June 9, 1989
In the morning I put in the stair-climbing, and in the evening, the sword-sheathing.
In between I wandered the halls of Broderbund in search of human interaction, dropped a disk off on Doug’s desk, and ended up demoing the entire first six levels for a group that started out as just Ed Badasov and Sophie K, and expanded to include Rob, Greg Hammond, Henry, and Tom Marcus, about ten people in all. They were wowed. The whole room gasped in unison whenever the little guy had an especially close call. They groaned as one when he bit the dust. They were thrilled by the skeleton and the potions and the swordfighting and the shadow man. Basically, it all works. Hardly one of the touches I’d put in went unappreciated. It was a real vindication of all that effort.
Even Sophie, who knows nothing about games, got excited. She kept saying “This is the first game I’ve seen that I can really get into!” She made a point of telling me, not once but twice, that she’s given Nancy the go-ahead to hire the “expensive” $5500 box artist. “It’s going to be a great package,” she said.
Here I was afraid I’d alienated Sophie by strong-arming her over the phone yesterday about the box art, and today she’s practically fawning in an effort to make sure I’m pleased. It’s true: People like you better if you stand up for yourself. There’s no percentage in being self-effacing and making them think they can walk all over you.
Good (anyway, better) news from Jim St. Louis. He is working, and he says Doug has cheered up somewhat. God, I hope it works out.
Talked to Roland too and got him all fired up to do the Mac version. Only trouble is, he’s locked into Print Shop Companion at least until August.
Despair has been banished.
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Hooray!