Exit/Decoded Text

This is the full text that appears in *Exit*, when all messages are decoded and put together.

## WORK IN PROGRESS

> In 1983, my home received a phone call. My mother answered it but then passed it along to me. My friend Josh wanted me to come over to his house. He exclaimed he had something amazing to show me. So, I made the three block jog and walked in to Josh’s room to see a game system hooked up to the television in his room. It was an Atari-5200. He greeted me excitedly and handed me one of the joysticks. I was ten years old at the time and the video game world was new to me, but as we played Pitfall, Space Invaders and Dig Dug I was captivated by the simple graphics, the bright colors, and dark atmospheres.
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> We stayed up late playing that system and Josh’s mother came in and asked if I was spending the night. It was getting late, so I said ‘yes.’ I was set up to sleep on the couch. After everyone fell asleep, I snuck into Josh’s room and began playing again all the way until six A.M. Josh’s mom came in and scolded me for staying up late, waking up Josh who immediately joined in playing the game system. Needless to say, I fell head over heels for video games. The simple shapes, the stories, the colors, I was captivated; a fear years later I was able to get my hands on a Commodore where I discovered it wasn’t so much of a game system as it was a console.
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> Booting up to find a blue screen with text. I knew I was supposed to do something with this, but I had no idea what. I bought a Commodore manual in hopes of finding what secret games were hidden inside the system, but I never found them. What I did find however, is that with a few lines of code I could draw a line and make it change color. I could play a one tone sound through the speakers. In the mere span of five years I went from playing video games to garner interest in creating them.
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> I also loved cartoons and storytelling. So, I doodled three characters in one of my school books. Those characters stayed there and went on mostly ignored, packed away in boxes while I continued my life. Over the next ten years I continued my education, worked at a few places, fell in love and had my heart broken a few times. I still made games, but they were all simple and small. I got a job at an electric company maintaining the front end for their website.
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> I didn’t enjoy it but that was where the money was. I still dabbled in design, drawing and game development but I was too afraid to take the risk to create, let alone publish a game. One night, alone, working late, I was playing around with code for a game concept when I heard a voice. It was Amber, a coworker a few cubicles down. She was impressed by my creations and suggested I try and get one of my games published.
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> I hesitated but eventually she convinced me to give it another shot. I went to digging through my old boxes and found the sketches I did long ago. I decided to make a learning game for kids. It’s something I had a knack for and learning games were kind of popular in 1997. I spent late evenings working on the game. But this relatively simple concept began getting very complicated. I realized to make this work I was going to need more time to work on it.
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> I would have to quit my job, a huge risk. My apartment was running out and so I took the plunge. I quit my job, moved in with my grandmother in Virginia and started working on my game, Party Country. During that time a lot of game engines were moving into 3D. But I still preferred the simple shapes and colors of the pixel art and development for 3D engines was way out of my league.
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> For three years, I worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week in that dusty basement, I wrote code illustrated and animated. I obsessed over these characters, their thoughts, their experiences, our worlds were parallel. Original plans for the characters was they would learn early development lessons, like brushing teeth, doing chores, being a good friend and telling silly jokes together. I became so excited about this project that I put one hundred orders of one of the characters to be produced. From a business standpoint, that was a huge mistake, trying to sell toys for a product that hasn’t found an audience yet.
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> That was tough for me. I lost out on a lot of social interaction. I fell into debt and I didn’t give enough time to my now ex girlfriend. It seemed like my life revolved around this game and these characters. Finally, in early 1999 I finished the game, built out a demo and sent it out to friends of mine. They enjoyed it and their kids loved the characters.
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> I began looking for ways of publishing. At first, I tried making copies of the game on CD. I handed it out. But no one really wanted them. The internet was fairly new during those days and it was impossible to monetize without financial backing or payment support. I reached out to just about all the publishers available at the time and I didn’t hear back.
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> Out of all of them, two responded. One that was asking too large of a cut of profits because they didn’t have adequate reproduction capabilities. The other letter stated that my characters weren’t appealing and the storyline was too childish. I think this was probably due to the more edgier video games coming out in the late 90s. I tried not to lose hope. I reached out to a friend’s cousin, who owned a small computer outlet.
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> I convinced him to allow me to sell copies of the game in his store. A few weeks later I had checked in and only two copies had been sold. I felt disappointed, but I still had hopes that some sales would pick up. I returned a month later to the store to find all the copies had been moved without my consent to the bargain bin. Heartbroken, exhausted, and reaching the end of my hopes, I went to sketching up things for the characters and began to start work on a storyline, but this was a creative area I wasn’t familiar with.
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> My grandmother was experienced in Virginian folklore and thought she could help me with some ideas. She offered some old ritual books and taught me a few incantations to help me with good luck. I don’t really believe any of that stuff, but anything to help I guess. I explained my worries about charting into a new territory I knew nothing about. My grandmother just smiled, handed me a very old snow globe and said ‘patience is key.’
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> I left it on my desk as I continued to work. A few weeks later, I noticed strange things happening, monitors would come on at night, interactions that I don’t remember programming occurred and bugs would suddenly disappear. I finished the game and put it out once again to developers. I waited months and no reply.
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> All my attempts to save the universe I created was completely futile. I sometimes ask myself, why do I keep shouting this message if no one can hear it. Why do I keep beating my head against a wall to make something work when no one even knows it exists? Is there any other reason for creators to create besides outside validation? Why do I even bother trying?
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> ...A few years passed. I had accepted that I probably would never be anything more than a corporate developer. I became less creative and more complacent in my front end work. Years later I received a letter in the mail from a young man inspired by Party Country. He stated that it had inspired him to go into game development as well. The letter was not something I expected. Someone had actually listened to the story, I had actually inspired someone; I’ve been reflecting on this for a long time. I guess, at the end of the day, sales figures.
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> Likes. Subscribers. Favorites. Watchers. They are all just numbers. I think I got a little wrapped up in how many people I reached instead of how strong my message was. I never did reach any real monetary or social success with Party Country, but if I changed one or two lives, then maybe it was worth it. I am much older now and at peace with myself, satisfied with what I have achieved in my life. I used to worry that I would never leave behind anything of value when I leave this universe but if Party Country is remembered by the few people who experienced it, and it inspires others to create new ideas and stories. Then its existence is as real as the universe that it motivated.
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