March 21, 1989
Hired the lovely and talented Avril Harrison to do a IIGS title screen for POP. She’s Scottish. And married.
The title and demo sequence is taking shape. It’s a lot of logistical hassles with disk access and memory management. Robert lent me his double hi-res unpack routines. Another few days and all the major pieces will be in place.
I’m obsessed with this Tom Waits album (Big Time).
March 23, 1989
Sophie K. is going to be my marketing manager. That sucks. I want it to be Latricia.
March 24, 1989
All day alone at the office. The game now fits on a single two-sided disk and seems to be working pretty well. Now I’m home on my Mac, working on the story line and opening sequence.
The game is definitely entering a new phase. The serene, solitary part of it (two and a half years) is ending and all kinds of other people are getting into the act. My job now is not just trying to make a fun game, but getting people excited about it, and, to a degree, orchestrating their efforts, without stepping on their toes or impinging on their territory. The world has left me alone for two and a half years, and now it’s bursting in.
I’m not ready. There’s so much work still to do.
March 25, 1989
Doug told Tomi he’ll talk to Latricia and discuss with her “which products are important and which she should be focusing her efforts on (!)”
March 27, 1989
Broderbund’s sales are way down. It’s an industry-wide slump. Nobody knows why it’s happening, or how long it will last.
Doug is convinced Prince of Persia will be a major hit. He urged me to get going on the MS-DOS conversion immediately.
Today I put in a self-running demo, and made the guards slightly less dumb, so they can pursue you onto the next screen.
I’ll be so depressed if this game isn’t a hit. Doug’s right: unless there’s an MS-DOS version out pretty close on the heels of the Apple version, it’ll be another Wings of Fury. “Huh,” the dealers will say. “I thought this one was gonna be really hot – but look, it’s not selling all that well.”
I’ve gotta find an MS-DOS programmer – soon. I’ll call Doug Greene tomorrow. Again.
March 28, 1989
Stayed at the office till 7:30, then came back after dinner and worked on Level 1 till midnight. I’m burned out.
My most concrete achievement today was to print out the entire source code – all 1000 pages of it.
Doug Greene is reluctant to take on the MS-DOS port (despite my subtle, repeated mention of the words “BIG HIT” and “ROYALTY”), but he recommended his friend Jim St. Louis, an “old-time hacker” who’s worked for Atari and Lucasfilm.
Avril gave me a picture. It’s really quite beautiful; it’s got that magical Arabian Nights storybook feel to it. Ed Badasov, Brian and Greg Hammond all flipped over it. It’ll lose a lot in the transition from super hi-res to double hi-res, but I can use the original in the MS-DOS and Amiga versions. It took her 29 hours: $1,015.
Spend the next couple of weeks getting what I have cleaned up, fine-tuned, and bug-free, before I start adding new features (the opening sequence animation, the stair-climbing, the white mouse, etc.)
My mind is spinning ahead to completion… packaging… conversions… sequels… It’s incredibly distracting.
Focus.
Finish.
Spend the next couple of weeks getting what I have cleaned up, fine-tuned, and bug-free, before I start adding new features (the opening sequence animation, the stair-climbing, the white mouse, etc.)
