"So we decided also that we were gonna film this and maybe try to sell it as a pilot for a TV show, which was going to be called 'When I Grow Up,'" says Baptiste. "And each episode was going to be me trying to do a different job that I wanted to do as a kid as a way of dealing with brain injuries. The pilot is all stand-up comedy." He attended ImprovBoston in Cambridge – a nonprofit improvisation theater – to receive stand-up lessons from friend and revered local comedian Dana Jay Bein.

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"My first performance, I don't remember," relates Baptiste. "I had to have the filmmakers send me footage so that I would know that I was even there in the first place." He followed up his debut performance with a full show at ImprovBoston a month later, and then he became a relatively active member of the local comedy scene. He informs me that his first routine was written around the aforementioned traumatic dissociative-sleep incident he and his wife experienced.

"Finding a way to make a joke about a horrible situation is my way of taking control of the situation and giving myself power over it," says Baptiste. "Actually doing the stand-up comedy and actually forcing myself to do that really helped. During that time, I was able to try and get my strength up enough to propose to [Maria]."

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MAKING A GAME FOR COMEDIANS

Once Baptiste had recovered enough, he yearned to return to work. Around two years after his health issues forced him to leave, he returned to Harmonix as an intern, "just doing some busy work, helping to fold T-shirts and stuff." But Harmonix had, naturally and understandably, moved on somewhat over the course of Baptiste's absence, and in many ways, so had he.

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"I had been playing, while I was recovering, lots of indie games, and there is something very attractive about that," he begins. While Baptiste fostered a sincere love for the Rock Band franchise, he felt very little ownership and influence over its identity. The prospect of working at an indie studio presented an opportunity for him to leave his stamp on games in an entirely new way.

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"We had a new game, and we felt that we were weak on the marketing and press side," says Eitan Glinert, founder and president of Cambridge MA's Fire Hose Games. It wasn't long into their first interview before Glinert was sold on Baptiste as an ideal fit for his studio. However, after an open and frank discussion about Baptiste's condition, there were question marks over how it might affect his ability to perform, and whether the work might push him too far. "And we decided, 'OK, we'll give you a 20-hour-a-week thing. And you need to let me know instantly if anything happens. And furthermore, if at any point you have a headache or you're not feeling good, like, you're not allowed to be here."

Baptiste started work at Fire Hose, part-time with full benefits, in July 2012. After around three months, he bumped up to around 30 hours a week before eventually coming on full-time. His first major project was coordinating PR for Go Home Dinosaurs! – a tower-defense game that released on Steam and iPad. But it also presented Baptiste with his first opportunity for creative involvement in a game; he wrote the game's spoken dialogue, and he directed all and even performed some of the game's voiceover work. "And I was, like, 'Hey, you know what? I kinda like this side of game development. I should do more of that.'"

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After shipping Go Home Dinosaurs!, Baptiste pitched his first ever game to Glinert. "I wanted to make a game for stand-up comedians, and I wanted to make a game for the people who helped me," he contends. "I wanted to make a game that made people feel more clever. I wanted something that celebrates Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker. I wanted to make something like that; something that was funny, that applauded not humor but wit and cleverness."

Let's Quip is a debating game born of a conflict-diffusion tactic Baptiste employed during his Harmonix days. He'd ask workmates engaged in circular arguments to draw a word from a Rock Band cap and then give them around 30 seconds to state their case as to why their respective word was better than their opponent's. Once the rest of the team had voted and a victor had been declared, Baptiste observed that those involved in the initial argument would quickly move past it.

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The digital incarnation, currently in beta on Facebook and with mobile versions around the corner, takes this core concept and limits each player's argument to 140 characters. The idea is to outwit your opponent, the arguments voted on by other players in something of a non-monetized energy mechanic; once players vote on enough matches, they earn the opportunity to play another round.

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A two-person team, Baptiste and programmer/co-creator Sharat Bhat promote Let's Quip with a daily livestream on Twitch, where they invite comedy personalities along to chat, crack wise and vote on matches. Recent guests have included national touring comedian Jackie Kashian and graphic novelist and comedian Keith Gleason. "I never told him to do that," Glinert says of Baptiste's Twitch initiative. "He came up with this on his own, and he did it back before Twitch was a thing. Like, he just found this thing that he thought was cool, he got it set up, and that's been a huge deal for us."

HEAD DOWN, CHARGE FORWARD

Vast swathes of Baptiste's life have been erased from his memory as a byproduct of the trauma associated with his many brain surgeries. As such, he relies heavily on reconstituted memories from those who were around him at the time in order to piece together key moments from his life. He describes his memories as essentially being "Polaroids of someone else's life."

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"For my birthday two years ago, I asked that everybody, all my Facebook friends, instead of sending me a present of a card or whatever, that they just share a story that happened between us, no matter how banal or boring, so that I can recreate some of those memories of things that happened."

Before we part ways, I ask Baptiste if there's anything in particular that he's learned from this whole experience. "Probably, but I keep forgetting it," he responds dryly before chuckling through a sharp apology. "Everything is going to go wrong and everything is going to get worse, and you're going to have parts of your life where bad things just keep on happening and keep on happening and there is no end to it. And the best thing you can do when that happens is just… keep your head down and charge forward."

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'This is gonna sound terribly depressing, but I don't mean it that way: when you've gone through something like this, you accept that you're already dead in a way, but you still have some time before they check the card. Having that lack of fear is actually very freeing and has allowed me to be less afraid of just doing the shit that I need to do for me. I'm not afraid of failing anymore, because who cares? That's not necessarily an attitude I had before, and it's weird to say it, but I think I am kinda grateful for it now."

Chris Leggett is a freelance journalist based in Seattle.

Illustration by Jim Cooke.