If you’ve played Wii or GameCube games on the PC, chances are it was because of the Dolphin emulator. Rachel Bryk, one of the emulator’s most active contributors, has passed away. Since the news hit, the community has been sharing memories and mourning.
Dolphin is what’s allowed fans to see games like Super Mario Galaxy and other Nintendo games from the previous eras in high-definition. It’s pretty amazing, and while certainly a bit of a grey area, there’s no denying the passion behind Dolphin and the people who’ve crafted it.
Bryk was one of those developers.
The community hub for Dolphin released a brief statement on Saturday:
It’s hard to believe that just two years ago, Rachel was reluctant to submit changes to the emulator at all due to being relatively inexperienced. But over the course of two years, she spent a considerable amount of time working on what she loved, becoming the tenth most active developer over the time period.
She often would do a lot of the drudge work that no one else would do and attempt features that no one else had time to work on. Much of her time in Dolphin was dedicated to giving TASers the tools they needed to be able to make ridiculous videos pushing games to and past their absolute limits. Without her dedicated work, it’s very likely that Wiimote TASing would not have become stable enough for general usage as it is now. She was also responsible for improvements in savestates, netplay, the user interface, configuration, and more.
TAS, by the way, means means tool assisted speedrun. Bryk was a part of ensuring speedrunners could use Dolphin and have their times recorded accurately and authoritatively.
Several members of the Dolphin development team released statements, as well.
I’m not exactly sure what you want us to do from now on — I can’t speak for you Rachel. But I wish that you’re comfortable and happy wherever you are now, and we all promise to do everything we can to help make that happen. Anyway, thank you Rachel. I’ll never forget you. You were a good friend. — Jasper
Rachel was more than just a great programmer. She was a great programmer who always managed to put a smile on my face. I don’t think that there ever will be anyone else quite like her. Rest in peace — Stevoisiak
No matter what, she was always willing to help anyone. Of all the devs she was the most helpful on the forums, always pitching in. Dolphin is a smaller place without her.. — MaJoR
Bryk’s favourite game was apparently a relatively unknown Wii game called Pucca’s Kisses Game, which you can see her playing below using the very tools she helped develop.
In the comments, fans have been reacting to the news.
Comments
11 responses to “Nintendo Emulator Developer Passes Away”
Correct me if I’m wrong; but didn’t she go on half chan and get ripped into about being trans? And then didn’t she commit suicide?
Just what i heard..
(I did not say this) What i read: “So, apparently one of the devs working on the Dolphin Emulator, Rachel Bryk, was a tranny and recently died of fall damage after jumping off a bridge.
He was apparently suicidal for a long time now, likely predating the harassment he received online, but in a move of utter brilliance, he went to halfchan to look for suicide support. halfchan told him to kill himself, since that’s what he wanted to do anyways. So he killed himself.
Now people are blaming halfchan.
“
Had to google it, thanks to morbid curiosity. Apparently some ‘troll’ told her to jump off a bridge and a few days later, she did.
Hope that the guy feels every bit as guilty as he should after hearing about it.
Ahh. I heard about jumping off a bridge, but didn’t know if it was a figure of speech.
Sad to hear, especially after so much work on a epic free project.
I don’t know about the laws of each country but that sort of speech is illegal. POlice on’t always want to o anything about it but people like that need to be arrested.
I think the wording was less demanding, more suggestive. Makes zero difference in a moral sense, might in the law though. I’m not sure.
thats horrible if true. what is wrong with some people.
Tragic. Hope the stories of suicide and trolling aren’t true, but can bet they are. Heartfelt condolences to her friends and family regardless. Transgender folks have to deal with some of the worst shit imaginable, can only vaguely imagine how hard it must be.
Remember people, there’s always ways to get help. If you’re having problems, never be afraid to speak up or just ask for someone to listen. You are precious, never let the world convince you otherwise. Especially not some worthless sack of shit on the internet.
Sometimes I really don’t understand why people are so shitty to other people. The internet seems to forget that trans people are actually people.
Goddamn I’m so angry. I’m not even sad. Her family and friends are sad. I’m furious that random strangers can treat a person so badly that they literally kill themselves as a result.
Beyond Blue
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i’m 58 and i so enjoy gaming and it’s people like this young person who made it so.so sad must her family be feeling right now and so annoying idiots think their words have no effect.In this day and age why is there so much nastiness and bitterness because some one does things better than you. May this sack of crap have his or her day it will happen.
Most of the things I’ve been reading around the place have talked about her having a couple of pretty nasty diseases that left her in chronic pain, and that they were more prominent factors in her deciding to bring and end to it all.