A Story of (defun games ())

Hi, I’m Scott.

I’m the founder of (defun games ()), lead developer on Spycursion, and an all-around nice guy (sometimes). I’m also the guy who wrote those last two blog posts… and then seemingly disappeared for more than six months. I’d like to apologize to our loyal fans — all three of them — for that long absence; a lot has happened since our last update! But before I get to that, let’s start at the beginning.

It’s early in the morning on some idle Tuesday in June of 2017, and I can’t sleep. Haven’t slept all night, in fact, not for lack of trying — because my brain has ideas, dadgum it, and this time it is steadfastly refusing to let them go. The ideas swirling around concern a video game, the likes of which I’ve never seen, but would love to play. This imaginary game centers around hacking, but it’s the real kind, not the Hollywood kind. And it’s multiplayer, so players can learn from and play with and betray each other. And there are corporations, and an economic system, and a programming language, and blackmailing of politicians, and, and, and…

And the ideas just keep coming, until my then-girlfriend/now-wife wakes up so I can blather to her about all of this. She, in her fresh-eyed wisdom, tells me to take notes. Those notes, the child of sleep deprivation and a night full of eureka moments, would later morph into the game design document for Spycursion.

Having been an IT guy in a past life, I started Spycursion’s development with the pieces that came most naturally to me, meaning the backend… or, in other words, the logical parts that nobody outside of other game developers will see and are completely useless for proving that a game actually exists. (So if you were ever confused about the lack of screenshots, you now have an explanation.) In hindsight, this was a mistake, but we’ve been trying to fix it. Here are a few recent screenshots, for the curious:

Truth be told, the journey to this point hasn’t been easy. Since November, teammates have come and gone, we made multiple significant code rewrites, we redesigned our website, and, oh yeah, I got married. (It turns out that planning a wedding is just a little bit of a distraction from writing code.) And yet, in the judgment of this possibly slightly insane author, it’s all going remarkably well. We recently recruited a community manager, whose name is Dan. I’ll let Dan introduce himself later, but he’s going to help put more content out there so our three loyal fans don’t get upset.

I’ve never been one for thinking small; it’s a blessing and a curse. Spycursion isn’t small, either. (Obviously, or it would be done by now and we would’ve sold about eight copies on Steam.) But what it is, I believe, is unique — the best combination of indie creativity with AAA quality… or at least B+ quality. And because we’re a small team making a big game, we need your help to make it real. The time will come when we launch a Kickstarter campaign and ask for your support. For now, though, we ask for your support in three other ways:

1. 1. Subscribe to our mailing list. You see those little forms in the sidebar and footer? They’re nice, aren’t they? They’re also our metric for when to start crowdfunding. The more subscribers we get, the sooner we can launch.
   2. Spread the word. Want Spycursion to succeed? Great, so do we! Tell all your friends that you want to play it with them. We’ve got some social media links in the footer, if that’s your thing.
   3. Join our team! Our most pressing need (as of July 2018) is for another developer or two, but if you think you can contribute in other ways, drop us a line.

Thank you, sincerely, for being a (prospective?) fan, and my apologies again for the radio silence. We at (defun games ()) are dedicated to making sure that your patience pays off.