much we could have accomplished together man. So much more crap I wanted to talk to you…

I will miss your crap man.
I will miss playing soccer with you at the Commonwealth League.
I will miss our discussion on our favorite show like The Universe and Lost… I know you were so eager to find out what happened next in Lost….
I will miss discussing the Big Rip, The Big Bang, Time Traveling Theories with you.
I will miss your “Soccer Tomorrow?” sms.
I will miss your lame jokes and pranks.
I will miss your “perverted” smile.
I will miss playing Winning Eleven on the PS2 with you.

Yes, I will miss you man.
I know time will heal the pain… But you will always have a special place in my heart.

If there is a heaven, I hope you are there now because you really deserve it. You are a good guy.

Till we meet again man.

Kaichong aka Mr Siu
Former President of Losers.com