> All of these rumors are false. The truth is that people on the Internet saw someone adding writing beyond a grade school level to a video game, and decided that to produce such a thing required you to be on drugs. Ignoring the dangerous message to budding creative types who may see the message that to be creative you have to be on drugs, it’s also extremely unfair to Michael Kirkbride himself. He’s a real person, with a real career. It’s not the best thing in the world to be a noted professional, and whenever someone googles your name, one of the top results relates to a fictional history with substance abuse.
Kirkbride's description tones it down to just some coffee and bourbon: https://www.imperial-library.info/content/thirty-six-lessons...
> "It was one dev, naked in a room with a carton of cigarettes, a thermos full of coffee and bourbon, and all his summoned angels."
And: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/hrmdzk/comment/fyd...
> You know that comes from a Photoshopped image, right? Come on now.
> Anyway, that’s all a lie. I’ve already given an account of how the 36 were written: a week of bourbon, smokes, and solitude. I’ve never dropped acid in my life.
I read somewhere that he would come up with his weirdest lore during all-nighters, delirious from sleep deprivation & some kind of intoxicant which I forget.