Al Berry

First Day at VPG It had been the proverbial long and winding road. After almost a decade of writing on BGG about Soviet Dawn and We Must Tell the Emperor; after years of playtesting Ottoman Sunset, Hapsburg Eclipse, Cruel Necessity; after a year of development work on the reboot for The Lost Cause, I found myself employed at Victory Point Games. I had been offered a job a year before, but I had resisted because the pay was so low. Come on, I had three kids to feed! After figuring out a plan to maybe make it work financially (it didn’t), I found myself sitting in a dingy conference room in an aging business park in Costa Mesa off the 405 freeway. As Alan liked to say, “Just down the street from Disneyland!” There were four of us. Four guys around a conference table in a drab room with ground floor view of the parking lot. I don’t remember what the meeting was about. Probably, it was a status meeting to discuss the breakneck production schedule. VPG had this insane bi-weekly production schedule with a new game or expansion being released every 14 days! As I said, insane. I don’t think Alan was there. He ran the seemingly daily status meetings like a king. He was good at that. Personally, I could have done without the frequent digressions about some off-the-wall and impractical project that would be impossible to make, let alone sell. I’ll admit these digressions could be intriguing. Often, they seemed more suitable for some collegiate late-night dope-session. Then again, I’m such a grouch. The meeting must have been some creative discussion that I don’t recall. What I do remember from this meeting was this unique realization amongst the four of us. Each of us, when we were 4-years old, we all had the same experience. Moreover, none of us had ever shared this experience with another person before. Yet, here we were. Being the old man, when I was 4-years old, it was called nursery school. But, to everyone else, it had been renamed pre-school or daycare. Each of our teachers told our mothers the same thing with solemn earnestness: “We think your son is mentally retarded.” Blessed be, our dear mothers all replied in the same loving way: “Oh, he is just really intense and focused when he is playing with his toys.” Thank God, our mothers spoke up and protected us. Clearly, there was something wise and loving about our mothers. For me, this moment heralded a recognition: “This is where I am supposed to be. These are my people.” As the years have gone by, this rings increasingly true. I am sure for the other guys it was much the same. Making games is so much about a combination of temperament and talent. For those of us wired this way, when one is working on a game, it really is about achieving a mental flow. Sitting in this dingy conference room elicited the sense, “I am home.” thesosbunker.substack.com/p/…