Lights, Camera, Curses!

When Stick and I are shopping, we like to look at the PC games for sale and see how we’re connected to each one. Stick will point out games that he worked on, or that his friends and former Cyberlore coworkers worked on. I like to find hard copies of games I’ve beta tested.

I sometimes announce “Stick! Look! I got a review copy of this one! And it’s so mainstream it’s on the shelf in a real store! It’s like I’m a real games reviewer!” although it’s just likely that I’ll say “I wrote asking for about a review copy of this one, but I’m so small-time didn’t even get a thanks-for-your-interest.” Freelancing writing is quite a bit like being manic-depressive.

Anyway, I’d heard vague rumors the download-only Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses game was now available in a physical form, but yesterday was the first time I’d seen it in a box! I’ve helped to test a bunch of games but this is the first time my name has been in the credits, so it was extra exciting.

(There may have been some shrieking and possibly some dancing in the casual-games aisle. Maybe.)

I had it in my hand, but I realized the ridiculousness of buying a game when I already have own a CD of that game. Our finances are not the greatest, and anyway my mother has instilled in me a horror of buying photogenic new things when there is a Perfectly Good One at home.

“You should get it,” Stick said. “Eventually we’ll want to have a house and we’ll want to display all the games we contributed to, and won’t it be sad if you have to buy it on eBay for a thousand dollars because it’s out of print by then?”

Good point.

I opened the package at home, and I can’t full convey my raptures over the insert in this game that advertises Resorting To Danger, another game I worked on.

Stopping only to make a Facebook album of the Lights… packaging, I put everything carefully back in the box, and put the game on the shelf, right next to my review copy of the Princess Bride Game. That’ll go on our future home’s display wall too, I think.