Step 1: After your three month retreat locked away, cooking up something brilliant, you return for the monthly board meeting. Dress smart,so they know you're serious. Present your idea. A in-game washed up director, pitching seven “ unique”takes on the zombie genre. They're all playable, you proudly announce, they look unimpressed but quickly give you a thumbs up and move on.
Step 2: Given the green light, you hurry away to your desk and start the journey of creation. Figure out what your proposed seven genres are, the first three should be mostly forgettable, shooting galleries disguised as levels. A farmhouse invasion, a Romeo and Juliet spoof and a bridge battle just to name a few. They're original, you tell yourself not very convincingly. The other four should be where your creativity runs wild.
Step 3: A higher power brings a brainwave into your mind palace, take popular movies and add zombies. Fast and Furious with zombies, disaster movies with zombies and a gangland movie with zombies. These three seem to have the most potential. You run out of ideas after this one so just lean in to their American sensiblilites, the president needs your help, fate of the world hangs in balance, there’s zombies but instead of Jake Chisel, it's a woman! Gender swapping is the in thing, that's it. Seven levels done. Now all you have to do is make it.
Step 4: Sit around for three days laughing at the sheer brilliance of your ideas, then on the fourth day, buy Geoff’s lunch. He’s from programming, he’ll do it for you. Geoff takes half an hour to make it he asks for another lunch, you give him a raincheck. The boss glances at it and gives it his approval. You again rush it out excitedly testing be damned, swept up in the process and forget the terrible reception of your last project.
Step 5: The reception is even worse, tears fill your morning coffee. You don't go to the office for days. The boss rings, you ignore him. You leave the company and Montreal. You fly to Sofia and work on Assassins Creed, but it’s not the same. The boss actually wants to see your work, you shrug and feign writers block. You leave Sofia, after a week. Catch a flight to London, Watch Dogs would be a good franchise, good for the CV. Maybe. That’s the last thing you think about before the plane plummets into the ocean. At home, Geoff rings, he wants his lunch.
