May 19, 1989
After happy hour Doug and Mary and Gary and Nancy left for the invitation-only sneak preview of Indiana Jones at the Skywalker Ranch. Lucky bastards.
I went home and watched an incredibly depressing TV movie starring Ben Kingsley as Shostakovich.
Someone’s killed the General
Sheep, their shepherd gone
If only we Russian people had one neck!
May 20, 1989
“I can’t believe you watched that Shostakovich program,” Claire said. “It was supposed to be incredibly depressing! You’re probably the only person in America who watched it.”
May 22, 1989
Talked to Doug Greene and Jim St. Louis. Work is proceeding on IBM POP, although not as quickly as Doug had hoped.
Brian says we’ll be doing a 3.5” disk version after all. That means we can put in some IIGS-specific stuff like Avril’s title screen.
May 23, 1989
14 days to beta.
Things are getting more frenzied. I put in twelve hours today and got a fair amount done (added two new potions and a whole new level), but it definitely wasn’t one-fourteenth of the work that’s left before beta. I’ll just have to work twice as fast, or something.
Brian handed me the Larry McDermott draft of the box copy. It wasn’t very good. He asked if I could “rewrite it” (i.e., write it) – another little task to fill in the cracks.
I can’t even think about all the work I’ve postponed until after the beta version – princess and vizier animations, title screen music – and six weeks to do it all.
(How complete was Karateka two months before its QA signoff? I can’t remember.)
One thing’s for sure: This is no time to come up with new bright ideas. I’ll put in the little white mouse because I said I would, and because I’ll never hear the end of it from Tomi if I don’t (remember the leopard in Karateka?), but all other nifty additions go straight to the bottom of the list.
By June 6, I want things firmly under control. Levels 1 through 8 should be completely playable, with all features implemented, and as bug-free as I can manage. The things that are missing should be clearly defined, with a beginning and an end and no hidden ramifications in other areas. The palace and dungeon background graphics should be in their final form (although last-minute tweaking of the images themselves is, of course, allowed). Michael C. should have done his thing, and I should have it on videotape. (I’m hoping to shoot it Thursday.)
Aiiiii……….
Apple II UpsideDown from jordan mechner on Vimeo.
May 24, 1989
Put in the skeleton-coming-to-life animation (under Eric’s supervision).
Packaging meeting. Things are proceeding with agonizing slowness.
May 25, 1989
Robert’s game passed the Star Chamber. I met him in the parking lot at 9:30 this morning as I was arriving and he was leaving after spending the whole night getting the disk ready for the presentation. That’s a great piece of news, just great.
Going-away picnic for Cathy Carlston at the Marin Civic Center duck pond. Flipped disc with Brian and Rob. Said goodbye to Cathy.
