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Troy Scott

Troy Scott on The Long Point Trip. Photo by Michel.

Troy Scott (ca. 1970 – 4 December 2000 (presumed)) was the founder and long-time President of Reldni Productions.

Troy was the primus motor in the company. He wrote and performed most of their music (as a musician he also used the pseudonym "Roy Vung") and was the creative genius behind their computer games.

Founding of Reldni Productions[]

Troy Scott founded Reldni, Inc. together with Marty Butler in 1985, when they began producing bizarre audio cassettes. With friends and family the fifteen year old Troy Scott created "The Vampire Wrestling Story". Marty Butler edited the project and reproduced the tapes for sale. The next major album was "Acid Trip Blues". A little while later Marty left Reldni Productions. Troy continued to record and distribute a number of tapes, working together with personalities such as Scott Soroko

Reldni's heyday and Vinnie's Tomb[]

In the 1990s Reldni Productions designed computer games, and released widely praised classics such as Vinnie's Tomb Chapter One and Patrick's Challenge, which gave them more fame than their earlier niche audio productions.

In a May 20, 1997 interview with Reldni correspondent John Morgan, the head of software development at Reldni, Freddie Finkle, revealed that the second chapter of Vinnie's Tomb was scheduled for release that summer after the great success of Vinnie's Tomb Chapter One (which at that point had been downloaded between 600 and 700 times). He also explained that since his team of programmers were engaged in a major chess competition, he would probably have to write the entire game himself. Shortly after the interview, Finkle was fired by Troy, who subsequently developed the game himself. It was successfully published in 1997.

Kidnapping[]

In December of 1997, shortly after work on Vinnie's Tomb Chapter Two had ended and work on Vinnie's Tomb Chapter Three had begun, Troy Scott was kidnapped by his nemesis Mike Alfano. He was rescued in September 1998, and seemed to be doing fine after the ordeal, but by 1999 Troy was increasingly paranoid and fearful Alfano would return, so he spent much of 1999 in solitude watching DVDs in his basement. Although Troy occasionally updated the Reldni website and worked on Vinnie's Tomb Chapter Three, he rarely visited the Reldni Productions building. In his stead, acting President Paul Quinton ran the company amongst accusations of embezzling the company's toilet paper, money and liquor.

Ousted from Reldni[]

On January 16, 2000, an article by Professor John E. Morgan on Reldni's website stated[1] that in a bold yet strange decision, the Reldni Productions Board of Directors had dismissed Paul Quinton and hired Freddie Finkle as acting President of the company. Reldni co-founder Troy Scott, still described in the article as "the real President", had apparently decided to continue his work on various projects at home. Included in the article was separate interviews with Freddie and his long lost son, Franklin Finkle.

However, in September 2000, Reldni's website was taken over by Finkle & Son Enterprises, a newly formed division of Reldni that claimed it was "dedicated to bleed dry the decaying carcass of the old style Reldni Productions". A notice was posted explaning that Troy Scott would no longer be allowed to produce content for the website, and that the new maintainers, Freddie and Franklin Finkle, were looking for a webmaster who would work for peanuts. They also promised that the conclusion to the Vinnie's Tomb trilogy would finally be released:

Finkle & Son Enterprises is pleased to report that Troy Scott is currently under contract and must submit a new game Vinnie's Tomb Chapter Three to Franklin Finkle by the end of the year 2000 or face a severe beating with a wet noodle and legal action.

Reldni's website was never updated again, even though the Finkles claimed that "all existing content designed for this website will remain here until further notice", so it can only be surmised that the job market for web designers after the Dot Com Bubble burst was still lucrative enough that potential consultants looked elsewhere for salaries that were not paid in legumes.

As Vinnie's Tomb Chapter Three also never saw the light of day, and Troy Scott was never heard of again, one can only theorize if his days as a game developer ended with noodle flogging and a personal bankruptcy at the hands of the Finkles.

Presumed death[]

After Finkle & Son took over Reldni Productions in September 2000, Troy Scott was never heard from again, in any official Reldni capacity or otherwise.

A list of deceased persons in the Hamilton, Ontario area mentions a "SCOTT, Troy J." of Burlington, Ontario as having passed away on December 4, 2000. He was 31 years old.[2]

Further details are not known, but a user on Answers.com says he died "due to complications".[3]

References[]

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