Page 4 of The Grump I Loathe
“And one of thoseEat, Sleep, Code, Repeathoodies?” She tilted her head, the corner of her mouth curling as she batted her eyelashes. I didn’t know how I ever managed to say no to anything.
“If I can find one small enough,” I agreed.
Grace pumped her arm. “Score. Hey, they haveSlime Blasters.” She pointed across the hall to the booth. “That could be a fun demo.”
“You have that game,” I said, keeping close.
“But it’sSlime Blasters 3: Turbo Goo Showdown. It’s totally different.”
“We have to move on,” I told her, scanning the hall for another booth.
I wanted her to have a chance to try all the games that interested her, but I also knew there was still a lot left to see. Not just for her, but for me. I might not be a typical gamer, but that didn’t stop me from running the best video game company in the business, and I was always on the lookout for new talent. Especially now, when LockMill was in desperate need of a new narrative designer.
I’d heard good buzz about a young indie designer named Ryker Lowe. He had a new first-person shooter game out calledBodypointthat I wanted to see. If it looked good, the narrative designer job could be his.
Grace took my hand. “It’s basically the same concept as the sequel, but I watched a playthrough online, and they said they finally fixed the splatter decay rate.”
I stopped looking for Ryker and frowned at her. Sometimes the tech jargon that came out of her mouth…Well, she was definitely a kid who had been raised around video games.
“Can I just check, real quick?”Grace asked, and I relented.
“Five minutes,” I offered. “And then we move on. Deal?”
Grace fist bumped my knuckles. “Deal.”
We paused for Grace to test outSlime Blasters, and while she did, I pulled back up the search results on Ryker, skimming over theBodypointliterature one more time. It certainly seemed like he had talent and drive…but would he be a good fit forShadow? The game was the biggest hit LockMill had ever had, and everything was riding on the success of our currently-in-development sequel. We needed this win.
Ineeded this win.
After my very rough and very public divorce from the company’s co-founder, the industry press hadnotbeen kind. Everyone knew Ali was the creative force behind LockMill. I was the numbers cruncher, the suit, the one who kept the lights on while Ali made the magic happen.
But she wasn’t in the picture anymore—not at work, anyway—and I was bound and determined to prove LockMill could make something just as magical without her.Andwithout Tristan, our former narrative designer who’d left us in the lurch when his own workplace romance had crashed and burned.
To hell with romance. And to hell with sensitive creative temperaments. I was on a mission to find someone I could count on. Someone steady and reliable who would get the job done. I just hoped to God that it was Ryker so I could stop searching and actually put the team to work.
When the five minutes were up, I tapped Grace on the shoulder. “C’mon. Time to check outBodypoint.”
“Just a few more minutes,” Grace pleaded, hardly taking her eyes off the demo screen.
“We made a deal,” I said, crouching to look her in the eye. “Remember? We get to do some fun things for youandsome work things for me. That’s called a…”
“Compromise,” Grace said, finishing my sentence with a dramatic eye roll. “I know, I know.”
“But after all that compromise?”
Grace cracked a smile. “I get hot fudge from Ghirardelli!”
“The best sundae in San Francisco.” I flicked my head in the direction of Ryker’s booth, and Grace schlepped along behind me, dragging her feet just a little too much for my liking. “Grace—” I turned around to find her staring transfixed at another demo. “Hey, c’mon.”
“Oh, wow!” she said. “This looksamazing.Dad, come on. We’ve gotto check this out.”
The wordsAlterbotflashed across a screen followed by a small spaceship zooming through a solar system before crash landing on a planet filled with strange space…sheep? Yep, those were definitely sheep. And they seemed to be occupying a farm of pink turnips.
My daughter had been playing a game with my brother, Liam, that involved them raising an army of sheep. It’d turned into a joke with my brothers. Grace didn’t need another sheep game. “Grace, let’s go.”
Bodypointwas waiting.
“Ihaveto try this one. The sheep,” she insisted, a pleading edge leaking into her voice.Those damn sheep. “It’s sci-fi, likeShadow! And has resource gathering! And it’s for all ages! Omigawd, it’s likeStardewin space! Uncle Liam will love this game, too.”
