On being a game developer with an internet connection...

Another one of those "serious" Jabroni Reports that is inevitably too long for anyone to read...

Warning: It is after midnight and I don't feel like proofreading.

Reading internet forums is, as most of us know, a special form of torture that should be reserved for those with a preexisting, one-way ticket to the netherworld. That isn't to say that the fans as a whole aren't awesome, or that there aren't interesting topics or well formed posts. I don't mean to be ungrateful, I really don't. I appreciate that, good or bad, people care about our industry's products so much that they spend their time discussing it with others. It is simply that the anonymous nature of the internet guarantees that a certain percentage of the populous is going to be...challenging.

For some reason all of us, even though we know that we will fixate on the inevitable negative posts, eventually seem to find ourselves reading the forums for our respective games. Kevin Smith has written far more extensively (and with much less fear) on the nature of the internet, so I'm going to focus this on some of the special hells we get to deal with in the world of video games.

1. The good-intended fans who don't have to deal with the realities of game development.

It is tough to understand what goes into making a video game until you've done it. There are business, technical, artistic, legal, and creative limitations to every decision we make. Even though some ideas sound awesome, it can be incredibly frustrating to read entire threads devoted to demanding features or changes that are simply impossible. Some generic examples:

"Why don't these lasy developers simply hire a dozen animators and do (insert feature here)? They have millions of dollars!"

A few notes, if I may:

• First of all, you can expect that whatever feature you want can't be done by a single discipline in the modern era, even if it _seems_ like it would be the case. Concept artists need to draw the first vision (which will require iterations), artists then make content (which will require iterations), designers need to create the gameplay (which will require iterations), programmers need to code the logic (which will have bugs that need to be fixed), and QA needs to test everything. This doesn't even include the overhead of producers getting in the way with the pesky "budget" and "schedule" or leads ensuring the feature is polished. NOTHING is as simple as it seems.

• Second of all, talent is very, very hard to find. It is also very, very expensive. No matter how nice it would be, it is simply unfeasible to grab a large number of people out of school and expect them to hit your quality bar. It takes MONTHS to train even the most experienced people on the very specific tools that each team has and get them accustomed to the way each team works. Finding the _right_ person for a team is also an art that often takes months of hard work. Even if you could find the people, you'd be amazed at how fast games can eat through their budget.

• Finally, you should read the seminal classic "Mythical Man Month." The fact is, and this is pre-101 producer stuff, adding 2 people to a six month task does not make it a three month task anymore than putting nine women on a pregnancy makes a baby pop out in a month.

"Game X is so lame...they only have like a dozen characters on the screen...they should have 50 and make epic battles! And the battles should all be procedurally generated so they are unique every time. And they should support 16 player co-op, with fully recorded fights you can play back on your iPhone. They should also make it so every object in the world can be broken in a totally unique way. Also, 30fps is so choppy, it should run at 120fps at 1080p."

So, this example might be a slight exaggeration, but you get the point, and to be honest, it isn't _that_ far off from some of the comments I read. Even with the most talented tech team in the industry (and I'm proud to work with them), the fact of the matter is that the hardware can only do so much. There are a lot of technical considerations that most people never even realize that every game team has to live with. I could go off for HOURS on the difficulties, but let's focus on the easiest one, shall we?

• For all the arguments on the internet about how we have BluRay now and we have all the gigabytes of storage in the world for art assets, everyone seems to forget the simple fact that memory on consoles is limited. Very limited. All the fancy HD textures, meshes, high quality audio, and game code you see on your screen (and beyond) need to fit into 512K of memory (I'm simplifying the problem here.) That doesn't even account for the overhead of the operating system and game engine which steals our precious space. It doesn't do us a LICK of good to have all those gigs of space on a BluRay disk if, when we need to show you the cool stuff on screen, it doesn't fit in 512 megs. Sure, we are constantly moving things in and out of memory, but that takes time (quite a bit of time), and if it isn't there when you need it, your game will suddenly run at 0FPS instead of 30 or 60 while it gets there. When you understand how large HD assets are and how complicated game code is, you'll realize the miracle of what you see on the screen.

2. The incorrect fans we simply can't correct.

This one is extremely frustrating. I've seen thread after thread of people TEARING into games for things (in development) that are simply incorrect. I'll "genericize" one example I saw to make a point:

"OMG that move is WAY too easy to pull of and never runs out of power!!! THIS WILL RUIN THE GAME. They need to change this or I will not buy it. How can they be so dumb."

Of course, as is often the case, maybe the meter is just full so we can easily demonstrate it? Or maybe the button combo is super-easy so our poor production team can actually pull off the move while doing an interview with a microphone stuck in their face?

What makes this torture, of course, is that maybe the WAY the meter gets full or the ACTUAL button commands to make a move work are still secret and we can't talk about it? Which leads to 3...

3. FOR THE MOST PART WE CAN'T TALK ABOUT THE GAME, AND WHEN WE CAN, WE ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT SPECIFIC THINGS!

You can't fathom how excited developers tend to be about the games they are working on. And you similarly can't imagine what it is like not being able to share that enthusiasm with the public. Can you imagine working for years on a project and not being able to say anything? How about creating a piece of art that is the single greatest thing you have ever done and not being able to show your friends? It is, in a word, nightmarish. You, dear internet forum member, may post a totally reasonable question on the internet, and a million fans might be confused as to why the development team can't take a simple second to answer it. The reason? Because if we DO answer the question, no matter how "simple" it might seem, PR will sneak into our homes at night and kill us and our families in our sleep. And if that happens, the game never gets finished. You don't want that, do you?

4. The mean-spirited interview nit picking.

A shout-out to one of my fellow producers, who posted what I consider to be one of the best interviews I have ever seen. I was, frankly, jealous of his performance. And yet, one of the comments was "I would never let someone like that represent my product." I know the internet is anonymous, and I know we will never fix "mean people", but next time someone asks me why I don't often frequent forums, I will cite this example. In summation, dear internet, please be nice to each other.

The Tech Team Party Proposal List

We have these awesome new walls at our building covered in "whiteboard paint", which creates a giant wall-sized writing surface. I'm sure that someday these will be used for algorithms or whatnot, but as we break them in we are primarily using ours to make funny lists on the board.

As such, we (well, mostly me) have decided to enter in a "party war" with the lost-souls wandering aimlessly at a Chicago game-tech outsourcing company. As such, I present the following (cleaned for public consumption) party suggestions:

* The start-up in question has a "Fire and Ice party." We proudly invite you to our "Earth, Wind and Fire Party." That is right, dear readers, we have an entire extra element!
* Strip linear algebra.
* "Drunken Knights Party." 20 adult programmers, enough mead to drown a horse, and an evening at Medieval times!
* "Drunken Redneck Party." Paintball and Coors Light!
* Anything where we roast a pig. Or an intern.
* Revenge of the Nerds Party and Talent Show. Jon will provide the Kaossilator Pro!
* Boston Tea Party. Sam Adams and Freedom!
* Come as your favorite racial stereotype Halloween party.
* MK vs SF3 sales and bonuses comparison party!
* Cinema bug fixing party sponsored by Jack Daniels.
* Pre-Party the intervention we are having for one of our employees who is getting married.
* Jon comes to the Jabroni Report's house and calibrates his HDTV party. No refreshments will be provided.
* Let's Mocap our junk party!
* Deliverence re-enactment and pot luck.

We are currently working out how to merge all of these parties, as well as many more suggestions, into a single, week-long festival of fun.

Let's target our hate correctly, shall we...

"UNICO National, the group representing Italian-Americans upset over the portrayal of Italian gangsters in the recently released Mafia II, have scored a win in their battle against 2K Games' mobster adventure."

- Kotaku

As a proud Italian American, I feel it is my job to help set my friends at UNICO straight. Mob movies, and now games, help present the following stereotype of our peoples:

1. We are attractive. We all look like a young Pacino in the Godfather or a young DeNiro in the Godfather II. This is true.

2. We eat delicious food, and lots of it. Even under the most trying of times. I learned from Goodfellas that when I eventually end up in prison for "telling it like it is", I will be joined by my fellow Italians in a delightful private cell with a fully-stocked pantry filled with the freshest ingredients. How is this bad?

3. We are powerful people not to be trifled with. God forbid we keep this stereotype going and instead focus on, I don't know, our stellar military accomplishments since the Roman Empire?

4. We dress well. We wear excellent suits...and we wear them from the "office" to the "clubs." That's right, even when burying the body of some snitch, an act most cultures would do in jeans and a t-shirt, we still wear suits. That is how important looking good is to us.


5. We are so confident in our sexuality that we wear pinky rings. That is right, we make the single most effeminate piece of jewelery possible look downright masculine.


So, in these trying times, is it the WORST thing for our peoples to be stereotyped as Mobsters? Maybe it is time that we band together and focus on the true enemy of the Italian people. The group so likely to ruin our reputation forever that, despite the fact that they don't share our heritage, they have become the poster-children for our country.

That's right, UNICO, despite the fact that I have never paid my dues, nor have you asked, I feel we should spend our money wisely...by distancing our collective heritage as far from the cast of Jersey Shore as possible.

Thank you.

The Unsung Heroes...

Today I saw our developer support team install a giant television in our hallway. In a company where you literally have to go to the bathroom to escape a television monitor, this is hardly noteworthy. What is noteworthy is that this TV is connected to some magical folder somewhere in the building where people can drop video clips that will automatically be added to the "loop" that this television displays. The entire tech team is now focused on hacking into this folder to replace the current game clips with more appropriate "wang" clips...but I digress.

Ask yourself, when did IT at your company throw something like this together in their spare time for the pleasure of the company? My experience with IT at other companies has traditionally been a group of people who may or may not fix your outlook inbox after you "accidentally" get it filled with spam for various pills and mail-order partners. I mean this with all sincerity, our game would NOT ship at the quality we have without our awesome IT staff. In fact, we found calling them that to be so inadequate for their duties that we refer to them, justly so, as "developer support."

On top of the lightning fast response time (we are talking minutes) to any issue we may have, I'd like to present a list of the things these guys and girls do that makes a producer's life infinitely easier.

* Today we had a 10 minute meeting to discuss our options for storing priceless game data that we have never dealt with before. 10 minutes...and it is solved. I didn't have to call people, get quotes, follow up...nothing. It is solved. I've had multi-day meetings with people on my own team where we literally can't decide where to go to lunch, let alone build a server infrastructure for huge volumes of data.
* Prior to this game, bug tracking was done in excel and on a twiki. Think of that for a second. Is your mind as blown as mine? Within a week of asking, we literally had a fully working and configured issue system that was personalized for our workflow. Every time we want a new feature or upgrade, it just magically happens. Thanks to this team, we now have an automated way to ignore feature requests from artists...we no longer have to manually delete them from a document.
* We have dozens upon dozens of custom buildbots that check everything from build stability to performance and memory. We have custom scripts for perforce check-ins and reviews. We have websites with charts and graphs for all this stuff. The tech team adds fancy new tools every damn week...and somehow it magically appears the very same day on a server that never dies. God knows we try to make these things explode...can't do it.
* Configuring devkits and updating SDKs is hardly a task for standard IT. Our guys can do it blindfolded. Note: Tomorrow I'm going to make them try this.
* Want a 100% secure remote Perforce depot to China the same day you ask? Our guys have done it. How about running an automated installation and upgrade system for a local "art tool" via the web to some friends in Canada? Done. Are you SO concerned about security that you need a system that uses a one time use key to encrypt data? We've been.

Frankly, this is the "easy stuff." You can't imagine the strange and obscure needs a team full of tech-savvy game developers has. When it is "crunch time" and someone needs a local proxy to some other team's depot, every second can count. Frankly, even though they are on call 24 hours a day, we've never once had to abuse this, since the team always seems to be here when we are...and we work some pretty crazy hours.

Despite all of this, they still find time for our "fun" requests to keep morale high like the "Wang TV." The tech team wants to make a podcast. Not content with poor quality audio, and wanting to make us look good, Developer Support is using spare parts, dusty licenses, and duct tape to put together a pro-tools enabled Mac just for us.

In summation: Lupe, Ryan, Steve, Calvin, C-Bass, Jen...Thank you!

Also, Happy Birthday Mom!

The Post in Which I Defend MK DLC...

I'm going to break my traditional "Blog form" and actually talk about Mortal Kombat. Specifically, I'd like to talk about the sometimes downright angry response from a minority of forum dwellers ever since people saw that pesky "DLC" character slot at E3.

The inspiration for this article comes from the response to Ed’s Kotaku interview posted at Kotaku.

Let's start with a couple complaints from the forums, shall we?

"We aren't being offered "extra" characters, we are being offered content that was built into the original cost of development, that is covered by the box purchase, but is yanked from the game and then put into a little side bin, and then sold as "extra" content. "

"You are being charged money to access content on a game that you already bought.

Not content made later as an addition. "

I'm going to try clarifying the DLC issue as it applies to our game. Mortal Kombat has no evil strategy wherein we're going to cut content from the game to ship it as DLC later. None. It has never been discussed. Period. We're going to be polishing all of the content that will be included on the game disk right up until the game is ready to go to store shelves to make sure that the final product is perfect.

What we are trying some strategies on, and this is what Ed alluded to in his article, is a method that once we start working on DLC, we can get it in the hands of all players, whether they purchased the DLC or not. We are still working out if this is possible, but in an ideal world, you'd be able to fight against a DLC character even if you have not purchased it...and that somehow requires us to get the content onto your machine. We're going through a lot of negotiations to see if we can make this happen...it may not be possible, but we are certainly trying to do something we think would be a very cool way to make DLC "seamless" in terms of both those who chose to purchase any new content and those who would prefer not to.

"...I refuse to pay full price for a game not to be able to access all the characters. And then to be teased by characters that I can't access after I payed FULL PRICE for the game?"

"You know how to solve the problem of DLC fracturing the community?

Bung all the characters on the disc - remember, the way things were before - and stop nickel-and-diming us to death"

This opinion, and there are quite a few people out there, just plain confuses me as a video game player and developer. There is no reason for us to make a game if we work on it indefinitely and it never ships. Every single developer would love to literally spend decades working on a game...constantly adding new features, maps, characters, etc. If we did that, though, there would be a great deal of Duke Nukem Forevers still being toiled away on that you would never get to play. At some point, development has to stop and the game has to ship. At that point, the game is 100% complete, and you need to make the decision as to whether what is on the disk is worth your hard earned cash. With the shear volume of content we plan on including in MK, we definitely think it will be an easy choice.

This is why DLC, when done in a non-malicious nature, is so awesome. It lets those of us who really enjoyed a game get even MORE of the game without having to wait years for a sequel. In the case of MK, if we add new characters, for instance, it will literally let players extend their enjoyment of the game by mastering all-new strategies long after the game has been on store shelves. How is this bad, again?

If you don't want the DLC experience, then by all means don't purchase it. You can keep playing the same game you purchased in the store for years. All it means is that the other people who _do_ want some new experiences have the option to do so.

One last point on the idea of DLC characters in MK specifically. If we choose to do these, they are certainly not trivial in terms of the time and manpower required to complete them. Since just a small portion of the press has seen the game, it is tough to judge just how awesome our characters are from screen shots.

Characters in the new Mortal Kombat not only have the exterior model you see, but don't forget we are also modeling the character's skeletons, muscle systems and internal organs. We have to make it so their skin and cloth can be ripped, damaged and bloodied. All of this is character-specific to ensure each character looks and feels unique. For this game they all have unique animations, fighting styles, special moves, particle effects, sound effects and in some cases, unique bits of technology specific to each character. They have X-rays and fatalities. And even after all that is in there is the ridiculously comprehensive period of balancing and tweaking. It is no joke that, even with some of the most talented and efficient artists in the industry, each of the characters in Mortal Kombat takes a VERY, VERY long time to complete.

Why do I mention this? It sort of hearkens back to my original point at the beginning of this overly long post. Specifically, that NetherRealm isn't some evil studio planning to rip people off with DLC, as some of the forum reactions seem to imply. We LOVE the game we are working on, and we think that after you get an opportunity to play it, you will too. All we are saying with the infamous "DLC button" is that we (and hopefully you) will love the game so much that you'll want to continue seeing new, optional content for a long time to come.

The true story behind the Midway Logo in the Trash

The following, as with all posts here, represent the barely legible ramblings of a single person, and in no way reflect any sort of official position by or for any larger organization.

I was reading through the Kotaku comments (http://kotaku.com/5612465/so-long-midway-and-thanks-for-smash-tv) surrounding the “Midway Logo in the trash” picture Hans took, and I was struck at how evocative that single image is in regards to the story of the new NetherRealm studios under WB. I was also surprised how much internal context exists around this image that we take for granted. As such, I thought I’d pull out a few of the comments from the article and give some background for the record. Someday, somehow, someone will write a tell-all book about Midway’s history that will make the more provocative scenes from “Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari” seem like Saturday morning cartoons in comparison. At this point though, I, along with most of the staff at NetherRealm, have only heard these stories 2^nd and 3^rd hand. The comments here are simply some observations about the last days in the old Midway building before starting in our fancy new WB office building.

“i think after the pic it was taken back out of the trash and home somewhere.”

Just so the record is complete, and some poor sap doesn’t go trying to find out where it ended up in 20 years or so, this sign did not in fact find a good home. This poor-quality item was definitely taken out of the trash, but only to be torn and beaten into a pulp.

“Gasp”, you say, “but this is a collector’s item! You folks at NetherRealm have no sense of your own history.” Sadly, we do have a sense of our own history, which is the reason that this sign was one of the items that became the target of years of pent-up frustration. But more on that in a moment, as first I want to calm the fear of collectors and those with a sense of Midway nostalgia.

“ Seriously? You're going to throw away the logo? I've got a friend of mine that kept the sign to a place he used to work at when it closed down…”

“Aw, why trash it? It's a perfectly good memorabilia item!”

Trust me, anything of any real collector’s value from Midway’s history is either long-gone in the homes of the “old time” former employees, auctioned off in bulk as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, packed up and coming with us to our new building, or locked safely away in some Warner vault in Burbank.

While very few employees at NetherRealm were around for Midway’s “glory days” in the arcade, we all share the same sense of Nostalgia that most video game fans have for arcade gaming. On a daily basis over the past several weeks emails would go out about random posters, props, t-shirts, and other miscellaneous “collectors stuff” that people could take before it was thrown in the trash as part of the clean-up process. Frankly, if your office wasn’t in close proximity to the cafeteria where they laid this stuff out, there was virtually no chance of grabbing anything remotely “collectable” before someone snatched it for safe-keeping. Nothing, and I mean nothing, was more disheartening than watching one of your colleagues walk off with some awesome piece of arcade art as you arrive to pick through the tattered “Hour of Victory” posters that had been hanging on the walls throughout the building.

So, before we get back to that logo in the trash, I want to assure the video game community that all the cool Midway stuff that may have been left in the building, and there honestly was very little at this point, is safe.

Now back to the now-deceased logo.

“What a sad day for all of us. RIP Midway.”

There is one key point of context to keep in mind about Midway. The “Midway” name as you know it has been officially dead for over a year, and the Midway of the arcade era had been dead far longer than that.

The NetherRealm team working on the new Mortal Kombat game, while largely consisting of former Midway employees, has been very happily part of WB Games for most of our current project, and we haven’t looked back for a second since the buyout.

The sign in the trash is just us shedding our last tie to Midway…the horrific building we’ve been stuck in for decades. From the annual “sewage flood” that required evacuation of the sports building, to the buckets permanently affixed to the ceiling to catch the leaks, to the non-functioning heating and air conditioning that would leave us sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter, to the ad-hoc nature of building construction that led to a maze that made it literally impossible to find someone if they weren’t in their office, there is no love for the environment the team has somehow managed to overcome to create games.

There had been meetings and talks of getting a new building for years under Midway. It was a topic of conversation at nearly every “all hands” conference call. It had been promised and taken away so many times that it became a popular running joke. Within a year of our purchase by Warner Brothers, we are finally moving into a brand new, cutting-edge facility custom created based upon our present and future needs.

That sign that had been hanging on some interior wall represented a building that had nearly killed one of our engineers when a 10 gallon bucket filled with water came crashing through the ceiling right behind his desk.

That sign represented a building where every morning we had to walk by walls that had strange brown stains on them that were so deeply baked-in that they couldn’t be cleaned.

That sign was hung in a building where people literally had to evacuate their work areas because sewage water was shooting out of toilets and drinking fountains.

For this, and so many more reasons, that sign had to die so that we could start anew.

“They really shouldn't have gotten rid of the Midway name. Just because Warner Bros. owns them now, they could still exist as Midway.”

A lot of us at NetherRealm debated this point even before Midway went bankrupt, but frankly, outside of Mortal Kombat and a few other titles, Midway had really never managed to successfully transition to home consoles. The company did go bankrupt, after all, and luckily Warner Brothers identified a very talented group of people who somehow managed to create quality products under less-than ideal conditions. Like I mentioned earlier, I can’t think of a single person in the building who wanted to still exist as Midway, even if it was an option. Most of us desperately wanted a fresh start. But even more pragmatic than that, the Midway name had been driven so far into the ground in the past decade or so that we’d be insane to want to keep it. There were a lot of horrible console titles released by Midway, and the NetherRealm staff that was picked-up by Warner Brothers has very little connection to those projects or Midway corporate policy as a whole. Why start out on our new life with all the baggage of other projects we didn’t really work on created in a company that made poor decisions we weren’t part of?

I don’t want to beleaguer the point here, but let’s just say that much of working at Midway during the modern era would hardly be considered pleasant. Before the ink was dry on the acquisition by Warner Brothers, we all started referring to ourselves as “WB Chicago” until we picked the NetherRealm name. Despite some distinctly great memories, a lot of people “suffered” greatly under Midway, from horrific hours to underfunded games to questionable mandates we were powerless to stop. We were excited to get the opportunity to make the great games we had been trying to make with a publisher who would empower us to do so. I’m confident you’ll see the passion of the team finally freed from the shackles of the “Modern-era Midway” translated to the games the new NetherRealm studio will release. Unfortunately for the Midway sign, there had to be some casualties to get us there.

Let's get srz bzness for a moment...

Warning: Unfunny post upcoming.

I'm always looking for words of advice to give budding producers and managers out there, mostly because I'm the sort of guy who wants to be a guy who gives advice. As such, I'm going to throw up a trial balloon with one very rarely mentioned gem that has little to do with neither production nor management....

LEARN TO USE PHOTOSHOP

Why, you ask, do I need to learn a graphic's package usually reserved for the more sensitive and talented? First of all, the ability to quickly mock-up silly pictures to include in emails is a skill everyone should have. Secondly, and more seriously, I can't tell you how fast your ideas/notes/improvements will be shot down if you send an email or describe it in words. You could literally be the modern embodiment of a love-child between F.Scott and Jane, but no one will be able to visualize what you are saying. No one. That is even assuming they read your two lines of text in an email, which I guarantee they won't.

On the other hand, let us say there is some pesky UI problem that you just know is going to fail you in certification. Snag a screenshot, Photoshop in your change as a starting point for discussion and, boom, people will suddenly start brainstorming. With Photoshop and a bookmark to Google Images, you can create mock-up UI screens and screen flows, make clear suggestions for content issues, throw together a first-draft marketing idea, create a convincing looking web page, do side-by-side comparisons of bugs...you name it, you can do it, and it WILL come in handy.

Sure, your stuff will look like crap compared to a real artist, but the point here is not to actually create content, but to create a mock-up that can communicate your ideas to those with the true talent.

Other "non-textbook" Software Producers Should Know How To Use:

* Perforce or whatever source control your team uses. Seriously, if you need to ask a programmer for help every time you want to see a build, you'll lose -50DKP respect points.

* Visual C++. This is for bonus credit, but it is invaluable to be able to see/use the actual code that your game is running. (Note: Araxis Merge for true pros.) At the very least, you should be able to follow instructions to compile your game and run it on at least one console.

* Maya/3DS Max/"The Content Creation Editor". Much like the compiler, it is invaluable to know and be able to "use" the toolchain that artists use. If you have even a rudimentary understanding of the tools involved, you'll better be able to understand the work that goes into content creation. You should never be in a situation where you ask people to perform work that you think is "magic."

* Wiki creation software. Chances are your team uses it...so should you. In fact, you should probably have a decent grasp of HTML in general.

Like I said, you should never be expected to create content of anywhere near the caliber of truly gifted artists and programmers, otherwise you should probably still be one of those things, and will inevitably end up not doing your real job and at some point be sucked into creating content. It is sometimes difficult, especially if you once were an artist or programmer, but remember that your position exists for a reason, and that getting "sucked back in" always ends up hurting the team more than helping.

The post in which I recycle content...

So...since I've been a little "dry" on content recently, I decided to dig through my archives (Yahoo spam filter) to find content to steal from myself. As such, I discovered this piece from my on and off stint writing for game and tech magazines. It is worth noting that my specialty consisted of shoddily "researched" articles with little or no actual literary value. As such, please enjoy:

The Problems with Online Gaming
An Opinion Piece by Adam (Some Last Name)
Originally Published in PC Game World, Circa 2003

The future is online, or at least that’s what the guy at (Ed: Unfunny Joke Deleted). The problem is, and I’m trying to be kind about this, I deeply and truly despise online gaming from the very darkest, charred corners of my black, black soul. Today, lucky reader, I present you with my three arguments as to why multiplayer gaming should be abolished and why we should all return to the world of single player fun. Next week, if you are lucky, I’ll make the same case for my social life…

Online Problem 1 or “When I was a kid we had to walk uphill in the snow to get to school, all the while fending off attacks from slimy, now-extinct predators looking to snatch our women-folk.”

When I was a kid, multiplayer meant waiting until your friend either passed away or was shipped off with the army so he’d finally take his hands off the darned joystick. We would sit and longingly dream of the days when we could play games simultaneously with two, gasp, even three people. Imagine a world, we thought, where we could pit our skills against people not just in the same room, but perhaps as far away as the house next door! I have been told that the world has progressed to the point, using some sort of an ‘internet’, that these far fetched dreams are now possible. I have learned something from my experience with this ‘internet’, something many of us have come to realize, I suck at video games. It’s not through lack of effort, of course. I spent hundreds of hours training at arcades in my youth. I can think of at least one potentially meaningful relationship destroyed by that dashingly handsome Mario. I can’t tell you the names of a single person in my college fraternity, but I can remember each ones distinctly dirty Goldeneye screen name and their preferred weapon-location combination. I can now officially say that this time was wasted. No matter how hard I try I cannot, I repeat cannot, take two steps in a level of Counterstrike without dying, I will need a very good therapist just to help me deal with all my repressed memories of failure dealing with Unreal Tournament and I may be the only person whose online Sim went ahead and committed suicide while I was away. I am so utterly incompetent at online games that I now look for “ONLY FOR ONE PLAYER” as an important feature on the back of boxes. I’m too scared to even download patches and updates, because I just know some ten year old kid is going to pop up around the corner and make fun of my connection speed.
If you managed to slog through the above paragraph I’m going to reward you with the meaning of it all. If I, your heroic writer, as a lifelong game player still in the lucrative target demographic can’t enjoy online games, how are the casual players and new recruits ever going to derive enjoyment from the experience when twenty-hour-a-day snipers are waiting on every sever just to make the uninitiated cry?


Online Problem 2 or “Why having to choose between Sprint and MCI forced me to choose never to talk to another human being as long as I live.”

Multiplayer online gaming is all about freedom. In theory, I think the freedom available in modern games is amazing and altogether awesome. In practice, however, it turns out that the more choices you give me in a game the more likely I’m going to choose to get in my car and do something else. The real world gives me an infinite variety of choices, so many in fact that I usually end up cowering in a corner crying like a child. I can barely decide what sort of undergarments, if any, to put on in the morning, so how am I supposed to choose whether I want to kill the fairy princess, befriend her and ask her to conjure me a potion or simply start making out with her? I have enough problems finding the point in what I do for work without having to find the point in a game I’m supposed to be enjoying. Video games, even linear ones, ask a lot out of us in terms of our time commitment. The recent crop of MMORPGs, for example, simply provide too much content and not enough direction for anyone, such as yours truly, who needs to balance his precious game-time with his more precious sweet-sweet-lady-luvin’ time.

Online Problem 3 or “Why I miss the day patches were for sailors and guys on shirt packages.”

How many of you remember the world of computer games before Windows 95? A world where we all spent more time trying to cram our device drivers, video drivers and game executable into 640k than we did actually playing any sort of game. Luckily for single player gamers, that world is long gone. Multiplayer gamers, however, are just now entering a whole new world of hurt. As I write this I’m downloading my seventh required update for Battlefield 1942 yet I still refuse to believe the game consists of anything more than a title screen. The title screen is nice, I admit, but is it worth the $39.99 I paid for it? I, of course, say it is, but I have a feeling the rest of the world might disagree. I spent a summer working for Cisco systems, the good people who pretty much invented all forms of communication ever used on this planet, yet I still can’t tell you why my Cable modem is blocked by a firewall, why my router simply won’t talk to any of my devices (insert innuendo here) or what in God’s name a “ping” is and why this “ping” allows other players to kill me six times then enjoy a pleasant dinner in the same time it takes me to press the forward key! I’ll give you a second to catch your breath, since I’m sure you are enjoying this article so much that you’ve decided to invite your neighbors over and read it aloud to them. The point, you ask? Configuring network games is still a pain. Longhorn promises, and Xbox Live has shown, the potential to remove these problems, so there is hope yet. I just pray that Microsoft will be kind enough to send someone to my house to explain what this “ping” is and hopefully how I can get rid of it, if that is indeed something someone would wish to do with a “ping.”

Farewell to a fallen comrade

As happens from time to time, one of our comrades has made the decision to move on to browner pastures. We wish Ramon well at his new venture, and I include an image of his goodbye lunch for your perusal.

While I admit to giving him a little good-humored teasing upon discovery of his departure, when I learned that he is going to get to work on an MMO based around one of my favorite childhood cartoons, I certainly couldn't begrudge him the opportunity.

That said, he is dead to me now.

A race car bed for Yuppy Children

If you are reading this blog, and you are, I can discern two immediate facts about you. First of all, you have discerning literary taste, and second, you wanted a race car bed as a child. I can discern the second fact because, let's be honest, we all wanted that damn race car bed. For those of you unaware, it is, as you can imagine, a bed shaped like a race car.

I'll even do the work for you and Google a picture:

As you can see by the picture, it clearly turns ordinary bedtime into a pulse-pounding, seat-of-your-pants adrenaline rush.

So, you can imagine my post-Yuppy glee when I discovered the following at the mall the other day:
I dub this bed the "S.S. Sleepytime" or perhaps "S.S. Funship Dreamtime." It is a bed, but it is also a FREAKIN' BOAT. Not only is it a boat, but the craft looks sturdy enough for an actual round-the-world sea voyage racing a similar bed-boat sailed by a stout crew of children from New Zealand or Australia. You'll note that the race car bed is made of plastic, which very few actual race cars are made of. The "S.S. Awesome", however, is made of actual wood...wood which I can only assume came from a tree that is now extinct and only lived on the surface of our planet for six weeks.

I don't yet have children, but when I do, young Reginald Pennipench will be heading off to dreamland each night on the "H.M.S. Nappington" in full Captain's Pajamas. He will also wake up at 6am when his mother takes him to Polo practice as I sleep in until noon, but that is an entirely different story.

"Mad Libbing" Today's Big News....

JabroniReport and Activision Announce Exclusive, Worldwide Partnership

10-Year Alliance Expands Global Reach for Leading Game Developer Blog Across Multiple Mediums

The groundbreaking alliance will provide the JabroniReport its first such partnership since splitting off from Jabroni Investment Weekly, significantly broadening its global reach by providing the resources and support to develop, distribute and release blog posts on multiple platforms and devices.

Activision will broaden its portfolio with a new blog from one of the industry's most creative, successful and proven blogs, whose readership exceeds over a dozen human beings worldwide. To date, JabroniReport has generated approximately $0.00 in revenues, according to The NPD Group, Charttrack and GfK. Activision expects this agreement to be accretive to its operating margins as of the release of the first blog post. Yes, even the authors of this blog had to look up the word “accretive.”

"We chose to partner with Activision on our worldwide blog because of their proven track record of supporting creative talent and valuing their employees above all else," said Adam, creator of the worldwide sensation that is the Jabroni Report.

Wiring for dummies...

The number one question I am asked when people stop me on the street is "how do you wire your home stereo?" While redoing the living room, my fiance' asked me to explain to her the details of our setup. Essentially, she was asking me to justify why, when the Harmony remote is broken, she has to turn on the microwave, then adjust no less than 32 nobs, transistors and pulleys to turn on the television. As part of this exercise, and just to prove I'm still as attractive as I ever was, I went ahead and diagrammed the whole setup in Visio. I leave it here not because your setup is the same, but because someday your respective other will posit the same question to you. When they do, please refer them to the Jabroni report and the following diagram. (Aside: They probably already reads the Jabroni Report, so no need).


Of course, the sad thing is that this diagram is still missing those vital devices that are sitting in a closet because I'm not allowed to hook them up. The laserdisc player, the CD-I, the Kenwood Entree' with the now-defunct network service, the DVD recorder that sometimes works, the model 1 TIVO without the connection, the tape deck, the minidisc player. These and many more items I can't live without aren't on this diagram just because, as I'm reminded, "I don't remember what they do" or "I don't care about your 'you haven't seen Lost Boys until you've seen it on laserdisc' argument" or "Didn't that format cause cancer?"

An inside Joke Blows My Mind

Intentional Amb

I think Shutter Island is is incredible, but not because of the plot, premise, pacing, acting or any of the other things that usually define a great film. Truth be told, I found it enjoyable, but certainly not in the same universe as Scorsese's best. I do think, however, that Scorsese has created the first film which truly shows the level of detail and mastery of film making that would be required to execute on Hollywood's Lynch-esque failures at revolving a film around intentional ambiguity. Shutter Island is not the film that accomplishes this, but it does show what it would take to create a film with a layered mystery that the viewer would really have to figure out through deep study. I threw a lot out in this paragraph, so let's break it down.

Intentional Ambiguity - The 101 Films. One of the easiest examples of this is "Limbo" ending, an artsy film that I'm about to spoil because, if you didn't see it by now, you aren't going to. Essentially, the movie ends right before most films would, in that it doesn't answer the key narrative point of the film, specifically whether the main characters are going to be rescued from a remote island in the Alaskan wilderness. The quick version of the ending is that, after being stuck on the Island and fretting about whether they'll be rescued, a plane spots them that is piloted by a man who will either rescue them or kill them. Roll credits. Will he rescue them? Will he leave them to die? The director never says. Limbo is more of a "character study" about the individuals and their relationships, so it doesn't matter, but we see that sort of ending pop up quite frequently in films where it is the central premise. People then have heated discussions in restaurants after the movie and message boards years later debating "what really happens" after the credits roll. They'll go back and watch the film over and over looking for clues, often finding conflicting evidence or simply grasping at straws.

People do, however, love a good mystery...and the idea that there is one embedded in a movie for them to figure out is a huge draw. From the Blair Witch to Lost in Translation, people will debate hourlessly to try and "solve' the mystery.

Intentional Ambiguity - The 501 films. Enter David Lynch. He makes "mysteries" that are so convoluted and filled with so many "clues" that he has essentially become a parody of himself. As is the case with all things, The Simpsons did a great job of showing the level of near-insane confusion he introduced in Twin Peaks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkOewABZGtw

I wrote a college thesis on Lynch's Lost Highway titled "Lynch Mob: Failure in the critical interpretation of David Lynch's The Lost Highway" where I attempted to argue that the reason the movie made "no sense" is that you couldn't view it as a linear narrative, and that the movie actually had to be divided-up into scenes that represented the "real world", as well as scenes representing one or two "dreams" and then a series of scenes that were essentially parallel universe metaphors for the "real world." The problem that I've come to accept is that, no matter how much I may like Lynch's films, he just isn't a good-enough filmmaker to execute on his vision. Lost Highway clearly had parallel "universes", but the problem is that they all happened simultaneously, they had no continuity, they had no consistency. I'm sure in Lynch's mind there was distinction, but he couldn't translate that to film in a manner that allowed viewers to dissect his clues to put it all together. You may _think_ a scene is only happening in the "dream world", but David doesn't really drop consistent clues to let you make a reasoned argument. Even when he does, other scenes will drop clues that contradict these other clues, and the viewer is then forced to try and search for _another_ level of clues that tie these inconsistencies together.

It is a fun exercise, it is certainly a mystery, and it certainly makes one think, but the problem is that it would take a truly genius filmmaker to "pull it off." Part of the problem is that a film of these types takes a certain level of trust between the director and the audience...trust that the filmmaker did have a conscious vision for how it all ties together, and poured over each shot to ensure consistency of this vision. A single mistake and we lose that trust with the Director. Lynch, unfortunately, has never actually earned that trust. From Twin Peaks to Lost Highway to Mullholand Drive, we are left with a clear sense that he's trying to give us a mystery we can solve, but he is so scatterbrained and inconsistent that he is unable to execute...leaving us with nothing more than a giant dancing with a unicorn under a street light, as in the clip above, because it "looks cool" and "will confound the audience with mystery."

Back to Shutter Island: The internet is aflame with people debating what "really happened" in the movie, which somewhat blows my mind, since I simply can't fathom how anyone sees ambiguity in the film. Scorsese's film is so tight, and each detail so perfect, which when tied with the fact that he spends the last 45 minutes of the movie literally spelling out the "twist", there just doesn't seem to be any doubt what happened. It is clear he wasn't _trying_ to make the film ambiguous...he had a story to tell (based off a book), and the story had a twist, but he didn't want the audience to go home debating what happened on the Island. Sure, he didn't literally show every detail of what played out or have our (unreliable) narrator give a monologue aSo, how does lub, but that is solely because he is a great director who didn't need to.

That being said, the reason this film is so incredible is that his film making techniques show how a talented director _could_ create a film with the ambiguous "mystery" people want. I don't want to spoil the movie, even though you need watch little more than the trailer to know that the movie is going to boil down to an "is he" or "isn't he" question. That said, due to the level of trust Scorsese has built up with his audience over the years as a great director, it is astounding the detail he built into each shot to prove his "twist" from the opening of the movie.

Tiny details, such as the choice to use a bluescreen for certain shots seems odd, and if we were watching "The Room" we'd laugh. But knowing Scorsese, and once you know the reality behind the movie, they are brilliant. Most viewers won't know or care, but for those looking for an "intentionally ambiguous mystery", they provide a consistency of vision that is hidden into the fabric of the film that provide clues without obfuscating them. This is one example, but the movie is filled with them. One character has water dripping from her in a scene in a fire, which seems out of place, at least until one "solves the mystery", at which point it is incredible. Mens ties are just a piece of fashion, until one in a million viewers notices one odd inconsistency, which, again after knowing the mystery, allows for an amazing clue and consistency on repeat viewing. Each line of dialogue, even the ones which seem like "filler" on a first viewing, tie together the mystery. From that perspective, it is masterful film making.

Unfortunately, the "twist" itself isn't mysterious, nor was it intended to be. But someday someone with the talent of Scorsese will apply himself to a "Lost Highway", and after years of suffering through Lynch, we will finally get the great, ambiguous film that can be "solved" through much analysis and repeat viewing. Until then, I look forward to exploring the mysteries of "Hot Tub Time Machine."

Parliamentary rules on a tech team...

Video-Game Tech-Team-Motion-1329
Rules of Debate: None
Motion Moved to the floor for vote: March 16, 2010
---
* Anyone who breaks the build owes the author of the Jabroni Report $1000.00 for each occurrence.
* If any intern refuses to fill the coffee pot with water, The Jabroni Report may assign a senior engineer to get said water.
* All design decisions now require final approval from the Jabroni Report.
* We will share technology across all studios. The game teams will be required to pull these updates. Technology that will be shared includes a traffic system, a pedestrian system, an audio system, and a streaming system. None of these systems will work, but there will be mandatory merges.
* The Jabroni Report team will no longer be required to wear pants to the office. All team members must wear two pairs of pants (not including shorts) to compensate.
* Lunch times for all team members (not including production) is limited to 8 minutes per day.

Result of vote on Video-Game Tech-Team-Motion-1329:
Aye: 1
Nay: 17

Video-Game Tech-Team-Motion-1330
Rules of Debate: The tech team deems motion 1329 to have passed.
Motion Moved to the floor for vote: March 17, 2010
---

* All tech team members will receive a $100 cash bonus every time they break the build.
* Interns may, to retain their dignity, refuse to get water without repercussion.
* Lunch times for all team members will be increased 50% over the official lunch time allotment as laid out in the video-game-tech-team rules and regulations.
* Tech sharing will never, ever include a mandatory physics system.
* Team members are allowed to wear shorts to the office!

Result of vote on Video-Game Tech-Team-Motion-1330:
Aye: 18
Nay: 0

I could get used to this...

In which I begin sending invitations

While browsing wedding invitations this evening, I came across a lot of designs that while horrible for a wedding, would be perfect for other occasions. As such, I'm planning to spend thousands of dollars to ensure that I have a collection of invitations for all possible events. From now on, any event wherein I will need other people to attend will solely be coordinated through invitations. Some examples are below:

Let's say I need an impromptu meeting in ten minutes with some programmers and a couple of artists. I will have interns deliver my "Please Attend An Impromptu Meeting" invitations. Those who will attend, will need to respond withing 5 minutes via RSVP, and send the enclosed "thank you for the meeting" card after attending.


Below are my new "You are cordially invited to lunch with Adam" invitations. These will be sent to the lucky few who I will attend lunch with each day. The enclosed invitation will list the restaurant and provide directions to "Taco Shack" or "Burger King."


The following "Request For A Sick Day" invitations will be sent to the production staff as well as H.R. on a morning when I am feeling ill. The enclosed card will contain a link to my "sick day registry", where concerned co-workers may purchase things such as video games and electronics to make me feel better.

The sad part of this whole blog, of course, is that I'm only half kidding. I am seriously considering holding a dinner party with two guests where absurdly fancy invitations are sent out, or inviting the team to go see a movie with me where they must RSVP via an enclosed card.

Important aside: NONE of the above designs are under actual consideration, as they are atrocious. I just grabbed three random images.

Get well Burt...

http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/416168_tvgif3.html

I'm not one who tends to care one way or another regarding celebrity health, but the fact of the matter is that the Jabroni Report staff felt it was necessary to break tradition to call out a true American hero...Burt Reynolds. As most of you who attended tonight's six hour Jabroni Report candle-light vigil service know, Burt, along with Sean Connery, represent a dying breed of humans in this country called "men." Burt, or as I like to call him, Burt, has the hairy chest and iconic "manstache" that defines what it is to be a red-blooded man of the world. When Burt finally leaves us, our masculine role models will instantly shift to Leonorda DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher, who are one step up on the masculinity scale from Paris Hilton and Blake Lively.* Get well, Burt.

* Aside: I literally have no idea who Blake Lively is. This is a name I've somehow absorbed into my psyche through cultural osmosis.

On which we will begin using a new phrase...

While catching up on my evening "stories" (news), I came to a life-changing decision. Starting tomorrow, I will be referring to people periodically as "old sport." This classic English phrase popularized in Gatsby doesn't really seem to have taken hold in the 21st century, which makes it all the more ripe for reintroduction.

I do this from time to time...

Those of you who remember such classics as "like a fox" or "everything is coming up Millhouse" will note that it works to great effect. Basically, if one uses something enough, _everyone_ will start using it. I reference the recent trend of liberally overusing the word "literally" that took our office by storm. People, myself included, began using "literally" in literally the exact wrong usage. Often you'd hear things such as "If that happens again I will literally explode" or "I literally ate my weight in pork during lunch."

See you soon, Old Sport.

What a Game Producer Does, Part 1

When a new employee starts at a video game company, the following tend to be the first three questions they ask:

* Where is the coffee machine?
* Where is the bathroom?
* What exactly is it that a Producer does?

It seems to be a rather time-honored running joke that no one really knows what Producers "do." Sure, everyone interacts with them, and everyone seems to like having them around, but due to a number of factors, there tends to be industry-wide confusion over the specific things a producer does and is responsible for. Part of the problem is that each company and team uses them in slightly different ways, part of the problem is that they spend so much time in meetings that they are often gone for huge chunks of time, and part of the problem is simply a lack of evangalism on behalf of the discipline. As such, I am going to "pull back the curtain" of my schedule to give you some true insight into what it is that a producer does during the day.

9-10am: Producer's Lounge. You know the "company lounge" with the vending machines, the rotating snack machine and the various arcade cabinets that people play for three minutes and then never touch again? Well, every morning, after we have security ensure that no one is within sight, we enter the code "020611" (Reagan's Birthday) into the soda machine. The machine then swings back to allow entrance into the modest Producer's Lounge. After giving the 24/7 bouncer the secret handshake, Producer's are ushered into the industry-standard 11,000 square foot lounge. The 17th century furniture, Ivory encrusted knick-knacks and the golden go-kart course allow all Producer's a chance to unwind to prepare for the difficult day ahead. At 9:59 all Producers take a $400 shot of Cognac and head off on their way.

10-11am: Scheduling Meeting. One of the key duties of a Producer is to maintain the schedule for the game. Of course, not everyone knows how we generate such an amazing schedule that never needs adjustments. Today, dear readers, I will explain. A bad producer schedules a task based upon the time available or the time they "think" something should take. A naive producer talks to the person doing the task, and then uses that number. The number received from the person will be "2 weeks", no matter what the task is. A mediocre producer has a "standard" multiple in their head they apply to the estimate to "pad" the numbers. An "OK" producer uses per-person experience as well as their own knowledge to try and come up with a realistic timeline. A great Producer, however, has risen to the ranks of "Level 11 Produceran" and thus is handed "The Secret." I may get in trouble with my Brotheren, but today I shall share "The Secret." All tasks, regardless of complexity, take 48 hours. Adding a button to an editor? Schedule 48 hours. Writing a renderer from scratch? Go ahead and pencil in 48 hours. Creating a vibrant, open-world city? Cool...I'll see you in 48 hours.

11-12am: Compensation Committee Meeting. This is the hardest part of the day. Here we have to balance our desire to reward an incredible, hard-working and talented team with our desire to not actually pay anyone any money, thus keeping the vast treasure trove of the budget open for our own compensation. This is a painful, time-consuming task. First, we take a look at the budget available for compensation, and set aside a modest 70% for production staff. We then go through the annual review paperwork people spent days filling out, and use it as blank paper to play tic-tac-toe on. After we've used-up all the "scratch paper", we shred it and then set aside another 20% of the budget for Production. We then semi-arbitrarily assign salaries based upon the following criteria:

* Has the person in question ever done anything whatsoever to upset Production? If so, 50% of their compensation is set aside for Production.
* Has the person in question ever done anything whatsoever to make Production happy? If so, 50% of their compensation is set aside for Production.

Once we have the final numbers generated, we then cut everyone's final compensation by 20% and set that aside for production.

12-1pm: Lunch. Nothing fancy, just standard lunch with the team. Something delicious but cost-effective, like Hot Dougs or Cemitas! This is a great chance to unwind, to bond, and to catch up and subsequently ignore any issues that people have been having during the day.

1-3pm: The real lunch. After we get back from lunch, all the Producers head off to the "real lunch" at one of four pre-approved four star restaurants. We dine on organ meats cooked in the fat of extinct animals on plates fished up from the Lucitania, wearing the standard "Production Lunch Uniform" consisting of the robes of the Romanovs, socks made from Unicorn horns and no pants.

Coming up next...we focus on "Post-Lunch" duties. This series is dedicated to "Jon", because he felt that the Jabroni Report had gone off-the-rails with lame WOW news.

On helping with C++ homework via wow...

Tonight, largely because the good programmers in my guild (and here at work) were all in a raid, I got to help a former guild mate with his C++ homework.

It turned out to be fairly simple

• "Do/While" syntax was wrong...he was using a"(" and a ")" instead of a "{" and a "}"
• The compiler gets confused when you define a variable as "num1" and then try using it as "num 1"
• Couple misc logic issues.

That said, debugging code without a compiler in a text chat window limited to 255 characters with no formatting gives it a little extra spice that makes it all worth while.

Aside: I think this post could have been better accomplished via Twitter.
ToDo: Get Twitter account.

Intern Proposed Game Design for "Intern Wars"

As part of my continued effort to utilize our interns as slave labor to create content for the Jabroni Report, I present the second article in the "Intern Series", in which I give the interns a homework assignment to generate content for the blog.

This week's assignment was to write up a brief proposal for a video game called "intern wars." This was the only direction they had, and I'm pretty thrilled with the response I got.

Quick Aside Before You Begin: I only received responses from 2/4 interns. You'd think, as an intern, that your "end goal" in life would to be considered for a full-time position, no? I'm not saying these exercises are mandatory, or anything, but they are mandatory.

T-Bone's Concept For Intern Wars:

My ideal “Intern Wars” game is mashup of Joust and Robotron, where every player controls a little intern character. The player can run, jump, and most importantly, latch on to other interns. This game is best with four or more players.

When an intern jumps on top of another one and presses a button, the intern on top becomes a rider of the intern on bottom. In this form (attack form), the player that was controlling the bottom intern can now control the movement of the two characters, whereas the top character can aim and shoot water at other interns. At any time, either player can press a button to ‘unlatch’. It is important to note that ‘attack form’ is the only way to attack other characters.

The shootable water is replenished by picking up water pails that will spawn around the screen. Water can only be acquired when not in ‘attack form’ with another character.

The aim of the game is to soak your fellow interns by forming and breaking alliances. Once an intern is hit with enough water, he is ‘fired’. If interns are hit with water in ‘attack form’, they are split apart.

At random points in the game, an UNDEFEATABLE? ‘supervisor’ character runs on screen, chasing after the closest intern with a pink slip. If the supervisor manages to come in contact with an intern, that intern is fired.

Once only two interns remain, the game goes into sudden death mode, where ‘attack form’ is no longer allowed. At this point, interns who were fired can ‘go postal’ by throwing water balloons from outside of the arena at either of the two interns left. Once an intern is hit, the game is over, and the other intern has won.

Tony's Concept For Intern Wars:

My vision of "Intern Wars" would be a party game with a bunch of mini games. 3 players would be interns and the forth would be the boss. This would be primarily a 4 player multiplayer game that should be played with all players in the same room, but the game could be played over the internet.

To start the game, a boss will be randomly selected of the four individuals playing. Each player will create a unique avatar to represent themselves. The boss will then give each of the interns a creative and funny nickname that represents the avatar.

Some of the mini games I have thought of so far are:

Race to see how fast you can fill the water for the coffee machine

Each intern would have their own viewport and copy of the course for this game. The game would consist of an obstacle course where each intern has a container. The interns must go to the water cooler, fill their container and travel back to the bosses office with the water. Water will spill out for making fast turns and tripping over obstacles. While the interns are gathering water, the boss can add obstacles to an individual's obstacle course. The intern that fills the water machine the fastest wins this game.

Who can break the build the fewest number of times

This would be a button sequence and memory game. The boss will click a series buttons, the interns must repeat the buttons clicked. The intern with the longest complete memory series wins this game.

The scooter races around our building

Interns have to race against each other around the building on a scooter. The players can hit one another and the boss can throw obstacles and power ups on the course. The player to complete the race first wins this game.

Prank the bosses office

I believe this mini game would be similar to pac-man vs. The Interns would have to coordinate to sneak into the boss's office while the boss is off checking up on the other interns. The interns collectively will gain points if they successfully prank the boss's office, but will take a penalty for each time they are caught.

The intern with the highest score at the end of the game will be hired as fulltime employee. If the players choose to play again, the winner of the previous game will become the boss of the next.