The Last Video Game

From time to time, I consider abandoning my nice, secure IT job and going into video game development. I have visions of developing original, entertaining games that are well-regarded and are enjoyed around the world.

But after visiting this Tumblr, I see that my opportunities for becoming a video game developer will soon expire, if they have not already.

Game development companies have found that innovation is unnecessary. It is more economical and reliable to find an existing, successful copy, and produce a close copy of that game. If you make your copy quickly enough, you can seize market share both from the original game and from the other copies that will inevitably follow.

As software tools become more sophisticated, we will be able to automate more and more of the development process. Game development companies will develop tools that can find hot games trending on app stores, download them, reverse engineer the code, scrape off any intellectual property, add new graphics and styling, and re-upload the same game with a slightly different name. There will be no software developers any more, simply computer software running 24x7, flooding app stores with homogeneous spam. Even the big development companies will become nothing more than vast arrays of soulless servers, without respect for the craft or for their customers. (Some might suggest that EA has achieved this level of sophistication already.)

The last original game will be developed by a young hobbyist in Ukraine, using a pirated copy of Multimedia Fusion. The game will put the player in the role of a boy with a golf club, standing over a gopher hole. At some random time, a gopher pops out of the hole. The player presses a button, causing the simulated boy to swing his golf club. If the boy swings his golf club at the right time, the club strikes the gopher and sends it flying. The game calculates the player's score based on the distance the gopher travels.

This by itself is not an original idea, but since the author does not include any hint of Bill Murray or Kenny Loggins in the game, there is no obvious copyright violation. The author uploads his game to a few app stores, writes a Facebook post about it, and a few of his friends buy a copy.

This brief uptick in sales alerts automated game development systems all across the globe. Within moments, thousands of Gopher Golfer clones appear. They all appear superficially different: there's a version with a caveman bashing a velociraptor with a club; there's a version with a presidential candidate smacking the opposing presidential candidate; there's a version with a giant gopher teeing off over a miniature golfer; there is a Star Wars themed clone that you have probably already designed in your head while you were reading this.

The real job of the game development engines is to layer on microtransaction content, so the clones of Gopher Golfer all the player to pay real money to buy different clubs, or to buy pets to scare the gopher out of the hole, or to buy snazzy clothes to dress up the simulated golfer.

The casual clones of Gopher Golfer inspire big-budget clones. Within days, every MMO is an endless plain populated by male warriors in elaborate armor and female warriors in tight lingerie, all carrying swords as big as skyscrapers, all lurking outside caves waiting for the demons inside to pop their heads out. A week more, and EA/Bioware releases an epic RPG version of Gopher Golfer, with voice talent provided by several dozen celebrities, and containing a thick web of romance options.

By the time this future comes to pass, copyright laws will preclude any concept of consumer ownership, and the authorities will have collected and destroyed every last DVD, CD, floppy disk, cartridge, or cassette tape produced in more forgiving times. Every game you subscribe to, or buy a microtransaction for, will delete itself as soon as its owning company determines that the game is no longer generating sufficient revenue. There is no legal way to purchase or play your old, expired games. You may only play the latest releases, the games whose owners are still paying game bloggers to write good reviews for. So, within a month of the debut of the original Gopher Golfer, every video game on the planet will be an iteration of Gopher Golfer.

Naturally, game development companies will have also figured out how to automate copyright lawsuits, and millions of Gopher Golfer related DCMA takedown notices will blast through the internet hourly, but these lawsuits will have become a zero-sum game for every professional development company. One penalty paid here is reimbursed by another penalty rewarded over there. Unfortunately, the author of the original Gopher Golfer is not part of a professional gaming company, and when he tries to release an RTS sequel to his own game, the sheer economic force of the lawsuits generated against him causes the global economy to ...

But that's a different sort of apocalyptic story, perhaps for another day.

So cherish your video games while you can. Dust off your old copy of Baldur's Gate, or Freedom Force, or Chrono Trigger. Whisper a silent "thank you" to the men and women who used their talent and imagination to entertain you.

Because your future is made entirely of gophers and golf clubs.

Write every day - no, really

If you've ever made any attempt at seeking advice on becoming a writer, you'll have run across one suggestion that pops up everywhere: "Write every day." It's easy to look at this suggestion and say "Okay, I see the intention here. You're supposed to establish a work ethic, keep your output steady, and treat your writing seriously. Fine, but I can do that by just writing two or three times a week, so long as I keep it up."

There's certainly nothing wrong with writing just X days a week, or Y days a month, so long as you keep to your schedule. That's how I got Stone of Names finished. But recently I've rearranged my schedule so that I actually can write every day.

I've found that the effect of this goes beyond merely word count. Now that I'm writing every day, it's getting into my blood. I find that some small part of my mind is always thinking about the book. I'll be standing around, waiting for the microwave to ding, when a line for my next chapter will pop into my head. Then I have to run and grab my little notebook and write it down. When I do sit down in front of my laptop, I can get back into the flow more easily, because it feels as if I never really left it.

When I was writing just a few days a week, I felt like a software developer who sometimes does a little writing on the side. Now that I'm writing every day, I feel like a writer.

Stone of Names is on the Kindle Store!

I said I'd get Stone of Names available for purchase by the end of the year, and I made it with a few hours to spare. Click here to check it out.

I'm also going to be moving most of my author-related posts to my new blog and to my new Facebook page. These sites will present my public face as an author. My more chatty personal posts will remain here at Adventure21.

Now on to getting the print version ready for sale...

Stone of Names: November Status Report

I'm still on track to have Stone of Names up on Amazon in December. It might be 11 PM December 31st, but it will be December. I'm in the final editing phase, correcting a few continuity and missing-information issues. Unfortunately, my productivity has really slowed down. I might have to step away from the book for a couple of days to reboot.

I'm torn about whether my next book should be the alt-history whodunit I have planned, or the young adult urban fantasy I recently had an idea for. I already have the mystery all plotted out, down to the characters and scenes and whatnot, but I expect that more contemporary urban fantasy is an easier sell right now.

In any case, Stone of Names is definitely in the homestretch now. Can't wait to have a copy in my hands.

Review: The Walking Dead [Game]

I've expressed my discontent with zombie fiction before. So many zombie stories are simply endless sequences of live people shooting dead people in the head. I also think that there are entirely too many zombie video games (although, as a genre, it's certainly outnumbered by "elves, swords, and magic" games, which leads to a whole different conversation).

That being said, The Walking Dead is a fantastic game.

It might be more accurate to call it an interactive story, instead of a game. Though it's a point-and-click adventure game at heart, there are only a few puzzles that could be considered challenging. The quick-time events ("click this hotspot NOW!") present more of an obstacle, but a couple of these are more frustrating than engaging. The rest of your interaction with the story primarily consists of walking the main character through a series of obvious steps.

Once in a while, though, the simple actions you're presented with leave you with a choice of options, and the decision you make has a significant effect on the rest of the story. If you have the hints turned off, it may not even be obvious that you've hit one of those branching points. And once your decision is made, you get to play through the consequences.

The game designers made sure to put some emotional weight behind those choices. There were several occasions where I was horrified at the decision that I was being forced to make, and given only a couple of seconds in which to make it. Those mouse clicks are far more gut-wrenching than any other game's "click here to kill a zombie" mechanics.

Even the sequences where you're just clicking through a series of fixed events are used to really drive home the mood of the story. Whether you're staggering through a corridor or wielding a gory axe, the interactive events put you into the middle of the story and make you feel that the blood is really on your hands.

The art, the writing, and the voice acting are all top-notch. This would have been a decent story even without the interactive elements. But the game gives you enough control to really draw you into the hope and the pain of the characters, and elevates it to a higher level.

I wouldn't say this is a "fun" game. It's certainly not a happy-go-lucky murder simulator where your character deals death with a quip and a wink. Parts of this game hurt to play. But I think this is the best zombie apocalypse story I've seen, and quite possibly it always will be.

Anachronox is on Steam!

Anachronox is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm elated that it's now available on Steam. I still have my original install disks, secured in a hermetically-sealed safe in a secret offsite location, but now it's available to everyone for easy and convenient download.

I recommend this game almost without hesitation. The reason I hesitate is that it's a bit odd, and some folks might not care for it as a result. The graphics are surely dated and quaint by now (they were even a bit dated at the time it came out) and the combat system is not exactly a tightly tuned engine of tactical complexity. But the story, style, and humor kept me glued to the screen from beginning to end, and for that alone, I'm glad that more gamers will get a chance to experience this game.

At heart, Anachronox is a classic console-style RPG, a mixture of dungeon crawls, turn-based battles, character progression, and world exploration, with a strong focus on story. I love all of these elements, but for many console RPG's, the "story" is somewhat lacking. I don't need to play any more RPG's staring the brave-but-bland hero without a past, accompanied by his pure-hearted love interest and a cast of stereotypes including the gruff but loyal bruiser or the gorgeous woman with big breasts and few clothes.

The story of Anachronox is about a down-on-his-luck private eye who ...

Yeah, they had me at private eye.

Anachronox is primarily a mix of cyberpunk and space opera, in a world that never takes itself too seriously. One of your companions is a grumpy old wizard who can stun opponents with a powerful stream of gibberish; another companion is a miniaturized planet whose population has decided to send their homeworld off on adventure. At one point in the game you encounter a large organization of superheroes, whose detailed backstories include the issue number of the fictional comic book series they debuted in. (I wanted very badly to read these comics.) The game's humor can be found even in subtle details of the setting, like the vending machine you find in a lobby of the game's central space station, with a label on the side reading "Asnackronox".

One day, when I have some time on my hands, I hope to play through this fantastic game and enjoy it all over again. I still nurse an ambition of one day running a tabletop roleplaying game set in the Anachronox universe. But for now, I merely want to give the game a shout-out, and encourage anyone who loves a little humor and noir with their science fiction to plunk down seven bucks and let Sylvester "Sly" Boots show you around his world.

(Oh - and is a sequel too much to hope for? Maybe by way of a Kickstarter project? I'll be first in line to pledge.)

The Memory of Flight

So I had a very odd dream.

Mary Lynn and I were sitting on the roof of an apartment building, about three stories up. Above us was a blue sky, draped with several broad white clouds. One particularly large cloud bank was approaching, and as I looked at it, I saw that a large round hole had opened up in the bottom of the cloud, and something like a waterfall was spilling down from the opening's rim.

I immediately pointed this out to Mary Lynn. As we watched, the stuff (whatever it was) that was falling from the cloud seemed to level off, forming a horizontal stream, which began to drift by us at the level of the roof we were on. I expected to see just a horizontal column of mist, but as we looked, we saw that the stream was actually formed of innumerable floating feathers, about as long as my hand. Each feather had an intricate, delicate structure, and was colored white with grey touches.

One of us (I don't know who) reached out into this passing stream of feathers and brought back something larger. It was also white, gray, and fluffy, but was about the size of a soccer ball, with the heft of something that had been made of papier-mache. A point at one end that gave it a round teardrop shape, and opposite the point, a long feathery crest hung from the object, nearly as long as I am tall.

After staring at it a while, it became clear to us that we were holding the mummified head of a huge bird. This fantastic white-gray avian had, for some reason, disintegrated in the upper atmosphere, and its feathers and impossibly light bones had spread out into a cloud. This cloud had drifted with the wind until some twist of atmosphere and temperature had caused the feathers to suddenly fall, near the apartment building where Mary Lynn and I sat. Thermals near the buildings had temporarily halted the descent of the bird's remains, causing them to float past us where we sat on the roof.

Below us, an actual river flowed past the building whose roof we occupied. We dropped the head off the roof, and it fell into the river, along with the other feathers and remnants that had begun to succumb to gravity. The head, and the other feathers, turned black when they touched the water, sank, and dissolved.

I woke up shortly after that, knowing that I had seen one of the most miraculous and astonishing sights of my life -- and that it had only been a dream.