What do I know about video games?

Well, my older brother & I would play Super C on the original Nintendo NES. I remember Mario with his Mushrooms & Jumps & P-Wings. King Koopa breathing the electronic fire breath you had to jump over in order to not be killed, holding poor Princess Toadstool against her digital will. Mario, along with his brother, Luigi, go on their adventures through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to save said Princess.

The video game world has certainly changed since my early recollections with the NES system.

And someone just asked me to write an entire plot/feature for a video game. I have a problem with saying no. So, naturally, I agreed to do it. Not that I am NOT excited about the concept of a group effort at creating something.

This assignment requires some skill. Since I don’t know a damned thing about gamming, I’ll have to call in an expert.

My friend let’s call her Ms. S___, plays games the same way I read books: as often as we can. Her brain is wired to discovering back alley, bestselling passages into other worlds. Picking which road to walk down, avoiding enemy attacks to gain more credits, points, and/or powers is a talent-trait of hers.

Her brother even went to college for gaming.

Certainly, he would – or might be willing – to spend some time talking to me about coming up with some kind of script for this rotten nightmare of a favor I got myself into. But let’s not forget, this is a favor that NEEDS to happen. The woman asking me to do this created the LOGO for the blog. And I am very happy with the work & product she has developed.

According to Texas Writer & Storyteller, E. M. Welsh, in order to write a video game, you should:

Outline the major storyline. …

Decide what type of game it will be. …, in order to

Develop your world. …

Create your main characters. …

Create a flowchart of your major story. …

Start writing the major story. …

Add in side quests, NPCs, and other small details. …

Experience playing video games.

Sure, sure. Sounds good. But far from easy. How can I write about another fantasy world? My life is a fantasy world!

(And it REALLY is!)

Coming up with a complicated construct that can develop characters is hard enough when you are writing fiction in a more traditional form, like a novel, a short story, or even a poem. With video games, from what I have read, there are many people actively involved in the process of the production. And I feel little anxious.

I will be working with two other writers.

And I got a print-out of some ideas & posssible scenarios for the story.

Now, I played a game last night. It was a dangerous, adventure-filled quest to The Overlook, a spot on the farm, here, that is higher than others. You can see for miles, in all directions, the beauty of the North Carolina Appalachian hills… mountains.

(It’s hard for me to call them mountains. I lived in Montana. I know what mountains should look like to be consisdered MOUNTAINS.)

Anyway: Me & My Special Lady Friend decided to go for an evening ride. After feeding the goats & pigs & chickens, we loaded some things up in the powerful ATV we use for traveling around the farm, and we had our destination in mind: The Overlook. The beauty of it. The romantic isolation… we even had a blanket! Who knows, I thought, maybe something will happen? Though, she is a proper Southern Lady… but even a Lady has needs.

And I was REALLY in the mood to meet her needs.

We started up the ATV, laughing all the way through the field, and driving on the logging roads where some trees & brush were recently cleared. At one point, we were driving Upwards, then we came down a bumpy path where a creek awaited us.

Nothing to worry about. I had driven through the creek before. Those ATVs are sons-a-bitches full of power. – MADE to drive through the muck & madness of Nature!

And: that was where my idiocy started.

I TRIED driving through, got stuck, backed up, went forward. Not long after the intial descent into the water, we were stuck. My Special Lady Friend even TRIED to help.

“Here,” she said, flicking a switch on the dashboard. “Now it’s in Four Wheel drive.”

Hell, yes, I thought to myself. Now we will get out of this mess.

(It did not help. Did not help AT ALL! She put us into two-wheel-drive! And she did it EARLY, when we first started to cross the creek! I had been digging us into the creek-bed-bottom – in two-wheel-drive!)

It was all bad.

But we did not even so much as cuss at one another. – We were laughing too much at how ridiculous the situation was! How ridiculous WE were.

We had to call for help.

Our friend, Mr. Trent, had to drive his truck into the fields, up the mountain, down the mountain, to find us.

And the bastard was kind enough to be recording our little mis-adventure mess-up on his iPhone.

There have been over two million views on facebook.com of us, My Lady & Me, stuck in the mud.

GAME OVER for Players One & Two.

We did not rescue the princess. No golden tokens awarded. But, Oh, we had a good time playing THAT game!