Dwight of the Living Dead is a long-dead game project of mine that I started and abandoned before making Linus Bruckman. Here’s some info and the summary, all of which was also written ages ago, but I thought I should share it! Enjoy!

History

I came up for the idea for Dwight of the Living Dead ages ago. We’re talking 2005. Right after finishing Anna. I was going through a zombie phase at that point. I don’t exactly know why, but I knew that I had to make a game with zombies! I suspect it had something to do with Shaun of the Dead, which has an obvious influence on the title of this game! Gameplay-wise, I was really impressed by the game Baten Kaitos and the way that it worked card collection into combat. It fit really naturally into an RPG setting. So, my initial concept was a card-based RPG with zombies. I was also, at the time, feeling nostalgic for my childhood playing Hero Quest with my father, and wanted to add in a touch of board game with randomized levels.

I was feeling very disillusioned at the time towards the game industry, and the idea of making a send-up of the industry in game form seemed perfect to me. And the zombies? Fit right in.

I decided that it would be my next game. After figuring out the game mechanics, I started coding the game using really crappy programmer art as placeholders. My intention was to get the game to such a state that it you could play through a little bit of it and get an idea of how the game would work, and then approach some artists to see if anyone was interested in working on the game with me (for free, obviously, as this would have been a freeware game).

I had gotten pretty far, implementing the decks, movement, random levels, bad guys, and some different AIs, and was just starting on the main combat. But then, in December of 2005, my daughter was born. Six months later, I still hadn’t touched the game. Lack of sleep has a definite impact on your ability and motivation for coding.

Also, during that time, Linus was growing in my head as a much more interesting, and far more doable game idea and I soon after would start work on that game, never to look back.

I’ve lost the code for Dwight a while back in a hard drive apocalypse (which is just as well, the script was messy and if I ever pick it up again, I would definitely start over) but I still have this playable alpha which you can play around with, if you’d like.

The early alpha

I’ll let you figure it out as you go. It’s mostly just demonstrating navigating the rooms and the limited in-room fighting system. The idea was that coming into contact with a zombie would bring up the one-on-one battle screen, but unfortunately, I never finished that. So touching a zombie just kills him!

Mess around if you’d like, and read on for the description of how the game was intended to be!

Download the playable alpha!

Story

Meet Dwight. Ten years ago, Dwight founded a game company with his brother Jay. Zombie Games was Dwight’s dream come true. Dwight handled the design, programming, and graphics, while Jay handled the business side of things. Everything was going great until the money started flowing in.

Jay, consumed with greed, continued expanding the company, focused on maximizing profit. Jay didn’t care about gameplay. Graphics sold games! Violence sold games! Sex sold games! Innovation? The word meant nothing to Jay! After buying out all the competition or suing them into oblivion, Zombie Games became the largest game developer on the planet, pumping out game after game of the same mindless gameplay hidden behind the latest shiny graphics.

During his brother’s ruthless company expansion, Dwight was relegated to the game design department. Well, “department” isn’t exactly the right word. More like “broom closet.” Dwight comes to work every day, takes the elevator to the fifth floor of the Zombie Games corporate headquarters (just below the sixth floor blood-spatter department and above the fourth floor lens-flare department) and walks past the huge cubicle farm of the jiggle-physics department to his closet next to the bathroom. Every day, he faxes a new game pitch to his brother in the penthouse office. And every day, that pitch comes back denied.

Since the players had stopped noticing or caring (or both) that they were just getting the same game over and over again, the life of an employee at Zombie Games was becoming more mindless and repetitive every day. They continued toiling away at their increasingly zombie-like lives until one day they simply became zombies.

Dwight will now have to fight his way out of the zombie-infested Zombie Games headquarters. Zombie programmers, zombie marketers, and zombie lawyers stand between him and freedom. As they stumble around the building’s ten floors, they may be moaning for “Synerrrrgyyyyy” and “Crosss plaaaatforrrm commmpatabiiiiiillllityyyyy” but it seems that what they really hunger for is brains!

Battle

DotLD was intended to be a card-based RPG/Adventure board game. (More commonly reffered to as a CBRPGABG) The player would use his deck of cards for everything including moving, fighting, and solving puzzles. Solving puzzles and winning battles would yield additional cards and keeping strong cards in your deck would be important for completing the game.

Each card would have a rank and a purpose. The rank would be a number from one to ten and the purpose would range from general cards, like punch, shoot, and block, to more specialized items or attacks like med-kit, or bullet-barrage. Some cards would also be used for puzzles, for example, you might pick up a bucket-of-water card and have to figure out to play it on an electric wire to electrocute the enemy standing next to it.
For battle in the room screen, you could play cards such as a punch card to attack any enemy within your physical attack radius, or a shoot card to fire your weapon at any enemy within your weapon’s range. The damage from the attack would be based on the rank of the card played and the equipped weapon’s attack strength. Ranged weapons would also have a chance of missing based on Dwight’s accuracy stat and the distance of the target while physical attacks would never miss but would be affected by Dwight’s physical strength stat.

Once you’ve come into contact with a zombie either by landing on the same square as one or having one land on a square with you, the battle screen would come up and you’d engage in one on one combat.

The battle system was never fully ironed out, and would definitely need some play testing before using it in a real game, but what I had originally intended was for Dwight and the zombie to take turns on the offensive or defensive, with the battle instigator getting the first offensive. The offensive player would play three cards face down, one for a head attack, one for a body attack, and one for a leg attack. The defensive player would simultaneously play three cards face down to intercept these attacks.

Early battle screen mock up

Once all six cards are played, they are turned up to calculate the results. If the offensive player plays a shoot or punch card, the resulting attack strength would be calculated by combining the rank of the card with the attack strength of the equipped weapon (ranged weapon or physical weapon). Physical attacks would also be affected by the offensive player’s physical stat. Ranged attacks would have a chance of missing based on the offensive player’s accuracy stat. The damage done from all attacks would finally be modified by the defensive player’s defense stat.

The defensive player has to try to predict the offensive player’s cards and lay down appropriate cards to defend. Playing a block card in any of the three slots would decrease the damage done from the corresponding attack card by an amount depending on the rank of the block card and the defensive player’s defense stat. Playing a punch or shoot card defensively is a risk, but could pay off greatly. If you play a punch card defensively opposite an offensive punch card and your defensive card’s rank is lower, you will take the damage normally from the offensive punch, but will also counter with your own punch. If your defensive punch card is a higher rank than the offensive punch, then you preempt the offensive punch all together and get a punch of your own, taking no damage! Playing a shoot card opposite a shoot card works in the same way. Playing a punch card opposite a shoot card, however results in the offensive player getting an unblocked attack in and your defensive card being voided.

The final twist to battle is the additional effects of attacking the head, body, or legs. A head attack or counter attack decrease the attack’s accuracy, making the attack more likely to miss altogether; however, there will be a chance of causing a “critical hit,” which will double the damage done. A leg attack will also decrease the accuracy of the hit, but will have a chance at causing a “low-blow” causing the recipient to miss his next offensive turn.

There will also be other cards beyond shoot, punch, and block that will have more specialized roles in battle. Their actions will be described on the cards.

After the head, body, and leg attacks are all calculated, the opponent who was previously on the defense, will now be on the offense, and both sides will continue switching back and forth on offense and defense until one opponent falls. If Dwight wins, he gets some EXP and continues. If the zombie wins, Dwight’s dead and has to reload.

Since all the cards are played face down and all six must be played before any are turned face up, there is some guess work regarding where the attacker is going to attack and where the defensive person will defend, though with experience, the player can find certain attack and defense patterns for different types of enemies or bosses which will make it more strategy than guessing.

Leveling up

Battles will net the player some EXP which can be spent by the player to level up Dwight’s stats. The player can choose to spend points on leveling up any stat.

Puzzles

In order to keep that adventurey feel that I love, the game would contain a number of puzzles that would be mostly optional. The idea would be to allow the player to choose whether to battle through the hordes of zombies, which would help you level up and become stronger for the later levels, or solve puzzles, which would net you the most powerful pieces of equipment and would sometimes allow you to clear enemies or bosses out of the way.

Some of these puzzles would be of the logic or find/use password variety, but most would involve collecting special cards and using them at the right time. Perhaps in one area of the game, you get a remote control card. Using that card in a room with a TV would turn the TV on which would distract all the zombies in the room and allow you to pass. Using a wrench card on a wall panel could allow you access to some wires which you could then play a shoot card on to break the wires, thereby unlocking a nearby door and allow you to bypass a section of the level. Puzzles could also help you open safes containing equippable items, unlock secret passageways, and unlock desks containing powerful cards.

Puzzles could also be used to help you with boss fights. Reading computer terminals might reveal hints about weaknesses of the boss. Maybe the head of the Lens Flare department is afraid of the dark. Using a bucket of water card on each of the spot lights in his room before attacking him would greatly decrease his stats for the battle. Perhaps the head of the Legal department will charge you as soon as he sees you. But if you play cards of a high-enough rank, you can stay ahead of him and lure him into a pit, allowing you to bypass the battle all together.

In this way, the game can use lots of wacky cards for fun effects that would give the player a choice of how to approach the game — smart, aggressive, or both!

Presentation

To go along with the silly send-up of the games industry, the game would be presented in a cartoon style.

Music would be completely unnecessarily over-done John Williams style affair, making even simple things like picking up a mop to use as a melee weapon a dramatic affair.

In Conclusion

This was a fun idea that has stuck with me for a while. I think such a mixture of genres could turn out to be very fun, and the game industry parodies would make it incredibly enjoyable for hard-core and casual gamers alike. If I ever get really ambitious (highly unlikely after Resonance!), I might give this one a go again!

As an added bonus, they’ve put up some screenshots of Shane’s long-time project Boyd Quest. I’ve played a build of it, and yes, it’s awesome!

Well, blog, it’s been a while. As I mentioned on Twitter, I’ve found that I can be in one of two modes: productive but silent, or loud but stagnant.

Doing community and marketing stuff takes up a lot of time! And when your only time to work on your game is between the time when your two kids and wife fall asleep and the time when your eyes start closing and you start writing code that incorporates words from the dreams you start having, you don’t want to spend too much time blogging.

I actually wrote the word “sink” into a bit of dialog two nights ago that had nothing to do with sinks because I started falling asleep when writing it. When I was played that segment the next night I had no idea what I had written.

Anywho, things are still going well. I’ve had a few epic nights of productivity recently. I’m working towards yet another deadline: this time trying to get as much of the game as possible polished and submitted to Indiecade.

One thing that has really helped me get as far as I’ve gotten has been Kickstarter. I raised $2080, which made a big dent in that red number at the bottom of my expenditure-tracking spreadsheet.

Here’s what the money went to (and it was all pretty much gone in the first month!):

• Music and sound! Nikolas Sideris got a large chunk of the Kickstarter purse. He has produced some amazing tracks for the game as well as purchased and recorded a ton of high-quality sound effects. His work really brings the game’s audio to life.
• Backgrounds! There were a few backgrounds that I was going to cut for budget reasons, which would have kind of weakened part of the game, but I was spending money that could be going into my kids’ college funds! But after Kickstarter, I put them back into the game and Nauris has done some more of his stunning work! In fact, I just posted one a couple paragraphs above! (You’ve got to see it with the mist drifting across the scene! It’s gorgeous!)
• Dialog! Deirdra Kiai got some moolah for her excellent guidance and help so far with writing the actual words that come out of the characters’ mouths. I found, that writing the dialogs had become a major bottle-neck for me since I felt like all the characters were speaking in my voice rather than expressing their own unique personalities. Luckily Deirdra is a fantastic writer and offered to help! She’s done some great editing, re-writing, and writing for the game! Thanks to Kickstarter, she got a bit of remuneration for her time, which I’m sure went straight into her own game-in-progress, Life Flashes By..
• Posters! And of course a bunch of money went into getting posters printed out and sent back to the people who pledged enough to receive one. We had a bit of trouble with a couple international backers who didn’t receive posters, but I think that’s all been sorted now!

So, yeah. Kickstarter was immensely helpful. So, I hope I don’t sound like a total beggar when I hold out my hat again.

I’m opening up donations again, this time via PayPal (as some people mentioned to me that they wanted to preorder via Kickstarter before but couldn’t do so via Amazon’s payment system). My goal is to get enough money to commision the rest of the art that I need to complete the game. Right now, a decent portion of the last half of the game is still in programmer art (crappy MS Paint drawings!) and, partially due to a recent incident where I had to spend a bunch of money to get my wife back into the country (long story), I don’t have enough money right now to pay for those backgrounds. It is slowing game development.

I will be applying the same gift structure to all PayPal donations as I did to Kickstarter, so every PayPal donator can get the same gifts that were available before. Likewise, any Kickstarter backer that wants to increase their pledge to get up to a higher gift may do so by donating the difference!

Also, all PayPal pledgers will gain access to the same Special Backer Gifts that Kickstarter backers had access to. This includes:

• Never-before-seen screenshots
• Never-before-heard music tracks
• Some sneak peaks at awesome character animations.
• An amazing wallpaper
• A special video!

And of course, you get prizes based on your contribution amount. Here are the pledge levels and prizes:

PLEDGE $1 OR MORE
A mention under the “Special Thanks” section of the game’s credits!

PLEDGE $15 OR MORE
All the above, plus a coupon to download the game for free when it’s done! This is as good as a pre-order! (This is likely cheaper than the game will be sold for when it’s complete.)

PLEDGE $35 OR MORE
All the above, plus an early playable sample sent to you before the end of November! (a complete scene from the game missing only voice acting)

PLEDGE $50 OR MORE
All the above, plus a guaranteed spot on the play-testing list. Play the game early and give feedback to improve the game!

PLEDGE $75 OR MORE
All the above, plus a poster, which I’ll send you as soon as the above time period is up!

PLEDGE $500 OR MORE
All the above, plus your name in the credits as a producer!

Any and all help (including kind words of encouragement!) will be deeply appreciated! I thank you in advance for your support and look forward to sharing Resonance with all of you!

A portion of the game takes place in a hospital and I’m looking to have a stable of soundclips of secretaries/whoever over the hospital intercom saying stuff like:

“Doctor Hansen to the OR. Doctor Hansen to the OR.”

“Paging Doctor Nielson to ICU 43. Doctor Nielson.”

“Doctor Kotou, you have a call on line three. Doctor Kotou.”

“Shepard line seven. Shepard line seven.”

“Nurse Keeling to room C. Keeling, room C.”

Then, with a big collection of those, I can just play one randomly every minute or so. It helps the atmosphere and helps bring the game to life!

So, if you want to have a bit of fun with a microphone, I’d really appreciate your help!

You can say whatever you want, work in an inside-joke or whatever, just make it something that you might hear over the intercom in a hospital. Of course, I reserve the right to not use any that are inappropriate or might detract from immersion for whatever reason.

Help me out by either posting it in this forum thread, or by emailing it to Nik at nikolasideris at hotmail dizzitydot com who will clean them up and balance audio or whatever magic he does.

I’m sending the game in to IGF around the 25th, so before then! The sooner the better, of course!

Thanks!!!

You may know Josh from his awesome games “La Croix Pan” and “Chatroom.”

And if you’re anything like me, you’re looking forward to his upcoming game, Boryokudan Rue.

I’d rather have the artist spend the time he has available on the remaining backgrounds and get someone else to work on these closeups. Currently, I’ve been kind of filling some of them with programmer art just as placeholders so I can get the interactivity in place. But I’d like to have someone make them real purdy.

Requirements: you must be able to make the closeups match the existing style of the backgrounds.

Examples: Two released screenshots show one of the closeups:

The room background:

Closeup on the chest’s lock:

Here’s another example with my crap programmer art. The room background:

Closeup on the computer on the desk:

I need someone to fix those up. Are you up to the task? Send me an email at vince.twelve@gmail.com hopefully with some examples of your work.

I didn’t win, but I didn’t want the thing to go to waste, so I thought I’d publish it on the ol’ blog. Despite this being titled as a “pitch,” I don’t actually think that anyone should make this now. Huge technological leaps must be made in camera recognition, speech recognition, and AI to make this even feasible. However, if I’m not playing this game in ten years, I’ll be dissapointed.

So here you go:

Aventine Noir: A Short Story and Game Design Concept of the Future

Of all the offices in all of Aventine, she had to walk into mine. Her blond hair fell loose around her shoulders and her dark eyes peaked out from beneath the veil pulled across her face. I couldn’t help but think that she was showing a bit too much leg for a woman who had just found her husband face-down in his oatmeal just 48 hours earlier. I got the feeling that her mourning was for show.

“He was murdered,” the woman purred.

“He was old,” I replied.

We went back and forth for a few minutes. She insisted that old man Atwood had been perfectly healthy before his demise. The millionaire owner of half the industrial sector of Aventine, and famed world explorer and hunter, did not have a bad ticker, she insisted.

“If he could survive hunting lions in the savannas of Africa, trekking across the frozen wastelands of Siberia, and climbing Everest…” she leaned in close, “If he could survive what he and I did two nights ago, Mr. Twelve, he could certainly manage to survive a bowl of warm mush.” She had a point.

She was leaning in close enough that I could smell the cigarette that she had put out before getting out of the car downstairs. Or at least I would have, if she wasn’t a character in a game, and I weren’t sitting on the couch in my living room interacting with her via the camera built into my television set. A lone green LED shone next to the camera’s iris, indicating that one player was recognized in the room.

“Let’s say your husband was murdered, Mrs. Atwood.”

“Please, call me Betty.”

The woman slid even closer, if that was possible. She ran a single finger across my cheek. “If you could just figure out who it was who killed my husband, Mr. Twelve, I’d be very… very… grateful. Her lips couldn’t have pouted any more.

From my spot on the couch, I lifted my hand, palm towards my face and placed it in the space between my face and where hers would be if she wasn’t trapped on my wall. My on-screen avatar, as viewed from the first person, did the same, my digital hand hovering in front of the woman’s nose. I wiggled my ring finger, the action was mirrored on screen, my digital finger wearing a wedding band just as my real one was.

“I assume your gratuity comes in the form of cash Mrs. Atwood.”

She backed away. Turning towards the window and lighting a cigarette in defeat. “Name your price.”

“Can you think of anyone who would want your husband dead?”

She said she couldn’t. Everyone loved Hank. Her voice was filled with honey unbecoming of a woman in mourning.

With my fist in a ball, I gesture to the right, moving the viewpoint of my character on screen to the right, giving me a view of my desk. The morning paper sat there. I reached out with an open hand and closed it. On the screen, I had picked up the paper. With my balled fist, I gestured back to the left, turning me to face Mrs. Atwood again.

“Really? I couldn’t help but notice in the papers this morning that your husband left half of his estate to his longest-working employee. That must’ve been a surprise.”

She turned. “Why, Mr. Twelve, I’ve been so shaken up over my loss that I hadn’t even had time to consider the money.” I must’ve been making a face that conveyed enough disbelief to be picked up by the camera, because she changed her tune quickly. “Fine, yes, It was that rascal Jameson. He must have talked my husband into some foolish modification of his will, and then made sure he would never have a chance to change it back. I know it was him. I just need you to prove it.”

I asked how I could be sure that she wasn’t the murderer, herself. After all, Mrs. Atwood had just as much reason to want a speedy death for her husband.

“Because, Mr. Twelve, if I had murdered my husband, I wouldn’t have been so rash as to do it when half of the estate went to someone else.” She had a point.

She wasn’t two steps out of my office when a window popped up in the lower right corner of my screen. “Where’s Kumi?” asked the man in the window. He was sitting on the couch of his own living room.

“She had to run some errands this morning before work. No time for a case.”

“Too bad, I was looking forward to embarrassing you in front of her again!”

“I don’t think so, Andrew. You’re going down.” He had to go down.

He had won our last three cases in a row. It would be an uphill battle to beat him today, though. When starting this game, I had to have the computer create a short case for us, since I would have to be leaving for work soon. Andrew was especially good at short cases.

When starting a case, the player gets to choose a difficulty and a length. The computer then builds a new, unique murder mystery for the number of players connected. You could play forever and never play the same case twice. Since this was set to medium difficulty and short length, the computer had generated a mystery without many twists and with enough clues to find our way through without too many problems. Personally, I like the long cases, but as I said, there wasn’t enough time before work, so I’d have to beat Andrew on his home turf.

“We’ll see about that,” Andrew retorted. “Where’s Travis?” I shrugged. “Open a chat window to Travis,” Andrew instructed the computer.

A small window popped up on the bottom left corner. Travis was leaning back on the couch with his arms wrapped around an invisible person, his lips puckered up and his eyes closed.

“Eww.” Andrew and I said in unison.

“Hey, do you guys mind?” said Travis, opening his eyes. “Elina Jameson was just telling me how happy she would be if I could prove her father’s innocence.”

“At least we both know we don’t have to worry about you solving this case before we do.” I nodded in agreement with Andrew.

“Seriously guys, I was just… charming some info out of her.”

Andrew continued, “So, Jameson hired you, eh? Tell Elina to inform her father that the police will be stopping by soon for a chat as soon as I finish up at the morgue.”

Travis nodded. “Close chat window.” Travis blinked out.

“May the best man win,” I said to Andrew.

“I will.” he replied smugly. “And I had better not see you snooping around my crime scene. I’m sure I can think of a reason to have you thrown into a cell for a few hours.” And with that, Andrew was gone too.

Andrew always played the cop. It always seemed the easy way out, to me. You get access to the help of other officers, plus the power to order citizens about and lay on the pressure to squeeze info out of people.

But that doesn’t make the game lopsided. The seedier side of town is pretty inaccessible to the cops. The shady characters can spot a cop a mile away and tend to clam up and forget anything and everything. Sometimes it’s the shady characters who provide the most help. That’s why the down-on-his-luck PI is the way to go for me.

As I stepped out of the cab onto a quiet residential neighborhood on the east side of Aventine, I bumped into Travis leaving Mr. Jameson’s small house. He waived goofily to me on his way down the stairs. I pointed at my neck to inform him about the lipstick on his collar, but I don’t think he got the message. I gestured with my balled fist to turn back towards the house, and then extended my index finger to move my character forward. The wide-angle camera on the TV picked up my gestures, interpreted them, and sent my instructions to the computer, which sent back the images of what my avatar was seeing as he approached the door of the Jameson house. He followed the path laid out for him by my pointing finger.

Mr. Jameson was refusing to see me. His daughter stopped me at the door and told me that they had already hired a Private Eye to prove Mr. Jameson’s innocence in the matter. I nodded knowingly. I noticed that Elina was wearing a zoo keeper’s uniform. She explained that she worked at the County Zoo and was leaving for work.

“Sometimes the animals seem like the only ones in this city with any humanity,” she said.

I thought about this for a moment. What an interesting statement. In the way that she meant it, I couldn’t disagree. However, the degree of human-like qualities that these characters posessed was still nothing short of amazing to me. I thought about the last ten years that I had been playing games. After so many years of graphics improving asymptotically to some level of unreal-realism, and after it became clear that physics couldn’t be improved anymore or that the weapons were as realistic as they were going to get, finally the realization was made that the only part of games that was still light-years away from where it could be, or that had the most potential for gameplay improvements, was the AI. AI had improved drastically over the last decade. Enemies were no longer limited to deciding between a few pre-programmed routines. Characters could now be given unique personalities, and they would act accordingly. The story of the game could also take on a life of its own, generating new quests, new mysteries, and allowing the player to truly take ownership of the story by interacting with the characters in any way they saw fit. Instead of wandering through a series of levels or quests that were predefined by the game developers, the game would take a life of its own, providing challenges in accordance with the player’s actions, requiring logical thought to navigate. No longer were the NPCs limited to holding their ground or attempting to outflank you, they would now love you, lie to you, help you, betray you, or whatever else that needed to happen to keep the story that the player was acting out exciting and entertaining. I realized that I was now able to *live* movies and wondered when the last time I had watched one was.

My cab let me out in front of the city morgue. I was downtown and the street was full of people walking and driving to work. Looking up at the city morgue’s sign, I knew that this was going to be tricky. Once in the front door I quickly looked around, gesturing with my fist in every direction. An unattended mop and bucket sat in one corner of the waiting room. The man at the desk was talking with a man in a white lab coat — distracted for the moment. I picked up the mop and broom and put on my best non-chalant face as I pointed with my finger, walking past them into the hallway beyond. After I rounded a corner, I set the mop and bucket quietly on the floor and then pointed down the hallway, moving my pointing hand further away from my body making my character move much faster. Around another corner stood a coat rack with several white lab coats hanging on it. I heard footsteps approaching. Quickly, I reached out with my hand and then closed my fist. My avatar did the same, taking one of the coats off the rack. Pulling it back towards my body, I gestured as if sliding the coat up my arms. I was now “wearing” the lab coat. I turned to face a bullitin board on the wall next to the coat rack as two men walked behind me.

“And could someone get this poison at a pharmacy?” I knew that voice. It was Andrew. I silently prayed that he wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t an NPC.

“No, Detective Lieben, that type of drug is used mostly to euthanize animals. You wouldn’t find it through any normal means. It’s mostly used by Vetrenarians, but you might also find it being used by pest control workers, or at the zoo.”

“Thank you doctor. Let me know if you find anything else.” His heels clicked as he hurried down the hallway. So, Old man Atwood WAS poisoned! Andrew must be onto something. Wait a minute! The zoo?

Crap! It was almost 8:45 and I was going to be late for work. Real-world work, not fake-game-detective work. I ran out of the morgue and got myself into a cab. If only I could pause the game. But I knew Andrew and Travis would be continuing the hunt for Mr. Atwood’s killer while I was away. “County Zoo!” I shouted to the cabbie. I hopped up off the couch, grabbed my work bag and hurried out of my house as the cab pulled away from the morgue, my digital avatar riding in the back seat.

Once everyone was onboard the transportation bubble and the team of transit-dolphins began towing us out down the canal, [Give me a break, I'm supposed to be designing the game of the future, not the transportation of the future! -- Vince] I pulled out my cellphone. My phone began streaming the game information from my home computer, displaying the game just as it was before. Unfortunately, I would have to make do with the slightly smaller screen. My avatar had arrived at the zoo. I used the touchpad to navigate around the zoo until I spotted her near the monkey cages: my prime suspect, Elina Jameson. I didn’t have much time to close this case before I would arrive at work, so I clipped my wireless headphone to my ear and cut straight to the chase.

“So tell me Elina, why did you kill Mr. Atwood? Was it for the money?”

Elina was startled. “Mr. Twelve! Oh, I.. uh… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. I’ve just confirmed that a vial of a certain drug disappeared during your last shift. The same drug used to poison the old man.” I was bluffing.

She looked flustered, letting me know that it was working. “If you have such rock solid proof, why don’t you bring it before a judge?” Unfortunately, I didn’t actually have any evidence. Certainly not enough for the game to give me the victory.

“See, here’s the thing, Ms. Jameson. I’ve got all the evidence I need to send you away for life. But what does that get me? A tiny sum from the widow. I’ll bet that you’re willing to pay me more for your freedom than Mrs. Atwood is willing to pay me for your incarceration.

Elina did not look happy. She thought for a second and then looked around. It was a crowded area. “Meet me behind the aquarium in ten minutes.” And she walked away.

Ten minutes, huh? How inconsiderate. I would be at work in ten minutes. Not to mention that it was just enough time to retrieve a syringe of her favorite drug, I’d imagine. I decided to follow her. Making sure to maintain my distance, and once having to dive behind a statue of a seal when she checked over her shoulder, I followed her to a pay phone which she began slipping coins into.

Now was my chance, I looked around. There were several kids near the tiger cage, and an ice cream vendor nearby. I walked over to the ice cream vendor and quickly ordered a cone. I reached my hand into my jacket’s breast pocket, or where it would have been if I was wearing one. The camera on my cell phone picked this up and displayed the content of the pocket on an overlay. I chose my hand-held voice recorder. My on-screen avatar removed it from his pocket. I pressed the record button. Next to the ice cream vendor was a trash can. I tapped on it and then tapped on an empty soda cup inside to tell my avatar to pick it up. I then used the touch screen to drag the recorder into the cup. I then sealed the lid back on with another click and drag. I thought about how I greatly preferred gesture controls to touch controls, but it couldn’t be helped when I needed two hands and one was holding the phone. The ice cream vendor had finished my cone.

I approached the kids watching the tigers. “Hey, who wants an icecream cone?”

The kid did a great job, walking nonchalantly up to the pay phones and setting the cup down near Elina. She was so engrossed in her heated conversation that she didn’t notice. The boy had earned his ice cream. I winked at him as he walked off. I could tell by his smile and nod that the camera in my phone had relayed it to him. A minute later Elina hung up and hurried off.

I strolled casually up to the pay phone and picked up the cup. Opening it up, I retrieved the recorder and pressed play.

“Yes, he knows everything! I thought you were going to make sure this got pinned on my father!” She paused. “How was I to know that it was only used on animals? … Ok, I’ll do it. I need to go now, he’ll be waiting for me and I need to pick some up from the veterinary building. Just tell me we’re leaving Aventine tonight.” I could hear her take a deep breath. “You promise? And be together forever? … I love you too Betty.” I stopped the tape and smiled. I had my proof. And BOTH of the murderers. I had won.

The screen faded out and a newspaper came into view. The top story showed a picture of me dragging Betty Atwood and Elina Jameson into a jail cell. The story was about how Betty and Elina had planned the murder and their motives, most of which I had already figured out. The story below that one showed a picture of Andrew being hit in the head by an old lady’s purse. The headline read “Local Police Officer Falsely Accuses Local Veterinarian.” Ha! That was too rich. I pressed a button on my cell phone to save the screenshot, and then another to upload it to my social network page.

Just in time. I had arrived at work.

My wife, Kumi had gotten a kick out of the screenshot. As had all my other friends. I had been getting comments on it all day. That night, after dinner, Kumi had promised me a special treat. We sat down on the couch and she booted up the game — our favorite game, Aventine Noir. “I wrote you a case,” she beamed. “I’ve been working on it all week.”

Two green LEDs lit up next to the camera. On the left side of the screen was the office of my detective agency as seen from someone sitting in the desk. On the right side was a view of my office door from the outside. Kumi raised her hand and knocked.

Of all the offices in all of Aventine, she had to walk into mine. Her black hair was pulled back smartly. She looked quickly around the office. “Mr. Twelve, your life is in danger.”

“And you are?”

“There’s no time for that,” she continued. “I’m here to save you. Come with me.”

I turned to face her on the couch, “You can take me wherever you want…” I smiled wryly.

She turned to meet my eyes. “C’mon, play along.” She turned back to the television and lunged forward with her arms.

Her character leapt across the desk, knocking my chair backwards. A window exploded and bullets pierced the wall behind where I had just been sitting. She lay on top of me, her eyes locked on mine.

“Believe me now?” I nodded, mouth agape.

She reached down and picked me up by the hand. “Run.” She said. And we ran.

Tomorrow or the next day, I’ll post my own entry. It didn’t win, but that doesn’t mean it should go to waste, right?

CLICKY FOR BIGGY

The first (of… possibly more?) official Resonance poster shows off the four playable characters and the many varied emotions found throughout the game. Like “Surprised” and “Crying” and… “Headache”. So pretty much the whole gamut. Print it up and hang it in your locker!

Eagle-eyed poster viewers will notice the announcement of the newest Resonance team member: Deirdra Kiai, the indie queen of interactive storytelling, who is helping me out with all the dialog in the game. If you’re familiar with her work (all that stuff I just linked…) then you know that she totally rocks.

A super big Merry Christmas hug to Marina “Mash Potato” Siu-Chong who drew these portraits, and who is totally getting paid. (Seriously, how long does it take for Paypal to confirm a bank account?)

And a Happy New Year to you!

Love, Vince Twelve