From the desk of Lori Cole, Designer June 17-22, 1997 Tuesday, June 17-22, 1997 There’s a meeting of all CUC staff in the Inforum at 10 in the morning. Great, that translates to 7, California time. We’ve never been early risers. Still, we make it to the meeting. Corey, who now works for Accolade, was seriously impressed by the amount of things CUC was doing for this show. We only wished they had done this when we were making our other Quest for Glory Games. The premise for CUC’s show is that this is a movie sound stage. Games are divided into categories, and grouped into small stage areas. Dynamix games are mostly in a "Sport’s Bar" setting, complete with a realistic-looking bar setting, two racing car coin-op games, and two air hockey tables. Red Baron had a life-sized model of a biplane. Berkeley Systems had a frat house set with a living room look. The large screen TV had "You Don’t Know Jack" running, and a couch to sit down in front of it. There was a mini-laser tag stage for SWAT 2 and the shooter-type games. Our set looked like a cross between Indiana Jones and a monster movie. The front section looked like a mythical temple with the Mask faces from "Mask of Eternity" illuminated. We had a low roof over our set, and everything inside was lighted by black lights or red stage lights. In the corner beside our game was a paper-mache Volcano and a fiber-glass monster. The floors were painted as if streams of lava were pouring down from the volcano mouth. While we shared this set with "Mask of Eternity" and several other games, we had one side of the set to ourselves. The twenty-something inch monitor was a great way to show off the beauty of Quest for Glory. Of course, when we got there for the morning meeting, everything was in chaos. Our opening party didn’t open until 6 in the evening, but everything was still in great disarray now. The meeting was like a giant pep rally from high school. It was a high energy, "let’s put on a show" get together. It didn’t seem possible that things could come together by evening, considering all the sets and computers and games, but it did. By five that evening, the doors opened to the show. There was a buffet of foods, an open bar, and soda pop on draft. We sat by the computer, showing off Quest for Glory for hours. The place was packed, and you’d never know that this had all been put together in the course of a few hours. Thursday, June 19, 1997 In addition to the show floor for sets and games at the Inforum, CUC also had a large room for press and distributors. Quest for Glory was also in that room. Jay Usher, our Producer pretty much managed that show and tell. The show floor had sales reps. who were there to show off the games, but I spent a lot of time in front of the computer telling the story and showing off the beauty of the game. There was food and drink for the staff, and free Baskin-Robbins frappe’s for everyone. I took a few hours off to see E3. Walking those blocks to the convention center was hot and muggy, but it was neat to see the fountains of last year’s Olympics, and hear the musical strains from that event. The convention center itself was huge even by convention center standards. The show floor was a madhouse of music, lights, smoke, noise, computers, and people. Even so, I saw many people I knew. Friday, June 20, 1997 Corey and I both took some time off to see the E3 show. We walked through the Intel section which was showing off the its new technology. There in the center row of games being used to demonstrate Intel’s accomplishments was Quest for Glory. It sure looked good to see it, nestled among games from many different companies. It was the only CUC product that was shown in the Intel booth. Corey and I were thrilled. After all these years, Quest for Glory was getting the publicity that it so deserved. Saturday, June 21, 1997 This day E3 opens to the general public, and the fans get to role in and see the fantasyland of computer dreams. The giant Mario, Hercules, Bubsy… the thousands of computer stations all set up to test-drive thousands of games… Riven’s preview showing… Final Fantasy VII mostly translated from Japanese… It really is an amazing concoction of our industry. Unfortunately, they don’t allow anyone under the age of 18, which really disappoints a major segment of our audience. CUC didn’t care what age you were. Our sets were open to everyone. Boxes of Quest for Glory T-shirts were opened, and we handed out the preview demo to anyone who wanted a look. For the educational games CUC sells, the characters from Animaniacs walked the halls of the Inforum, waving at the children and adults. You could try out our games, play laser tag, get your picture distorted by Home Studio’s photography software, play air hockey and drink all the soda you wanted. At last, the show was over. We still had Quest for Glory T-shirts to take back to the team and a lot of good memories. Corey and I went out to dinner with Grant, a Quest for Glory fan from Florida. Then we caught the MARTA back to the hotel. Sunday, June 22, 1997 The long flight homeward was enlivened by playing Magic: The Gathering. The E3 show was interesting, but the overall impression we had was that nothing looked original and exciting at the convention center. The games all looked like things that had been done before. There was a lot of glitz and glamour, excitement and noise, but nothing really new on the E3 floor. No other game looked like Quest for Glory V. We saw no role-playing games like Dragon
Fire. We saw no adventure games like QG. We’re doing things no one has
done before. We’re going places no one has gone in games before. Now that’s
exciting. |
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