Being a Game Developer (or, "One Step from Homelessness")

[BanzaiCat]

Surely, this could not be it, could it?

I mean, I have a decent job here at Shutemop Mall and the ever-present D. Balton Sellers of Books. Sure, it's in the middle of a veritable war zone in the local community. On one side, you have the knee-high-socks-wearing, so-called "Eastern Warriors," who like to wear Flashdance headbands and snap their fingers in time before breaking into overwhelming dance numbers and robbing you blind while you lay crying in a heap. Then there's the "ERAs" (ee-arr-aays) that like to dress in their Little League uniforms (in many cases, many sizes too small now) and carry baseball bats around. Security is a joke, but nobody ever hassles me or anyone in this store. Ever since the anchor closed down six months ago, this end of the mall is so dead, not even the light can escape the despair here.

But that's why I like it so! It's quiet, and I'm raking in the $3.45 an hour, hand over fist. I get to go home to my house - sure, it's a 50-year-old, 800-square-foot ramshackle abode held together by the spit and lost dreams of post-war construction workers, but it's mine, dammit. Ever since mom and dad hit the lottery and left me faster than Leisure Suit Larry left good taste behind, things have been a little bleak. But at least I have this house and have my prized possession - a DeLorean. Take it from me, these things are so cool and will be such a collector's item soon. This DeLorean guy is a genius. I can't wait to see what other cars his company makes!

Sure, the car's engine is shot now, and parts are hard to come by...Dad promised me he'd get some sent to me for my birthday, but I'm still waiting. It's okay. The mall, the store, everywhere I need to go isn't that far. And besides, those West Side Story idiots would probably stomp it into pieces the next time they have a rumble with the Greasers and the Ponyboys.

Yeah, but as great as all of this is, it isn't everything I want. Ever since that damned little box of plastic-packed text adventure games arrived, all I can do is count the time during my shift before I can ride my bike home, dodging dance numbers between warring gangs, and pop in the old floppy disk and play until the wee hours of the next morning. So much is missing, though! And I have dreamed long of how these guys put these things together. What do they do to make this code spit out these results? How do they get their text parsers to tell you "Never in your wildest dreams" when you type in "F*CK ME" (no asterisks, of course)? I'm curious. So I spent several weeks taking this program apart bit by bit and tweaking it here and there.

A friend of mine came over the other day. He's still living with his mom and dad, but he doesn't pay any bills and doesn't work. I think he's a loser sometimes, but then again all I have to do is look in the mirror and realize I should not be so quick to judge.

Here, in my oil-stained garage, where my dad worked on so many family cars, where the walls have soaked so many profanities that they virtually bleed bad will and anger Amityville Horror style, here, my friend Nate watched me play my tweaked game and said the magic words:

"Why don't you do this for a living?"

At first, I thought he was crazy. I checked his legs for knee-highs and cleats. No, I wasn't in the Twilight Zone. I had been first in line to see that movie, by the way. Of course, I was the only one in line to see it, but be that as it may.

"You're crazy," I said. "That's...it's..."

He kept looking at me matter-of-factly as I stumbled out lame sounds like a dying, beached Orca, or maybe a confused Norm without his beer. No matter how many times I tried to look at this as a crazy idea, the more it seemed like it would work.

"I don't have any money-"

"Don't your folks owe you a bundle already?"

It was true, they did. The house had $50,000 left on it in payments and they promised to pay it off. However, after a little lawsuit action against the neighborhood watch, something about them sneaking cameras into people's houses Revenge of the Nerds style, many of us got lump sum payments. Mine covered what was owed on the house. But they did say they were going to pay me what they said they would, to give me a bit of their winnings, but I had told them to never mind because I didn't really want it. More money means more problems, after all.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess they do."

He disappeared through the door to the small kitchen and brought my old rotary phone out. With a clang, he dropped it on the desk, the sound of small ringer bells echoing in the enclosed space.

"Call 'em," he said.

I did, and I guess the rest is the history you're reading.

Game Dev Tycoon is something of an interesting game. In it, you have 35 years, from the birth of computer gaming to goodness knows what, to build a byte-and-gamer-fueled empire. The retro gamer in me is quite excited to try this out, but the modern, jaded gamer in me isn't all that excited. For 7.99, what the heck I guess. I've played one game and went bankrupt in 14 years. This time, hopefully that will not happen, but if it does I will try to make it as colorful and entertaining as possible.



I'm a little worried about the longevity of this new business enterprise of mine. Is this really something I can make a living on? Once I've begged my parents to send me the cash, which they did willingly, I then quit my job at the mall. I realized no distractions would be allowed in this new dawning era of my life. No women (no worries there), plenty of Big Red, toilet paper, and Doritos, and we're good to go.

The first thing I need is to make this all legal-like. So I spent a few bucks to create a company. Sure, it's just me in my little garage with my poor eunuch of a DeLorean, with my brand new, state-of-the-art computer with 128K of RAM and a floppy drive (I even splurged for a brand new, HUGE 10MB hard drive!). I needed something that would capture the essence...nay, the very being of me and this game company.



"Groggy Games" it is. Groggy can mean so many things, and the upcoming complete lack of sleep that I envision will definitely make this an accurate name, I think.

So I've done the hard legal stuff. As the sounds of Secret Messages plays on my new cassette player stereo - another important morale-building part of the Groggy Games empire - I crack my knuckles and wonder what the hell I'm going to do now.

Games. Games, games, games. What should I do? It should be something different, something that catches people's attention. Something that will put me on the map, and fast. Well, I had volunteered in the Hickman County Hospital while I was in middle school and high school, and one thing I always loved was helping people. Except with the TB, and the diseases you can catch, eww, that's gross. But hey, I thought - why not create a game where you can deal with all the fun stuff but not take it home with you and infect your family, causing a deadly outbreak that kills half the world?

(Sigh) One should be so lucky.

In any case, I think a hospital sim is in order.



"Bloody Halls" it is. I get my friend Alan to do the artwork. He always played D&D in school and his notebooks were covered with drawings of knights and dragons and stuff. He said he'd do it and would get back to me quickly.

What platform do I make it for, though? While I have a brand-new PC sitting right here, I have a G64 sitting next to it. Everyone has a G64 these days. But I think these computers are on their way out the door. At least I pray they are, because it's way too expensive to build games for the G64; at least, for me it is.



I think making "Bloody Halls" a PC game is the way to go.

Forgive me, this is taking longer than I thought, so I must cut it off for now. However, I have plenty of screenshots to continue this narrative, if this is even the least bit interesting. Let me know.

[jomni]

You should go do premium priced games like Matrix.

[fran]

Go for it the next Bullfrog games in making, or maybe not they only lasted 13 years.

[W8taminute]

Excellent beginning to an AAR on a fun little title.  Looking forward to moar.

[Toonces]

Gentlemen,

THAT is how you write an AAR!  Fantastic!

[BanzaiCat]

Thanks, all!

I've got some more screenshots; I just need time to add the info in. I will get to it at some point this weekend.