A Game of Murder (3 page)

“Hi, Adam.” Lorna put a pitcher of iced tea on each of the other two tables. Faith put her water pitchers next to the iced tea and waited to be introduced.

“Hi, Lorna. Cathy and Mira aren’t here yet?”

Lorna shook her head. “Not yet. I’m sure they’ll be here soon. Why don’t we sit here and wait?” Lorna gestured toward the other large table directly in front of the stage.

Adam gave one more glance toward the door before sitting down. Lorna sat opposite him and Faith beside her.

“This must be Faith,” Adam said.

“Guilty as charged,” Faith said. “I hear you write a blog.”

Lorna raised a finger to her lips.

“What did I say?” Faith lowered her voice to nearly a whisper.

Lorna leaned closer and spoke softly. “I’ll explain later.”

Adam quirked up one side of his mouth. “My blog isn’t very popular with certain members of the club.”

The door to the café swung open and two women, the opposite of one another in appearance, swept in. One was tiny, barely five feet tall, and thin. She wore a long-sleeved jacket, despite the still-warm Tucson night. Dark leggings stretched over her knees and halfway up her thighs, but still didn’t meet the hem of her patterned skirt. She, too, wore glasses, oval ones that drew attention to her large, dark eyes. A purple streak shot through the front of her short, dark hair and a silver ring pierced her lower lip. Faith finally had a real-life reference for the word gamine.

The other woman was several inches taller, heavier, with long, dark hair that hung in waves over her shoulders and cascaded down her back. She wore a tan dress, loose and flowing, that barely missed brushing the floor. The two of them headed for the table where Faith sat with Lorna and Adam.

Adam leaped out of his chair with a smile on his face. The tall one smiled back at him. The gamine gave him an appraising look.

“Faith, this is Cathy,” Adam said, indicating the tall woman.

She gave Faith a sociable smile as she sat in the chair next to Adam.

“And the lady with the purple streak is Mira,” Adam said.

Mira’s eyes briefly met Faith’s. Her face remained an indecipherable mask.

Faith was becoming overwhelmed by all the new people she’d met. She counted those who had arrived so far. Ten, including herself and Lorna. If Lorna was right, they’d reached average attendance. She was already over her limit for remembering names.

The door opened and an eleventh person entered. Barely. He was so wide he filled the doorway, a sliver of space on either side allowing him to pass through. He jiggled as he crossed the room.

“Ha, ha, ha! Blubber Belly is here!” He pushed his glasses up on his nose with an extended forefinger. “You may begin now.”

Derek stared at him the same way he would have stared at a rotting pile of garbage if one had entered the café, which the self-proclaimed Blubber Belly ignored. He lumbered over to Faith’s table and took the last available seat.

“Dennis”—Lorna emphasized his real name—“I’d like you to meet my friend Faith.”

“Nice to meet you, Dennis,” Faith said. “Why do you call yourself such an awful name?”

“I don’t think it’s awful. I think my name fits me. Ha, ha, ha! Besides, it’s easier to remember to search for Blubber Belly on YouTube than Dennis.”

“YouTube?” Faith asked.

“Dennis has his own YouTube channel. His show is quite the hit.” Mira’s voice matched her appearance, soft and sweet. Unlike the glance she'd given Faith, Mira gazed at Dennis with affection.

Derek strode up to the stage, loudly cleared his throat. “If everyone will settle down, we can get started.”

Of course Derek would be the leader, Faith thought. The way he held himself, the way the others deferred to him, should have told her that.

Conversation faded and the knot of gamers still standing broke apart as they headed toward their chairs. Faith became aware of an uncomfortably full bladder that wouldn’t wait much longer. She either had to go now or she’d have to get up in the middle of the meeting. “I’m going to use the restroom,” Faith whispered to Lorna.

Lorna nodded in acknowledgment as Faith got up. Derek gave her an irritated look. He’d just have to deal with it. He was perfectly free to start without her.

Faith didn’t dawdle in the restroom, not eager to make an enemy of Derek despite her immediate dislike of him. Finished, she hurriedly opened the door and almost ran into the one in the bright blue jacket—Paul, if she remembered his name correctly—on her way out. She fought her forward momentum so as not to crash into him. “Excuse me.”

“No problem.” Paul took a step back so she could exit.

Faith proceeded to her seat while Paul took his turn in the restroom. As soon as Paul came back to his table, Derek cleared his throat again. All conversation stopped. “Our primary order of business tonight is to decide whether we should amend the rules for the competition.”

“And here we go,” Mira muttered under her breath.

“T-TAG has awarded the Adventurer’s Torch for the best text adventure game for the past five years. Although most games entered have been written in Inform, we’ve had entries written in TADS and Hugo, and even one which used the Adventure Game Toolkit.”

The last brought snickers from Derek’s table. Faith didn’t know what any of those things were, but she assumed she’d find out eventually.

“As most of you know, all of those systems are parser-based.” His eyes fixed on Faith, indicating she was the one person in the room who probably had no idea what he was talking about. He was right.

“The player types in commands—even full sentences—and the parser figures out what the player meant. The game responds with the appropriate action or a text response. Playing a text adventure is a conversation between the player and the game engine.”

Derek stopped staring at her, swept his eyes over the group and held his arms out from his sides, palms up, as if on the verge of scooping them up. “This year we have several games developed in Twine.” He flicked a glance in Faith’s direction. “Twine games are played in a web-based environment, and each prompt gives a list of actions from which the player must choose. In other words, it’s a multiple choice test instead of an essay.”

As Derek paused for breath, the door to the Prickly Pear Cafe opened again, this time admitting a pale wraith of a girl with wispy blonde hair draped around a face with skin so white it was almost transparent.

“Sorry I’m late,” the wraith said at the same time Paul jumped up from his seat and exclaimed, “Ashley!’

Derek scowled at them until Paul settled Ashley next to him.

“As I was saying, creating a text adventure in one of the traditional gaming systems requires a knowledge of programming, attention to detail, creativity in handling unexpected responses from the player. With Twine, there is no such knowledge required. Twine games are constructed rather than programmed, and the nature of the development system severely limits player interaction.”

Mira pressed her lips together in a thin white line. Her fists rested on the table, so tightly clasped her fingernails must have been digging into her palms.

Adam fidgeted in his seat, poised to leap out of it at any moment.

Faith glanced from one to the other, then back up at Derek. He showed no reaction. Either he was oblivious to the tension, or he was very good at pretending.

“We’ve had several proposals as to what to do about this. The first is to admit Twine games and judge them equally against the parser-based games.” Derek’s face puckered up as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “The second is to create a separate category for them. That would mean awarding two Torch trophies, one for a Twine game and one for a parser game.”

Derek took a deep breath and said, with a lot more conviction, “The third option is to disallow Twine games as not meeting the spirit of the competition.”

“You can’t do that!” Adam half-rose from his chair.

Derek stared him down. “No,
I
can’t do that, but the club can vote to disallow Twine games as one of the options.”

Adam sank back into his seat. Cathy covered his hand with hers and gave him a sympathetic look.

Derek continued in an officious tone, “Do we have any discussion?”

Mira tilted her chin up. “We damn well do. I’ve read the contest rules very carefully, and there’s nothing in them specifying how the game has to be programmed, or even what the interface has to look like. That’s how games with graphics and sounds were admitted in prior years, even though they’re not pure text adventures. You just want to eliminate my game because you think I’m going to win.”

 
From her posture, Faith had no trouble envisioning the chip on Mira’s shoulder. The discussion she’d overheard prior to the meeting was starting to make more sense.

“We all know why that is,” Paul said from the other table. “Your boyfriend gave you some help by posting a rave review to his blog—a blog read by lots of non-gamers who are clueless as to what a text adventure is. And we all know how you got the rave review.” He smirked at Adam.

Faith studied Adam and Mira, with Cathy sitting between them. She was fairly certain Paul had gotten the social dynamics on that one wrong.

Dennis pushed his glasses up with his finger again. “I’m writing a Twine game, and I don’t think it’s fair this close to the contest to change the rules. My game might beat yours, too. Ha ha ha!”

“I see another problem.” Lorna spoke for the first time. “How many others are writing Twine games?” No hands went up. “See, with only two entrants, it’s really not a good competition if we split them off into a separate division.”

“You’re right. That’s a good reason not to split them into a separate contest,” Derek said. “Or to consider them at all.”

The young Asian raised his voice. “I say let the Twine games in.”

“And I say not,” the bushy-haired one said. “They’re not good enough to be real games.”

A twinge tweaked Faith’s stomach as she thought of a reply to that. Speaking to a group wasn’t her favorite thing. Being a newcomer didn’t make it any easier. But she felt compelled to add some reason to this debate. “I know this is my first meeting”—and possibly her last—“but isn’t it obvious that if the Twine games aren’t good enough, they won’t win anyway? Why not let the judging decide?”

Mira nodded and gave her a grateful look. The other table responded with grumbling that carried notes of dissension.

Derek stroked his chin as he surveyed the room. Then, deciding the outburst had lasted long enough, he spoke in a thunderous voice and drowned out the mutterings. “I think it’s time to take a vote. First of all, do we agree the Twine games should not have their own division?”

There were lots of nods, but it wasn’t clear what the consensus was.

“Take a formal vote,” Lorna said.

“Okay,” Derek said. “How many are in favor of a separate division for Twine games?”

Only two hands went up: the Asian man’s and that of the man with the potato nose.

“There will be no separate division in the competition for Twine games,” Derek announced. “Now we’ll vote on whether to admit the Twine games to the competition at all. All in favor?”

Faith counted the hands. Mira, Cathy, Adam, and Lorna at her table. The two who had voted for the separate division at the other table. Not knowing whether her vote would count or not—there’d been no mention of being a dues-paying member in order to vote—she tentatively raised her hand.

“It appears Twine games will be allowed in this year’s competition.” Derek crossed his arms across his chest and frowned. “Is there any other business?”

The Asian raised his hand.

“Yes, Rok?”

Rok. She’d have to remember the name.

“I’m starting a workshop on game creation this weekend at the Miller-Golf Links branch of the library. I’m going to teach the basics of both Twine and Inform for any who are interested.”

Derek uncrossed his arms, put his hands on his hips, elbows jutting out. “Thank you, Rok.”

From the other table, Faith heard someone say, “Great. Just what we need. More amateurs.”

* * *

Hope and Lorna emerged from the kitchen carrying plates of food. Lorna put a dish filled with nopalito salad, to which the fried chicken had been added, in front of Faith. The bright green of the salad and the dark red of the merlot chicken, along with the aroma wafting up from the dish, a combination of savory and sweet, filled her senses. Hunger rumbled in Faith’s stomach, filled her mouth with saliva in anticipation of the coming food.

“This looks great.” Adam picked up his fork and stabbed a piece of chicken.

Lorna put the last plate in front of Cathy. “I’ll be right back with your salad,” she said to Mira.

Mira smiled up at her. “I’m not in a hurry.”

Hope finished serving the other table and joined Lorna on her way back to the kitchen.

“Thanks for standing up for us,” Cathy said.

Faith paused, a forkful of lentils in front of her mouth. “It was only fair. Besides, the attitude of the guys was starting to annoy me.” She glanced at Adam. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“No offense taken.” Adam licked some ruby-colored sauce from his upper lip.

“What kind of games do you write, Cathy?” Faith asked.

Cathy put her fork down on her plate and picked up her iced tea. After she’d taken a sip, she replied, “I don’t write games. I’m a graphic designer. Mira and I are thinking of trying to sell some of the games she writes, and I’m going to add graphics to make them more appealing.”

Faith perked up at this. She’d been looking for someone who could do custom graphics—logos and fonts and backgrounds—for her website customers. “What kinds of graphics do you do?”

“My day job is as an art teacher in a middle school. However, since the contract is for three days a week, I’ve been looking for something to fill in with.”

“We ought to talk,” Faith said. “I might have some work for you.”

Lorna returned with the last two plates, one for herself and the plate of greens for Mira. Mira examined the tiny cup of oil and vinegar, sniffed at it, then poured the dressing over the greens.