It was bright and warm this time.  No rain.  No storm.  The sun was on its way down and the streets were packed.  Pedestrians absent-mindedly walked onward to their destinations and the traffic hummed, buzzed, and honked beside me.  Rush hour, I concluded.

The tower, my destination, stood about five blocks south from the hotel with the green awning.  I walked with a determined pace.  Each step shouted my resolve.  I kept my eyes fixed on that damned building—I wouldn’t let it leave my sight for fear it might move to keep me from conquering it.  Tonight, I would climb to the top.  Tonight, I would know why I stood atop the tall building.  I would stand there with purpose.  I would climb to the top so that I could fly.

The people on the sidewalks served as obstacles impeding my progress.  They all marched along, side by side with seemingly little more purpose than to make my forward motion difficult.  They talked to each other about nonsensical things; random strings of thought that these figments of my fractured mind deemed interesting.  The ones not in groups marched with their heads down either buried in a magazine or their phones.  Reading manufactured articles or sending imaginary emails to convince me that this world in which I found myself was real.

I knew it wasn’t, but I dared not convince myself that I was dreaming—I was afraid I would awaken.  If I awoke, how could I conquer that building?  My great challenge—the thing that’s been keeping me awake for all these nights.  No, I fought against the determined hordes and progressed toward my destination.

After what must have been twenty minutes of walking around those mindless pedestrians and stopping for traffic, I arrived at the door to the building.  I felt a small sense of victory in finally arriving, but I knew I still had the climb to the top.  I reached out for the door and opened it.

I stepped into the office and the door closed behind me.  Terrance was walking into the kitchen, I decided to follow him.

He walked straight for the coffee pot and picked it up.  There was maybe enough coffee left for a full cup.  He set the pot down and looked back at me.  “Looks like there’s only enough for one of us.  Pretty sure the cupboards are empty, too.  Want it?”

“Yeah, but I don’t need it,” I chuckled.  “Go ahead, I’ll get some coffee with my lunch or something.”

 

Day 3—Thursday:

He shrugged in a way that said, “Don’t mind if I do,” and poured himself the last of the coffee.  He opened three packets of sugar and dumped them in; to finish, he added a healthy dose of creamer and stirred.  I watched as the last of the caffeine in the office was diluted and consumed in front of me.  I could have stopped it, too.

Shame, I thought as I turned and walked toward my workstation.

As I began to walk away, he turned back toward me and said, “Hey, Tom!”

I stopped and turned to face him.  “Yeah?”

“I sent you some new assets last night, like you asked.  They’re nothing special, but it beats reusing assets, I’m sure.”

“Good, I’ll go check them out now.”

He nodded at me as I turned away and walked to my desk.  I sat down, woke up my computer, and opened Outlook.  Terrance’s message was at the top of my inbox:

From:        Terrance Freis
Subject:   Re:  Assets
To:              Tom Larsson
CC:             Matt Butler

Hey, Tom, here’s the stuff you asked for.  You didn’t really give me much time, so they’re pretty crude—and, no, I didn’t make animation cycles.  It’s just for a prototype, though, so I’m sure they’ll be fine.  If you need anything else, let me know.

Terrance Freis

I downloaded the attachments.  He didn’t lie; they’re pretty basic.  They’ll work, though.  I moved the sprites and backgrounds to my project folder and opened up the code for my prototype.  I stared blankly at it for a few minutes—maybe wishing I had a cup of coffee to kick start my brain and help me think.

After letting out a heavy sigh, I began working on my project.  Fine tuning character navigation, tweaking the physics, replacing assets—it was all very tedious work, but seeing it come together was gratifying.  Each error became a new puzzle to solve—some incredibly easy to fix, but frustratingly difficult to find.  Despite the frustrations, each success gave me the motivation I needed to continue working; something I desperately needed since caffeine wasn’t readily available.

I hadn’t replaced all the old Mudd-Runn assets in my prototype, but I had reached a point where I wanted to see how it ran.  I plugged in my phone and deployed the program.  The game came to life and a crude collage of images filled the screen—leftover assets from Mudd-Runn I had repurposed for my prototype.  While those reused assets worked for me as I plugged away at my prototype, they certainly wouldn’t be acceptable to show off my idea for the meeting on Friday.  I opened Outlook and typed up a message for Terrance.

 

Day 2—Wednesday:

From:        Tom Larsson
Subject:   Assets
To:              Terrance Freis

Terrance, I’m working on a prototype for a new game and Matt’s setting up a meeting for Friday.  Right now I’m reusing assets from mudd runn, but I’d really like something a little more appropriate for what I’m working on.  It’s just a basic demo, so it doesn’t need to be anything too fancy, just a character sprite, some props, a background, foreground stuff with maybe three different environments (lava, water, ice, maybe?), platforms, etc.  This should keep you busy for a while.  Maybe stop by my cube sometime today so we can talk more about it?

Thanks,
Tom Larsson

To be continued…

Freefall is the creative property of Andrew T.S. Bedgood and is protected by US Copyright law.  Any use of this creative work without permission is prohibited.