Triple Play
I’ve been working in the game industry for about 21 years now, so I’ve had my fill of experiences testing and otherwise. When everyone asks if it’s cool to test games, they usually don’t imagine playing 1500+ levels of Gauntlet II (or testing it on an original Gameboy with tiled backgrounds - talk about making your eyes bleed. Try playing a game with a patterned, scrolling background on a blurring LCD display) or such hits as Pro Sport Hockey or Dirty Harry.
Anyway, one day I had to head over to a studio that was doing some promotional videos. They were doing a commercial for one of Jaleco’s baseball games (I think it was Super Bases Loaded 2), and since machinima tools weren’t in existence back then, someone had to actually sit through and play the game as it was being recorded. Today, that person was me.
The marketing folk had written up a script, and all I had to do was to complete the actions to match the narration. Reading the script, lo and behold, the third item said the player could even complete an unassisted triple play. Don’t get me wrong, an unassisted triple play is possible, but the circumstances for this to actually occur are so rare that when I saw the words my heart just sort of sank.
I tried to convince them it wasn’t possible in the time frame given, but being a lowly tester, they didn’t exactly listen and demanded I perform for them. A full day of play later with advertising folks breathing down my neck, they finally gave up. I’ve never had a more stressful afternoon.
