A Game Demonstration

A Game Demonstration


Dahlia Joiner walked down the corridor of the third floor of the men’s dormitory, trying to ignore all the undergrads in boxers and towels passing by her, arching their eyebrows suggestively, and grinning.

“Sons, there’s so much meat swinging around here it's like a butcher shop,” she said under her breath as she stopped and knocked on Gregory Cummings’s room door.

”Who is it?” Gregory called out in irritation, staring at his computer screen.

”It’s Dahlia. I haven’t seen you in two days and wanted to know if you were still breathing or not,” she called through the door as another undergrad in a towel passed by her. The towel dropped and his bare ass showed.

”Whoops,” he said, grinning as he looked at Dahlia.

”Douglas Dimms, you pervert, you did that on purpose,” she said to the grinning blonde as he picked the towel back up and made a big production of wrapping it around his slender hips. “And I’m not impressed.”

Douglas waggled his eyebrows at her and continued down the hallway. Dahlia didn’t look this time as another “whoops!” rang up the hall.

”Exhibitionist,” she said to herself as Gregory’s door flew open and he yanked her in.

He closed the door and locked it, his brown eyes resting on the sorceress excitedly.

”Wow, this has to be fate,” he said to her, hurrying back over to the computer, sitting down in the folding chair and restarting the program he’d been running. “Come here, Dahlia.”

She walked over and frowned at the screen as Finklenook appeared on it.

”You’ve been working on this game for the past two days?” she asked him.

”Yep. I’ve been doing some character design,” he said as a screen came up with a number of characters' heads for selection. They were pretty generic really. A cleric, a Protector, a sorcerer, a sorceress. Just basic characters. Suddenly Dahlia noticed the character at the very bottom and scowled.

”Gregory, what is that?” she asked him.

”That’s you. You’re my first named character. When this game gets out . . . you’re going to be famous,” he said as he selected her.

”Gregory, I don’t want to be in your game!” she said to him.

”Well, your name won’t be there. They can pick their own names and change your hair, eye and skin color,” he said as Dahlia stood on the screen. She was in her usual long skirt and tunic, her straight brown hair tumbling over her shoulders and falling down her back. She was wearing an unconscionable amount of beads and bracelets. And what was that on her head?

“I don’t wear that many beads!” she cried as Gregory chuckled, “And did you have to make my hips so big? And why is there a garland of lavender flowers on my head? I don't wear flowers!”

”Your hips ARE big,” he said to her, though he knew he overdid the beads. A small panel appeared with clothes on it. He clicked a pair of fatigue green pants, then clicked her skirt and it changed to the pants. He changed her sandals to boots and her tunic to a green t-shirt. Then another panel came up of hair styles. He chose one that made her long hair into a tight bun and the garland disappear. She kind of looked like Laura Croft now.

Dahlia blinked. She actually looked kind of sexy, big hips and all. But still . . .

Then weapons came up. Gregory chose a wand then a short sword. The wand appeared tucked in her waistband and the sword appeared in her hand.

“Ready for battle. Now, watch this,” Gregory said with a smile, typing in some code.

Dahlia watched as her double appeared in the forest, obviously searching for something. A child’s cry was heard and she began to run through the trees. In the distance was a shimmering puddle and she ran through it.

A crying child was standing in the forest on the other side. Dahlia pulled him to her and put an arm around him.

”You’re safe now” she mouthed, the words appearing over her head.

Suddenly the words appeared, “A Sorceress alone! Get her for the glory of the Antimage!”

Clerics poured out from between the trees and the game-Dahlia pushed the child behind a tree then stood in readiness, her wand drawn, sword at the ready. She was slightly bent.

”Make this easy on yourself and give up, corrupted one” one cleric’s floating words ordered her. They all wore cleric robes and had swords and wands of their own.

”Come and meet your deaths, foul clerics!” the game-Dahlia cried in challenge, brandishing her sword.

”I don’t talk like that!” Dahlia said to Gregory, who shushed her.

The clerics charged her one at a time, and Gregory had down quite an effective job as to getting her technique down, Dahlia slaughtering them as they ran at her, slipping their slashes and dodging prayer-spells. But there were so many of them. The real Dahlia would have been running through the trees while battling them, using the landscape around her to her advantage and not stood in the open. But Gregory must not have gotten that far yet. Good thing the bodies disappeared at their deaths or they would have been piled so high the game couldn’t be played unless Dahlia was standing on their corpses.

Suddenly an apple appeared next to her.

”What’s that?” she asked him as the game-Dahlia swiped the apple off the ground and bit into it.

”A Berserker Apple,” Gregory said grinning. “You get it when you kill a large amount of clerics. It restores whatever health you’ve lost and . . .”

Suddenly the game-Dahlia’s eyes turned red, and a red glow covered its body. Then it charged the clerics, cutting them down, blood and gore flying everywhere as she thrust, slashed and chopped, cutting off heads, arms, legs and splitting entire bodies in half down the middle. Gregory managed to program in the screams at this part and the carnage was horrible.

”Gregory, I don’t fight like that! I don’t ever attack them . . . they always come to me!” she said, horrified as her double sliced and diced tirelessly, bits of gore clinging to her hair and body realistically.

“I know, but it’s more exciting this way,” he said as she killed the last cleric, flinging her sword at him as he ran away and impaling him with it, the blade appearing out of his chest, dripping with blood before he fell with a bloodcurdling scream.

She walked over to his dead body, stepped on his back and withdrew the sword. Then she held the dripping blade up to the sky and let out a victory cry ala Michael Jackson.

”Ho!” she yelled, the perspective spinning around her. Then the screen went dark.

”Oh really, Gregory,” she said witheringly. “Ho?”

”Just wait,” he said to her as the screen returned to show her standing there, cleaned up now, the sword lowered and rescued child standing beside her.

Dahlia watched as someone tall walked toward her from between the trees, dressed in black, a sword in his hand and a cloak trailing behind him.

”Oh no, Gregory,” she hissed as Artimus Rogue strode up to her double, drew her into his arms, dipped her so one leg went up and planted a big, romantic kiss on her lips, the perspective spinning again.

Her life points, which were on the right bottom of the screen, rose significantly.

”Well, you had to receive a reward for killing all the clerics,” Gregory said to her with a smile. “You should see what he does when you fight your way into the city of Damar. This game’s going to be for ‘Mature Audiences’ only.”

Dahlia pulled her hand down her face in exasperation.

”Gregory, I don’t care how brilliant you are at this stuff . . . you’re still an idiot,” she snapped at him.

“Yep, and that’ll keep me humble when I’m rolling in dough,” he replied, smirking as he ran the program again.

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A/N: Just a little test run of Gregory as a game developer. I think it has potential. Adding Artimus in was a plus. :)