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Yes, I'm sure you've heard the story by now. But let
me tell it the way it happened.
First things first: I never had anything against the Developer
of Revenant: the Putrescence, and I've never had any problems
with Revenant, either. In fact, it was the first Black Dog game
I ever played, and while Spectre: the Annihilation is
my true love, in some ways you could say that Revenant was my
first love. And you always remember your first love, even if
she did you wrong, or filed for a restraining order, or tried
to have you arrested for date rape, or whatever.
But, no, Revenant never did me wrong. And neither had its
Developer, Jason O'Kelly. Some of its butt-monkey writers
past and present may have had some unkind things to say
on alt.games.blackdog, ELD or other sites where I had the massive
displeasure of trying to raise concerns with them and being called
rude names in return. But aside from nasty jibes that seemed
more aimed at the matter as a whole, rather than me as an individual,
I have never, ever had a bad experience with O'Kelly, himself.
Sadly, this last Darque-Con, that was to change.
Let me set the scene for you: if you've never been to Darque-Con,
you are seriously missing out on one of the greatest conglomerations
of gamers and gaming to be found anywhere. The place is just
electric with the joy that is gaming, and whatever you find of
interest, you will find it there guaranteed. Plus,
you'd never think a city like Milwaukee could ever be as charming
as it is when a couple thousand gamers are walking its streets,
eating in its restaurants, drinking in its bars and cohabitating
past the point of health and safety regulations in its hotels.
(Not to mention lolling in their drunk tanks, but we'll get
to that in due time.)
However, there is a less germane side to Darque-Con, and that's
what happens when you pile a bunch of tired, overworked and underpaid
game writers and developers into way too few cars, make them
spend a whole day and night setting up, and then have them alternate
between walking the floor to talk shop and sell stuff (and keep
an eye peeled for shoplifters), and running demo game after demo
game after demo game for seriously ungrateful people. Oh, and
they have to be doing this for way more than eight hours at a
pop?
People get testy and lose their shit very easily after having
to deal with that kind of work schedule. And there seems to be
a weird ratio that stipulates that the more people you have there,
the less amused you are and the less people there actually are
who do anything. The small operations, who only ever have two
people in a dinky little stall, seem to be having a blast, while
the folks over at Witches of the Shoreline who took up
about 1/3 of the floor space to sell cardboard crack to grade
schoolers are in no mood whatsoever to answer ANYTHING,
even though they have people there whose only purpose, so far
as I could see, was to stand there and pretend to be enjoying
the latest release of You-Know-What.
(The word is "shill," ladies and gentlemen.)
So there's the folks from Black Dog. They've got the first
booth you run into, a lot of people who actually volunteered
for this kind of cruel and inhuman punishment, and none of them
are in a good mood. I was led to understand that they didn't
get out of their rendezvous point until much later than they
should have, and then hit Chicago at rush hour, so they didn't
make it to Milwaukee until WAY late, and had to spend the whole
night and into the morning getting set up. And for that they
have my sympathies.
That does not, however, excuse what happened, especially considering
the Developer in question actually ditched the whole show around
eight so he could go "check out the hotel." He then
proceeded to go on a special K bender that could have shamed
Christian Slater, and narrowly avoided getting nailed by the
police again. I hear he came staggering onto the convention
floor at around 5 am, red-eyed as fuck, and asked where the white
women were at; I'm sure Mel Brooks would have found that incredibly
funny
Enter me and the other Spectral Undertakingz staff that came
along for the ride. We got there bright and early, smiling ear
to ear, and generally looking forward to the day. We were going
to try and get an impromptu Spectre LARP going if we could find
the hallspace, and maybe get some fans together to run a game
back in the room that night. All kinds of fun stuff to keep this
game going, in spite of no support whatsoever from a company
that's more content to put out frankly-crappy books for its "big
three" games, or sell us on some weird anime fantasy world
where every single signature character is either a drag queen,
a queer, a necrophiliac or a pedophile, and license out their
property to make computer games that seem to be Quake with revenants
instead of campers
But I digress. I had all these plans, and I didn't get to
do any of them. And that's because the Revenant Developer decided
he wanted to give me a hassle instead of be a gentleman.
What happened? Well, of course, the first place we went to
was Black Dog. We walked around the floor they had, amused ourselves
looking for typos in their new books and had a good laugh watching
their new video game being demonstrated for slack-jawed fans.
And, yes, I'll admit we did start singing "Smack my Bitch
Up" a little loudly when the dude who was running the demo
changed the character over to a buxom wench and had her make
out with a girl and then shoot her full of holes with her uzi,
but that's hardly annoying behavior, surely. (And we DID stop
when the dude told us to so there.)
But then we ran into the Revenant Developer. O'Kelly was standing
by the latest batch of Superpowered books, talking to a bunch
of fans who were all obviously trying to coat their noses with
his fecal matter. But I had some REAL questions for him, and
he didn't want to answer them.
So when were they going to reissue Spectre? "Uh well,"
he started to say, and then he saw my name tag and he went from
ten to minus-sixty in a single second.
Well? I asked, and he wrinkled his nose, shook his head and
said "We had to cancel the game because it wasn't making
any money-"
Oh, cancel it? See, I was under the impression it was on quote-endquote
hiatus? That's what they told us, anyway.
"Well, it was canceled. Sorry."
But there were a lot of fans.
"Well, not enough."
How much is enough?
"Enough is enough, and you guys were I'm sorry, but you
were statistically insignificant."
Wonderful way to talk about dedicated fans.
"Look, man, we have to balance out bank accounts at the
end of the day. You do understand that, right?"
Well, yeah, but let's face it, none of these new books for
Revenant are selling worth a damn, much less worth a damn. Why
not use that money to bring back a classic game and offset any
losses by-?
"FUCK! OFF!" he screamed. He got right in
my face, balled up his fists and started to foam at the mouth.
I am not joking.
But, of course, I smiled and asked if that was a come on.
Then he hit me.
Now, normally I would have defended myself, but he got a good
one in, and I fell to the floor. Suddenly, everyone was all over
me. I think I heard Marty Shepherder yell "Boot party!"
and suddenly every single Black Dog employee, volunteer and fan
available were all over me and my posse, kicking the crap out
of us like we were kittens in a certain women in prison movie.
And do you know what the guards did? All those security personnel
who are supposed to be there to stop this kind of behavior?
They laughed. And then they slowly waded into the pile, got me
and my friends out and said we were to blame? Can you
believe that?
Of course, we got it all straightened out, eventually, and
were allowed to return to the con once I got out of the hospital
- on the last day - but we were told to stay away from Black
Dog "just in case." And I don't think anything happened
to Black Dog at all, really. (Their Hitler Youth fan club said
some of their staffers were sent away, but only for the day,
as they needed everyone possible.)
Now, I could have pressed charges, but in the interest of
being a good sport and recognizing that everyone was really stressed
out, I declined. That and, while I think they've made a number
of really bad creative mistakes of late - most notably canceling
the best game ever made - I do respect Black Dog, and I want
them to grow to a point where all their games are as good as
Spectre, all their Developers are as good as the late Jessica
Shornheart and the still living (we hope?) Rich Glumsky, wherever
he is, now, and people like Jason O'Kelly, Connor Claptrapp and
most of the asshats they have writing for them are all kicked
out and allowed to go peddle their "talents" to cardboard
crack pushers like Witches of the Shoreline. And if I sue them
and take them for all they own, like my legal advisors have said
I should, they'll go bankrupt and then go nowhere, respectively.
So no, they won't be seeing me in court. But I will urge everyone
who cares about truth and a damn good game to keep the pressure
on. We could all get Spectre back within a year if we tightened
the screws. So what are we waiting for?
 Yours Truly:
E. James Tourmaline
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