July 10, 1985
It was fun walking into the Broderbund offices and seeing everybody. Had lunch with Gene Portwood and spent a couple of hours sitting around his office with Lauren Elliott and Gary Carlston, talking about ideas for my new game. David Snider showed me the Amiga — wow! — and Chris Jochumson showed me Mac Print Shop.
Broderbund’s doing well. Print Shop is doing insanely well. I’m almost convinced I want to move out here and do another game.
After I write my first screenplay.
July 16, 1985
Danny Gorlin took me to his house to show me Airheart, which, a year later, is now double hi-res. He asked for feedback.
It had the same problem it did the last time I saw it. Small detailed objects against a black background. It should be cosmic, mind-boggling; people should look at it and say “I can’t believe I’m seeing this on an Apple II.” But the truth is, right now, it doesn’t look especially impressive.
I said: “You’ve gone the honest, hard-to-program, hard-to-represent route at every step. You need to put in some cheap effects so people will notice the expensive ones.” I offered a bunch of suggestions. He was listening, but I could tell he really wanted to believe it was almost there and he could be finished in a month.
Danny’s sunk a lot of time and money into this. I’m worried. Technically, it’s a wonder, but the universe he’s chosen to represent with this awesome piece of programming is so exotic that I’m afraid people won’t respond to it. It’s what Gene Portwood calls “an effect in search of a game.”
July 17, 1985
Gene and I came up with a setting for the new game before lunch. Ali Baba; Sinbad. It’s versatile, familiar, visually distinctive, and — in the video game field — hasn’t been done to death.
Robert, Tomi, Steve and I had dinner at Acapulco. The waitress wouldn’t believe I was 21, because my New York learner’s permit didn’t have a photo on it. “You could have written this yourself,” she said. So Steve ordered a Margarita, then pushed it across the table to me. I was on my third sip when the manager came by and whisked it away from me with a curt “Thank you.” He was so steamed, even after that, he had to come back to the table and give us a lecture.
What gets me is that they charged us for the drink.
July 18, 1985
Driving me to the airport, Tomi said:
“I think you should pursue screenwriting. Go for it.”
I was surprised and asked her why. She said that Broderbund is a really nice, warm, friendly place to work, but for programmers it’s actually not that great a deal. The older ones, like Chris and David, are starting to get scared, because programming’s the only marketable skill they have, and it’s a young man’s game. The new crop of kids coming up are willing to work harder and cheaper, and don’t have girlfriends or families yet to cut into their working hours. And nobody knows how long the games market will be around, or what it’ll be like next year.
I never would have thought of it quite like that.
August 28, 1985
One of those rainy late-summer days. Woke up at 11:30, drove Mom into town and back.
Finished that letter to Ed Bernstein at Broderbund. I needed to come up with some kind of storyline, so I just wrote something off the top of my head. I sealed the letter and mailed it.
Then a strange thing happened. I started getting images in my head of the characters: The Sultan. The Princess. The Boy. I saw the scenes in my mind as if it were a Disney movie. So I wrote up a scenario — churned it out in an hour. It came out pretty well, I think. It’s just similar enough to Karateka, but more plausible, more intricate, and most important, more humorous. Gene will love it. Maybe the back story could even be written up and illustrated, like a comic book, and published with the game.
My night thoughts lately have been along the lines of: “Do I have it in me to do another computer game? Is this what I want to do? Can I do it? What if the code-writing part of my brain has atrophied? Will I fail ignominiously? Should I just turn to screenwriting full-time?”
Today made me feel better.
August 30, 1985
Another good day on the game. (Screenplay? What screenplay?) I’m getting to the point where I want to rush out and buy a video camera, a VCR and a digitizer and get to work.
Atari Karateka arrived FedEx. It looks great, sounds awful. Dad and I spent the day troubleshooting the music. It should be OK, but nowhere near Commodore quality.
I’m unutterably happy that I’m getting psyched up for this new game. It fills me with joy and confidence in the future.
Then again, maybe feeling good doesn’t necessarily mean that what I write is good. Maybe the best stuff is produced out of blackest despair. Or maybe not.
