Austin Grossman - You

They work irregular hours and make a fetish of using the slowest computer in the building. Don would send an IT guy in after hours to install upgrades without their permission, just for everybody’s sanity. I got the sense that Simon had been one of these compilers. It was a tribute to his brilliance as a coder and manager that no one ever tried to interfere with his nakedly pathological jaunts into the abyss. I was starting to suspect Lisa fit the pattern, too.

And there was me, acutely conscious that if called on to define the term game designer I would be at a loss. Designers straggle in from other fields, English or architecture or political science or creative writing. They work on a cluster of tasks no one else has hold of: they do interface design, story, game mechanics, map layout. How many hits it takes to kill an orc, and what’s behind the next door, and what kinds of spells you can cast. It’s not a solid science, and up to this point I’d muddled through on a knack for not offending people and an ability to imagine far-off places. I knew what a Great Designer looked like, and that was Darren—loud, brash, inventive, charismatic, never at a loss for a bigger, better, crazier idea.

“Our ship date is twenty months from now. Focus has looked at what we’re costing them monthly and they’re hoping to get one good hit out of the next-gen technology,” Don was saying. “Otherwise they’re going to sell that off and dissolve the company and recoup whatever they can. They may not even wait if it looks like we’re not getting anything done.”

“I take it they’ve never worked with a game developer before?” Gabby asked.

“Dead-on. They have no idea what they’re in for, or what games look like halfway through, or why delays happen or schedules change. That, I’m afraid, is going to be my job.” Don had three jobs, which were: first, pitch our games to publishers and retailers. Second, stay on schedule. Third, keep everyone happy. Much of Don’s job had been managing Darren, who took care of the creative and technology leadership, the vision—whatever that meant. Now that would be Lisa and me.

Don and Lisa started wrangling about technology questions and Gabby joined them. She turned out to have a lot of technical knowledge I had no grasp of—texture sizes and resolutions, animation data structures, content pipelines. It seemed there was a lot of work that goes into taking a piece of art from an artist and getting it to show up in the game. I stayed quiet and acted like I understood.

Really I was thinking about mammoths and wolves, and snow falling into Brennan’s face as he hurries through a forest hoping to make it to a village before nightfall. I pictured him bursting into an inn and shaking snow off his cloak, drinking a whiskey by the fire, falling asleep on a straw mattress, and lying wrapped in furs picturing the miles and miles of snow-covered forest around him in every direction. I was thinking about a dragon made entirely of ice that lives for a thousand years.

Ten o’clock, story brainstorming meeting.

Place:

Conference room.

Dramatis Personae:

Don

Gabby

Russell

Matt

Lisa

Excerpts follow:

Don: We’re going to start from story with this. Games are never going to grow up until they tell a proper story, can we agree?

(Everyone nods. It seems true. Movies have story, and characters and emotion. And our whole goal is to make a game that’s like living in a movie. And then movies will go away, and we will reign supreme.)

Don: Russell’s going to be the one executing the story, but I want to come up with the main idea together. Let’s brainstorm a little about the scenario.

(Don looks up expectantly at our silent, reluctant faces. It feels like somebody else should be doing this, but this was it.)

Lisa: Is there a starting point? What do we already know for sure?

Me: Well, we know it’s the Third Age. And we’re dealing with Brennan and he’s on a quest. For the Hyperborean Crown.

Don: What is the crown, exactly?

Matt: Well, it’s a First Age artifact, so not that much has been said about it. It belonged to a prince named Adric, but it was in play long before that. Crown of an elder civilization. Like the Númenóreans.

Don: [Feigned comprehension]

Me: It was the big prize in Realms of Gold I . Sort of cool for the fans to see it again.

Don: Okay.

Lisa: What’s Hyperborean?

Me [primly]: Hyperborean means “from the north.”

Don: That’s going to look like shit on the back of the box. No one wants to find that thing.

Lisa: We could say “Crown of the North.”

Don: That works.

Me and Matt [simultaneously]: It’s not canon.

Don: Canon can be flexible, though, right? Darren modified a lot of things over the years.

(Matt and I nod, telepathically agreeing to use “Hyperborean” anyway; if they catch us and make us take it out, so be it.)

Don: So a long time ago—what?

(Matt has cleared his throat.)

Matt: There’s some argument that Realms is set in the far future—

Lisa [hastily]: Who exactly is Brennan?

Me: Your basic RPG hero, handsome, muscular. Younger son of the House of Aerion, which was defeated in the Fool’s Gold War. That’s where we start. So…

Don: The House of Aerion’s in danger?

Me: It already got its ass kicked.

Matt: Leira’s in danger?

Lisa: It’s out of character. Plus enough with the princess thing. Prendar’s in danger?

Me: I think that would be weird.

Lisa: I don’t really know why I’m here. I don’t really do fantasy.

Don: Woman’s perspective.

Me: Brennan’s just starting out in this one; he doesn’t know these guys yet. He’s just left home.

Don: So Brennan’s an exile, he wants to get his throne back. He wants to go home, right? So what’s stopping him?

Me: Uh, accused of a crime he never committed? Every man’s hand is against him, he must clear his name with the help of his friends, find the crown, and set the kingdom to rights.

Don: [Nods. What more need be said?] So where does the crown end up being?

Lisa: “Crown of the North.”

Matt: The end of the Third Age is when Soroth the ice dragon descends from the Pole and brings winter to the Perrenwood and the Tomb opens.

Don: Wasn’t Soroth dead?

Matt: Well, in the War of All Souls he flies to the Lich King’s aid in battle. He was driven off, but no one says if he died. In fact, he’s glimpsed by Leira Prime about two hundred years later in the skies, heralding the end of the age.

Don: Leira Prime is…

Matt: In some versions of history Leira gets to the end of the Third Age but goes back in time to marry Prendar and has their son, who later becomes the Lich King, following the corruption of the Circle of Seven per Second Age prophecy…

(Omitted due to period of inattention spent staring at Fallout poster… if only the bombs would fall…)

…which is why Lorac turns dark in the first place.

(Pause)

Lisa: But—last question—what exactly is the crown? Like, what are its powers? Why do they want it so much, anyway?

Matt: To start with, I think a substantial to-hit and damage bonus.

Don: Okay, well, what we have is, Brennan’s exiled, looking for this crown, meets his friends, they go up against the ice dragon. Working title?

Matt: Realms of Gold: Dark Lorac.

Lisa: Realms of Gold: Ice Dragon.

Matt: Soroth Strikes.

Lisa: Dragon of Ice.

Don: There’s a winter theme.