Do You Smell That?
TelltaleGames
Former Telltale Staff
Postulative science tells us that the combined cognitive resonance of twenty brains in intense concentration is enough to generate a hum detectable by some animals at a distance of over a quarter mile. Fortunately for productivity at Telltale, the frequency is too high for human hearing, but dogs were howling all over the neighborhood last week when Heather's voice floated from somewhere northeast of me.
"Dave, do you smell that?"
It's funny, when someone asks if you smell something, you stop and give a sniff or two, and you're not just checking: you actively WANT to smell the something, regardless of its nature, subtle or pungent, sweet or disgusting. There's a certain desire to affirm a common experience with another human being, to establish a camaraderie with which to ward off the chill of an empty universe -- we are not alone, you and I, because here we are together, both smelling this same something. Whatever it is.
"Yes," I said, because I did smell something. There was a faint aroma of burning, like a match in the closet or a brush fire in the hills. I figured it was probably just somebody's frontal lobe overloading, so, having established a chill-warding smell-camaraderie, I went back to work.
But the smell seemed to be getting stronger. Other people started noticing it as well, and with the idea that the brush fire in the hills might actually be a brush fire in the office came the desire to track it down, lest we all perish in a sudden Hollywood-film conflagration, blazing beams falling out of the ceiling and crashing down on the actors in reverse-fame order. People got up and started circling, noses in the air. I think I saw something similar on PBS recently, a nature show in which a pack of hyenas locate a dead hippopotamus.
It was quickly decided that the dead hippopotamus was, in fact, my very own computer. As I bent to check it, it suddenly EXPLODED IN A HUGE FIREBALL, shattering the windows and slamming me into a wall! OK, OK, no, I'm making that up. The monitor screen abruptly went black, and I cut the power immediately. No open flames were observed, but the burning smell was quite powerful by this point, and the back of the machine was noticeably hot to the touch.
The reaction from the spectators was perplexing. No shrieks of horror, no woeful condolences, in fact, no signs of surprise whatsoever. There were knowing nods, some chuckles, and a general atmosphere of camaraderie, much stronger than the smelling-the-same-thing kind, as though this were a common occurrence and I had now completed a rite of passage and become a member of some kind of secret society.
I was a bit thrown to learn that having your computer's power supply burn to a cinder is indeed a common occurrence at Telltale. It had already happened to quite a few people in the room. My machine, unbeknownst to me, was on a watch list of likely suspects in Aaron Foltz's desk drawer. It fit some sort of volatile hardware profile, and apparently everybody but me had been sitting around, quietly waiting for it to go up in flames.
Inside of two minutes, a new power supply and a screwdriver appeared on my desk. Randy Tudor taught me the secret handshake, somebody brought out cookies and cider, and there was a brief celebration while I ceremoniously repaired the stricken computer. And I was up and running again in less time than it takes coffee to cool.
I have since learned that, of the machines on the suspect watch list, only one has yet to fail. We all know where it is, and Graham McDermott is quailing at his desk as I write, the sword hanging over his quivering head by a gradually fraying thread.
Astoundingly, the fact that our development hardware roasts itself on a regular basis has not confounded our attempts to finish Out from Boneville. I am at a loss to explain this. Perhaps the gentle glow of blazing silicon is the candle that lights the way in the darkness. Perhaps... but hey, didn't you hear me? Out from Boneville is finished! Go download it, there's game to be played!
"Dave, do you smell that?"
It's funny, when someone asks if you smell something, you stop and give a sniff or two, and you're not just checking: you actively WANT to smell the something, regardless of its nature, subtle or pungent, sweet or disgusting. There's a certain desire to affirm a common experience with another human being, to establish a camaraderie with which to ward off the chill of an empty universe -- we are not alone, you and I, because here we are together, both smelling this same something. Whatever it is.
"Yes," I said, because I did smell something. There was a faint aroma of burning, like a match in the closet or a brush fire in the hills. I figured it was probably just somebody's frontal lobe overloading, so, having established a chill-warding smell-camaraderie, I went back to work.
But the smell seemed to be getting stronger. Other people started noticing it as well, and with the idea that the brush fire in the hills might actually be a brush fire in the office came the desire to track it down, lest we all perish in a sudden Hollywood-film conflagration, blazing beams falling out of the ceiling and crashing down on the actors in reverse-fame order. People got up and started circling, noses in the air. I think I saw something similar on PBS recently, a nature show in which a pack of hyenas locate a dead hippopotamus.
It was quickly decided that the dead hippopotamus was, in fact, my very own computer. As I bent to check it, it suddenly EXPLODED IN A HUGE FIREBALL, shattering the windows and slamming me into a wall! OK, OK, no, I'm making that up. The monitor screen abruptly went black, and I cut the power immediately. No open flames were observed, but the burning smell was quite powerful by this point, and the back of the machine was noticeably hot to the touch.
The reaction from the spectators was perplexing. No shrieks of horror, no woeful condolences, in fact, no signs of surprise whatsoever. There were knowing nods, some chuckles, and a general atmosphere of camaraderie, much stronger than the smelling-the-same-thing kind, as though this were a common occurrence and I had now completed a rite of passage and become a member of some kind of secret society.
I was a bit thrown to learn that having your computer's power supply burn to a cinder is indeed a common occurrence at Telltale. It had already happened to quite a few people in the room. My machine, unbeknownst to me, was on a watch list of likely suspects in Aaron Foltz's desk drawer. It fit some sort of volatile hardware profile, and apparently everybody but me had been sitting around, quietly waiting for it to go up in flames.
Inside of two minutes, a new power supply and a screwdriver appeared on my desk. Randy Tudor taught me the secret handshake, somebody brought out cookies and cider, and there was a brief celebration while I ceremoniously repaired the stricken computer. And I was up and running again in less time than it takes coffee to cool.
I have since learned that, of the machines on the suspect watch list, only one has yet to fail. We all know where it is, and Graham McDermott is quailing at his desk as I write, the sword hanging over his quivering head by a gradually fraying thread.
Astoundingly, the fact that our development hardware roasts itself on a regular basis has not confounded our attempts to finish Out from Boneville. I am at a loss to explain this. Perhaps the gentle glow of blazing silicon is the candle that lights the way in the darkness. Perhaps... but hey, didn't you hear me? Out from Boneville is finished! Go download it, there's game to be played!
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