WTF

Art

A cornucopia of images flooded the floor of Gabriel’s living room as Joy pulled A3 and A4 sheets of paper from her folder in a seemingly endless stream of pencil and charcoal-fuelled renderings. He was overwhelmed.

Weeks ago he’d rung Joy excited about the prospect of setting up his own company, producing his own games, being his own boss. His optimism, however, was soon planked by the baseball bat of Joy’s cynicism, who pointed out that he had mediocre technical ability, no artistic flair whatsoever, no head for business, and an unyielding propensity for procrastination. However, her own knowledge and passion for gaming, along with her current lack of employment, conspired to get her on board with the idea. So here she was, producing a whole litter of pictures for his otherwise barren project.

He had to admit, his enthusiasm for the whole idea had waned slightly since they last spoke, but now, with renewed vigour, he paced the floor with the tune of George Michael’s ‘Faith’ ringing in his ears.

“These are amazing,” Gabriel murmured, almost to himself, as he hoisted a computer composite of what looked like a schematic for a gigantic futuristic building off the floor and held it up for closer inspection.

“Well, two years at art college had to amount to more than just a ten grand debt," she replied modestly.

Gabriel didn’t hear the reply, he was too busy laying the foundations in his mind for the first release of The Company. As he’d conspired with Joy on the phone when he’d called to talk over the idea for the game, it was going to be an RPG, set in the super-secret world of the ‘Shadow Government’. This, according to Joy, was a massive, all-encompassing secret organisation that controlled everything; that had every power and resource at its disposal, but that operated completely above the law and without restriction. Its operations were only known to the very few.
The hero of the game was an NSA operative-turned-rogue agent, Gabriel Black, who, hunted by his own government, and in possession of highly classified information, survived as a privately contracted soldier.

Joy knew better than to argue the name of the main character.

Together, Joy and Gabriel had come up with several storyline options, a character history and even some of the other characters that were going to be involved.

“I’d like it to be a bit like Operation Stealth but for the console generation,” he said, “but obviously without the shit graphics and the bad jokes.”

“How about making it free-roaming, with randomly generated missions?” Joy chimed in.

“Yeah, and I want to give it a really strong name. I want to call it…”
“Spank,” she blurted from her seated position on the carpet.
“What?”
”I dunno,” she shrugged.
“Trial By Fire’”, he announced theatrically.
He’d had the name picked out since he was fifteen; in much the same way some hopeful parents have the name of their first baby picked out before they’ve even conceived. It was a sacred pact he’d made with himself in his adolescent years.
“Been done,” Joy said matter-of-factly.
“Shit, really?”
“Yeah, pretty sure. Amiga and PC, mid eighties. It was a classic.”
“Fuck, OK, Spank then.”