Marry, Boff, Kill

The funny thing about this column is that by the end of it will have contributed directly to the personal plight that I'm about to illustrate. Its like I want to prove that jumping into a lake -- from the cliff near old man Riley's house, not the Ox-bow bridge -- will lead to your certain demise by tossing our friend John the Slut in first and watching his frail legs shatter on the deceptively shallow bottom. In trying to communicate a thing, I've caused the very outcome I wished to prevent.

©Vincent Perea

I'm talking about creative opportunity cost. In the time it's taking me to write this (which, I will agree, is hardly creative genius) I could be crafting the great American novel, working on a pitch for a totally sweet interactive video gaaaaame, figuring out the plot of the comic I'm trying to cook up or taking a nap. I have eight to twelve functional productive hours a day. I have eight to twelve million things I'd like to write. One must choose. One must also find time to check that cheddar so he can do things like put diamonds in his Jesus-piece or get the gyoza AND the dipping sauce at Trader Joes.

Maybe it's because in today's day and age you feel compelled to take every opportunity because one might not come up again. Or not only do you want to write novels, short stories, movies, TV, games, comics, blogs and religious pamphlets, but any avenue is essentially OPEN to you and they all have their weird cultural caches. I don't think Hemingway had to deal with this shit. He broke out his Royal Portable, drank a daiquiri (an not a froo-froo strawberry slushy, I'm talking about the real McCoy), shot a fucking leopard, and then wrote the great American novel. EN BEE DEE.

I'm sure it's just a flagpost of writerly immaturity -- the sort of "kid in a candystore" vibe where you just want to shove everything in your mouth and nom til you puke. I kinda feel that way with writing. I mean, ACTUALLY writing, where I have to sit here and make words into sentences and so forth? Fuck that, it's hard and a real pain in the ass. But having WRITTEN something? That's a feeling I can get on board with and indulge in quite regularly. If I could just find a way to stand proudly above the fruits of my labors without all that... laboring, I would be one happy camper. But alas, each thing that ends up on the page is a byproduct of infinite strikes of the delete key (or "backspace" for all ya'll PC squares) and takes about a quarter of a century to produce.

I don't believe in writer's block really. I don't believe in "you've only got one great thing in you." I mean, success can breed complacency, but look at a guy like Michael Chabon. While quite a bit wordier than our man Mister Hemingway, he drops a Pulitzer Prize winner on us and then turns around and writes the best detective novel of the past forty years. The man goes to work.

But what I do believe in is the body of work you're able to accomplish in the time you've got. And that, as much as I wanted to believe that I could be the 21st century renaissance man and dabble in a little of this and a little of that, history rewards specialization -- being the best you can be in the field you're in -- and is much as it pains me to say it, that takes focus. And experience. And your fair share of misfires and fuck ups. These are things that you don't get if you get distracted and decide it's time to write a short-story via Twitter.

Because your time is valuable. It is the only finite resource you have. You can expand your vocabulary, you can go have wild experiences, you can get into trouble, you can add to your well in a million different ways, but you cannot add to your clock. Nevertheless, opportunities arise and you leap at them. You'll make time. You'll get to work early and get home earlier and eat dinner faster and write later. The same thing applies to other lines of creative work, as my very good buddy Vincent Perea knows. He's a full-time art director at an agency and a full-time artist for the upcoming "Misadventures of PB Winterbottom" (and responsible for all that redonk art you're seeing on IGN and such), he works on his own paintings and gets hit by my roommate (the incomaprable Adam Nace) to illustrate some crazy architectural combat narrative. He's a ragged shell of a man. But his fire burns and he has to do it ALL. I feel his pain.

Studios have the same problem. Except instead of it being a personal plight tied to directly to one poor bastard's ego, you've got to choose the right project for your studio at the right time. What does your audience want? Fuck, what do YOU want? What can you afford? What will make sure your studio makes another game? You're about to burn 1600 hours a week of grown people's time and make sure a bunch of fellas don't see their wives that often. This is creative opportunity cost. Far too often, in this industry, you get one shot at it. What the hell do you choose?

There's really no right answer. Or should I say, any wrong answer. I've found -- finally -- that whatever I pick to do is the right thing. It has to be. If it's a pitch or a script for a TV show that will never get made or whathaveyou, the thing that I'll give up fun stuff for is usually the thing I should be working on. And then, you've committed so much of yourself to something that man, it had BETTER be the right choice, or you're going to be ordering the single-serving bullet appetizer followed by the cheque please because countless hours of your life are going to be gone because of it.

Which idea am I going to marry? Which one am I going to make sweet throwaway love to and which one am I gonna kill? I've made peace with having to make the choice, but that doesn't mean it's not a huge struggle. I mean, goddam. Think of what I could have done with this time.

It's About Time

I have to imagine that my fellow designers at Telltale often think I'm a total ass. Or a confusing mix of pretentious and dim. It's hard to say. In our latest team meeting, we were discussing hypothetical future projects, and as we tossed a certain premise around, there was traction for the sorts of things you would do in a video game if it were set in this specific place. As we continued to brainstorm and banter I found myself struggling to find a foothold in the conversation primarily due to, well, the aforementioned dimness, but also because the idea we were discussing, at that point, wasn't ABOUT anything. So I said... "but guys... it needs to be about something." To which I, deservedly, received some dismissive stares and my daily serving of "duhhhhh" eye-rolls. About something, you say?! Why! What a novel idea! It should be ABOUT something! Somebody get this man a mahogany desk and tarty little secretary he can sexually harass!

Look, I know "guys, it has to be about something" is a thing a douche would say. But it's important. And I realize I say lots of shit is important. But that's because... well, you know, it is. Things are. Important. This is one of them.

I can't really do anything much of quality until I've figured out what something is about. Wallace and Gromit's Muzzled! was a steaming pile before I realized that it was about Gromit's relationship with and faith in Wallace and not about flash gadgets that turn arctic water-fowl into jewel thieves. Same goes for Monkey Island -- I routinely pee'd in Joe Pinney's cheerios, metaphorically speaking, giving him narrative garbage to work with until I put my finger on the pulse of Guybrush's grand story and what it's about. (Uh, monkeys, right?)

And regardless of control hitches or the odd wonky puzzle, those two games are ABOUT something, and for that I'm tremendously proud. But being "about" something does more than give me a smug sense of satisfaction: I found that once those games were clearly about something, the team found a common language for which to do their work, instinctively knowing which sorts of things were important and worthy of their energy (such as spending extra time on Gromit's facial expressions during pivotal emotional moments) and which were not (a joke that was axed in MI:Lair of the Leviathan that may or may not have made a vague reference to a despicable sex act). Anybody who's ever made a videogame, or, shit, ever made lasagna understands that time is a precious resource and must be spent where it counts. On the sauce of course.

I lump theme, mission, purpose -- these sorts of things -- into my catch all word "about." How would you describe what Team Fortress 2 is "about" based on the way I described Wallace and Monkey? It's difficult. The characters aren't really at the heart of the conflict and unless you're a hardcore fan who digests all the comics and movies that Valve puts out around every update (which are awesome by the by), there isn't really a story there trying to convey any message. I suppose you could really stretch the FPS premise wafer thin and say its a game about the eternal existential conflict of man vs self where innumerable clones of the same type of combatant must do battle ad infinitum simply because one half of himself is "red" and the other is "blue" -- a dichotomy that could be paralleled to Freud's ideas behind the id and ego, which would explain the aggression, the instinctive nature of the battle and why my k/d ratio never gets over one. Of course, if you made this stretch in earnest, you would be an even bigger douche than I. Welcome to the club, here is your sash.

The point is, Team Fortress is a game about building the slickest, constantly evolving and well-balanced multiplayer shooter anyone's ever played, while testing the paradigm of visual design that core gamers will embrace. If someone walks in to the room carrying fifteen million dollars and says "this is what this game is going to be about" everyone can go back to their desks and at least begin to work. Did that happen at Valve? Probably not. Did they still make a great game? Yeah. How did they do it? Magic. How the hell should I know?

I only bring this up because I feel like a lot of games don't know what they're about. Or aren't trying to be about anything. I'm not going to name names or point fingers but I will use my belt buckle to gesticulate subtly towards my most anticipated game of the year. Figuring out what your game or book or project or startup or comic or oil painting is "about" gives you the only rubric you need to make creative choices. You ask yourself two things: does this fit in line with what this is about and is this over complicating or drawing attention away from the core of what this is about? From there, you're only limited by your ability to conjure up crazy and compelling shit and make honest calls about what fits and what doesn't.

Joe and I went through a 48 hour phase where we wanted the manatee love match puzzle in episode 3 to be about making your manatee more attractive. We thought it was going to be hilarious! He's got bad breath! YES! He's predisposed with terrible underwater flatulence! HAHAHAHA! He's a premature ejaculator!* BUWAHAHA BRILLO! (*not a real idea) But as you can see, this idea, over time, quickly became what Jake (@Ja2ke) described as "you want to put lipstick on a fucking manatee?" It didn't fit in the world and it certainly wasn't helping support what the game was about. Where we ended up -- having to help an aloof male and overly aggressive female manatees communicate landed perfectly because it related to Guybrush and Morgan (who *spoiler* don't swim off to bone like the manatees do). We had to be honest about what the episode and the franchise as a whole was about, and the game was better for it.


So answer the about question. Whatever you're doing. Maybe it's obvious to everyone else, but it's something I have to spend real energy doing every time I start something. Whether it's a blogpost, a game, a story, a comic or a relationship, knowing where you're going and why you're headed there makes all the difference.