Double Cluepon

So you’ve probably been hearing a lot about Double Cluepon’s new writers (No? Nothing? Well thank god you’re here). Umabel and Macaria joined the team at the beginning of the year and have been busy beavers crafting story, dialogue, quests, puzzles, and mini-games for Emerald Kingdom. They are terribly enthusiastic about this endeavor, and it appears their gentle spirits have yet to be broken by the long nights of creative solitude, writing with quill pens in fervent hunch, cursing the muses with fists raised to the sky, whale-oil ink under their nails, balking at the incredible responsibility of CREATING A WHOLE UNIVERSE.

We’re pretty sure they can handle it.

We sat these two ladies down for an interview and picked their brains about gaming, Emerald Kingdom, life, the universe, and everything. And without further ado (because their debutante dresses are really uncomfortable), we’d like to present Umabel and Macaria at their official “coming out” ball/blog post.

What’s your favorite video game? 

Umabel: This is a very difficult question for me to answer! In terms of storyline I would have to say Final Fantasy 8. I love that you think you know what’s going on and then plot twists just keep coming. The epic love story, surrounded by a colorful supporting cast.  However, the magic system and other mechanics were… not the best. In terms of gameplay, I really loved Knights of the Old Republic for XBox. I also like Vandal Hearts for PS One, it’s a turn based tactical game that has a kickass story and customizable class paths for each character. Oh–and Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall. I was obsessed with that game. So I just answered with 4 games. Yeah…

Macaria: I know this response is totally played (PUN INTENDED), but I love Ocarina of Time. I played it for the first time when I was twelve or thirteen, I think, over the course of a summer, and I think that’s a good age to play a game and become entirely immersed in it. I was always fighting my older brother for the controller to the N64, but this was the first game that we cooperated on. We got so caught up in the story, in the adventure of it, that we were too busy to fight. Instead we traded tips and worked on the hard parts together. He was better at beating the bosses, but I was better at solving the puzzles that were built into the various temples. At the time, that game had everything. When we finally beat it, I remember feeling totally adrift and even kind of depressed, like “What am I supposed to do now?” Like when you finish a really good book and you wish it wasn’t over. That’s what’s exciting about Emerald Kingdom. Umabel and I are writing a progressive storyline, so there will always be new plot and new quests, because nobody likes that post-game existential emptiness. Hooray!

How did you get into gaming? 

Umabel: Honestly, it was my dad! He worked nights, so I rarely got to see him. When he was home, one of the ways he liked to unwind was by playing video games. I used to spend hours watching him play, telling him when to heal his party, or giving tips from strategy guides. It was an interesting way to be introduced to gaming because from my perspective, it was more like watching a movie than playing. So the story and characters were really vivid to me. As I got older I began to play games on my own, and then I got a job at EB Games, so I could take games home for 48 hours and play them. My years from age 14-18 were really the years when I played the most games.

Macaria: It’s hard to say, because I’ve been gaming since I was a really little kid. My older brother and his friends played a lot of games and I got into it because of that. But also, my family moved around a lot, and I was always the new kid, so I think I played games because I didn’t have friends, and then later I made friends who played games. You befriend people you have something in common with, and gamers always create a community wherever they are. That was the case even before the internet. I definitely feel like I have a lot in common with the folks at Double Cluepon (i.e., we’re nerds).

What is your inspiration for writing the game?

Umabel: I just think of what kinds of games I love to play, what elements I am always excited to find, and how I can bring those to the table in an even fresher way. My imagination tends toward the visual, so I’m picturing what the game should look like. I listen to lots of violent electro and dubstep type music when I’m writing to keep myself pumped up and always focused on creating action.  Also, I get excited when I eavesdrop on conversations on public transit about video games. I can’t wait to hear people talking about Emerald Kingdom!

Macaria: We’re writing EK to be a game with really rich, extensive mythology behind it. So I’ve been very inspired by various kinds of mythology, including Greek, Norse, Celtic, African, Australian Aborigine, and the Thousand and One Arabian Nights. When writing the Book of Days, I’ve also been inspired by Medieval religious texts. I love trickster figures like Anansi the Spider because he always jacks stuff up, and I love Dionysus because he always brings the party.

What has been your favorite part about working at Double Cluepon?

Umabel: The sense of community. We’re all working toward a common goal of bringing out an awesome game, but we’re all also friends. I like knowing there’s a group of people I can go to and say whatever crazy idea I’m thinking. Even if they don’t take me seriously, we’ll at least have a good laugh about it. Like when I suggested we include a pile of burning corpses…that got shot down. But we laughed!

Macaria: Oh, how we laughed over those corpses. But yeah… definitely the people! We have a lot of fun here (aside from all the hard work we do, obviously), and this company is full of super talented, interesting people who are really good at what they do. Everyone at Double Cluepon has been really awesome and welcoming since Umabel and I joined the team. I like that everyone has a sense of humor (unfunny coworkers are the worst) and I like that everyone can contribute ideas to any department. Sometimes we get pizza, and that’s nice too.

What has been your favorite part of writing the story? 

Umabel: I like formatting the dialogue and thinking of what choices by the player should spark different reactions in the NPC’s. It’s a fun way to deepen some of the major characters’ personalities. It’s also a way for us to convey information to the player about the history and culture of Magna without having to be explicit. It’s different than any other writing I’ve done before because I have to incorporate the will and expectations of a “character” I can’t control–the player–yet still maintain control over the general events of the story, make them somewhat uniform for everyone despite the linear model (meaning we’ll have to be continually catching up new players). Oh,  and make it not boring. Very challenging!

Macaria: Like I said, I love writing the mythology component of the game. It’s interesting to work backwards from the characters and the plot we have so far and create the myths that tie this universe together. Video games, cartoons, and comic books all pull archetypes from mythology, and it’s been really fun so far to expand on those archetypes and subvert them. Also, it’s been so much fun working with Umabel, brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other. We have a good rapport, and we’ve been given a lot of artistic freedom to create something exciting and unique that we really care about, and I think that will show in the game itself.

What do you look most forward to? 

Umabel: I’m excited for player feedback/criticism about the story –what works, what doesn’t, which characters people like, who they don’t like, etc. I know what my/our aim is as far as player reaction to events, but the variables are impossible to account for. I want to see everything we’ve created in action! And I want to watch as people try to figure out and anticipate our twists and turns. And the puzzles! Oh the puzzles. And the holidays! Oh the holidays.

Macaria: GAME DAY ZERO!!! (dramatic music) No seriously, I’m just super excited for the game itself, because it’s going to be crazy awesome. I look forward to seeing what the players (YOU) do when you get your hands on this world we’ve created. In any MMORPG, the players take the tools they’re given within the game and exploit them in ways the creators (US) never even thought possible. Emerald Kingdom is a game in which many, many, many things are possible, and I just know we’re going to be surprised, pleased, and possibly frightened (?) by how the community and the culture manifests as time goes on. OH, and the mini-games. Pretty stoked about those.

If you were stranded on a desert island, and could take only one album, book, and movie with you, what would they be? 

Umabel: The album would be Sgt. Peppers. Hands down. It has highs and lows, dance segments and tunes I can weep to after I figure out how to distill alcohol from a coconut.

Because I will.

Movie…hm. Do I want something I already love, like Gone With the Wind?  Or something like A Clockwork Orange that will just make me go crazy faster? Or something terrifying that will make me just curl up in a ball somewhere, like Event Horizon. Or maybe something inspirational that will get me fired up to survive, like The Empire Strikes Back. Book…I think I would want an anthology of poetry, something I can read in small doses that has layers of meaning to keep me occupied. Or again maybe something maddening and absurd like Tristram Shandy. Or Don Quixote, I need to read that again. (Though maybe not again, and again, and again.) I like the way I answer all these “pick one” questions with 4-5 different choices.

Macaria: The classic get-to-know-you question! Wow, I hope this never happens to me, because I hate talking to coconuts (they’re jerks). Does LOST count as a movie? I guess for a book I could take something useful, like Hatchet, or Lord of the Flies. Or, I could take a ridiculously long and dense book, so that I’d probably die before I even finished it. Like War and Peace. I’m sure I’d be so sick of the sunshine and the beach that Tolstoy would be refreshing. As for music, I could jam out to Jimmy Buffet and pretend I was there on purpose. Or I could listen to something high-minded and classical and focus my sun-addled brain on understanding it; I’m thinking Stravinksy, maybe, just to hasten the inevitable madness of solitude. The movie is easy: Terminator 2.

If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?  

Umabel: Hildegarde von Bingen. She was a nun, born 1098 died 1179 (she lived to be 81 in the middle ages! a tough lady). Her parents gave her to the church as a child because she experienced visions. She spent a significant portion of her childhood/young adult years walled up in a room with one other nun as company, an older mentor who taught her to read and write and play an instrument. They could see out a window into the chapel and someone gave them food through a slot in the door but otherwise it was a solitary few years. Once she was released back into the real world, Hildegarde was elected abbess of her convent and became a powerful figure in the Catholic church whose opinion was solicited by Kings and Popes, as evidenced by the surviving letters she wrote to them. Her writings of her visions and about the art of early medicine are fascinating. She was awesome, and well ahead of her time.

Macaria: In all honesty, I have trouble answering this question, which is ridiculous because I was a history major undergraduate and have always been into Things That Happened A Long Time Ago. I’d like to talk to someone who could answer a bunch of my questions, someone who could solve a classic historical mystery for me. I know history is an inexact science, but unsolved mysteries totally bug me! I want to know if Richard III really murdered his two nephews, what happened to the Peking Man fossils in WWII, and for god’s sake, where is DB Cooper!? Also, I’m more inclined to sup with a group of famous people, because one-on-one dinner has too much potential to be awkward. I’d love to hang out with the Bloomsbury Group, the Beat poets, the French student revolutionaries of 1848, Andy Warhol’s Factory, the Harlem Renaissance… I could go on and on. I love moments in history when brilliant people find each other and create a community based on sharing ideas and debating (and drinking, usually). That’s why I’m excited about landing this job at Double Cluepon, because I feel like I’m getting in on the ground floor of something really cool. Except we do fewer amphetamines than the hep cats at the Factory, I guess.

And there you have it. Writers tend to ramble. But they also tend to write stuff, so here’s some Book of Days-type “stuff” to tide you over until you can get your mits on our game. Don’t worry, it’s cryptic and infuriating, as usual. We like to haunt your dreams.