From Fulfillment To Asst. Prod.

Most folks don't remember this game, but Robot Rascals changed my life

[when I last left off, The Great Dungeon Master In The Sky was going to roll for me again...]

My First Experience With "In Development" Software

At an EA Friday Company Meeting, as so often happened, individuals were encouraged to make their own personal announcements. At one such meeting, David Grady made the announcement that Dani (then Dan) Bunten would be in town during the next week with an early prototype of his new game, and that he was looking for some volunteers to play after work hours. I went to David later and told him I was very interested in being considered for one of these play sessions (as well as getting to meet Dan / Dani).

Dan and Dani were both unforgettable people

Dan / Dani was already a creative hero to me - having previously released M.U.L.E. (that I already wrote about here), Seven Cities Of Gold, and Heart of Africa. The chance to not only meet them, as well as getting the chance to play a prototype game they were working on, was an opportunity I couldn't pass up! Since the session would be taking place after work hours, I didn't have to worry about taking time away from my current position in Fulfillment to take part.

The evening for the in development design session came and, much to my surprise, when I arrived at the room we were to play the game in, there was a game board and a deck of cards laid out on the table in front of me. Dan / Dani was there with their computer, and David was there too. The game, then called Scavenger Hunt, required four players. The other three participants sat around the table with me to play, and I got my first insight into what the early stages of game creation can look like.

Cards were dealt, dice were rolled, tokens were moved on the game board, and every now-and-then Dan / Dani would consult their computer to relay to us a result from the actions that we were each taking during play. Even though I lost the game, I had a wonderful time playing it.

After the session was over, Dan / Dani asked us all some questions trying to get feedback on the game, as well as pumping us for any ideas we might have for it. During this part of the session, there were several times where I offered an idea that Dan / Dani told me they really couldn't implement because of "base game design rule 'x' ". After receiving these replies, and doing a bit of thinking, I came back to a version of a few of these earlier ideas, but this time living within the assumptions / restrictions that Dan / Dani had previously explained to me. They wrote down everything any of us had to offer. After an invigoration play session, we were all thanked for our time & feedback, and went home.

About a week later, David came up to me and told me that he had been impressed that, after some of my ideas had been rejected due to some base rules that couldn't be changed, I repackaged several of the ideas being sensitive to living within the restrictions of the rules previously stated to me. Because of this, he asked if I might be interested in joining his production team as an Assistant Producer. I was flattered by the offer, and told him I would love to join his team. David met with Sharon Haug to schedule my transfer (plus I went through a round of interviews with several EA execs that were very intimidating for me), and I joined his team.

The first product I ever worked on

Learning A Scary Rule (aka "Reality Sucks!")

Upon joining David's team, I learned that he was responsible for managing the production of several products in addition to the game that I had already been exposed to (and would be later known as Robot Rascals). The product that would need my immediate attention was Deluxe Paint II for the Commodore Amiga computer. He asked me to sit down with his other Assistant Producer, Shelley Day, to get a bit of training. After that, I received my Amiga, and started pounding on DPaint II.

While I have never been much of an artist, I started trying out the myriad of features in DPaint II trying to break it in any way that I could. I fastidiously wrote down all of the bugs, observations, and suggestions, and sent them off to David to relay to the product's creator - Dan Silva.

Over time working on the product, I became increasingly concerned and downright terrified (I wasn't worried about the product's features - it was terrific!). David came by one day and saw me with what must have been one of my "looks of terror". He stopped to ask me what was wrong. I told him that I had come to an awful realization - No matter how hard we try, no matter how long we work, there will still be bugs in Deluxe Paint II when we say that it is "finished". David chuckled at me and said, "Welcome to the world of software production!"

That feeling of sheer terror would follow me around for the entirety of my career in software...it was a great "rule of software creation" to learn, and I was fortunate to learn it early on...

Deluxe Blues By Dan Silva (from "Best Of EA - 1986)

Dan Silva also seemed to have feelings of dread from his time creating Deluxe Paint II (as you can hear from his song composition above).

--------------- Thank you all for reading this far! I appreciate seeing how many people actually put up with my writing!