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.

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.

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.

Been playing Super Mario 2. First time in ages I’ve been addicted to an arcade game. Several points worth noting:

-   It took me hours of play to get through the first area; but having done it once, I can now zip through it reliably in minutes.

-   I’m building up a repertoire of skills.

-   There are certain things that it pays to do in the first area – like boost your life meter from 2 to 3 to 4, and collect an extra life – but you can also keep playing forever in the same area, if you like, without achieving anything.

New Year’s Resolution: Finish Prince of Persia. (Ship by June 30, 1989.)

Been working hard on POP (48 hours last week) and it’s really looking good. The swordfighting is starting to take shape, and it not only looks terrific, it’s actually fun. It blows Karateka out of the water. It’ll become the centerpiece of the entire game. Tomi was right all along. (“Combat! Combat! Combat!”)