You can Walk the Walk, but can you Talk the Talk?

The path to Spawn Town was mostly clear of monsters thanks to patrolling guards near the gate. The idea was that new players could run to them in case a fight got too rough and get a little aid.

A lone guard was standing at the very gate right now though, eyeing me very suspiciously as I would constantly stop and run toward him every time Rose had something to chat.

-Oh my god! This game looks so pretty! I don’t understand why your saying its not finished-

“Pretty isn’t enough to make a game good,” I argued. “You can have the most gilded piece of trash in the world, but it's still trash.”

Not to say this game was bad, because a lot of people were working hard on it. But it would be if we didn’t get it right at launch.

-Yeah, but it's still gold. Sooo…-

In my experience, her sentiment was all too common. People were more interested in fancy graphics and special effects than they were actual good mechanics, dynamic NPC AI, and well rounded artstyles.

The fact was that one of those ideas sold a lot more than the other. And the bosses wanted us to keep our development time focused on where the money was. Maybe that’s why we were suffering so much.

“Wouldn’t you like a game that’s gold and fun too?” I said.

-Baby, wherever you are, that’s where the fun is ;) -

I smiled and felt my mood get a little better. To be honest, she had a point that the game looked great on the surface. Some things didn’t look so great up close and personal, but players weren’t supposed to be getting the same first person view I was.

I didn’t want to kill the mood, but whenever Rose typed something up I ended up stopping in the middle of the road. She probably kept putting down her controller to text chat with the keyboard. It made me look very silly.

“Hey, hon, I think we’re going to have to figure out an easier way for you to chat with me,” I said.

-Yeah. Using the keyboard to chat kinda SUUUUCCCCKSS XO-

I remembered in my highschool days I had this little keyboard extension that plugged into the bottom of the controller. Rose searched around my man cave and claimed to have found it in a box of old computer parts.

-How’s that?-

I still kept moving around while she was texting

“Perfect,” I shot her HUD a thumbs up. “Now if only I could see your chat without looking backwards at the HUD all the time.”

That was an issue for later. Maybe Tensei could help us out when we found her.

Finally we reached the guard and he had a scowl on his middle aged face. If I remembered correctly, the NPC’s were supposed to react dynamically to how the players acted, so he was definitely not sure what to think of me.

“Good morrow, traveler,” said the guard suddenly with a cheery smile. My sight focused exclusively on him to indicate we were in proper dialogue. “May I ask for your reason for entering Spawn Town?”

His second statement was a completely different voice actor from the first, likely a place holder for when we actually renamed Spawn Town to something more original.

-His voice just changed, Ray. What's up with that?-

“Uh, yeah. Probably just a place holder line.” I tried to look as cheery as him. “We would like to visit a friend at the Inn here, if you wouldn’t mind letting us pass.”

“You’re a party of one?” he replied with his first voice. “Who is this ‘we?’”

That was going to be an issue if I kept referring to Rose and I as ‘we’ and ‘us.’

“Oh, my bad. That’s just how we refer to ourselves occasionally. It’s trendy, you know?” I said nervously.

-Smooth, my guy-

The guard’s suspicion returned, this time twice as strong. I really hated the fact that the players had to make their case to a guard before entering, but it led to a branching questline if they wanted to play a deviant role.

“Very well. You may enter Spawn Town. But be warned. If you try anything, I will have you thrown in the pig pens myself.”

At least we got in without an issue. That guard could have gone on a tangent that some of the early playtesters said was five minutes too long.

As we entered Spawn Town, there were dozens of NPC’s wandering the streets doing some fairly sophisticated busy work. Some were chopping wood for fires, others hammered away at metal in a blacksmith and plenty were pedaling different items to me as I passed.

“Keep going this way,” I gestured straight forward. “The inn is at the end of this street.”

-In to the inn we go! ( ˘▽˘)っ♨-

Rose had to stop me just shy of the building when a random woman got in my path. All my focus locked in on her and I couldn’t look away.

“Are you here for the annual cassowary egg toss?” she asked as if that were a normal statement. “It only comes around this time of spring.”

“No, thank you…” We didn't have time for a silly side quest like that. "We'll be going now." I said in a way to alert Rose to walk away.

“I love watching the birds land in my garden. They’re so pretty this time of year.”

“That’s wonderful. Please exit the conversation, Rose.”

-I am mashing every button over here. We’re stuck-

Great. That was definitely a bug.

“You know, today is very cloudy,” the woman said. “Maybe I should have brought an umbrella in case it rains.”

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

-I think she’s a high elf, because she’s definitely on something-

“No,” I sighed. “That’s another bug.”

She was just cycling out random pieces of dialogue to continue the conversation. Unless we found a way to end this, she would just keep talking to us like this forever.

“Oh gee, would you look at the time? I should go and feed my cats,” the woman said.

“Then go do that!” I shouted.

-Then go DO that!-

Rose and I were on the exact same wavelength there.

Despite the woman's claim that she had to leave, she just kept blankly smiling at me.

-Ray, do something-

There wasn’t much I could do here. I was trying to remember how that one playtester got out of this issue.

Oh… He said something to one of the NPC’s that initiated combat and broke the dialogue. The only problem with that was that it meant I’d get arrested by the guards and spend a night in jail…

“Did you know I used to run the city bath houses?” the woman said. “You could buy milk there, but don’t tell anyone it was goat milk instead of cow.”

It was worth one night in jail. An in game night was only about 6 hours and I could deal with that to get out of this.

“Hey, lady…” I made as angry of a face as I could to the woman. The more emotion, the better. “I’m going to hurt y…”

“I’m having your child,” the woman blurted out.

-LOLOLOLOL!!! XD XD XD-

I just stood there with a flush red face, totally embarrassed that of all the thousands of things that she could have said, that out of context statement turned up.

-Ray, you and this girl better not have something going on, if you know what I mean! ;D-

“N-no!” I shouted. “I’ve never even met her before. I swear!”

If my threat wasn’t going to be personal before, it certainly was now!

Just as I took in a breath to continue my aggression, I heard the door to the inn swing open, followed by someone forcefully pushing me out of the way of the woman.

“No!” shouted a familiar young girl’s voice. “I’ll free you! But you have to run inside, and fast!”

“Tensei, is that you?” I couldn’t turn to look at her, but I recognized that voice.

“Yes! Hurry!”

My focus finally broke away thanks to the angel fairy guide’s push. Rose immediately sprinted me into the inn. The woman gave chase, but the little Tensei flew in after me and shut the door on the NPC’s face.

I thought I was safe, but then the inn door swung open and the woman tried to walk in. Tensei fluttered forward on her angel fairy wings and pushed the NPC woman back outside.

“How did you get free?!” Tensei shouted at her. “Go back home! Stop bothering players already!”

“You’re such a nice person for an orc. My son would love to meet you.”

The door once again slammed on the woman's face, then Tensei made sure to lock it up tight and barricade it with furniture.

“Phew…” sighed the angel fairy. “That was a close one! Sorry about that. I thought I rounded up all the glitched before you got here.”

“N-no… It’s fine.” I shook my head “But, all that aside, we’ve got a lot of questions for you, Tensei.”

The mascot nodded and spawned out two chairs, one for the both of us physically present in the room. Her personality and competent nature was a serious relief, if not a little out of place with how complex she was compared to all the other AI. 

“Right,” Tensei said as she sat back in the seat, then gestured for me to do the same. “My name is Tensei, and I’ll explain everything, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. But before that, how about some tea to calm our nerves?”