Julie
Julie got out of her seat, attempted to dance a little dance with her six-or-seven-months-pregnant-with-twins belly, then sat down again. She pressed a couple of keys, exited the programming program (she sense some irony in programs requiring programs in order to be programmed) and ran the program (that she had just finished programming).
Chewing her lip in anticipation, she ran through the initial sequences of her adventure game that would soon be live on the internet. The idea was that it would be free, but anyone who chose to 'donate' certain amounts of money would be able to unlock further areas of the game. Of course, there was no doubt that if certain hackers liked the game enough, they'd probably find some way to get themselves unauthorised access. Julie knew all about that. Before B'Elanna and Tom were born, she used to do it all the time. Since then it was just for sport - or for keeping her skills up to date. These skills would now prove useful in making her game hacker proof - or as hacker proof as one could get.
She played her game for about an hour before she got bored (well, if you had spent all your time programming a game, and then went back to play it when you know exactly what's going to happen in every intricate sense, wouldn't you?). Knowing that a full test would take hours, probably days (well, it was the whole idea), she decided to give it a break. And in any case, she had promised Bobby he could 'test' it too. Thus, Julie made a copy, and departed the room to hunt down her fiancé.
Bobby
Bobby got up from his seat in front of the computer, where he'd been, yes, you guessed it, looking up porn.
He stretched and cracked his neck, then decided to go hunt down some food.
On his way out, he caught sight of the ever lovely Julie.
"Hello Julie, whatcha up to? Ooh a disk. Does it have porn on it?"
Julie
Julie grinned.
"Sorry, no," she replied. "Maybe next time. It does, however, have my game on it... I finally finished it. Wanna play?"
She waved it tantalisingly in front of Bobby's face.
Bobby
"Ooh yes!"
Bobby grinned.
"Is it really difficult? Am I gonna be bad at it?"
Julie
"Yes and no. Or maybe no and yes," Julie teased. "You get to pick a species, like human or elf, and a profession - like fighter, or mage or thief and then you go around fighting monsters and improving your skills and doing quests and stuff. And I've made it completely open to upgrades so I can introduced more races and professions, once everything is up and running."
She grinned broadly.
"Eeeee! I'm done! I'm done! Yay me! Now all I have to do it get my site up... oh and make sure I've gotten all the bugs out of my game."
She batted her eyelids at him.
Bobby
"Ok, come on, let's try this bad boy out."
Bobby opened the door to his room again and let Julie in. He sauntered over to his computer and put the disk in and loaded the game up.
"Ohhhhh. Cool."
Julie
Julie grinned.
"Yes, and that's just the intro screen," she joked. "Okay see you can choose to be a human, an elf or a dwarf. And undoutably if Shannon ever sees this she'll critise my elf format, but who cares? And then you choose whether to be a magic user, a fighter, a thief or a minstrel. And then you pick what you want to look like. And I've made it so that people can design their own pics."
Bobby
Bobby's tongue slipped out from his mouth as he concentrated on the characters.
"Ok, I'm gonna be an elf. Because... I'm gonna be a fighter! Coz I wanna kick ass! Oh!"
He clicked through the pictures.
"I'm gonna be this one."
He moved to another pic.
"Oooh this one! I'm gonna be this one coz she's pretty!"
Julie
Julie giggled.
"Okay, then. Actually, she's one of my favourites too. I think she was one of the last ones I made, when I was getting the hang of making them."
She watched as Bobby's new character appeared in the home town.
"Okay, there are armor, weapon and general shops there. And you can look in your inventory by clicking that button. And then if you go over there, you can get training as a fighter. That place is for magic, and the one next to it for theives, but we don't care about those right now. You can only train in there once per level until level ten. After that, you can get into the arena and fight other characters. And at any level, of course, you can fight monsters all over the map. And let's, see... those houses up there? You can go in them, if they're unlocked, and sometimes the people inside will give you quest. Otherwise they'll yell at you for walking in univited."
She grinned cheekily.
Bobby
Bobby nodded and navigated the character around.
"So do I have like a huge quest and then like sub quests?"
Julie
"Pretty much," Julie nodded. "Oooh, and I made it so you can join forces with other players. Of course, there isn't actually anyone at the moment you can join forces with, but that's completely beside the point."
Bobby
"So... where do I go now?"
Bobby was aimlessly wandering around.
Julie
"Well, if I were you, I'd get some basic armor and then start training," Julie replied. "You only have enough gold for the basics anyway. And then go looking for quests and fighting monsters. Typically, experience makes you go up levels."
Bobby
"Mmmkay."
Bobby maneovred his little character around the screen, doing what Julie told him to do.
"Man, I'm hungry. Wanna order some pizza? Or KFC? Or both!"
Julie
"Ohh, I like that idea," she said.
Julie picked up a pen and paper.
"What do you want?" she asked. "I'll get it while you're playing."
She was suddenly worried he wouldn't like her game.
Bobby
"Awesome!" Bobby cried as he started to kill things.
"No wait. Hit. Hit! Die! DIE! Yeah! Woooo! Bobby, you rule!"
He glanced over at Julie.
"Ok, let's get our usual pizza lot. And like lots of chicken. Coz you're pregnant and I'm a growing lad."
Julie
"Sounds good to me," Julie said. "And lets get extra garlic bread, just for the hell of it. What about KFC? Hmm.. actually KFC don't deliver, so I might go out and get everything, and pick up a nice chocy dessert so go with it."
She grinned, watching him kill the monster.
Bobby
"Ok, cool."
Bobby's eyes crossed for a moment.
"DEATH!"
Julie
Julie grinned, then snuck out of the room. She headed back to her own and picked up her purse and keys.
Not long thereafter, she was on her way downtown to get foodstuffs.
Bobby
Bobby was progressing quite nicely, screams of "DIE BITCH!" coming from his room.
Julie
Half an hour, give or take, later, Julie was walking down the hallways with a couple of bags and pizza boxes. She giggled, hearing Bobby's yell.
Reaching his door, she moved the stuff around so she could open the handle and walked in.
"Hey sexy, how's it going?" she asked, setting it all down on the bed, for lack of anywhere else to put it.
And this includes the floor.
Bobby
"Yeah. I'm so good at this."
Bobby turned and looked at Julie for a moment.
"Just shove that shit on the ground. I'm still packing up and stuff."
Julie
Julie shrugged.
"Okay," she said.
She dumped the stuff on the floor, and sat down on the bed, waiting for him to finish.
Bobby
Bobby killed the last monster, then paused the game and spun round.
"That was cool. And ooh, food!"
Julie
Julie grinned.
"I'm glad you think so," she said, feeling more relief than she expected.
Bobby
Bobby grabbed some chicken from the bucket and kissed Julie's cheek.
"It was cool. How long did it take you to make?"
Julie
Julie paused, thinking about it.
"We-ell... I started making it a few years ago... A couple of hours every month or so, y'know? I really got stuck into it when I was pregnant with B'E and Tom, because I wasn't really able to get out as much. Partly because Mum and Dad were being tyrants, and partly because no one at school was interested in inviting me to their wild parties."
She winked at Bobby and bit into her pizza slice.
Bobby
"Coooooool. It's all good, yeah man."
Bobby ate some chicken.
"When do you wanna move into the apartment?"
Julie
Julie shrugged.
"Whenever you're ready, I guess," she replied.
She ate some pizza.
Bobby
Bobby looked over at her pizza.
"Did you get a weird pregnant woman pizza, or a normal Bobby will like pizza?"
He then wiped his oily finger down her nose.
Julie
Julie giggled.
"It's a normal Bobby will like pizza," she said. "Fortunately for you, I don't feel the need to alter pizza. Pizza is perfect the way it is."
Bobby
"Darn tootin."
Bobby wiped his fingers on one of the napkins Julie had thought to purchase and grabbed the tv remote.
"Wanna watch some DVDs? I have... porn... cartoons... porn... pornographic cartoons... some science video Hank made me watch... porn... oh and that movie we saw! You know, it had that girl and guy in it!"
Julie
Julie grinned.
"Let's watch... that movie we saw..." she said after pretending much deliberation.
Bobby
"I'll find it."
Bobby rummaged through his box of DVD's and pulled out one, triumphant.
"Aha!"
Julie
"Groovy," Julie grinned, settling herself with all food within arms reach.
She gave Bobby an adoring grin.
Bobby
"We're gonna end up having heart attacks by... next year," Bobby noted, pressing play.
"But we'll be happy."
Julie
"Hmm," Julie considered. "Maybe I should start finding people to take care of the kids."
Then she paused.
"Oh, what am I talking about? Zac can look after B'E and Tom... and heck, he can look after these two too. A couple more won't hurt him," she chuckled.
Bobby
Bobby laughed.
"And... well I have no one that needs looking after. Hmmm, maybe I'd have to leave Hank some twinkies."
Julie
Julie giggled.
"Very wise idea," she said, nodding.
She finished off her pizza.
Bobby
"So how much of the game is there?"
Bobby grabbed a drink.
Julie
"Well, there's fourteen maps, 30 character levels, 67 monsters, 22 NPCs, 35 spells, oh and 54 quests," Julie replied. "But I plan on updating the game as time progresses - get some more stuff in. But I figure 30 character levels is a good number to start with. Enough to get people interested, but not so many as they go... aww I'll never get that high."
Bobby
"I will."
Bobby nodded.
"I'm a games master."
Julie
"You're a master for a few other things as well," Julie replied coyly.
She grinned slyly at him and ate some KFC.
Bobby
"I'm a masterbator," Bobby said, chuckling.
"I wanna win this game! Win it! Win it!"
Julie
Julie laughed.
"Well, the best way to do that is to keep playing it."
Bobby
"I will, after lunch."
Bobby ate more food and grinned.
"Man. This is good."
Julie
"I agree," Julie nodded.
She picked up her drink and gulp some down.
"Wow, I didn't realise I was that thirsty..." she mused.
Bobby
"Yeah, eating heaps can do that to ya," Bobby said, chuckling.
He wiped his hands and turned back to the computer.
"You should make a fighting game like... Street Fighter and stuff! Based on the X-Men!"
Julie
Julie grinned.
"Well, I'll put my hand to it," she said. "But I don't think my programming skills are that good. Yet."
She grinned.
Bobby
"Well, hurry up and get that good, woman!"
Bobby chuckled.