History Literature / You2013

* AscendedFanBoy: Before he got hired, Matt had played, read, and generally devoured anything directly or indirectly related to Black Arts games. He eventually worked his way through QA and became a member of the production team. He also acts as Black Arts' unofficial lore-keeper. If someone needs to know how many variety livestock were in RoGIII, they turn to Matt.

* HelpfulHallucination: Very early on the four main characters from the Black Arts games start appearing to Russell. This seems to be purely a literary technique since there's no sign of drug use, head injury, or (aside from this) any serious psychological issues. They offer encouragement and occasionally advice. May be a case of ImaginaryFriend as well.
** Most of the time it seems Russell fell asleep and forgot about it since after most of the encounters he mentions waking up.

* SaveScumming: In universe. The WAFFLE engine was designed to prevent that. In order to make choices more meaningful, you can't load up previous saves in-game. This apparently turned off a lot of would-be consumers of their games. Also becomes an important plot-point as saved games carry on through all the Black Arts games, even ones that are different genres and time periods.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Don. He apparently never loses his temper, keeps morale up and steered Black Arts through some tough times.

** Nobody knows exactly what caused the fight between Simon and Darren. Simon's dead and Darren ain't talkin.

* UpToEleven: The WAFFLE engine. It was originally created by high-schoolers who were trying to program a video game for a school project. Later, teenagers at a computer summer-camp added all sorts of new features. It eventually evolved into something so powerful that nobody at the game studio itself is quite sure how it works after the guy who created it died. Yet, it still powers all of their games.

* FunWithAcronyms: The WAFFLE in WAFFLE engine may have been an acronym, but only Simon knew what it stood for, if anything.

* NoodleIncident: At least two:

* ApocalypseHow: At least of the world financial variety if Black Arts can't figure out a way to patch their engine.

* FunWithAcronyms: The WAFFLE in WAFFLE engine is capitalized, but nobody but Simon knew if it stood for anything.

* UpToEleven: The WAFFLE engine. It was originally created by high-schoolers who were trying to program a video game for a school project. Later, teenagers at a computer summer-camp added all sorts of new features. It eventually evolved into something so powerful that nobody at the game studio itself is quite sure how it works after the guy who created it died. Yet, it still powers all of their games.

* Noodle Incident: At least two:

* UpToEleven: The WAFFLE engine. It was created by high-schoolers who were trying to program a video game for a school project. It evolved into something so powerful that nobody at the game studio itself is quite sure how it works after the guy who created it died. Yet, it still powers all of their games.

** More specifically, as part of the design process, he has to list every single character, object, weapon, action, etc. in the game world. A (very) partial list: "door, horseshoe, catapult, tiara, bucket, stone - large (4'), stone - medium (s'), stone - small (1'), stone - tiny (1).

* FictionalCounterpart: Realms of Gold is based on the {{roguelike}} games of the 1980s, only so ahead of its time that games had engines based on it over a decade later.

** More specifically, as part of the design process, he has to list every single character, object, weapon, action etc in the game world. A (very) partial list: "door, horseshoe, catapult, tiara, bucket, stone - large (4'), stone - medium (s'), stone - small (1'), stone - tiny (1).

* LongList: Russell discovers that a good chunk of his duties as a game designer is creating these.

* HackerCave: The Black Arts office is a very stereotypical game development office, consisting mainly of a single large room, half of which is an unused empty wasteland and the other half of which is filled with computers, video games and various toys. A number of the staff stay there for multiple days in a row, sleeping under their desks and living off of snacks from the break room, especially as it gets later into the development cycle.