And I was worried about somebody coming up with something like “The Magellan Affair” AFTER we started to get it out there…

So, I’m sitting at my cushy government job surfing for any mention of “The Magellan Affair” like a needy puppy and come across this. I’ve kept myself from looking at much, but it seems like there’s a 90’s videogame that bears a scary retro sci-fi resemblance to what we did. It’s creepy, and to a copyright nazi like myself, a little disturbing. To show that I’m not just a copyright nazi but also a hypocrite, here’s a pic of the game I lifted off the net.

It’s strange. I’ve dabbled in PC games in the past.  Sam & Max Hit the Road and Grim Fandango were pretty awesome. Later on, I played the hell out of Freedom Force and Battle for Middle-Earth. Now, I’ve got Bob’s copy of Sam & Max: Season One that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for over a year. Not having the time to play it burns at my soul like a thousand packs of matches. On top of which, almost all of my friends are video game junkies. How the hell had I never heard of Tex Murphy?

I came up with The Magellan Affair during a party at Adrian’s (which I may or may not have named The House of Sin). It was just after Mosquito, and a drunken Adrian, Bob, and myself were leaning on the same wall hold us up. Bob (a CG wizard and sci-fi super freak) says, “what’s the next project?” Fedora wearing Adrian pipes in with, “Yeah, man, but it’s gotta have some blues in there!” In my drunken stupor I put both of those comments in a bowl with the fact that I’m an absolute nut for Bogart movies and Flash Gordon serials, mixed well, and served. The script was written in less than a week, and without any knowledge of Tex Murphy.

Odd? You bet. Maybe there is a collective consciousness and there really aren’t any new ideas.

I’m gonna go out of my way to not learn any more about Tex Murphy (other than an eventual post on that message board) and carry on with Magellan as is, just to see how close the end results end up being.