Ricardo Oyon Rodriguez recently passed away.

[pinkunz]

I wasn’t really sure where to put this, but I feel like someone should say something. I was waiting for someone else to post something, but no one has yet, and I think that should change.

Ricardo was active in the Spectrum and Adventuron communities, writing a few games. He fell ill and did not improve. It doesn’t look like he mentioned not doing well to anyone in my circle as this came as a surprise to everyone I spoke to. I encourage anyone that has anything more to say to feel free to share it here.

He was always patient, kind, and thoughtful in our interactions. I had no idea that the last time we spoke would be just that. He will be missed.

His itch.io can still be found here:

Ricardo Oyon Rodriguez - itch.io

And here’s another:

Gráficos | RESCATE 2019

But he did much more than that. He was a long running IF hobbyist, having entered the Microhobby adventure contest in 1989. He also did a significant amount of localization work in the mainstream videogame market, working on titles like *The Last of Us* and *Sly Cooper*:

https://www.mobygames.com/person/433483/ricardo-oyon-rodriguez/

He was also a talented artist, creating some lovely game art and some stunning pixel art:

Ricardo Oyon Rodriguez - ZX-Art

BlackJack: la aventura by FARLANDER

https://www.deviantart.com/ricardo73

And he wrote quite a bit about videogames and IF over the years. Here’s an article he wrote about boomer shooter FPS games to give you a sample:

Tormenta de Plomo - Orígenes

Finally, CAAD magazine will pay tribute to Ricardo in its next issue.

Nos ha dejado Ricardo Oyón

I feel like the best way to wrap this up is his about me, which I feel is accurate for many of us in a way.

It was not a waste, Ricardo.

[bert1978 (Óscar)]

Thank you for remembering Ricardo.

He was a very active member in the Spanish community.

His art for Blackjack is an excellent love letter to craftsmanship in these times of automatized graphics without soul. I loved their Chuck Jones vibes.

He also made a podcast series about Text adventures with collaborators and interviews to authors of IF, commercial or not, and the series was a success by the standards of our little IF world. I think it was during the new wave of interest in text adventures and contributed to this new surge. [https://www.youtube.com/@Tormentadeplomo/podcasts]

It is indeed so sad he left us so soon. He will be missed.

[aschultz]

I didn’t know him well. I just remember seeing him as a name I didn’t know, entering in TALP 2021. I thought, wow, this person knows what they’re doing. It’s a really strong introductory effort for text adventures, and I wanted to see more, and I feel silly not searching for more he did.

The extent of our communication was pretty much that, and him saying thanks. I wish it’d been more than that, but I’m glad he affected so many others’ lives so positively. I never thought to look up what else he might have done, which was obviously a lot.

[Ruber_Eaglenest]

@pinkunz

nificant amount of localization work in the mainstream videogame

Thanks for taking the time for doing this. I really appreciate it. After the shock, time drifted away between ectocomp and capitalism. So it is nice, as always, to be here in this caring community.

We are still processing it, and some plan are developing to remember him.

Thank you.

[Warrigal (Garry Francis)]

Thank you for writing this @pinkunz. Your little tribute brought a tear to my eye.

Ricardo was very active in the Spanish community, but he spoke very good English. I knew him best from his Adventuron games and his participation in the Adventuron Discord.

His artwork was stunning. He used Blender (the 3D modeller) for Rescate 2019 and Dungeons of Antur, but he also did fantastic pixel art.

He was always willing to help others and I remember when he arranged a Zoom meeting to demonstrate how to improve the artwork in a game.

He also had a terrific sense of humour.

He will be sorely missed.

[dee_cooke]

My favourite piece of art by Ricardo was the cover art he did for the Next Adventure Jam. I have never forgotten it. It can be seen here.

He was a big part of the Adventuron community and associated jams from the early days (2019 onwards) and will be very much missed.

[adventuron (Chris Ainsley)]

I was, and still am, extremely sad to hear of the passing of Ricardo.

As others have said, Ricardo was a key figure in the early Adventuron jams, and he was a passionate artist and game author. In our many conversations over the years he would often talk down his technical abilities but I was always impressed with what he managed to achieve with Adventuron.

My first interaction with Ricardo was via a comment (attached below) in which he told me that my cave of magic graphics could be better (I have zero ego about my terrible artistic talent) and so he offered to recreate them (using his considerable talents).

We became good pen-friends, and Ricardo then created graphics for several of the Adventuron gamejams and started creating (and porting) games to the Adventuron platform, mostly in Spanish. He really believed (at that time) in Adventuron. Perhaps moreso than myself.

We met up just once (photos attached). In London, in 2022. Ricardo worked as a dog-walker as his day job and he loved animals.

He was full of life, and passionate about his hobbies including gaming. He loved art, and he taught himself 3d modelling (as Garry said).

Later, I couldn’t keep up with his ambitions for Adventuron as a game engine, as I had competing time demands and the renderer of Adventuron simply wasn’t up to the task for his commercial game aspirations. There was a small period of time where I sensed his frustration but I could not find the time to work on those aspects of the engine that required upgrade and in the end I had to let him know that I couldn’t keep up.

Despite this, we continued to have small conversations, not knowing how ill he had become. Checking his youtube channel now, the clues were very much there.

Ricardo will be very much missed. He was a gentle soul, a lovely man, and a talented artist. It should not take a declaration of ill health to tell the people you love or respect that you love or respect them. I take that from this.

[Warrigal (Garry Francis)]

@adventuron

Ricardo worked as a dog-walker as his day job and he loved animals.

I didn’t know that. I know that he loved his own dog and it appears in a photo in the tribute by Club de Aventuras AD (see link provided by @pinkunz above), the banner art for the Adventuron Christmas Jam and that’s probably the same dog in your second photo. I feel sorry for his dog, having lost such a loving owner.