News
It Is Warm In Signal, So Politely Remove Your Clothes
A tree fell in Kirkland, Washington on Tuesday, July 24, 2012. Since then, it has been warmer than usual inside the offices of Signal Studios.
Of course, there is more to this story.
There we all were that Tuesday afternoon: Working away on Ascend: New Gods, among other things, when the orange-clad construction workers down the street clutzed into a large tree. The poor tree fell onto something of great consequence, for my monitors suddenly went black while I animated. My computer ceased to hum, and a collective groan sprinkled with a few choice expletives filled the air around me.
All power to our office had been knocked out and would not be restored anytime soon. A looming milestone and a lovely summer afternoon in Seattle made for an interesting dilemma.
Work on Ascend simply could not continue without electricity. Temporarily switching to pen and paper would have made for a fascinating experiment in modern video game development, but my suggestion to do so was met with polite laughter from my colleagues. The facts remained: There's a videogame to be made, and we need electricity to do it.
But it was a stunning summer afternoon in Seattle that Tuesday. How nice it would be to take the rest of the day off and enjoy a rare Pacific Northwest encounter with the sun.
A few of us went down the street to play two-on-two basketball while the decision makers stewed: Myself and Nick Kondo, two animators, and Chris Miller and Steven Carroll, two artists. After Chris and I wiped the court with Nick and Steve (10-2), we returned to Signal with the news that we were all free to go home for the rest of the day.
Milestone or not, I'm not ashamed to admit I rejoiced then. But now I bake slightly as I write this.
Power was restored to Signal by the time we returned to work the next morning, but unbeknownst to us, temperature control inside our office had not been. It is now Friday, July 27, 2012, and there are rooms inside Signal so stifling that to sit in them is to sweat and suffocate in air so thick with humidity that being trapped inside a 350-degree oven would seem pleasant in comparison. Needless to say, ripped up jeans and a wife beater has been my work uniform for most of this week.
I do not know if relief is on the way – such privileged news rarely reaches my lowly ears. I have overheard that our property manager -- the alpha and the omega when it comes to Signal's indoor climate -- has been unreachable, which has only reinforced my general disdain for property managers.
But fear not, Loyal Signal Followers: Despite our general discomfort, work on Ascend: New Gods has resumed in earnest. Despite the crippling warmth inside our friendly confines, the programmers are programming; the designers are designing; the modelers model; and the animators ... perhaps we'll come back to them at a later date.
An oscillating fan whirrs behind me, and I will prevail.
