Unusual Games Ltd: Monday September 12th 1988

Nobody Knows Anything.

William Goldman

geek noun; probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German; date 1914; 1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake; 2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked; 3 : an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

I’m twenty-seven years old and I’ve never played a computer game. Arcade games, yes – Space Invaders, Galaxian, Missile Command, PacMan and Asteroids. But I’ve never even touched a keyboard, let alone a joypad for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. So when Dick, the younger Champion brother and co-founder of Unusual Games Ltd., handed me his joypad, I was actually quite excited.
As I was trying to work out the correct way to hold it, Dick gave me a brief overview of computer games. For example, he told me that:
“Pixel is short for ‘Picture Element’; every character and background in a game is made up of pixels…”
and what ‘gameplay’ is:
“It’s what the player does in a game…”
and his thoughts on ‘The Future’:
“I believe that computer games will get more and more popular…”

Jargon Note:
Bit is short for ‘binary digit’, a basic unit of information storage in computing; 8-bit, as in the ‘8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System’, refers to the processor used in that games machine.

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It was my first day at Unusual Games Ltd., and Dick Champion and I were sitting at my desk in the Graphic Artists’ studio surrounded by ten or so Graphic Artists, every single one of whom appeared to suffer from a different kind of skin disease. I myself have suffered from recurrent bouts of eczema all my life, so I felt immediately at home and was left wondering whether a skin disease is a prerequisite for employment as a Graphic Artist at Unusual Games Ltd.
Dick Champion is about the same age as me* and he’s a Graphic Artist, too, although he doesn’t sport any visible signs of a skin disease. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt with gold cufflinks and a paisley tie. His trousers have knife-edge creases and his brown brogues have been polished to a gleaming shine. He’s about my height, but he’s slightly overweight with the blond hair and scarily pale blue eyes of a Nazi SS officer. In spite of this, he appears to be quite friendly.
“…And one day, maybe in about five years, computer games will be as popular as TV–” Dick intoned, completing his Vision Of The Future, “–and porn,” he added as a slightly incongruous afterthought, his blue eyes glazing over. “They might even be as popular as porn…”
I was impressed. I’d never met a true visionary before.
Dick nodded slowly, ruminatively, his eyes continuing to glaze over. He was obviously still thinking about computer games as porn. To snap him out of his reverie, I tried to switch on the Nintendo Entertainment System (which everyone calls the ‘NESS’, like it’s a loch in Scotland) sitting like a utilitarian, grey, Japanese Pandora’s Box on my desk. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the on switch and scrabbled around for a bit until Dick noticed and clicked his tongue admonishingly but not unkindly.
“You really are a videogame virgin, aren’t you?” he said good naturedly, reaching out with a well-manicured finger and deftly flicking the NESS’s on switch.
I sniggered nervously. It was my first day at the company and I didn’t want everyone to find out how much of a fool I was just yet. Over by the window, a diminutive man-boy with a greasy brush-cut and appalling acne, wearing a sweater with a large grey check, brand new jeans and white high-top trainers, sniggered along with me. At least, that was what I thought he was doing…
Dick Champion rose languidly from his chair and patted me patronisingly on my already balding head. “Spend the rest of the day playing games. And don’t worry, Tom, you’ll soon pick it up,” he said, yet I could tell by the note of warning in his voice that if I didn’t pick it up very quickly, my days at Unusual Games were numbered.

Jargon Note:
The Nintendo Entertainment System (N.E.S.), known in Japan as the ‘Famicom’, is a games console, a machine dedicated solely to playing videogames (as opposed to a personal computer, which can be used to perform other tasks such as word processing).

*At my job interview, Dick informed me that the average age at Unusual Games Ltd. is 27; the oldest employee is Dick’s father, who is 53, while the youngest, a Games Tester, is 17.

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Geographical Observations:
Unusual Games Ltd. is located in the village of Shacklestone, deep in the heart of the flat patchwork of fields and trees known as the Leicestershire countryside, smack bang in the middle of the patchwork of fields, trees, hills, houses, skyscrapers and motorways known as the United Kingdom.
The offices of Unusual Games Ltd. are situated at Shirehall Farm, in a big, renovated farmhouse dating from the 18th century. The farmhouse overlooks a main road and is set in twelve acres of pastureland with a wood on its northern edge. To one side of the farmhouse is a large courtyard surrounded by various outbuildings. The courtyard is used as a car park by the various Graphic Artists, Software Engineers, Games Testers and Support Staff employed by Unusual Games Ltd.
The farmhouse and courtyard are enclosed by a tall, redbrick wall topped with broken glass. A narrow door in the wall opens on to the main road. Security cameras and lights are fixed to the four corners of the courtyard. The farmhouse’s main entrance is up a flight of stone steps leading from the courtyard. There is a security light above the door and an intercom box fixed to the wall on the right. The intercom is connected to the Administration Office on the first floor.
The Reception area has two tall windows overlooking the courtyard. The wall opposite the windows is covered in posters advertising Unusual Games Ltd’s hit computer games, several framed awards and four photographs of a German Shepherd called Gunther. There is a leather sofa beneath the windows facing the posters, awards and photos of Gunther. There is no Reception Desk.
From Reception, a door opens out into a short hallway with a window at the far end. To the left are the stairs leading up to the first floor where the Administration Office, Games Testing Office and Meeting Rooms are located. To the right is a door opening out into the Graphic Artists’ studio. A second door in Reception leads to the Company Boardroom, where there is a door in the back marked PRIVATE AUTHORISED STAFF ONLY, which opens out into a small room with closed circuit TV monitors displaying various views of the courtyard. A third door in Reception opens on to a short flight of stairs leading down to the cellar where the Hardware Workshop and Kitchen are located.

Jargon Note:
A Games Tester is a school-leaver who probably thought that getting paid a paltry sum for playing games all day would be a fun way to make a living. Most Games Testers I know soon change their minds and leave after about a month to go and get a job that’s more fulfilling, like working in a factory or a building site.

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During a cigarette break on the street outside the farmhouse (smoking has been banned throughout Shirehall Farm by Dick’s obsessively health-conscious and mysterious older brother, Rex), I got chatting to a fellow smoker called Phil, a grizzled, bearded and bespectacled ex-Disney animator of 32 with the most awful scalp-based psoriasis I have ever seen.
Phil told me that the Champion Brothers had bought Shirehall Farm and its twelve acres of land following the success of their third computer game, Fightlaw, and a purchase of a stake in Unusual Games Ltd., by the Japanese computer games giant, Nintendo.
“Before then, Dick and Rex had been making games solely for the Spectrum*,” Phil explained winsomely, a gust of autumn wind causing a small snowstorm to swirl across his shoulders. “Fightlaw was their first NESS game.”
Phil can list every single one of the Champion Brothers’ games in chronological order:

Thrustbagz
Fzzzzt!
PanzPro
Bizkit
BasementBlast
MoonrocketKidz
SwordFoxx
Subterror
Fightlaw
ET7
PistolScare
Hexagram

Phil’s a big fan of the Champion Brothers. And he really fancies the solitary Champion Sister, Gayle, who I haven’t met yet.
“At the moment I’m animating the main sprites in PowaKillaz,” Phil explained, taking a last deep drag on his rollie. He looked suddenly glum. “It’s a long way from Disney.”

Jargon Note:
A sprite is an animated image comprised of pixels.

*The ‘ZX Spectrum’, to give it its proper title (affectionately known as the ‘Speccy’), was a home computer released in the UK on the 23rd April 1982 by the British inventor Clive Sinclair.

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Spent the past hour following the boss’s orders and playing a game called Flower Jam Ninjaz. Once I managed to get the joypad the right way round, I actually started making some progress. The game involves jumping a little girl made out of flowers across a number of moving platforms. If you miss-time the jumps, the little flower girl plunges into a sea of bubbling lava the colour of Bird’s custard. A series of tinny-sounding bloops and blurps announces her demise, and petals from her head rise forlornly to the surface of the lava.
The artwork (collectively termed ‘graphics’) is really crude and the animation even cruder. Also, the gameplay is very repetitive – steer and jump, steer and jump – moving left to right across the screen. I kept wondering what my motivation was, especially when I finished the first level of the game and a bunch of Japanese writing appeared across a badly-rendered picture of a castle made out of what looked like bars of worn soap.
I was just figuring out what I had to do next, and more importantly, why, when I heard a familiar sniggering behind me. It was the diminutive man-boy with the brush-cut and appalling acne.
“Flower Jam Ninjaz, eh?” he said, the derisory nasality of his voice grating on my nerves. “I racked up 15,000 points in the first twenty minutes,” he crowed while pointing accusingly at my own obviously desultory score at the top of the screen. “You only got 1200!” He let out a braying laugh and cast around the room with his piggy eyes for approval. None was forthcoming.
I admit I was really shocked by his behaviour. This is my first ‘proper’ job and I’d expected a higher degree of professionalism. The last time I’d been exposed to this kind of sneering, childish one-upmanship had been in the school playground. I was better than this. I was a grown up and would behave in a professional manner. So, taking the moral high ground, I twisted round in my chair and smiled up at him.
“Fuck off, twat,” I said.
Of course, I’d made a terrible mistake in saying this. The diminutive man-boy with the brush-cut and appalling acne is called Bob Mold. And Bob Mold, it transpires, is my Supervisor.

Jargon Note:
The term graphics comprises all of the artwork in a game, including characters and backgrounds.

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In a nearby pub, the Rabbit’s Arms, I sat and drank bitter shandy with Phil and his psoriasis. We’d been given a lift to the pub by another Graphic Artist called Gaz, a ginger-haired, angry-looking Scouser with acne scars pocking his high forehead. Gaz has a ponytail, which in my experience marks him out as trouble. Or maybe it’s just that he can’t be bothered to get a haircut.
“Not a particularly good start,” Phil commented, just about stifling a laugh that I hoped wasn’t at my expense.
Gaz raised his pint of lager in a toast to me. “I believe in calling a twat a friggin’ twat.”
I said how amazed I was that Mold hadn’t reprimanded me, had simply sneered and returned to his desk. Phil explained that at Unusual Games Ltd., nobody was ever reprimanded.
“They just move your desk into the cupboard,” Phil said.
I laughed.
“No, really,” Phil insisted. “They move you into the cupboard at the top of the stairs on the first floor.”
“They hope you get the idea you’re not friggin’ wanted and just leave,” Gaz added.
Phil sipped his shandy. “Saves on payouts for unlawful dismissal.”
We spent the rest of our lunch hour talking about the forthcoming Summer Olympics in Seoul, a subject I have absolutely no interest in whatsoever. Gaz managed to down three pints of lager to my single bitter shandy. He didn’t eat anything and was definitely slightly pissed when we piled into his car. All the same, we only mounted the pavement twice on the journey back to the office.

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I am Unusual Games Ltd. employee #25. I sit at a desk on the ground floor of the farmhouse in the Graphic Artists’ studio. The carpet is light green and dappled with mysterious brown stains. There is a single window with a view across the fields. To my right is a wall with an old-fashioned radiator. Mounted above this is a poster of Samantha Fox in a silver bikini.
Directly across from me is another desk occupied by a tall, thin Graphic Artist by the name of Nathan. He suffers from seborrheic dermatitis and is so long-sighted he not only needs glasses with bottle-bottom lenses but a desk-sized magnifying glass to do his work. Beneath the glass is an enormous sheet of tracing paper. The tracing paper has a large grid drawn on it in black felt pen and Nathan is colouring in the grid with several different coloured markers. I can just about see the picture Nathan is creating on the grid. It’s the opening illustration for the PowaKillaz game. Nathan tells me that this kind of illustration is known as a ‘splash screen’ and in this instance it shows the game’s title in large, bloody letters above two monstrous men squaring up to each other.

Jargon Note:
The splash screen is an illustration that appears at the beginning of a computer game and invariably incorporates the game’s title.

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I got lost on my way to the toilet and inadvertently wandered into the office where the Software Engineers are based. This is a large room at the back of the farmhouse with several young men hunched behind personal computers. Each one of them stares so intently at his screen that it looks as if he is trying to mesmerise it. Each one of them sports a hairstyle that went out with Led Zeppelin. Each one of them looks like he needs a good wash.
The dress code runs to two extremes, either Goth Black (black teeshirt and black jeans) or shirt and tie. There is no middle ground as far as body weight is concerned; each and every Software Engineer is either grossly overweight or dangerously underweight (and for some reason the shirt and tie brigade are the underweight ones). Empty pizza boxes and Coke cans litter every surface. The walls are plastered in posters advertising Japanese computer games, invariably displaying disturbing animé girl-women with unfeasibly large breasts. The room is eerily silent and stinks of B.O., farts and stale food. The silence is interrupted by the occasional burst of rapid typing.
No-one acknowledged my presence even when I asked where the toilet was. But at least they don’t have skin diseases.

Jargon Note:
Software Engineer is basically a more important-sounding title for ‘programmer’ or ‘coder’, i.e., a person who writes the instructions in a language (or ‘code’) the computer understands in order for that computer to carry out certain functions.

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Super Mario Bros. is by far the best game I’ve played on the NESS, it beats Flower Jam Ninjaz hands down. I’ve fallen in love with the tiny Italian plumber. Even for a paltry little sprite, Mario’s got so much character, and I adore the joyful music and sound effects.
Dick checked in to see how I was getting on. He had Gayle, the solitary Champion Sister with him. I noticed Phil over in the corner going all moon-eyed when she appeared. Gayle’s lovely. Blue-eyed and blonde with curves in all the right places. Her only drawback is her voice. High-pitched and far too girly like she’s got to flaunt her femininity in the all-male environment of Unusual Games Ltd.
“Oh, I love this game,” she twittered when she saw what I was playing. “Mario’s so cute!”
Over in the corner I heard Phil give a sigh heavy with suppressed desire.
Dick shot him a withering glare before introducing me. “Gayle, this is Tom. It’s his first day at the company.”
“What do you do, Tom?” Gayle squeaked.
I couldn’t help but notice that her breasts were almost as unfeasible as those of the animé girl-women adorning the Software Engineers’ office.
“I’m a Graphic Artist,” I announced proudly.
“Gayle does all our music,” Dick explained. “She’s a composer and the only female in the company.”
Gayle giggled, her breasts jiggling delightfully. Phil sighed again; quieter this time.
“The only female apart from, Sandra and Claire in the office. Oh, and Trixie, of course,” Gayle corrected.
A cloud seemed to pass across Dick’s eyes. “Yes. Trixie.”
“Who’s Trixie?” I asked.
Dick’s nostrils flared. “My wife,” he said and turned smartly away.
I watched him stride purposefully to the door and wondered why he’d reacted as he did when I asked about his wife.
“Nice to meet you, Tom,” Gayle chirped and followed her brother from the room.
When she was gone all ten Graphic Artists let out a collective groan.
“Everyone wants to shag Gayle,” announced Gaz hopefully.
“And everyone wants to shag Trixie, too,” said Nathan in a low voice.
Another collective groan.
“No-one would dare try,” Phil remarked. “Dick wouldn’t just fire them, he’d kill them first.”
“And then he’d fire them,” chipped in a short, squat Graphic Artist with patches of erythroderma on both cheeks.
Everyone laughed except for Mold.

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I don’t currently have a girlfriend and I discovered that the same is true for the majority of Graphic Artists at Unusual Games Ltd. Only Gaz is in a relationship, though this is with the barmaid at the Rabbit’s Arms. Apparently, Phil was married to an American girl when he worked at Disney but she left him for a bloke who was paid to dress up as Pluto at the Disneyland theme park. Nathan told everyone he once had a girlfriend at Junior School. When Phil asked Mold if he was seeing anyone, Mold told him to shut-up and get on with his work.
No-one has kids – “Not that I friggin’ know of anyway,” Gaz sniggered – and no-one appears to want any either. Which is surprising since kids are our customers.
I myself would really like to settle down one day. Tomorrow would be good.

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I wonder what game I’ll be working on?
There are currently four games on the go at Unusual Games Ltd:

1. PowaKillaz – a fighting game
2. Monster Truckz Off-Road Racing – a racing game with big trucks
3. Jumpsterz – a platform game (similar to Flower Jam Ninjaz but with green lava and a ‘cool’ kid character)
4. Project X – which nobody knows much about (apparently, Dick and Rex have been working on it in secret)

With regards to Project X, Phil tells me that the Champions are currently renovating one of the outbuildings to house the project – the large barn on the far side of the courtyard. Sounds exciting and I can only hope that this is what I’ll be working on when they decide to allocate me to a game.
Mold overheard us talking about Project X and threatened to have us moved to The Cupboard if we mentioned it again. The guy really is a complete twat.

Jargon Note:
In computer game parlance cool means wearing a baseball cap backwards.

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Literally bumped into the Champion Brothers’ Dad, Ronnie, by the snack machine. He was loading it up and I turned the corner rather quickly, knocking him over and spilling Twixes all over the floor. I helped him to his feet and tried not to be surprised by the fact that he only came up to my solar plexus. As if to make up for being so short he’s got the most enormous moustache I’ve ever seen. It makes him look like a cross between a garden gnome and a walrus.
“You’re new here, aren’t you?” Ronnie asked accusingly.
I nodded and apologised for knocking him over. He stroked his voluminous moustache and looked me up and down, all but cricking his neck as he did so.
“Graphic Artist?” he suggested.
I nodded again.
“I can always tell,” Ronnie said knowingly. “The eczema on your wrists gave you away.”

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My first day was almost over and I was looking forward to a stimulating evening of takeaway Chinese, four cans of Heineken and about three minutes of a porn video loaned me by my brother. I’ve recently moved into a flat above the Chinese takeaway in Rearton-de-la-Gauche, which is about five miles from Unusual Games Ltd. It’s very convenient for work and I could cycle there if I wasn’t so lazy.
My Dad bought me a car when he heard I finally got a job. Trouble is, I haven’t passed my driving test yet, so I catch the bus from the stop just outside the takeaway. The car is an eleven-year-old Austin Allegro with a pair of rancid furry dice still dangling from the rear-view mirror and TREV and TRACE emblazoned across the windscreen. It’s currently parked outside my parents’ house in Woking and likely to remain there for the foreseeable future.

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I was just leaving the building to catch the 6:05 bus from outside the Spar when Dick cornered me in Reception.
“So, how was your first day, Tom?”
“Great!” I announced, a little too enthusiastically.
Dick nodded seriously. “I think you’re going to do very well here at Unusual Games Ltd., Tom,” he said. “You’ve got the right attitude.”
I had a big shit-eating grin on my face all the way home. The Right Attitude, I thought, over and over, The Right Attitude...
I’m sure that The Right Attitude is going to take me right to the top.

Random Thoughts:

• Computer games are all about steering animated sprites and timed button presses
• If computer game titles have an ‘s’ in them, the ‘s’ should be transposed to a ‘z’, as in PowerKillaz, Monster Truckz, Flower Jam Ninjaz etc.
• Is the success of a game proportionate to the number of transposed ‘s’s in its title?
• What is the difference between a computer game and a videogame?
• Game ‘graphics’ appear to only have four colours
• I need to play more computer games
• Computer games are kind of crap

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My flat needs cleaning and my stuff needs unpacking. I’ve been living here for a week now, ever since I heard I’d got the job at Unusual Games Ltd.* and I still haven’t unpacked my stuff, in particular, my books and my art materials. Every surface is covered in a thin layer of detritus. I’ve written the word BIBBLE in the dust on top of the TV.
The flat has three rooms: a living/kitchen area, a tiny bedroom and a tinier bathroom. The landlord is a big, scary Scotsman with an incomprehensible accent. I just about managed to decipher that he’d be up to collect the rent the first Monday of every month. Because he scared me and I wanted to see him as little as possible, I told him I’d pay by direct debit.
The living/kitchen area is full of cardboard boxes and the other evening when I was drunk after my third I’ve Finally Got A Job celebration, I made a kind of den out of them, which I slept in that night. There are a few things in the flat that need fixing, all of which will likely remain broken until I move out. The toilet seat is loose, the kitchen tap drips constantly, and the bedroom light goes out when they switch off the fluorescent Jade Garden takeaway sign downstairs.
There’s another flat next to mine and I’ve yet to meet its occupant. Occasionally, I can hear Classical music drifting through the walls.

*When I received the letter informing me I’d got the job, I actually fainted. My mother thought I’d had a stroke and called an ambulance. It was very embarrassing.

continues...