Another long day of development ends in the twilight hours. The air in the old cabin we rented for a work-vacation is still thick from all the discussions. I almost did not hear the faint knocking on the door with the rain thudding on the roof.
I open the squealing door to see… nothing. Nothing except a small package. I raise my head but cannot see a person in this dark, stormy night. I call upon my colleagues, curious about the contents of the mysterious package. We open it slowly, tensely and see what seems to be a monkey’s paw. Almost missing the handwritten note, I pick up the ragged tag lying next to the gruesome object. “This magical paw will grant you three wishes.”
I look around and see shock and confusion in my colleagues’ eyes but also… temptation. Before anyone can raise their voice, Anton shouts: “Wait!”, grabbing the paw. “I recognize this! This is a cursed object I’ve read about. This is not a joke, this is dark magic. We should put this far far away and absolutely, under no circumstance, use it!”
Being the only reasonable thing to do, we follow Anton’s suggestion and store the paw away, into a dusty old cupboard in the basement. Shaken and agitated, but still so very tired, we decide to leave this situation for today and go to bed. The night outside is stormy and dark and my eyes become heavy while I watch the rain pour down the window.
"A NEVERENDING ODYSSEY"
Jorge could not sleep that night. He kept seeing the combat UI before his inner eye, which he despised. He wanted something so good, it would make players understand combat in Aethermancer instantly. But he just did not know how and he did not have the time to focus on it between all the pixel art he was doing. Jorge knew, he could not resist temptation. So, he walked down the stairs, quietly, to not wake anyone before his grim undertaking was achieved, all the way down to the monkey’s paw. And he wished for time to create the perfect new combat UI.
The next day Jorge woke up with a clear image of a new UI before his inner eye. It was as if it was right there! Jorge was happy, his plan had worked! He was so excited, he sat down to draft a new combat UI even before breakfast. Later, full of enthusiasm, he showed it to the others. But the first thing he heard was: “I don’t like that the UI takes up so much space now!” The feedback did not bother him too much, critisicm is normal, even appreciated. He would go back to doing UI tomorrow.
The next day Jorge woke up with a clear image of a new UI before his inner eye. It was as if it was right there! Jorge was confused and felt like having a déjà-vu. It was a look at the calendar on his phone that confirmed his horrifying theory: it was the same day again. “Ok”, Jorge said to himself. “Don’t panic. This HAS to be because of the wish. I will simply take the feedback from yesterday’s today and make a new draft and it will all be fine.” He ignored his sweaty hands, his seething worries and got back to work. Later that day, he presented a new draft to the others. “Hmm… players should be able to see all relevant information at once! This is too consolidated!” And another person raised their voice: “And this looks way too futuristic for our game!” Jorge got back to his laptop, but now that he had two things he had to change, he was not able to finish it this day. He went to bed…
The next day Jorge woke up with a clear image of a new UI before his inner eye. It was as if it was right there! “Oh no…” Jorge sighed, realizing he was still trapped in the very same day. He started to panic. He decided not to get breakfast, but directly start working on the UI, incorporating all previous feedback, hopeful he would be able to finish it this time. But again… “The icons are too small!” “Can’t we have this part animated?” “I don’t like that we have numbers here!” It seemed like slaying a Hydra. You cut off one head and two new ones emerge. He worked day and night, the same day, every day. But everyone had something to nag about every iteration he made. Days passed, weeks passed. So much time passed.
Jorge wished to have time to create the perfect new combat UI. Now he had time to work on it forever and evermore until it would finally be perfect.
"THE INVASION OF BUGS"
It must have been around midnight, when Galina woke up with a dry throat. Thirsty, she made her way to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. As she was standing there looking around the dark room, her gaze lingered on the basement door. “I’ve been asking the dev team for more features to show for ages… Maybe I could use the monkey’s paw to wish for more content…”, Galina thought. And so, after making sure that nobody saw her, she made her way down to the basement.
The next morning Galina eagerly waited to see if her nightly adventure was a success. She didn’t have to wait for long. “I’m finally done with the lamps!”, Anni said and removed a note from the task wall. Shortly thereafter Basti also threw a note into the trash and happily announced that he finished the lighting overhaul. Not even the dark, stormy clouds outside could dampen their mood when they went on their lunch break. “Finally I can record some new footage!”, Galina thought to herself. Their joy shouldn’t last for long.
“Hey Anni”, Galina said, “There’s a problem with the lamps. They are everywhere and appear in all sorts of places where they shouldn’t be.” “Really? That’s strange… Let me see.”
Anni started working on a fix right away. Patiently waiting, Galina looked out of the window. What is that eerie glow? Is that… a lantern post out there on the hill? That can’t be… and yet… it is there. “I fixed it!”, said Anni and snapped Galina out of her trance. “Thanks!”, she said, but when she turned back to the window, the lantern was gone. So Galina started recording again. But she couldn’t even finish one video before she encountered another problem. “Hey Basti, the new lights you made are flickering all the time.”
“I’m so sorry, I’ll fix them right away.”, Basti said and started working. Galina went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, when the lights in the house also started flickering. “That’s creepy.”, she thought, everything worked perfectly fine a few hours ago. As suddenly as the flickering started, it stopped again and Basti poked his head through the door. “It should be alright now. Anni just told me that we also have a dash move now, if you want to make a video of that.”
Galina looked at the clock. “I guess I have time for one more attempt today.” So she sat down in front of her laptop and started the game. “Oh, that dash move is fun! I’m so fast!” Galina played around with the dash move for a while to get the perfect shot. Then, suddenly, she felt an enormous pull from her core. It was as if someone towed a rope around her waist and attached it to a driving car. And as she was violently yanked away from her laptop, the room around her became blurry and disappeared.
About an hour later Anni and Basti came to look for Galina. But all they found was her abandoned laptop, playing a video:
"CREEPY CRAWLY SIZES"
Adam’s bloodshot eyes slowly peeled open for the 100th time this night. Almost out of instinct, he grabbed his phone and started scrolling through Twitter to validate his sad, pathetic life with sweet sweet internet points. The latest monster reveal was just posted, and he was practically drooling thinking of all the praise. With shaking fingers he navigated to moi rai’s twitter page (@moi_rai_ please follow and like all of our posts please I need it) and let out and audible gasp once his eyes understood what befell them. Three likes… three. But at least there was one comment?
…
How could the monster designs that he, Jorge and Malika created with such love, hard work, talent, refined taste and masterful skill not become viral instantly? These thoughts and many others (ones that are so conceited that I’m too embarrassed to even write them) rattled his little brain.
Adam fumbled out of his bed and began grasping in the dark for the walls that would guide his path.
“You can fix this.” he reassured himself as he stumbled towards the dark basement steps, “everything is fine Adam, you can fix this”.
The flickering neon tube overhead revealed the cupboard in the basement that held the monkey’s paw. Hesitant, but still determined, even obsessed, he grabbed the paw and made a wish.
“I wish… for Aethermancer’s monster sprites to become… INFINITELY impressive!”
The following day, in the warm light of dawn, the artists were sitting next to each other drawing new monsters. Adam peeked over Jorge and Malika’s shoulders’ to see what kind of impressive monsters they were cooking up. It was… fine I guess? He looked back at the monster on his own screen and (despite his obvious delusional narcissism) deemed it just…okay. Maybe the stupid monkey’s paw was hogwash after all.
Just then, Denis came in and slowly inspected the newest monster designs. He seemed content. As he was leaving the room, he left the door open a crack and poked his head back through.
“You know what would make them even more…”, he paused, his eyes glowing for a brief moment. “…impressive? If they were bigger!”
Not bigger!! Adam, Jorge and Malika looked at each other, sighed and started adding pixels to their respective monster designs in front of the cold white glare of their laptops and drawing tablets.
A few hours later, Adam took his tablet to show the now even bigger monster sprite to Denis, who was sitting in the room next door, impatiently hammering his fingers on the table. “Make them bigger!”, he shouted at Adam, who had barely just opened the monster sprite file. He returned to Jorge and Malika who had both heard Denis’ wish.
All in a tizzy, they got back to the new monster sprite, adding more and more pixels to the beast. More limbs! Bat wings! Beefier torso! Huge biceps, Succulent quads, Six pack abs…(Sorry my imagination is getting the best of me) They barely finished when they heard doomed footsteps thudding towards them. Denis was back, his eyes looking unfamiliar, obsessed, almost possessed.
He took one look at the sprite and screamed: “It needs to be bigger!” Adam grabbed his graphic pen and added more and more to the monster, suppressing the shaking of his hand. “BIGGER!!!” Jorge added massive horns on the sprite. “B I G G E R!!!” Malika shouted back: “Denis, we can’t make it bigger, it can barely fit the screen anymore!” Denis’s eyes were unrecognizable.
Amongst the wails and screaming Adam kept drawing and drawing until the screen started flickering in a ghastly way. He flinched and dropped his pen. It seemed as if pixels were falling out of the screen? The computer started shaking, more and more pixels fell out. The monster that was supposed to be the most impressive monster the world has ever seen started climbing out of the screen! Everything happened in a blur. Adam, Jorge and Malika jumped out of the room and summoned the courage to glance back, only to see the demonic beast making a leap towards the person who was once Denis, who had a slight smile on his face. The art crew pressed themselves against the rattling door to keep the monster from bursting out of the room. Single pixels began to squeeze themselves through the crack beneath the door. More and more squeezed through, and they grew bigger, BIGGER. Growing in size infinitely, they eventually swallowed everything and everybody in the house.
I flinch, as a hand touches my shoulder. It was Daan’s. I must have fallen asleep when I sat down on the sofa right after the meeting. Was it all bad dreams? I take a moment to calm myself and realize, it was all a nightmare, it was not real. No monkey paw, no game development hell. No gruesome deaths. I sigh. Relieved. And then, a faint knock on the door. I open the squealing door to see… nothing. Nothing except a small package.