u/Lost-Werewolf9046

In the early 90s a video store clerk job was a good job for a frustrated creative in their early 20s. For one it gave you a lot of time to watch movies (I’d play 4 movies a shift), daydream and ideate. And it also gave you a lot of insight into how people related to genre and tropes. You’d see hundreds of people a day, choosing and dragging you into their selection process.

And it provided you with something which is in short supply today.

Boredom.

There’s a creative power in boredom. I’ve rediscovered it myself, I hang out my uncle in an elderly care home, a blessedly boring place.

But black to video stores.

There was a steady stream of characters, great creative fuel.

My favourite were the two kids who came in every week.

“Do you have any new whores!”

“It’s pronounced horror.”

I quickly gave up trying to correct them, why be pedantic? They were hilarious.

And there was the multivalent guy, if he came in with a date it was going to be romantic comedy, if he came in alone it would be an “Erotic Thriller” (this genre only existed because people were too embarrassed to be seen in the “naughty room in the back”

And there was another thing about being a video store clerk, it was a road to nowhere, oblivion beckoned.

Robin completed university, he was a video store clerk aspiring to be a professional writer.

I studied game design at University, which is to say that I enrolled for a Science degree and skipped all my classes gaming and designing games until they kicked me out.

So neither of us got the corner office with the parking spot on graduation. Neither of us was pining for it either nor did we want to be working retail forever.

In a recent interview Quentin Tarantino (who was also a video store clerk) confessed to something similar, he didn’t want to turn 30 and still be rewinding tapes.

When you’re in that position taking creative risks doesn’t feel dangerous, the biggest danger was sleepwalking through life.

The boat back to “normal” has already been burned.

So why not start a games company?

I also need to talk about Suspect Video. I didn’t work there but Robin recommended it to me. It was in downtown Toronto, so I had to schlep to it by public transport. It looked like a VHS survivalist bunker, narrow passages made of horizontal and vertical racks of VHS cassette boxes.

In the back there was a Hong Kong section, the motherlode. I’d rent them by the armload and watch three of them every night, falling asleep in the middle of the third one almost without fail.

There was something about the selection process and the time pressure (the tapes needed to be returned promptly) that forced you to consume media differently back then.

So when we were designing Shadowfist I was stacking shelves and rewinding tapes AND raiding another video store for tapes and gorging them.

If you’d cleaved my head open with an axe at the time black magnetic tape would have splurted out of it.

There’s another dimension to this which I haven’t mentioned BBSes and Zines which were a thing back then. They were also critical to our creative careers (Robin and I met on a BBS) but they deserve a whole other post.

There was a guy, I can’t remember his name. He would come into the office and play Shadowfist with us in 1995.

Back then I would play Shadowfist until 3 or 4 in the morning every day and sleep in until noon. This was a habit and a tactic. I didn’t really want to run a company, I just wanted to create games and play them, Daedalus Entertainment was this nuisance I had to navigate in order to do that (which is why it exploded).

Back to the guy, I believe he was Egyptian or Lebanese by ethnicity but he was channeling the Godfather. He would drive around Seattle in a Cadillac playing Frank Sinatra music all the time. But you could tell he was this harmless nerd and gaming fanatic like us putting on airs.

He walked into our office one day, to call him cocky would be an understatement. But I liked his energy and invited him to join our gaming group in the office.

So he came in regularly and play Shadowfist and Feng Shui with us into the small hours of the morning.

Every time he came to visit, he would lay something down on our reception table. At night our reception area was unlocked and unmanned (my sister manned it 9 to 5, she was the one effectively running the company and putting out the fires I frequently lit.

This was before smartphones, business people carried “daytimers” basically small notebook ledgers where they would keep their diary, phone numbers and calendar. It was common practice to unburden yourself of these things when you got somewhere and put it down on a table (they were quite bulky).

I assumed that was what he was doing.

Then one day I was walking past reception I glanced at it and saw what it was properly.

It was a loaded automatic pistol.

I freaked out, why is there a loaded firearm sitting on a table in my unlocked reception area?

He replied that it was due to reasons of comfort, playing Shadowfist with a loaded automatic pistol tucked under his blazer would make him uncomfortable.

I was a bit dumbstruck, I don’t want him playing Shadowfist with a holstered firearm, sure, but there’s a larger thing here, I don’t want him brining a firearm into the office and leaving it in reception.

He genuinely didn’t understand my concern. But you created Shadowfist, it’s about shooting so I didn’t think you would mind.

But this is dangerous.

Oh, this is nothing he replied the serious firepower is in the trunk.

This video is an excerpt from a Shadowfist zoom party where I shared this story, outlined a concept of a work in project (a new 18 card Shadowfist mini expansion) and a Ask Me Anything session.

https://youtu.be/GgP187S88NQ

Yes, I'm that Jose Garcia.

I stayed away from Shadowfist after my spectacular flame out with Daedalus in the late 90s but I've frequently "looked over the fence" to check in on how it was going wistfully.

Recently I moved to Northern Spain (basically back to my families roots) and I was aware that the new owners are in Oviedo so I reached out to them and they invited me to come up and play Shadowfist.

To be honest I didn't know what to expect, I feared that it might be awkward and weird.

So I bought a return ticket in advance, it gave me a natural excuse to exit early if I felt uncomfortable.

They greeted me at the bus station at noon, we had some brilliant Asturian food and got to playing and telling stories.

It was a surreal experience, I created this game and played it for 30-60 hours a week solid for years and had a few 20+ game winning streaks in duels.

But yesterday I was easily the worst player in the room and had to stop and read the text of half of the cards being played.

I did lots of head scratching.Modern Shadowfist is more gnarly and intricate.

But it still retains its essential character, my original design intent back when I was sketching out this game with mocked up photocopies on the carpet of my mothers dining room is still there.

Not because I possess some over riding genius but because the players and designers who have poured their hearts into this game over the last thirty years understood the spirit of the game and brought it back to life from the dead again and again.

I wasn't much of a competitor but I was able to tell them lots of stories about those early years.

We laughed a lot and I think it did me and them a lot of good.

The games carried on til dawn and I urged them to go home and get some sleep but they escorted me to the station and waited with me until I boarded the bus home.

I really like those guys.

They want to support the continuation of the game and to recruit new players.

It's not an easy task, Shadowfist may have used up all of its nine lives but they are committed to trying.

I found that very heartwarming and I'll be visiting them again up in Oviedo (or hosting them down here where I live now in Leon) for some more games and to share ideas.