My name is Shawn Whitley, and I’m going to be helping out around here with with (defun games ())’s… fan engagement. Expect to see me soon on the Discord channel, Reddit, and anywhere folks are talking about Spycursion.
I love MMOs and have been playing them since Ultima Online. Most of the ones that followed were variations on that same theme and genre, and after 20+ years, I’ve gotten a little tired of the fantasy MMOs. Unfortunately, it’s been hard to find a science fiction that clicked for me. I still wanted to play a character, not run a starship. I like near-future, dystopic science fiction more than deep space, forgotten-earth-themed games.
The closest I got to that experience was pen and paper games (hello, fellow kids). I played Traveler, which allowed for some roleplaying and character development, but was still divorced from a modern reality.
The best dystopic game I’ve run across is Paranoia, which brings me to how I got involved with defun. Dennis (den) Drown and I became friends in junior high. He was a transfer student who came in halfway through the year. I invited him to be lab partners with me a couple of other nerdier friends of mine, and before long we realized we had a ton in common. We quickly bonded over (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons and Commodore 64s (later 128s, not to brag), and ultimately went on to become college roommates. With no exaggeration at all, Dennis is the best GM/DM/referee around, and the Paranoia game he ran was imaginative, bewildering, and most of all fun.
So, in our first conversation in a few years, Dennis told me about Spycursion- and it resonated with me: Post-apocalyptic, Mr. Robot-esque hacking and top .1% villainy. He, Scott, and Mauricio are building the game I’ve wanted to play since I knew what an MMO was.
I’m not a developer; I’m an enthusiast. And while I won’t be doing any coding, I do feel inspired to help share the feel and function of the game. And I want to do that with the buy-in and enthusiasm of all of you who have been following these guys on their journey to create it.
In my short time on board, I can tell you that their passion is to make a game unlike any of us have seen before: a smart, immersive, exciting multiplayer experience. I look forward to hearing everyone’s comments and responding to everyone’s questions..
