He looks so young. Please don't let me fund out he built Build while I was ogling the stripper sprites in Duke Nukem and barely managing my CGSE maths homework...
> 08/24/1993: Ken signs employment agreement with Apogee Software Productions. A special provision on the contract says that Apogee cannot interfere with Ken's education.
Inferring from the first entry in the timeline, he must have been 17 or 18 then.
06/09/1992: Ken's brother, Alan, hogs the computer by
playing a new game titled "Wolfenstein 3D"
06/16/1992: I decide I can win over his time by making my
own version, originally titled "Walken" (Walk + Ken)
stonewall: In 1993 you made a proposal for the Build engine on
behalf of Epic Games. At the time Epic was releasing pinball
games and a year later research began on Unreal. What were your
plans for Build and how did not getting that engine affect Epic?
Mark: I'd say we came out way ahead the way things worked out.
With Ken Silverman (creator of the Build engine) on board we
might not have been as motivated to make our own technology.
Build was good tech and of course Duke Nukem got made with it,
but it wasn't a long-term technology play like the Unreal Engine.
So both Epic and 3DRealms ended up better off for the way things
worked out. 3DRealms produced the monster hit Duke Nukem 3D and,
by complete coincedence, we went on to produce the engine that
they will use for the sequel to it.
Ken Silverman was a prodigy of sorts. I always wondered what he would have done if he had ended up staying in the industry.
http://advsys.net/ken/build.htm