Page 5 of How We Play the Game
From: Your Nemesis
just saw a naked guy with a cowboy hat n a guitar is that normal for summer camp?
I resist the urge to correct him on the use of the term “camp.” Band geeks go to camp. Hot people telling ghost stories around a bonfire unaware that they’re about to get murdered by a lake-dwelling maniac go to camp. Wizzard’s top players go to anacademy. The Wizzard Games Summer Academy Royale, to be specific. A two-month summit where, starting today, we’ll sleep in dorms but basically live at the Wizzard Theater—fifty of the bestGLRplayers in the country duking it out in battle royales (battles royale?) for the top two spots on the end-of-summer leaderboard. And those top two players?
They only get to face off in a live, streaming debut of the newGLRmode everyone’s been begging Wizzard to add to the game since it launched:Guardians League Royale: 1v1.
And while I will say I’m not as enthused about playing a game mode where you only get to hunt down and snipeoneplayer, I am enthused about the part where we get to try new maps and modes before they launch. When Wizzard announced the competition, they said it was an opportunity for the studio to get top players’ feedback on new content and the upcoming season ofGLR. That means talking to studio heads, developers, artists, and writers—and that access is priceless. Especially if working for Wizzard Games has been your dream since you were eight years old, when your cousin sat you in front of an Xbox to shut you up while she babysat and you took her brother’s high score onGuardians League IIIby the time someone came to pick you up. Good times.
I’ve come so far, I think, even though it feels like one of those cliché mantras. I really have. This homeschooled, touch-averse nerd from New Jersey is heading to the big city to basically make a video game with her favorite studio!
And by “heading to the big city,” I mean I’m already here. The moment I emerge from Penn Station, New York City announces its presence with a moist blast of hot street air slapping me in the face. It takes me a moment to tap around my hairline until I find my sunglasses and yank them down over my eyes like protective goggles. A group of neck muscles I swear I didn’t know existed unclenches in relief. I love wearing sunglasses. There’s something about hiding my eyes that makes existing in public so much easier. I don’t have to worry about giving strangers an involuntary stink eye (my face just looks like this, honest), no one can tell when I’m staring at them in a totally normal, academic, people-watching way, and I think the glasses make me look like a big weird bug, which I love for some reason and refuse to interrogate why.
Now I am armored and on time. You’d think a Wizzard diehard like me would jump at the chance to be the academy’s most obvious teacher’s pet and show up early with a batch of cookies for the program leads and a big ole “love me” smile, but that’s not in my strategy. I need to be smart about this summer, and that means not wasting time making small talk with my competition. I did not come here to play.
Okay, technically,literallyI came here to play, but what I mean is I didn’t come here to make new friends. That’s what Cass is for, and that is why instead of heading straight through the double doors at the Wizzard Theater, I will meet him on the big red stairs next to the naked guy with a guitar and a cowboy hat.
How to make a good first impression on the cofounder of a game studio, I tap deliberately into the search engine on my phone as I turn north toward Times Square. The top resultsare unhelpful. Have a firm handshake, some corporate-pilled lunatic with a blog suggests.Use people’s first names and make lots of eye contact!Yeesh, pass. How about searchingtalking to people in real life vs. online, return with a handful of judgy articles about online friendships that, if I read between the lines here, add up to “touch grass, dork”? Let me try a new tack:What does Brian Juno look for in a mentee—I hover my thumbs over the screen while I think this one through—and is it a 17-year-old Black girl—I add to the query—low-key on the spectrum—seems relevant—who’s followed his work forever and wants to basically be him when she grows up. Hit Search.
No results. Not like I expected any. It only takes a few more minutes for me to make it to the part of Times Square that leads up to the Wizzard Theater, where costumed characters from theGuardians Leagueseries post up alongside the legion of Captains America and Elmos who winkle tips out of tourists for a picture. The multiversal effect is jarring. Some studios rely on famous character cameos and franchise partnerships to get people interested in their games, but because of Brian Juno, Wizzard has always been about generating their hype in-house. The result is a game series where the players are the true stars of every match. We create our characters, embody them, dress them up in limited edition avatar fashion drops and hard-earned 3D bling to indicate our win count and tier status. No Deadpools required.
Some of those players extrapolate that stardom into real life, making names for themselves in Wizzard’s esports league or streaming on WiTch, Wizzard’s all-Guardianslive-streaming platform. And it’s fine that they do that, really. A hustle is a hustle, and if someone can leverage their naturalability to get strangers invested in their fake life while they play video games in a pair of kitty cat headphones, then more power to them. It’s just that I, personally, would rather bite the head off a living pigeon than be perceived on that level. My talents begin when I boot upGuardians League Royaleon my gaming PC and end when I log out.
That middle period where I’m completely absorbed in the game, laser focused on my opponents while hunting them down one by one like a shadow in the night … that’s the good stuff. It’s where I get my ideas on how to makeGLRbetter, or for new games and challenges that would make a killer spinoff title, or a plot arc that could make the upcoming season the most downloaded version of the game yet. So I don’t have time to follow the online drama betweenGLRstreamers or catch up on who’s trading whom around the competitive circuit. Look at me, using “whom” right and everything. If that’s not an underutilized skill in my generation, I don’t know what is. I’ll stand out this summer to Brian Juno. I have to.
The red stairs Cassius mentioned have a perfect view of the Wizzard Theater’s entrance: its famous double doors are works of art, made of special black glass that reveals glowing neon circuitry running in randomly generated patterns all day long. The building used to be an old-school theater, so there’s a real marquee, but instead of those rearrangeable black letters that inevitably fall off and leave typos like “WELCOME HO,” there’s a high-tech LED “Summer Academy Royale” chyron spelling out a welcome that’s significantly more difficult to vandalize.
It doesn’t take long to find Cass. I scan the crowd on the steps and spot his Muppet-y mess of blond curls before I seethe telltale black Wizzard Games Summer Academy Royale T-shirt we’re all wearing today. I also notice with very little surprise that he’s zoned out and staring into the middle distance while I approach. “Space cadet” is one of my many nicknames for Cass for a reason. Head always up in the air, while I’m firmly planted on the ground. If we played one of theGuardians Leaguegames that requires a team, we’d probably tear each other apart, so it’s a good thing neither of us wants to.
For an elite gamer, his peripheral vision is awful. I’m halfway up the stairs and he’s still in la-la land. I sit next to him and he automatically scoots over to give me more space but doesn’t look at me. I even take a Red Bull out of my jacket, crack it open, and still he has no interest in turning his head and looking to his left. It’s a waste, really. If we had a match today he could totally channel that focus intoGLR, but the first two days of the academy are just for orientation. And we’re almost late for it, and it’s disgustingly hot out, so let’s move this along, bud.
“Hey.” I finally tap Cass on the shoulder. He springs to life like a haunted animatronic, his blue eyes blinking as if he’s suddenly been teleported from his bed in Delaware to the bleachers in the middle of Times Square and has no idea how he got there. “You’re finally awake.”
He looks up to see me sweating like a half-sipped iced coffee left out in the sun. Ten bucks says I look gorgeous. Twenty says I look like what would happen if Chewbacca lost a fight with a curling iron.
“Zora!” Cass’s hand flies up into his hair in a bold, if futile, attempt to make his messy bangs behave.
“Hi!” I give him a little wave. “I’m looking for my nemesis?”
“Nemesis? I think you mean your rival,” Cass goads me.
“Rival?” I reply. “That’s a crazy way to pronounce ‘piñata.’”
“Yep.” Cassius nods. “You’re definitely Zora.”
I manage to hold on to the seriousness for a few more seconds before I crack. “Dude, I can’t even believe it’s really you again, here, in front of me right now, alive!” I’m basically squealing, but I don’t even care. “I mean awake!”
Cass laughs. It’s a happy, snorty sound I’ve heard a hundred times before, but until now it’s been modulated through the crackle of our headsets as we blast each other to pieces inGuardians League Royale.
“Yeah, man, we made it! Summer Academy Royale, let’s go!” Cass leans toward me like he’s going for a hug, but I hold my fist out for a bump instead. He happily knocks his fist against mine.
“We can totally go; I’ve just been waiting for you.” Cass stands up and—whew—that is a long boy. He must have hit another spurt in the six months since then, he’s got to be six feet by now. “Unless you don’t want to go in yet? Where’s all your stuff?”
“Right here.” I twist around to show Cass that I have my backpack.
“Is that all you brought?” Cass asks and stands up on the stairs. His bag is a lot bigger than mine; it’s a proper camping duffel with a waist strap and everything. My backpack mostly contains my toothbrush, some underwear, and just enough clothing to get by. My standard fit of a T-shirt and shorts will serve me well this summer, with minimal laundry breaks andno worrying about what I look like. Just pure, uncut competition and a chance to show everyone at Wizzard Games that I belong not onlyontheir radar, but also behind the radar, alongside them, interpreting the blips and dots that come together to make extraordinary games at an extraordinary company.
“It’s all I need,” I answer and get to my feet too. I slam the last dregs of the Red Bull, slide the empty can into a mesh socket on the side of my backpack, and yank a new can out from the front pocket. It’s going to be a two-can type of day, I can just tell. Now that we’re both standing, I see that I’m not as tall as Cass, even if I’m tall for my age and for a girl. My hair adds a few inches too, especially on days like today, when my twist-out curls attract every stray molecule of water in the air and grow accordingly, like the ever-expanding roller ball in aKatamarigame. “Come on. We’re off to see the Wizzard.”
