Intrepid Digital Guy Blogisode 6: Rollin’ the DICE

DICE. Like every major milestone of a video game maker’s life, my first DICE has a soundtrack, and like every great soundtrack, it comes from the 80s. You don’t agree? Read on. Don’t know what DICE is, or media made of beef? Can’t help ya, cookie. It’s a secret . And it’s not a gang. It’s a club.

It’s been a while since the Intrepid Digital Guy rapped at ya, but bear with me, all you loyalists. It’s a good story. I’ve missed you even more than https://experience.tripster.ru/articles/samye-populyarnye-sanatorii-kislovodska/ you missed me. In a paragraph, Intrepid Digital Guy learned that serial dating drains IDG’s wallet. So what does your Intrepid Self do? What any brave man does. He moves 3000 miles across the country and drops into pre-med. As luck would have it, a university campus is NOT the place to keep IDG’s mind focused. Just before something like a medical degree is about to happen, out of nowhere The Booya comes along in a limo made of cheese slices*, and IDG’s copy of Grey’s Anatomy now becomes a good way to hold up that uneven table leg in his kitchen.

With all that money spent on textbooks gloriously re-allocated to business-necessary equipment upgrades like HDTVs, shiny new consoles and an instant game library upgrade from the two titles a student has time for to 150 games that are making his thumbs sore, IDG is back like acid wash.

All right, so that’s two paragraphs.

Back to business. As a game team manager, I recalled the team members I’d gladly sent to conferences, who returned to the studio with an air of Red, Red Wine and a shaky report on their conference attendances with their evenings redacted out of the doc with plenty o’ black marker. Buggers!

Prepping for DICE starts with the sounds of Eye of the Tiger. You know it. When you open your ears, you hear the low, guitar E-string harmony (you know it – jugga-jugga-jugga-jugga) as the scene fades from a frozen night time city horizon … to a Best Buy clone with yours truly slamming shut a new laptop…to a screen wipe transitioning in on a red suitcase, leading into the bam-bam-bam riffs you know so well. Socks in suitcase. BAM. Drop in boxers, game controller, cufflinks. BAM-BAM-BAM. Boxers fail sniff test and are dropped on the bedroom floor. BAM-BAM-BUMMMMM.

IDG waits at the airport. And waits…for a flight that’s not leaving… to the sound of U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.

Six hours later, he takes off to Sin City on a new airline. What the aitch, no big whoop, I’m on the road with a tall glass of barley juice in my bread basket. I even score a full row of seats to stretch out in for the four and a half-hour flight to Vegas. I felt bad for my fellow travellers in the pressured tin can we flew in. Barley juice fumes can float a zeppelin.

First big Beefy meeting: filled with cheery optimism as – you know it! You love it! – the70s Swedes kick into Super Trooper while my eyes blurred under a soft-lens view of glitter and spandex stirrup pants. Meeting after meeting goes on of The Beefy Team softly pushing our video game goodness, and the buyers keep coming for more ice cream. Pretty soon the soundtrack switches to Rod Stewart and If You Want My Body. Shakers and movers waltz into our suite, ready to send us back to the minors but asking who our agent is instead.

Night one: Trooper’s Raise A Little Hell. Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell. You get the idea.

Day two: The Beefy Team’s collection of libations, Beefy Jerky and candy prove a hit with the big shot meetings to the sound of BTO’s Takin’ Care Of Business.

Night two: IDG meets a girl in the industry who he met via email two months before. He redeems his earlier email gaffe in the only way he knows how, by donating a shoulder massage on the casino floor. This creates severe annoyance in the guy that had been macking on her all night, and as he looks daggers in IDG’s direction, I can hear the Bloodhound Gang’s only hit tune in his head. I won’t write that one out as this is a family-friendly blog, so you’ll need to look up the lyrics. IDG lets that one go. After all, not only has the donated shoulder massage redeemed him, married women change his title to Intrepid Guy Running From Biker With Lead Pipe. Trust me on that one. See episode 5.

DICE is gaming goodness, new connections, and great business for the Beefy Team. There’s only one line that wraps it up, from Rush, of course:

I guess that’s why they call me – they call me the Workin’ Man.

Love it, love it, LOVE IT.

*Watch this space. You’ll see a limo made of cheese goodness when Beefy announces its titles later this year.

Who is Intrepid Digital Guy? Your friendly neighborhood game producer with Beefy Media. He also lives  at intrepiddigitalguy.com.