December 5, 1988
Doug told Tomi my game is going to be a smash hit.
Spent much of today on hands and knees, poring with Eric over three dozen snapshots spread out on the office floor, trying to deconstruct Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn’s climactic duel in Robin Hood. We really busted our brains.
As a result, my conception now is totally different from what it was yesterday, or Sunday. It’ll all be worth it. This is going to be the greatest game of all time.
I just got off the phone (at 1 a.m.) with Lawrence Payne of Compu-Tech Systems in London, who make the digitizer that so inconveniently stopped working a few months ago. It’s 9 a.m. in London. He gave me his home number so Russ and I can call him tomorrow morning and he can help us try to fix it.
But really, what I need to do is rent a video camera and find two people to re-enact the moves of Guy of Gisbourne and Robin of Locksley for digital posterity. I want to have it up on the screen now. When I’m pumped up like this, I can hardly sleep at night.
December 8, 1988
Russ and I “fixed” the digitizer (it was in the wrong slot) and changed my life. In the past week, swordfighting has gone from a vague notion of something I’d have to put in the game someday, to reality. The little guy now thrusts and lunges. Everyone who’s seen it is thrilled. The amount of painstaking work still ahead of me is too huge to contemplate, but it’s paying off more dramatically than anything I’ve done in months. This is going to be a good game.
December 15, 1988
I came up with an idea for Robert’s game. The goal is to rescue people who are trapped in the building; you disinfect the rooms and make it safe for them to escape.
Robert, for his part, came up with a good idea for me – solid blocks to fill up the empty spaces. It’s totally changed the look of the game. Now, it really feels like a dungeon.
