Today we introduce the official writer of Lila’s fiction: Ted Ludzik.
Writer, actor, and all around really smart guy, Ted has been a tremendous asset to the project since he began collaborating with us about a month ago. Bringing his own style to the game’s world, he’ll weave the words to chronicle Lila’s ups and downs.
So, here we present a short vignette from some of the experimental stories being created to help us define Lila’s life in all its dimensions. In this brief excerpt, Lila is at her grandmother’s funeral reception, which is taking place at her grandmother’s house.
(Disclaimer: the events herein may or may not be in the final canon of Lila’s story. We’re still exploring possibilities.)
Lila hadn’t realized the turmoil that had been roiling under her skin. Like a greasy-backed sea serpent three inches below the surface of an algae choked Sargasso, she had been alone with her frustrated sadness upstairs. In the midst of her “closest” family, she had flailed with a hydra of simmering anger and was befuddled by how she was supposed to act in a never-before-experienced situation. Nobody told her how to do this yet!
But her jaw released and what her dad described as “the only pouting smile on the face of the planet” and “Lila’s lip mushroom!” began to billow up.
With her dad’s butt sticking out of the dishwasher, she couldn’t help but smile.
In his best suit (which was half a decade out of style), he was scooping out small wads of tomato chunks, bloated spaghetti strands and amorphous dollops of dishwasher-digested globs.
“Izzat dinner, dads?”
Startled, Lila’s dad spasmed a little further into the gloom of the washer. Bravely, he clambered back out, his caterpillar thick brows rose in greeting, “Naw, just some maintenance.” He looked almost fondly at the dead food gathered in his hand. He stuck it up towards her, “Unless you’re hungry?”
“Ewgh! I’m all good, thanks.”
He kneeled to standing and shook his hand into the garbage can, then washed the remainder out in Grandma’s white porcelain sink.
Lila talked over the gush of water. “I thought she never used that thing. She was a hand washer, wasn’t she?”
Dad dried his paws on the tattered rag that hung off the oven’s wood-patterned handle. “Yeah. But she was feeling pretty dragged out those last few weeks. Amazed she even had enough mustard to get up and dirty a few dishes.
“How are you doing, pod?”
Pod. His first ever nickname for her. Born before Lila was born; it came from her dad’s favourite veggie from Grandma’s garden and the furious cell-division that was carbonating in his wife’s pregnant tummy. His little pea-pod.
His work as mechanical engineer changed things up occasionally; she was also his “favorite little cog;” when she misbehaved, it was “Spanner;” when she was acting all goofy, she transformed into his “wankle rotary engine.” But now, even as she started to wrangle teenhood by its grade five horns, she retained the “Pod” moniker.
How was she? “Um, I dunno, kinda… empty?”
“I think you did a lot of your, mm, accepting while she was sick,” he said to her, but his eyes were looking through the yellowing lace curtains hanging off the kitchen sink window.
“Is that what it was? I thought I had turned into a drippy snot-machine.” At her dad’s subtle smirk, she asked gently, “Whaddaboutyou? I didn’t see you cry at all.”
The smirk flattened and his pupils suddenly seemed miles deep. Kneeling back to the dishwasher he stated quietly, “Well, like your mom says, ‘We all grieve in our own way.’”
His torso crawled back into the maw of the dishwasher and his elbows began to produce more grease.
And, here’s your weekly concept art: buildings from a city called Experius.
While I don’t have the gift of the gab (or jabber) that Jason has, I will never the less try real hard not to bore anyone to death with sterile algorithms but instead regale all and sunder with marvelous tales of the trickery in the trenches of online game tech (and bore everyone to death with that instead).
Now, does that mean the game will be simplistic, cramped, and shallow? Heck no!