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I WORKED ON AND OFF all day Tuesday, adding more detail to the apartments, adding spells and equipment to all the enemies, and just generally fleshing out the world. At the end of the day it was hard to see exactly what I had done, but my mind was exhausted.
Wednesday started out the same, but Ben showed up at my door with a bag of burgers and fries around noon. “You free?” he asked. He’d forgotten his mask completely this time.
“Just working on my game,” I said.
He grinned. “Feels good to say that, huh?”
I didn’t answer right away. This part wasn’t entirely novel to me. It was just work. I’d wasted whole years on games before. This felt a little different, but....
Ben’s face fell at my hesitation. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! Come on in. Pepsi’s in the fridge.”
He dropped lunch on the counter and made himself a drink. Then he went right back to probing questions. “Aren’t you having fun?”
“Sure,” I said. “But you know me. I’ve done this a hundred times before. It’s the next step—publishing—that I’ve never gotten past.”
“Getting paid?” he guessed.
“That would be nice,” I said. “No. That would be awesome. But I’m not even there. I just want my game to be played. I want strangers to experience the things I’ve made. Does that make sense?”
He stared at me—almost glared at me—before he answered. “I’m a writer, Dave. I have unpublished stories by the dozens. Of course it makes sense. So what are you waiting for?”
I didn’t understand his question. “Huh?”
“I keep watching for your beta invite. When are you going to publish your game? We had it playable two days ago.”
“It’s... yeah... what?”
“You can publish it to Early Access. There’s thousands of games in open beta. Most of them are barely playable. Yours is already good.”
I shrugged. I barely knew what he was talking about. “I’ve just been adding pieces. I didn’t think it was close to ready.”
Ben shook his head. “Nothing’s ever ready. That’s why you call it beta.”
“I haven’t even looked into that. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Open it up,” he said. When I hesitated, he flapped his hands at me, shooing me toward my laptop. I had the game open already. He nodded. “Good. Go to the Edit Game page.”
It was a lot busier now than it had been when I started. I had dozens of Characters and Locations, hundreds of Items and Actions. I’d gotten very familiar with all those editing pages.
On the top right corner of every edit page was a big green button that said, “Play!” I used that one a lot for testing. But here on the main game page, there was a dropdown under the Play button that I hadn’t much noticed before. It said, “Private.”
“There!” Ben said, jabbing a finger at the dropdown. “Click—”
I clicked it. There were four options: Private, Closed, Open, Live. I looked to Ben.
He looked back at me. “You haven’t read the instructions, have you?
“I’ve been working.”
“Click on ‘Open,’” he said.
“What will it do?”
“Just click it!”
“But my game isn’t ready!”
“That’s what I asked you from the first. What are you waiting for?”
“It’s just parts. There’s no story. There’s nowhere special to go. There’s barely even quests yet.”
He snorted. “You just described Minecraft. Besides, that’s why you’re clicking ‘Open’ instead of ‘Live!’ Everyone who tries it will know it’s unfinished. I try six or seven open beta games a day. Most of them are garbage, but some are real gems. I’m watching them with interest.”
“But—” I didn’t have an argument. I just knew the game wasn’t ready.
“I get it,” Ben said, relenting. “Look... are you busy today?”
“Just doing this.”
He glanced at his watch, then nodded. “Then me, too,” he said. “We’ll get your story added and make it good enough for Early Access.”
“In one day?”
He laughed. “You have forty-four characters and sixty locations. And I know you’ve got random encounters working. I’ll write a dozen quest chains, and help you fix what’s broken. Just add me to the project as a collaborator.”
“I can do that?” I asked.
He sighed. “Yeah. I’ll show you how. And then you’re going to spend some time reading the documents.”