Annika frowned as she looked in on Julie.
"That's not your game..." she said.
Julie twisted her head up and looked at her.
"Actually, it is, but even if it wasn't, aren't I allowed some time to relax?"
"Sorry," Annika replied. "What do you mean, it's yours? I thought you said you couldn't do 3D animation."
"I can't. But I designed the game."
Julie then filled Annkia in on how Hunter had discovered that a technokinetic had been hacking into her game, the trap, and then the odd phone call she had with Cliff and Corinne and where it had lead.
"I sent the e-mail to him not long after we hung up," Julie went on. "I knew exactly which game, and I mean, wow."
Julie gestured to the screen.
"It's still rough, and he hasn't programmed in all the details yet. But it's just over a week later and he's gotten more done in that time than I could do in a month! And it's way, way better than I expected this game to ever be. It's a RPG/strategy game I've called 'The Battle for Maneria'. Your character starts off as a cadet and works his - or her - way up by y'know, completely missions, fighting in battles, so on and so forth. Eventually you can work your way up to being an officer and make stategic decisions, like what battles to fight. It's intended as an online - so eventually there will be real people with chars who are officers deciding what battles the soilders are going to fight. There are only two sides to begin with, but I've made allowances for creating new sides. Anyway, so when you create your cadet you pick a side, but under certain circumstances you'll be able to work as a double agent, and defect and stuff."
"Wow," Annika said. "Sounds like a full on war game."
"It is. Plus each side will have it's own set of weapons, and will need to conduct research to get new ones. They'll have factories where they'll need to manufacture weapons and stuff, and they'll need to keep an eye on funding and stuff. And like, you can also earn special abilities. You see there's a reputation bar, and at certain levels you'll be able to say, inspire people who are lower rank than you out on the battlefield so they can fight better. And under certain circumstances you can also be demoted, or lose reputation. Like if you keep losing battles. Then, to keep cycling through officers so that we don't have the same people as officers for years, your char actually ages, and at 65 game time, your char has to retire."
"What if they're a spy and they get caught? Or they die on the battlefield?"
"Well, I thought about that. And, as a player if I had trouble getting the hang of it, and kept dying, I wouldn't want to have to keep starting characters again. But then in this kind of game it makes sense that they could actually die. So I decided to let the player choose to enable or disable death - and they can't change it midgame either. Once they've decided, that's it. People who choose to enable death will get an automatic reputation bonus - y'know, seeing as they'll be going for the challenge of not dying before they reach retirement."
"So, what happeneds when they retire?"
"Oh, y'know, they'll get a message saying where and what they retired to. Get a spot on the Hall of Fame. Stuff."
Annika nodded.
"Anyway, so I'm rather impressed with what Cliff has come up with so far. He said that he read my design and was so excited about it he got started on it straight away. He wanted to show me what he had done so far," Julie said, excitedly.
"Looks like some potential to that multiple game subscription?" Annika asked hopefully.
Julie beamed.
"Oh, I hope so. Actually, you should probably talk to Corinne."
"Corinne?"
"Cliff's girlfriend," Julie's smile was ironic, "she handles their books."
"Ahh. You guys have the fun, and we work out the fine details."
"Pretty much," Julie said, pulling out a piece of paper with writing scribled on it. "This is their number for whenever you'd like to call her."
"Cool," Annika said, taking the page.