No sleep for the dead

So there we were sitting at the table....

The entire AQ3D Team and I.

And I say, "So Massively would like to do a walk through of the game!"

The Team cheers (roughly) "WOW! AMAZING! GREAT! wait... when!?"

I lean forward, wide eyed and unblinking, and whisper "Next week."

There is a moment of panic... shock. I knew what they were thinking. They were thinking, "Oh god... oh god... he expects us to finish the entire intro before this happens? Please say it is not true."

So I wait just a moment, giving everyone's face a moment to let the fear and panic bleed through then said, "So we need to have the Intro done by next week."

*The table gets flipped*

The team is horrified and replies, "ARE YOU CRAZY!? Do you have any idea what we have left to do. The boss monster alone has more 3D bones in it to animate than any monster we have ever done.. it is half humanoid, half quadruped, has a special tail, and it's abdomen is a floating amorphous blob of magically smokey death!"

"I know....", I stoically reply. Realizing that my current fever might be distorting my actual memory of the meeting that happened just 15 minutes ago. That is how I would have expected it to go... except, you know, our team is made up of people like Thyton, Dage, Llusion, Xero and Korin who were all immediately like, "LET'S DO IT!!!!!!!" They really are all sorta crazy.

The one thing I am certain of, is that we have a deadline of next week for our first pass of the intro... and the team is being challenged to bring their A-game. The intro is supposed to be the first area using our new cut-scene and dialog system. I am pretty sure Yergen (who has been running the content side of things) made a touching speech about how, in preparation for the crunch to come, he said goodbye to his family and would see him when one day he was once again able to leave the lab. Cysero was forlorn and teary eyed. Not for the reason you are thinking... the Overwatch Beta is ending tonight. He was a huge fan of Team Fortress back in the day, so it makes sense he is obsessed with this one. I encourage our team to get obsessed about games... how can we possibly be good game makers if we are not also obsessive game players? Dage is probably the best (or worst?) of all of us. Every week he is obsessed with a new game. He walks in and says, "Artix, man you need to see this." And then shows me his new weekly obsession followed by, "We need a feature like this in AQ3D!" I love that. I love passion combined with creativity. I see this a lot in the comments section, on Twitter, Facebook and all the places our gaming community posts stuff.

Back when we were working on MechQuest, I rented every Anime Mecha series I could find. Every night I just chain watched them all.... Gundam, Evangelion, Macross (Robotech), Fafnir, Gurran Lagann, Rahxephon, Big O, Martial Successor. I guess Code Geass counts too. I guess you could call it getting "immersed into the spirit." You hear me say that a lot, "getting into the spirit." This is pretty good example of what I mean. My thoughts were almost all consumed with robots at that point... and then I combined those thoughts with other things: Pizza, Harry Potter, Werewolves, Ghostbusters. Probably my favorite part of the creative process is mixing weird things together to see what happens. So that is how MechQuest was made... it sure was a lot of fun. and now, here we are, doing the one thing everyone hoped we would always do, but never dreamed would really, actually, happen-- we are making a AdventureQuest 3D. Of course you knew that. That is why you read these crazy posts :D

My son Aidan, is 1 year and 8 months old now. He sleeps in a normal bed-- which is sort of scary because he wakes up about an hour before we do giving him free reign over the house. Normally he just tries to impress me by pushing the largest object he can find into my bedroom. Strollers, tables, luggage... but this morning he went to "an all new height." I heard some chairs being moved around in the dining room. I called out, but he did not respond. After a while I walked in. There he was... in his diapers, standing on the dining room table... actually, standing on a box that was on top of the dining room table... with his arms out wide looking at me with a big smile "HOW COOL IS THIS!?" O_O In my belly was that strange mixture of being proud and horrified.... but one thing is sure, this kid is definitely my son. That is why I bought him some foam swords from Toys"R"Us on Saturday. They sorta look like the ones from Legend of Zelda, so when I give them to him I want to put on my robe and have him walk into a dark room where I say, "It's dangerous to go alone... take this."

In conclusion, I think we agree that writing design notes posts with a fever is the BEST THING EVER. Love you all. Good N...Zzzz.....