6. Playing the Blues

It was snowing, bright lights and Christmas trees were everywhere! It was December and the holidays, then it changed and fireworks went off. A sky that was filled with brilliant lights, soon faded to a meadow filled with lush green grass and beautiful blooming cherry trees. I loved the cherry blossoms!

I am at the office, staring out into the beautiful park and rolling hills down below. The pink cherry blossoms floated away as a gust of wind took them from their branches.

Carol allowed me to work again during the spring break, as they were in the final stages of the production, there was quite a bit of administrative duties to get done and coordinate. She and her team were absolutely amazing, having hired another smaller company to join in this project, everything went really smoothly. The new company not only brought talent but also fresh ideas. Again I was in awe of how well Carol was able to manage a company and project this size with such ease. I knew she must have been no more than a few years older than I was now.

My mind wandered as the copier was doing it's job. I thought about what I would be doing this summer vacation, since the project was coming to an end, there probably won't be as much work. So maybe this would be a good time to travel before I started the last year of college.

At this time, Carol, yelled out from her office that we had to have an emergency meeting and to gather in her office. When we were all standing in front of her, she said, "Another company had just sent her a promo of a game very similar to the demo that we prepared to present to Long Sing next week." She believes that the design of the game was leaked and now the others are threatening to release the product before we can present it to Long Sing. If they do that we will look like we copied their game and Long Sing will sue us for a break of contract regarding confidential information about the blockbuster movie.

Carol said, "We have two days to respond to their threats, we either give them part of the proceeds from the project or they will release their game ahead of us." She wanted to just let us know what we are facing and she wanted to hear our thoughts.

The head graphic designer named Shawn Moore was the first to speak out. "I would like to see the things that they sent." Carol responded, "Okay." She then walked back over to her computer, turned it around for us to see. My goodness, the promo looked almost exactly as ours, even the characters interaction scenes seemed like a mirror copy. The only difference was the background, which compared to the characters were very poorly created and didn't quite seem to sync. After seeing this, Shawn asked everyone to leave the room as he spoke to Carol alone. Everyone left and still talking about how similar it was and also wondering what the company will do. Shawn and Carol spent the rest of the evening discussing the plan of attack, no one else was let in on their plan.

The next two days everyone was on edge but no one dared to ask Carol and Shawn regarding the plan of attack, no one dared talk to either of them at all. They had locked themselves in their rooms and were asked not to be disturbed. The only announcement that they had given was that they were the only ones attending the meeting with Long Sing the following Monday.

The staff all felt a bit defeated. Were all the months of hard work, for naught? Have we just given away our profits to avoid complications? That Friday evening was the deadline, and as expected the promo came out.

Still though, we were a bit happy that we didn't give in to the threats of the others but now our months of hard work will only be known as just a copy of what was just released.

We all watched on the big screen as the promo was streamed and was amazed at how much better the graphics were than the version we saw previously. We felt defeated until we saw the end credits.

Produced and distributed by Long Sing entertainment in cooperation with Lok Gaming Designs.

We all did not understand why? How did it turn out like this? Carol and Shawn finally came out of their offices after the end of the promo and told us that for the last two days they had been teleconferencing with Long Sing to get them to agree to the promo and other advertisement to be being released prior to their meeting on Monday. Long Sing after viewing the demo game and seeing the promo video readily agreed. This action would be beneficial to both companies. Since the Producers of Long Sing were satisfied with the output, that was why Carol and Shawn didn't need the whole team to be present on Monday for the final hand over.

Also Carol and Shawn were investigating the theft and helped officials make sure that the perpetrators were caught. According to the surveillance camera it was the janitor that had access to our office and allowed the hacker to infiltrate our system. Instead of taking the full product they only took the incomplete version of the demo. From that demo they created the promo that they sent us and that was why the background was not in sync with the rest of the graphics. Carol continued to explain, "They thought they had disable all the security cameras before they entered but I had a separate low tech nanny cam set up when we first got this project. Even though the graphics were not great, it was still able to pick up the janitor's face and when the cops had questioned him, he divulged the perpetrator's name and where they had met. Armed that info, the thief was picked up a few hours ago. The police said that they have confiscated all the information and so we can safely send out our promo tonight.

Shawn continued, "We had originally set the launch for tonight anyways, before the deadline, just as a safety net, in case the perpetrator was not caught in time." Carol chimes in, "This way no matter what happened after the launch, we can still uphold our contract with Long Sing."

We all hollered with excitement. Finally the ordeal of the past two days, came to a close. Knowing that everything will now go as planned, we talked about where to go to celebrate! As our excitement was overflowing, Carol glances over at Shawn, with a head nod, they seem to be sharing an even more interesting story between them.

We decided to go to a karaoke bar in the city center. I called ahead and booked a private room. By the time we got there, Nick was already sitting inside quietly drinking. When he saw us, he came up and gave Carol a hug and a kiss on the forehead as usual. We all sat down and started singing and drinking. I was always a person with a low tolerance for alcohol, but it was such a happy occasion, so I didn't want to spoil everyone's fun by refusing to drink.

Just after two cocktails, I was already tipsy. It gave me courage though, so I sang louder than before and laughed like everything was the most hilarious thing I have heard, ever! After awhile, it started feeling really warm, so I excused myself. I stumbled a couple of times, I was just concentrating on getting outside. I didn't notice that someone had followed me out.