I'm getting ahead of myself, right? I'm assuming that you all know the best part of me (you've all played MG3K) but that can't be true. The game (it's so much more) hasn't even shipped yet. So unless you're one of the play testers, you must be wondering, "Who is this chick and when is she going to start talking about fragging some space alien?" Because that's what "gamer grrl" means now a days, right? A chick console junkie?
Okay, so I'm a "gamer grrl" as in a "kick butt, CCG designing young woman with a healthy attitude toward competition and a passion for what she does." Better definition? Hey, I'd love to be great at fragging space aliens, driving digital race cars or slaying zombies, but I'm all thumbs. But if you need a number crunching, mythology spouting, scripture quoting gamer geek with a motorcycle and a d6 in her tight jeans pocket... I'm your grrl.
So, in short: I'm E.J. Angel, a newly minted game designer of card games. I didn't have to fight my way to the top. I don't have a single rejection letter. I quietly did the con circuit and pitched my first idea not as a game but as an interactive universe with a CCG at its heart. I gathered the feedback, made changes, and took my game to the only publisher I can imagine working with: Immortal Day Publishing, owned and run by the two most loved or hated women in independent publishing, Jennifer and Cris DiMarco. I never intended to take Mardi Gras 3000 to anyone else because I've worked for the DiMarcos, I know their business from the inside, from behind closed doors, and I know they rock.
September 1, 2006, we began the process. I have final say on how the marketing money is spent and a full accounting of every penny. I can view the account statement online (how's that for control?) and request spending I need (on top of what is already being done). Anthologies, novellas, cards, an RPG... films, artwork, forums... The MG3K world is one of Immortals who are much more than the shape-shifters and vampires that they appear to be on the very surface. With the CCG players and the votary authors (see Fandom Press at www.windstormcreative.com/fandom/) MG3K is a universe of Fallen Angels, battles for the Grail and a race against time until the Second Coming. It isn't a "Christian" game, though I am a Christian. It's a game of religion, mythology and strategy. It's a fully interactive universe that is being built by the players and writers as much as by me. Welcome to Mardi Gras, friends.
...So I started to dream. I started to dream about the astronomical clock in Prague. I didn't know then (I didn't remember) where I had seen it as a child. My parents couldn't place where I could have seen it (it had never captured them as it captured me). I started to sketch faces in masks. It was Festival in Venice. They were scary faces. Composed but with burning eyes. I saw them like I see strangers when I go clubbing to dance and lose myself in the music. Not fellow dancers, rediscovering their center in the power of the bass line and in the freedom of movement, but those who stand in the shadows, not drinking, not talking, just watching. I never drink but I do club to dance. What else is there? They stand there and they aren't wearing masks but they are. Their eyes burn, like the after images of strobes.
I started to write a list of names. One for each letter of the alphabet. These were my fellow dancers. They were alive, wild, fierce. They were faithful. They were passionate. Elijah, Chorus, Queen, Angelus, Darkling, Midnight.
The two creatures became inseparable. Two halves of the same experience.
I met with Jennifer (again over coffee) at a con. She was there to grace a few panels, just one afternoon. I was stalking her. I wanted to catch her without appointments, without her little ones on her knees, without her focused scowl or driven work day demeanor. I wanted her over a cup of hot coffee and a Lemon Bumblebar to just listen to me. If she fell in love, if she saw the endless possibilities of an interactive universe that only *began* as a CCG... she did.
Once, when Jennifer was mad at me, we were at a carnival. I don't want her mad at me because her woman is my best friend and that's just bad mojo. Also, I admire Jennifer (yeah, obviously) for everything she has accomplished, for the garbage she takes on a daily basis from ignorant people who don't believe (in any number of things, in anything), for speaking smoothly with words like "elucidate" and "mythos." So we were at a carnival, a fair, with cotton candy and dart booths. I did something inappropriate, a joke, and Jennifer spun on her heel midthrow and hit me in the butt with a dart. *Not* playfully. It went through my jeans and into my wallet.
Jennifer doesn't roll over and take anything from anybody and she has a very, very long memory. But she fell so hard for Mardi Gras, I walked away from that table with a first date blush.
My months working on the "Alpha" and "Beta" decks of MG3K have been heaven and hell. I never hesitated to stay up all night with Cris and play test. Listening to feedback from players until I threw up from nervousness. Maybe this dream is so raw and real for me because it came later in my life. I'm not someone who has always known, forever dreamed of this, but I know now that game design is what I'm supposed to do. It's my impassioned path. It's so much more than casual entertainment. It's immersive.
I know that eventually I'll be able to blog about my mundane daily events--cooking gatah with my mother, playing "Chaos Bleeds" with Cris--but right now it still feels so surreal. Forgive me for being so... honest.
I suppose melodrama will only get a person a dart in the end.
E.J.
