A Flight to Gaming Fame
People enter contests every day. They fill out some half scrap of paper and drop it in a box. They fill out a form on the web and hit "submit." They write poems, answer trivia, and dress up like Elvis. And, someone has to win—maybe not you, and certainly not me—but someone. Here follows the tale of a lucky lad from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who won one such contest.
On February 26, 2003, a call was placed to a young, unsuspecting soul—a soul that was probably more concerned about his chances of acing his next test at Florida Atlantic University than the relatively minute chance of winning a contest. Yet, the phone did ring, and our young friend Brett Maxwell did answer, and his schedule proceeded to get a whole lot more exciting.
Brett Maxwell, Sudeki "Get in the Game" winner.
You see, Brett had just won the Sudeki Get in the Game Sweepstakes. This meant a flight to England, which would be Brett's first out-of-country experience. It meant he would get a sneak peek at Sudeki, one of the most highly anticipated Xbox roleplaying games. It meant he would meet the folks behind the scenes of the industry he hopes to join after college. Most importantly, though, it meant that Brett was about to become a living, interactive, talking character in Sudeki, which in turn, meant he was about to become the envy of most any Xbox gamer.
The big day arrived with much nervous excitement for Brett. Unfortunately, the day also greeted him with an international flight, complete with all its now-standard frustrations. Worse than the actual never-ending flight, though, was Brett's first experience in getting through customs, Heathrow airport style. Ugh. I'd rather pry rusty splinters out from under my fingernails.
Brett with the Climax crew.
When all was said and done, he was where he supposed to be: in England, ready to jaunt on over to Portsmouth Harbor, settle into the hotel, and await his call to visit Climax, the developer ofSudeki.
That call and visit came and to use Brett's own words: "… Wow, just wow. This day will definitely be remembered." That's certainly not an unexpected reaction, but for the curious, here are a few reasons why Brett's visit was so memorable.
An exclusive first look at the game.
Upon arriving at Climax, Brett was greeted by the producer ofSudeki, who showed him around the office and introduced him to various members of the Sudeki team. Brett also recalls, "One thing I noticed while touring was that there were Xbox debug kits at every workstation. It was cool to see a transparent green Xbox (hint, hint, Microsoft)."
Next, it was time to start work on incorporating Brett's character into the game. This first step consisted of one of the residentSudeki artists (whose work Brett describes as "unbelievable") sitting down and drawing a Sudekicaricature of Brett. Incidentally, Brett's character is named Dr. Brett, and he'll be giving your character a test of some sort!
His own character … incredibly cool.
Afterwards came yet more hob-nobbing with the Sudekiteam and then a rare moment indeed. Young Brett was afforded the opportunity to sit down with an as of yet unseen demo of Sudeki. He had this to say about the experience: "I don't want to reveal too much about the demo because it dealt with the story; you'll have to play the game yourself to find out. I can tell you, though, that the Spirit Attacks kick ass!"
After kicking it with the Sudeki demo for awhile, it was time to get back to work. Climax already had Brett's image for the game; now it was time to capture his voice work, which consisted of six lines—much more than Brett was anticipating. As you can see from the picture below, it would appear that Brett took this step very seriously; it only took two takes. Well done, Brett! Way to channel that thespian energy!
You go, Brett!
With the voice-work complete, the official portion of Brett's visit was drawing to a close. Taking advantage of the temporary lull, Brett decided to do some souvenir shopping. When you're in a foreign country for the first time, you've got to do something touristy! I think it's a law. Brett capped off his visit to Climax with a farewell dinner and left us with these words:
"[I wish] that I had a couple more days with the people at Climax. Everyone there was really nice and willing to answer questions I had. I'd like to thank Microsoft and everyone at Climax for helping realize a dream of every gamer. Thanks a lot for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Well said, Brett, and once again, congratulations.
By Alex McLain
