“The ladies toilet isn’t closed for cleaning; it’s where we hide the testers who went insane.”
Well that answered the pertinent question of last week, there was a worrying amount of interest online about this, I hope we can consider it resolved and move on to this week.
I think I finally felt involved when I got my name on something, not a co-worker’s kill list (which I worry does exist), but the credits of a game – Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. I had wanted to be entered under ‘Intern Hero’ but settled for ‘QA Testing’ when I discovered said title doesn’t exist in the industry. Yet.
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Look! Can you see it? That’s my name! |
However, despite the testing moving away from insanity levels, other tasks in the process of publishing a game present themselves, such as my next objective - getting the age rating.
Firetop Mountain is hardly Grand Theft Auto, (although you can steal a boat and beat-up a variety of the game-world’s innocuous denizens), but like all games going onto the market it has to go through a stringent review process. Europe, North America and Australia each have their own guidelines and processes that need to be adhered to. As a plucky young work experience chap I’ve got to tread carefully as making a mistake can have significant financial costs.
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Firetop Mountain paraphernalia currently populates my desk. |
Here’s an example of what goes on - in one area the player can drink some rum and get a lovely skill and stamina boost. Under let’s say, European PEGI guides, that counts as a scenario where ‘the character gains advantage in the game by the use of tobacco or alcohol’ and therefore it can (in theory) get a higher age rating. However, from what I’ve seen so far PEGI appears to have the most clear-cut and transparent system. The amount of work required to get the American submission right is mind-boggling and if any potentially offensive content is missed out of the DVD I have to make of me playing the game then there’ll be trouble.
Along with the in-house development team, Laughing Jackal, there’s Ghostlight, a specialist JRPG publisher (that’s Japanese Role-Playing Game if you didn’t know). If you’re a fan of that genre then Ghostlight is already a household name, bringing titles like Persona and Agarest to Europe and causing shrieks of joy among fans. It was with a gleeful smile that I viewed these celebrations when I was tasked with writing the Ghostlight blog an announcing the details of the Persona 2: Innocent Sin collectors edition, you can check it all out in the links below.
It’s been an interesting second week and I’m moving on to more stuff soon including marketing, game submissions, and solving the following mysteries:
How the hell does the espresso machine work?
What discoveries are there to be found in this strange empty room?
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If you decide to explore this mysterious room, turn to p.329 To stop messing around and get back to work, go to page p.187 |
Be back here next week for more of my exciting industry adventure.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin blogpost
Laughing Jackal’s other Fighting Fantasy title: Talisman of Death
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