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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

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In Our Bedroom After The War

[Broadway Kids]

Prompt: “Fuck what they think. I respect you and if they don’t, I’ll break their knees.”

Word count: 2944

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Tommy can’t quite remember when Carrie stopped speaking. Some people said it was in the third grade after she brought that Bible to school and started praying in the middle of lunch, others said after the Christian Youth Camp incident and she swallowed so much water that she “permanently clogged her vocal cords” or something stupid. Whatever happened, something had made Carrie White go silent, and she’s been a target of mockery since.

Deaf and dumb. That’s what the other kids liked to call her. But she isn’t deaf, Tommy knows, because she always reacts to what is said about her with great offense and pain, and she certainly isn’t dumb because Tommy has seen her grades when her report cards are stolen and passed around by bullies. She’s a smart girl, very smart. If anything, he was the dumb one, because the amount of times he’s almost given away their little get-togethers was unbelievable.

It started a month into the school year, he believed. He went into senior year, while Carrie just started high school. He can’t quite remember what caused them to start meeting up in the hidden bathroom under the staircase in the C hall stair well, and he’ll admit that he had never imagined himself hanging out with the city’s resident freak and actually enjoy it, but he would seriously miss their reclusive meetings every Friday after school if they were to ever stop.

Today in particular was very special. 1) because he was finally going to try and teach Carrie about video games (she was fourteen! she should at least know the basics like Pokemon and Mario!) and 2) he had noticed that Carrie seemed a little off the past week and he wanted to ask her about it.

When you saw someone like Carrie White, you would assume that she was constantly in a state of anxiety and depression, but Tommy has learned to pick up on little ticks she does over time. Like how lately, she’s been tugging on her hair and biting her knuckles more often, something she only does if something is really bothering her. Because of their social status in the high school hierarchy, he was never able to ask her if she was alright, so non verbal forms of communication would have to do until their weekly meetup.

There’s the way he tried to avoid letting her out of sight, and if it isn’t that, then it's the way they move around each other in natural synchronicity in the hallway, like celestial bodies that have been caught in orbit for millennia. It's the way he makes excuses to walk alone to class just to make sure she doesn’t get any trouble on the way to her own. It's the silent conversations, an inquisitive look (“You okay?”) answered by a minute nod (“All good.”). It’s everything he wishes he had done for her before his final year of high school.

He tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about how Carrie would soon be all alone again after he graduates. Tried not to think about what would happen to her when he isn’t there as her silent guardian. Tried not to think about how sad he would be without seeing her every day anymore.

Tommy slipped inside the bathroom, shutting the door as quietly as possible to avoid alerting anyone who may have been lurking around, and turned to face the rest of the space. Carrie is sitting at the sink counter on one of two stools Tommy had smuggled in there for them. She turned her head to look at him sideways, but she’s still got her nose buried in a sketchbook, which she still hasn't let him look at. He wondered what she's drawing. Maybe it's a treasure map. Or a secret code. Or that deer they saw earlier. Or him.

“The party has arrived!” Tommy has announced, his voice rebounding loudly off of the silent bathroom walls. He dropped his backpack on the floor, unlike Carrie had done, as hers was hung up on one of the hooks on the wall.

Carrie finally put her pencil down and swiveled around completely in her stool to smile at him. She doesn’t show any teeth with her grin, and it’s slightly wry, but it’s a smile nonetheless and Tommy is honored to get such a thing from her. He examined her quickly, luckily finding no new wounds from bullying, then crossed over. She hastily closed her sketchbook.

“One day,” He said. “One day I will see your masterpiece.”

Carrie gave him an apologetic look, her smile becoming a little more tight. She grabbed a nearby whiteboard to write on, but stopped when Tommy waved a hand.

“No, no,” He said. “No need for that! I’ve been doing really well in my ASL class- you can sign to me!”

Carrie looked skeptical, but Tommy doesn’t miss the flash of excitement in her warm honey eyes. It’s not often that someone understands her when she uses sign language.

“Come on, I’m smarter than I look! Don’t doubt my abilities to learn a new language!”

Carrie nodded. She held up her hands, shaking down the frayed sleeves of her shirt, and began to sign.

“What (something) we (something) today?”

Okay, maybe he wasn’t AS fluent as he thought, but Carrie looked so much more comfortable being able to sign! He could just use his context clues!

“Something very fun!” Tommy assured her. He took out his phone and turned on a playlist that they’ve been progressively adding more and more songs to (with Carrie having to write hers down and give the list to him, seeing as she didn’t own any electronics). You can tell who added what like this: if it’s Christian related or something grungy-chill, Carrie probably added it; if it has folk music vibes and/or a lot of acoustic guitars, it was probably Tommy, surprisingly enough; if it just generally sounds like it’s ripped from an indie movie, it’s kind of a toss up.

He took out the Nintendo Switch he got last Christmas next and set it up on the sink counter. Carrie tilted her head at it as if it were a peculiar flower that had just sprouted out of the porcelain countertop.

“Ever played before?” Tommy asked, although he already knew the answer.

“No. (something) I’ve seen (something) (something).”

“You’ve seen it before?” Tommy repeated, guessing just by the way Carrie had pointed to her eyes.

Carrie nodded.

“Well, now you get to play it!” Tommy beamed at her and she smiled back, but it seems a little forced. Something is definitely on her mind- he’ll have to ask once she’s a little more relaxed. “Hmm… How about Minecraft?”

“M-I-N-E-C-R-A-F-T. I’ve heard (something) (something).”

“It’s fun!” Tommy assured her, selecting the game. “Trust me, you’ll like it.” He put the controllers in her hands and she rubs her thumbs over the rubber protectors. “So the main goal is surviving,” He went on. “There's a lot of objectives actually, but surviving is always the first one. Once you get used to it, you can play in Survival mode and start making a good base and start getting tools and armor and stuff, then you can move on to other objectives. But for now you can just play in Creative. What should we name the world?”

Carrie thought for a few moments, and Tommy could practically see all the random names cycling through her brain. After a moment, she signed, “(something)”

Tommy blinked.

“One more time.”

“(something)”

“Can you fingerspell it, please?”

“V-E-N-U-S.”

“Oh! Venus! We haven’t learned planets yet.” Tommy said. “Wait- Venus?”

“V-E-N-U-S (something) (something) (something) cool place (something) live.”

Tommy laughed. “Can’t argue with that logic!” He helped Carrie type in the name and clicked through a couple of other settings before hitting “create world”. Within a few moments the world was up and running. Carrie’s character was off in no time, exploring the blocky landscape and sifting through her colorful inventory, although her movements were sporadic and jerky since it was her first time playing.

Decorating the base was by far Carrie’s favorite part. There were so many different flowers for the outside and wood types for flooring and even COLORED glass. The only thing that would make it better was if you could have animals and OH MY GOODNESS YOU COULD HAVE ANIMALS!!!!!!!!

For a moment, Tommy debated just leaving Carrie there and allowing her to design the base and play around however she wanted, but he couldn't. He was so worried that someone may waltz in and see her in the boy’s bathroom and then do something to her. Carrie being nearly drowned in one of the toilets, Carrie getting her head smashed against the sink counter, Carrie being raped, Carrie getting beaten into a bloody pulp- so many horrible scenarios forced their way into his head. Carrie getting her throat slit, Carrie getting her body stuffed in the air vent, Carrie getting sodomized with a mop stick.

Why? Why were kids so cruel to her? Why couldn’t Tommy protect her from everything? Why does he know he can’t?

There was a soft touch on his hand and he jolted out of his thoughts. Carrie flinched away, too, then signed something he couldn’t understand, but knew she was asking if he was okay by the pinched expression on her face.

“I’m okay,” He assured her. “Just thinking.”

She made the gesture of “what” and tilted her head. Then she pointed to herself.

About me?

“Yeah,” Tommy admitted.

That made Carrie’s nose scrunch up in a giggle.

“Don’t (something) S-U-E know.”

“If you think that I would cheat on my girlfriend with a fish, then you are very much wrong.” Tommy said. “What about you? What’s been on your mind?”

Carrie put the Switch controllers down and shrugged her shoulders. She began to play with the cuff of her sleeve, not really making eye contact anymore.

“Come on,” Tommy urged. “You can tell me!”

“People,” Carrie signed vaguely.

“People?” Tommy echoed. “People being rude to you?”

Carrie shrugged again, and it was clear she didn’t really want to talk about this anymore, nor did she seem to be in a mood to continue playing. Tommy packed up the Nintendo Switch and paused their shared playlist. He gave Carrie her backpack and they started to walk out of the school in mutual silence.

“Sorry,” Tommy said as they neared the parking lot. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Carrie shook her head, then signed, “You didn’t. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Well if it isn’t praying Carrie!”

Carrie went rigid, like she had been struck by lightning. She stopped mid-step and didn’t move as a group of seniors trot over, their faces alight with mischief and cruelty.

“Ross!” One of them called. “What are you doing with this freak?”

“Is she holding you hostage?” Another guessed, casting a look at Carrie.

“I bet she’s leading him out to his car to force him to let her ride him.” A third said. The group howled with diseased laughter at that. Tommy is appalled. Carrie looked ill. “Is that it, church girl? The need for sex has finally broken into you and you’re ready to sin?”

“Back off!” Tommy growled, shoving the boy away. He put himself between him and Carrie, becoming a barricade of sorts. “Leave her alone.”

“I wonder how loud she’ll moan,” A fourth member of the group mused.

“Can she even moan?” The second wondered out loud.

“If you plowed into her hard enough I bet she’ll make some sort of sound.” The first said.

Carrie darted left and sprinted for the nearby line of trees edging the campus. Tommy glared at the group of seniors, then followed, concerned.

The darkness of the forest quickly closes around them. Carrie is fast on her feet, but Tommy was an athlete and he caught up quickly. He snagged the back of her jacket in a loose grip. They stumbled together over uneven ground and exposed tree roots until Carrie collapsed in a hollow between two moss-covered rocks. Tommy slotted himself in front of her so that she’s shielded from all sides- the rocks and Tommy forming a barrier from the world.

He said nothing. He listened to the girl’s gasping breaths and knew that it’s nothing that words can cure- not anymore. Not after years of having no one, being stabbed in the back and spoon fed lies. He closed his eyes and immersed himself in the rustling of oak leaves, the distant calls of birds, the persistent harmony of crickets.

He wondered what Carrie used to ground herself.

He wondered if she grounded herself at all.

Slowly, softly, Carrie calmed to some degree. It comes faster than Tommy expected, but he assumed that’s just because she’s grown used to the treatment she gets. She shifted, wiggling her shoes beneath Tommy’s thigh. Tommy doesn’t shift. He won’t leave until she does.

“It’s okay,” He finally whispered. “I’m here. I won’t let them hurt you.”

Carrie whimpered and made a sloppy gesture- Why?

“Because I care about you.” Tommy said. “Fuck what they think. I respect you and if they don’t, I’ll break their knees.”

He wanted to make her laugh or smile or at least stop crying, but Carrie just whimpered again. She swiveled around to face him, eyes flashing with tears.

“Why?” She signed again, sniffling miserably.

“We’re friends.” Tommy told her. “You know that, don’t you?” The look he got said that she didn’t believe it. “Come on. Tell me some things you know about me. You’d be surprised how well you know me.”

Carrie hesitated, then began to sign, “Your name is Tommy Ross.” She winced at how bland it was, but Tommy only nodded, brushing a bit of his dark brown hair out of his eyes. Carrie’s face scrunched up like she’s memorizing her timestaple in front of him, struggling to bring that gridded mess of numbers to mind.

“You’re the tallest (something) (something) everyone (something) your team,” She continued. The sky overhead is eye-wateringly blue, with crisply white cotton clouds scudding along the horizon. A light breeze shakes the leaves of a nearby oak tree that has the initials of some high school sweethearts carved into the base of its trunk. They’re a little crooked from where someone’s hand had slipped, the flat of a switchblade arcing a little too close to the bark, and making a J thicker, almost a U when you looked at it dead on.

“That’s right,” Tommy said. He knows his role here is only background noise. That’s his job, whether Carrie knows it or not, and he’s more than happy to fulfill it. He doesn’t mind being subject to the scrutiny of befriending ol’ praying Carrie because of it. Not if it’s what she needs to feel better.

“Your eyes (something) like a (something) green-brown, (something) (something) like slimy algae. You always have (something) stupid red sports jacket on. Your sneakers (something) (something) white, once upon a time.” She managed to tease him, uttering out a tiny giggle.

“What can I say, Carrie, I’m a filthy gremlin, like all boys are-” He joked, and she swatted him lightly on the arm. She bit back a laugh, and Tommy wished that she wouldn’t- Carrie tips her head back when she laughs, unabashed and on the edge of hysterical, giggling and snorting, shoulders shaking with mirth until she’s brought her gaze back down again, cheeks flushed from the exertion of being host to that much joy despite everything that she’s been through. No one holds the weight of trauma and mistreatment as heavily on their shoulders as Carrie White does- Carrieta, the library to all of those scattered instances of would-be’s-could-be’s-shouldn’t-be’s. And still, there is a smidge joy. It’s beautiful. He thought that she’s most beautiful when she’s laughing (don’t tell Sue, and if you do, make sure you let her know it’s completely platonic. but just don’t tell her at all).

“You have, like, (something) favorite red shirt, with a light brown hood on it. And S-U-E thinks it’s hideous.” Carrie continued. She’s tapping her foot against his leg, a gentle soothing gesture, and he lets her. He knew that it’s more for herself than him.

“You have a golden ring (something) onto a necklace.” Carrie signed. “But you don’t wear it (something) you think it (something) you look silly. But it’s really pretty.” Pause, and when she signed again, it wasn't about the necklace anymore. “It’s (something) (something) like having a sibling.” Pause. Carrie looked up at him with glittering eyes. “You’re Tommy Ross.”

The weight that she placed on his name makes his heart stutter, catching in his chest- the warmth that he felt towards her is almost unbearable, and he found himself grinning, mouth gone crooked in the gesture.

“I’m Tommy Ross, that’s right,” He repeated to her, as if they’re introducing themselves at some shitty college icebreaker. “And I’m not going anywhere, Carrie.” He went on, a touch of urgency in his voice- and she smiles, eyes closing, though hers are more reserved than his, somehow. There’s a tear bright in the corner of her right eye, and it traced a thin path down her face. More come. They pool at her chin, dripping off of her face, and soaking into the softness of the earth. His chest ached.

“And you’re not going anywhere,” She whispered, voice hitching a little halfway through. He swiped a thumb over her cheek, flicked the tear off into the green grass behind them.

“I’m not,” He promised. “I’m not leaving you, Carrie.” And his voice had gone soft, her name cradled gently in his mouth, like he’s afraid of breaking something precious.

#it hurts because carrie kills tommy in the musical #dont tag as ship or I WILL pee in your sink #carrie #carrie the musical #broadway kids carrie #carrie white #tommy ross #carrie fanfiction #my writing

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bltngames · 4 years

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Review: Lloyd the Monkey 2

Back before TSSZ News imploded, I would often do write-ups for many of the games at the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE). SAGE is an annual online expo that I started all the way back in September of 2000. I personally ran SAGE for over a year, and remained deeply hands on for at least another two years as it continued to grow. The main focus of SAGE was primarily to showcase fangames, in particular Sonic fangames, but the event never limited itself to any one type of game. It's never been uncommon to see original games appear in the lineup -- especially now, given the modern indie scene.

One such original game was Lloyd the Monkey, a bit of a strange game, written in Javascript of all things and run through a webpage. That by itself was notable enough to stand out from most of the games at SAGE, but Lloyd was also a completely original product created by someone who possibly seemed to be young and new to game development. Making games is no easy feat, especially when they’re written in Javascript and you’re doing tons of original artwork yourself. Taken as that whole, the game impressed me, even if it was more than a little rough around the edges.

Now we have Lloyd the Monkey 2, written in Unity. The developer, Noah Meyer, sent me a Steam key in order to review the game. Up top, I just want to say how I think it’s kind of brave to go all the way in putting the game on Steam and everything. It felt like just a few years ago, newer indie developers sort of had to work up to releasing their game on Steam, usually getting a few releases under their belt first. People view games differently when they’re asked to pay for them, and critics may not be so willing to let circumstances influence their review. It can be a harsh world out there for a beginner.

Lloyd 2 is a much bigger, more ambitious game than the first. Whereas the original Lloyd didn’t even have sound effects, Lloyd 2 introduces voiced cutscenes, some of which are full-on animated cinematics. Quality is about what you would expect -- I would assume the developer sought out friends and acquaintances to voice characters in Lloyd 2, leading to wildly varying audio quality due to differences in recording hardware. Lloyd himself sounds fine, but some of the other characters are a bit quiet, while others have clear background noise. Nothing I heard was unlistenable, however.

The story is also a little hard to follow. Not much is done to refresh our memories as to who anyone is or what’s going on, we’re just kind of thrown into the middle of things and turned loose. On one hand, it’s nice that the story doesn’t slow the pace of the gameplay down too much. On the other, you’re given a map screen with different objectives to clear but there’s very little context as to what you’re doing or why. At one point I made my way to the end of a Power Plant level only to confront what appeared to be an evil monkey. Despite a whole cutscene involving a conversation between four or five different people, this evil monkey never seemed to say a single word. He just stood there in total silence with a sinister smile. Then I killed him.

I suppose maybe I missed something, however. With greater ambitions comes a number of unfortunate bugs in Lloyd 2, one of which happened not long after our monkey and his crew landed on planet Grecia. I entered what appeared to be a castle to talk to the Queen, but I think the game expected me to take a lower route, where I was apparently meant to overhear the Queen making secret preparations before my arrival. Instead, I took the direct route straight to her chambers, and triggered the cutscene with Lloyd standing in front of her while ominous music played, even though the camera was still clearly focused on the next floor down. I apparently still had some amount of control, because midway through her dialog I touched a teleporter that sent me to the game’s map screen before she was done talking. If that cutscene was meant to give context to what I was doing, I didn’t get a chance to see it.

That was one of the more harmless bugs in my time spent playing Lloyd 2. Harder to ignore was the fact that, within the first 30 seconds of getting control, I soft locked the game. Lloyd 2 opens with a short prologue section where you play as a man with black hair. If you decide to ignore the obvious and go left instead of right, you quickly run out of solid level tiles and begin falling indefinitely. Later areas feature invisible walls presumably to prevent this exact scenario, but for whatever reason they weren’t implemented in the prologue.

For the most part, Lloyd 2 seems to be a co-op game. Many levels see Lloyd teamed up with an alien princess named Lura, with gameplay vaguely reminiscent of Mega Man X crossed with the tag mechanic from Sonic Mania’s Encore Mode. At the touch of a button, you can switch between the Swordsman Lloyd and the more projectile-based Lura… assuming your partner is still alive, I guess. While playing alone, your partner is controlled by artificial intelligence, but it’s incredibly basic and prone to accidentally committing suicide. That wouldn’t be such a big deal (considering Tails in Sonic 2 never acted in self-preservation either), but once your partner dies, they stay dead. Your only option to bring them back is to either restart the stage or hope another cutscene triggers, since they’ll magically spring back to life in order to say their dialog (though, again, usually only seconds before they fall back into the next death pit).

This might not be much of a problem, depending on your viewpoint. There’s not much incentive to switch between Lloyd and Lura, so once you pick whoever you think works the best, chances are, you’ll just stick with them. You do unlock special team-up attacks after beating each boss, but this just reinforces the idea that Lloyd the Monkey 2 is meant to be experienced with another person holding a second controller, as most of the team-up attacks require both characters to do something specific that the single player artificial intelligence usually can’t interpret. Regardless, the team-up attacks never seem strictly necessary to progress, so they can be safely ignored if you’re playing solo.

I understand this is a pretty negative review I’ve written here. Lloyd the Monkey 2 aims high and tries to the best of its ability to get there. I assume it was a struggle to get even this far. Making games is hard work, and like any skill, takes practice to get good at. Just because this is Lloyd the Monkey 2 doesn’t mean Noah Meyer, its developer, is automatically an expert. I'm sure he's doing his best, and, quality aside, this game has a lot of heart put into it. This isn’t something cheap, quick, or lazy. It’s really, genuinely trying, and that matters.

I’ve said a few times here and there that I see pieces of myself in the releases of Lloyd the Monkey, and I still see them here. I remember, for an early SAGE event, I was working on a fangame project of mine called The Fated Hour. I was probably already a year or two or maybe even three deep in the game by now, and after a lot of hyping up the community, this was their first chance to play the game. I spent months and months coding this iteration of my engine, and by my standards back then, it seemed like bleeding edge technology. I felt like I was going to blow everyone's minds.

It was a mess. Few were impressed. Even worse, the game straight up didn’t even run correctly for some people. What followed was multiple patches, and even rebuilding some entire areas from scratch. My ambitions got the better of me and I unintentionally cut corners -- not because I was trying to cheap out on doing proper development, but just because I simply didn’t know any better. I may have done the best I knew how to do, but I was running faster than my body could keep up with and I stumbled.

When I see things like the missing invisible walls in the prologue, or how easily partner characters commit suicide by accident, I think back to that demo for The Fated Hour, and how I've been in this exact place myself. There’s even a side quest in Lloyd 2 where you have to track a floating girl as she drifts through a level -- there was a nearly identical set piece in The Fated Hour, where you were chasing a robot. It’s a very strange feeling to see something like that and think, “I’ve been here before.” Like looking through a window at a younger version of yourself.

It’s true that I stumbled, but I didn’t let that stop me. I learned by doing. I kept going. Three years later, a game of mine was featured on TV, leading to more than a million downloads. The mistakes of past projects did not weigh me down and I soldiered onwards, newfound knowledge in hand.

So where does that leave us with Lloyd the Monkey 2, then. Well, it's not exactly a game to compete with Super Mario Odyssey, but given the circumstances in which it was created, I don't think that's necessarily the point. As a learning experience clearly made for the fun of its own creation, I think it's a success. And who knows what awaits in the years to come?

#writing #review #lloyd the monkey 2 #steam #noah meyer

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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my life with Jason Brookes • Eurogamer.net

In the autumn of 1995, I interviewed for a writing position on Edge magazine. I had no experience in publishing; I’d spent a year since leaving university writing manuals and design documents for the developer Big Red Software, but I was desperate to be a journalist. Although I hadn’t read Edge that much, everyone I worked with treated it like a holy text. It felt like a long shot. Then Jason Brookes turned up late for my interview, was friendly but distracted throughout, and at the end set me a writing task before disappearing completely. I assumed I had failed. Over a month later however, he called me and offered me a job. This was my first inkling that Jason had his own way of working.

Three days ago I got a call from Simon Cox who joined Edge just after me and later became deputy editor. Jason had been ill for three years – he died in the early hours of Monday morning. Between long difficult pauses, Simon and I swapped a few stories about our time on the magazine. I put the phone down and cried, and thought about Jason. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Jason Brookes began his journalism career at the cult Super Nintendo magazine SuperPlay, under the tutorage of launch editor, Matt Bielby. He’d originally applied for a job on the Sega magazine, Mega, but editor Neil West soon realised Brookes was a complete Nintendo fanboy and pushed him Bielby’s way. “From the start, we were influenced by Japanese magazines – not just games mags, but women’s mags, car mags and anything else we could get our hands on – as well as Japanese comics and anime,” says Bielby. “What struck me about Jason was just how much he knew about and loved Japanese culture – and gaming in particular, and Nintendo especially amongst that. He knew more about all of it than the rest of us put together.

Photo credit: Hilary Nichols.

“Getting reliable info on Japanese games was a painful, time-consuming business in the pre-internet days, involving late-night phone calls to the other side of the world, local language students doing vaguely comprehensible translations for us from Japanese magazine articles, and all sorts of palaver. Jason was intrinsic to this.”

As there were so few SNES games officially released in the UK each month, the SuperPlay team was forced to scour the obscure grey import market – and this was Jason’s forte. “Even if the average SuperPlay reader was never going to buy Super Wagan Island or Zan II, the fact that it existed and we could tell people about it added to the unique feel of the magazine,” says Beilby. “Jason would find all sorts of obscure stuff that I, for one, couldn’t get my head around at all. It became his territory in a way, and his enthusiasm made us all consider the most oddball releases in a new light.”

In 1993, Future Publishing’s magazine launch specialist Steve Jarrett was looking for writing staff to help with an ambitious project. It was a new type of games magazine, eschewing the pally, hobbyist tone of most publications of the era in favour of a serious, refined, journalistic style, inspired by visual effects mag, Cinefex. That project was Edge. “He made a huge impact on the magazine,” says Jarrett. “He filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge – he brought with him his love of Japanese culture, games and game art – and at the time, that was where all the innovation was coming from. He opened Edge up. He was fortunate, too, because I wasn’t so keen on travel at the time so he did all the trips to the US and Japan!”

His first issue as editor was Edge 11, which featured a series of exclusive articles on the forthcoming PlayStation console, which at the time was still known by its codename, PS-X. Jason and Matt had been invited by Sony’s third-party development manager Phil Harrison to view the legendary T-Rex graphics demo being touted to developers, and Jason later secured interviews with staff within Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, as well as at Namco, Konami and Capcom for the big reveal feature. Over the course of ten packed pages, the magazine communicated the importance and potential impact of this vital newcomer to the games industry. As a knowledgeable fan of dance music, Jason also perfectly understood Sony’s determination to align PlayStation with the ascendant 1990s club culture, running several articles on the machine’s groundbreaking marketing and its relationship with hip brands such as Ministry of Sound and Designers Republic. He saw that both the audience and industry were maturing, and that popular culture would have to cede ground to video games. He just got it.

The Edge office in the mid-1990s was a cross between a university halls of residence, a night club and a game development studio – an atmosphere utterly presided over by Jason. He was an unapologetic perfectionist, determined that every page of the magazine exemplified the Edge vision of style and substance. He would spend hours choosing exactly the right photograph or screenshot for even the most minor preview, and my abiding memory of him is hunched over a lightbox, examining 35mm slides from some Japanese arcade trade show or obscure Shibuya-based development studio.

Everything would always come together at the last possible minute. The magazine flatplan – the page layout guide that showed writing and art staff what each issue would contain – was almost always virtually empty until the week before deadline. Then suddenly, Jason would announce that he’d secured an interview with Howard Lincoln or Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux or Bill Gates, or an exclusive look at some amazing new AM2 arcade game, then we’d be off. He’d trust us too. I remember the day Susie Hamilton from Derby-based developer Core Design (then best known for aging Mega Drive title Thunderhawk) brought their latest project into the office for us to see – something called Tomb Raider. Jason wasn’t interested so me and production editor Nick Harper had a play during our lunch hour. I think within five seconds we were over at Jason’s desk, saying “Um, we think you’d better come and have a look at this.” Straightaway he gave it two pages. Deadlines would often involve two or three all-night sessions, the whole team writing and laying out pages as Orbital blasted from the stereo. It was hard work, but it was fun. We’d smuggle beer in, and Edge’s art editor Terry Stokes, an inveterate prankster, would set up elaborate traps for us around the office.

What did I learn during this fraught, tense, hilarious nights? I learned everything about writing quickly, about getting the best from poorly translated interviews, about how every sentence needs to carry a fact or idea that takes the story forward. Jason hated waffle, he hated mediocre, colourless writing. He wanted us to communicate the joy of a Treasure shooter, the technological magic inherent in a lit, textured polygon, the underlying philosophy of an executive soundbite. He thought deeply about games and how they functioned. His favourite was R-Type and to hear him break it down was to hear a Nobel prize-winning scientist explaining DNA strands. As Jason’s brother Matthew recalls, “He loved the passionate attention to detail, the creativity, the huge sprites, the multi-layered parallax, the colours, and even the superlative collision detection. I’m not sure how long he must have spent playing and eventually completing that game.”

Jason didn’t teach us how to make a magazine, he just expected us to know. When I turned up to the Edge office on my first day of work, he told me to take screenshots of Sega Rally. I didn’t know what the hell that meant, I had no idea of the process. I just had to go over to the Sega Saturn, plug the leads in, figure out how to use the Apple Mac connected to our CRT gaming monitor and get on with it. Sometimes, he’d disappear to Japan or LA for a week and you wouldn’t know when he was coming back, you’d have to piece together his intentions from vague emails and editorial meeting notes. That’s just the way it worked, we all knew it. You figured stuff out. And then he’d return and flip through the latest issue of the mag and say “you did a really good job on this article” and my god, you’d glow with pride all day.

His perfectionism at Edge lasted until his very last act at the magazine – his final Editor’s Intro. “I just remember how long it took him to craft it,” says production editor at the time, Jane Bentley. “That sign off was the most agonising 300 words I’ve ever seen someone write and rewrite. I think I came out in hives having to stay up all night for final sub checks before the mag could get biked off to the printers. But Edge was a magic world back then. A real gang of super fans.”

After this, he moved to San Francisco writing for US magazines Xbox Nation and GMR as well Japanese publications LOGiN and Famitsu. More recently, he got back into pure design, helping indie studio 17-Bit Studios create its website.

A few months before he died, we all attended Simon Cox’s wedding in the Cotswolds. I sat next to Jason for most of the reception, and we reminisced about the olden days. At some point quite late on, after a few glasses of champagne, I said to him, “when you gave me the job on Edge, you changed my life. Everything I have done in writing after that is really down to you.” He just smiled at me in that charming and slightly airy way of his. I hope I have lived up to whatever it was you saw in me on that warm autumn afternoon long ago.

This is what I have learned from Jason Brookes: be good at what you do. Take care. Make every sentence you write, every image you capture, every idea you foster mean something. And if you are given the chance to thank someone for helping you, take that chance. In fact, do it now. Email them, text them, put down your phone or close your laptop and go find them. Tell them what they did. Because life can be cruel, and important people are sometimes taken away too soon. Jason, you were brilliant, difficult, talented, chaotic, spiritual and loving. You always ended your editor’s intros with a single phrase – the future is almost here. That’s how you lived – with one foot in next week, or next year, or the next decade even, waiting with a smile on your face for the rest of us to catch up.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/my-life-with-jason-brookes-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-life-with-jason-brookes-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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