Williams Residence – October 20th, 1985
Martha stood at the kitchen counter, trying to prepare three bowls of pet food while chaos reigned around her ankles.
"Back off, Punt," she scolded, gently shooing the nine-month-old white-and-black tuxedo cat with the can opener. The wiry little troublemaker ignored her completely, rising on his hind legs and pawing at the counter with impatient meows.
Behind him, Blue—the six-month-old black Labrador puppy with legs still too long for his body—bounced in circles, whining and occasionally rearing up to plant muddy paws on Martha's jeans. His tail whipped back and forth so hard his whole rear end wagged.
"It's coming, Blue," Martha groaned, clearly at the end of her patience.
Punt, deciding waiting was for lesser creatures, launched himself onto her leg. Tiny claws pricked through the denim.
"Ow—ouch, ouch, ouch!"
At that exact moment, Oliver walked in from the back door, coffee mug in hand, and froze at the sight of his wife being scaled like a tree by one very determined kitten while a puppy cheered from below.
Punt reached her shoulder, triumphant.
Oliver's eyebrows shot up. "Need some help, honey?"
"Yes—ow!" was all Martha managed.
Chuckling, Oliver set his mug down, reached up, and gently pried the little runt off her back. Punt dangled in the air, legs flailing, letting out an indignant yowl of protest before Oliver set him on the floor.
Stuart, the elegant black queen of the house, had been watching the entire circus from her perch on the counter like a disapproving monarch. After three seconds of silent judgment, she leapt down, padded over to Punt, and delivered one precise, open-paw smack to the top of his head.
Punt instantly dropped into a submissive crouch, ears flat, eyes wide. Blue, sensing danger, hurriedly hid behind Martha's legs.
"That's my girl," Martha said with a relieved laugh, rubbing her back.
Oliver grinned. "You wanted pets, honey. You got pets."
Stuart flicked her tail once, satisfied with her work, then returned to the counter with regal poise.
Just then, hurried footsteps came down the stairs. Alex burst into the kitchen, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, a thick binder tucked under one arm.
"Finally awake, sleepyhead," Oliver said, taking a sip of water. "You were supposed to be at the studio two and a half hours ago."
Martha planted her hands on her hips. "We told you to go to bed early. Seems your new independence has gone straight to your head."
Alex scratched the back of his neck, avoiding their eyes. "Sorry… I won't stay up past bedtime again."
Stuart, sensing his unease, hopped down and pressed herself against his leg, purring loudly. Alex reached down and stroked her ears gratefully.
Martha and Oliver exchanged a long look. Finally, Oliver nodded.
"Good. Now eat your breakfast. I already dropped your brother off, so hurry up."
Alex slid into his seat at the table and started wolfing down his oatmeal. Between bites he asked, "How's the smokehouse coming along?"
"You can go see for yourself," Oliver replied, not looking up from his newspaper.
"Of all the things you could have bought with the money you made," Martha said, organizing the spice cabinet, "you chose to spend your weekends building a smokehouse so you can make jerky?"
Alex gave a shy little shrug. He couldn't exactly tell them he'd been craving biltong—proper South African-style cured meat—for weeks now. The memories and tastes from the future knowledge were vivid, even if he'd never actually eaten it in this life.
Once breakfast was done, Alex and his father climbed into the silver Toyota Hilux and headed toward the apartment building that now housed Blue Star Interactive.
---
Blue Star Interactive – First Floor
The five-story brick building no longer looked like a faded investment property. Fresh paint, new signage, and the quiet hum of activity made it feel alive.
Inside the ground-floor studio, the space had transformed. Twenty people now filled the open floor—programmers, artists, sound designers—working at mismatched but organized desks. Whiteboards were covered in enemy stats, level flowcharts, and scribbled Japanese notes for localization. The air smelled of energy drinks, solder, and warm electronics.
Alex walked in, binder still under his arm, and was immediately greeted by the familiar controlled chaos.
Michael looked up from one of the IBM PC ATs. "You're late. That a first."
"Sorry, I was working late," Alex said with a shy grin. " I won't let it happen again. "
Mark chuckled from his station near the Amiga 1000. " Did your mom not wake you up? "
"She tried."
The team had grown quickly in the last few weeks. Grayson's crew of friends had settled in well, bringing fresh energy and specialized skills. The studio now had dedicated roles: sprite artists, combat programmers, sound engineers, and testing was done in house. Oliver and David helped manage the business side—payroll, contracts, and keeping the adults in the loop—while the boys focused on creative direction.
They had also expanded their current equipment to better meet their needs.
-Two upgraded IBM PC ATs – Faster processors and more RAM made compiling large codebases (like Contra's engine) far less painful.
- Three Amiga 1000s– Mark's favorite for pixel art and title screens, thanks to the superior 4096-color palette.
- Commodore 64 setup with MIDI interface – Liam used it to compose driving chiptune tracks and test sound drivers.
- Dot-matrix printer + small plotter – Allowed quick printing of level mock-ups and design docs instead of endless hand-sketching.
- Early digitizing tablet– Ronnie could now sketch directly into the computer, speeding up asset creation dramatically.
- Arcade cabinet test rig – Grayson had built a simple frame so they could test Contra in its native environment before sending boards to Sega.
As for Contra their next installment was currently 70 percent completed. Michael gave a quick demo on one of the PCs: two-player co-op run-and-gun action. The jungle stage was nearly complete—tight controls, satisfying explosions, and a driving synth soundtrack that made the whole thing feel alive. The team was targeting a holiday arcade and release.
They'd already sent a demo of the unfinished game to Sega, who had quickly began advertising the game back in Japan. Since it was coming to arcades Sega North America branch where already preparing their own marketing strategies.
Alex watched the latest gameplay for a moment, then pulled Michael and Mark aside near the whiteboard.
"Contra's in good hands," he said quietly. "I'm starting to block out Final Fantasy. Turn-based RPG, crystals, four Light Warriors, job system. I want a vertical slice—first town and first dungeon—ready by December so we can pitch it internally before the Zelda royalties really start rolling in."
Michael blinked. "You're already designing the next next game?"
Alex shrugged with a small smile. "We've got momentum. Might as well ride it. Beside we don't need that many people working on Contra. Besides once Contra done and the two of take return from your break I have a want you two working on your own separate projects. "
" Dude, seriously you know you have to take a break too right, " Michael interjected in a exasperation.
" His right, " Duke said walking over to the three. " Don't over work yourself little brother. " He added patting Alex on the shoulder.
" Yes, I know that why I spent the past six days working on this, " Alex raised the think binder in his hands. " Have already started working on the game's engine once that finished done I'll delegate task to the rest of the team."
" Huh... I guess that make sense if you say so. " Mark said with a shrug.
Soon everyone went back to work with Alex going back to work on the game engine that was going to be used for Final Fantasy.
---
Alex's fingers flew across the keyboard, the steady clack of keys the only sound in his small corner of the studio. Lines of assembly and early C code scrolled up the green-glowing CRT screen like green lightning. He wasn't just writing routines tonight. He was building the foundation for something much bigger than Contra or even Zelda.
'This… this is what a real game engine is supposed to be.'
He leaned back for a second, cracking his knuckles, then dove back in. In his head, the concept felt almost sacred.
A game engine wasn't the game itself. It was the invisible skeleton underneath — the reusable heart that handled everything the player never noticed: how the screen drew itself, how the controller talked to the hardware, how memory was shared without crashing, how sound played without stuttering, how the world remembered where the player had been.
In 1985 most teams still wrote everything from scratch for every single game. That was slow, wasteful, and painful. He had done exactly that for Zelda — a lightweight, tile-based system built from the ground up to squeeze every last byte out of the Sega Master System. It was elegant, but it was also custom-made and fragile. One change and the whole thing had to be rewritten.
Contra had been different. Faster, meaner, built for arcade speed. He and the team had stripped out the exploration-heavy systems and replaced them with tight collision code, particle explosions, and smooth two-player sync. It ran like lightning on the hardware they had, but it was still a one-trick engine — perfect for run-and-gun chaos, terrible for anything else.
The new engine he was writing right now — the one that would power Final Fantasy — had to be something else entirely.
Alex's eyes narrowed as he typed another block of memory-management code.
'This one has to be flexible. Modular. Ready for anything.'
He needed robust data structures for jobs, crystals, party members, story flags, random encounter tables, menu systems, and turn-based combat logic. He needed save files that could remember dozens of variables across hours of play. He needed a clean way to load and unload huge maps without choking the limited RAM. And most importantly, he needed it all to be reusable — so the next game, and the one after that, could build on the same foundation instead of starting from zero every time.
In his mind he could already see how engines would evolve in the years ahead. By the late '80s and early '90s, a few smart teams would start creating reusable cores — things like id Tech that powered Wolfenstein and Doom. Then came middleware in the 2000s: Unreal Engine, Unity, Source. Engines that let developers focus on story, art, and gameplay instead of reinventing memory allocation and rendering pipelines for every project. Cloud-based, AI-assisted, physics-realistic monsters by the 2020s.
But right now, in 1985, he was writing the ancestor of all that.
A quiet, determined smile touched his lips as he saved the current build and leaned back, Stuart purring softly against his leg under the desk.
*This engine won't just run Final Fantasy. It'll be the backbone for everything Blue Star makes for the next decade. Zelda was a beautiful prototype. Contra was a sprint. This one… this one is the real beginning.*
He cracked his knuckles again, eyes bright behind the reflection of green code on his glasses.
"Alright," he whispered to the empty corner of the studio. "Let's make something that can grow up with us."
---
Later that afternoon, at exactly three o'clock, the entire studio gathered in the open central area. Chairs scraped across the floor as twenty people — programmers, artists, sound designers, and the handful of recent hires — settled in. The newer members, who had been idle for the past few weeks helping with minor tasks and waiting for direction, sat forward with barely contained excitement. Their eyes were bright; this was the moment they had been anticipating.
Alex stood at the front near the largest whiteboard, marker in hand. Stuart had claimed her usual spot on the table beside him, tail curled neatly. The room quieted as he began.
"Alright," Alex said, his voice steady but carrying that quiet authority the team had come to respect. "We've grown faster than any of us expected. Zelda is still selling strong, Contra is shaping up, and we're already looking ahead. That means we can't keep throwing everyone at one project anymore. It's time to split into focused teams."
He turned to the whiteboard and drew three clean columns, labeling them A, B, and C.
"Team A — Contra," Alex continued, tapping the first column. "Mark, you're leading this one alongside Duke. You'll have three more people with you — total of five. Your focus is finishing the arcade version: polishing the co-op feel, tightening difficulty, and getting it ready for Sega's boards. We want this one out for the holiday season."
Mark nodded, grinning. "Finally. I've been dying to lock in those boss patterns."
Duke gave a thumbs-up from the back. "We've got this."
A couple of the newer hires — including a lanky programmer named Marvin and a quiet sprite artist named Ronnie — visibly relaxed. They had been waiting weeks for a clear assignment and immediately started whispering excitedly about joining the run-and-gun team.
"Team B — Final Fantasy," Alex said, moving to the second column. "I'll lead this with Grayson. We're building a turn-based RPG — crystals, four Light Warriors, job system, the works. I want a vertical slice — first town and first dungeon — ready by December so we can show it internally before the Zelda royalties really hit."
Grayson leaned forward, eyes lighting up. "Job system? That's going to be fun to balance."
One of the newer sound designers, Liam, raised his hand quickly. "Does that mean we'll need adaptive music for different areas? I've been experimenting with some layered chiptunes if you need ideas."
Alex nodded, smiling. "Exactly. We'll talk after the meeting."
"Team C — Street Fighter," Alex continued, pointing to the final column. "Michael, you're taking lead. You already finished the core fighting engine last week — great work. Your team will focus on character movesets, balance, special attacks, and turning it into a true one-on-one arcade fighter. We're aiming for something fast, responsive, and addictive."
Michael sat up straighter, a mix of nerves and pride on his face. "Got it. I'll need help stress-testing the input timing."
A few hands shot up immediately from the eager newer members.
Alex capped the marker and faced the group. "Everyone already knew the split was coming. Contra is far enough along that it only needs four to five dedicated people to finish strong. The rest of you will rotate between support roles and your main team when we hit bottlenecks. We still help each other — that's how we've always worked. But from now on, each project has a clear owner and a clear goal."
He paused, scanning the room. The newer hires were practically vibrating with energy.
"Questions?"
Marvin, the lanky programmer who had been waiting weeks for real work, raised his hand first. "For Team C… how many characters are we planning? And are we doing special moves with charge inputs or button combinations?"
Michael answered confidently, "Six to eight characters to start. We'll test both input styles — charge moves feel more satisfying for arcade cabinets."
Ronnie, the sprite artist, leaned forward. "Can I jump between teams for enemy sprites? I've got some ideas for Contra's alien designs that might carry over to Street Fighter's backgrounds."
Alex nodded. "We're flexible on that. Sprite work is shared until each game locks its art style."
A quiet girl named Sam, who had mostly helped with visual support so far, spoke up shyly. "I… I'm not as technical as everyone else, but I'm good at organizing assets and playtesting. Where would I fit best?"
"Team A or C for now," Alex replied kindly. "Contra needs fresh eyes on balance, and Street Fighter will need a lot of match-up testing. You'll rotate as needed."
Grayson grinned at the group. "Look, some of you have been sitting on your hands for weeks waiting for this. Now you've got real ownership. Use it. If you have ideas, bring them to your team lead. We're not just making games anymore — we're building a studio."
The room filled with a low, excited murmur. The newer members exchanged relieved and thrilled glances — finally, they had direction and purpose.
Alex allowed himself a small smile. "Any more questions before we break?"
One of the testers raised a hand. "Do we still do group playtesting on Fridays?"
"Absolutely," Alex confirmed. "Every Friday afternoon, whole studio. Best way to catch things the individual teams miss."
With that, the meeting wrapped. People stood, stretching and immediately clustering into their new teams. Mark and Duke gathered their small Contra group near the arcade test rig. Michael pulled his Street Fighter crew toward the fighting engine station. Alex and Grayson claimed a corner whiteboard for Final Fantasy brainstorming.
As the studio buzzed back to life with renewed energy, Alex glanced around the room, watching the newer members dive in with visible relief and excitement.
'This is how it starts,' he thought. 'Not with one genius in a garage… but with a team that believes in the vision.'
He turned back to his own whiteboard, picked up the marker again, and wrote at the top in clean block letters:
Final Fantasy – Vertical Slice Goals
The real work was just beginning.
---
Later That Evening
The Williams family arrived at their old apartment building carrying trays of wrapped food. Martha led the way, balancing a large casserole dish as she knocked on the door of apartment 16. Familiar voices and laughter drifted from inside.
After a few clicks, the door swung open. Ashley stood there wearing a flour-dusted apron, her long hair tied up in a messy bun.
"Oh good, you guys finally made it," she said with a relieved smile, quickly taking the tray from her mother and stepping aside to let everyone in.
"Ay, look who finally showed up!" came a cheerful voice from the living room. Fred rose from the sofa with a big grin, wearing one of his signature ugly Christmas sweaters even though it wasn't Christmas yet.
"It's good to see you too, Fredrick," Martha replied warmly as she removed her scarf, revealing the beautiful rose-colored neck tattoo she usually kept hidden.
"Hey, Fred," Alex greeted with a bright smile, stepping forward to hug the man who had become like a grandfather to him.
"Ah, you should visit more often if you're going to be this clingy every time you come," Fred retorted playfully, patting Alex firmly on the back.
"I know, and I do make sure to visit whenever I have free time," Alex said, finally letting go.
"Hahaha, you're right. Maybe I'm just getting old," Fred laughed.
"You are old," Duke shot back with a smirk.
"Oh, well isn't it my least favorite brat? Come here," Fred said with a cheeky grin, spreading his arms wide. The two embraced warmly. "How you been, my boy?"
"I've been fine, old timer," Duke replied, a small smile tugging at his lips.
Martha and Oliver watched the exchange with fond expressions, Oliver's arm slipping naturally around his wife's shoulders as they took in the heartwarming scene.
"Oh, you're finally here. So that's why the old geyser's shouting so much," Francine called out as she emerged from the kitchen wearing a cozy blue-and-white sweater. Jennifer followed behind her, carrying a cardboard box and dressed in a soft yellow patterned sweater.
As Jennifer helped set the box on the table, she greeted her parents with a quick, "Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad."
Oliver and Martha returned the greeting warmly. Martha walked over and pulled Francine into a hug. "I love your sweater."
"It's good you like it," Francine replied, "because I made one for all of you."
"What!" Duke and Alex exclaimed at the same time.
They were immediately met with light smacks to the back of their heads from both Oliver and Fred.
"Thank you, Francine. We'll all love them," Martha said firmly, giving her sons a stern glare. The two boys looked away, embarrassed.
Soon everyone was pulling on the handmade sweaters. Alex's was green with tiny paw prints running along the sleeves. Duke's was dark blue with a stylized cat face on the chest. Oliver and Martha received matching black ones decorated with delicate white and pink flower petals. Ashley and Jennifer got similar patterned sweaters in dark brown and soft yellow.
Once everyone was properly dressed, they gathered around the dining table, laughing and sharing stories. The conversation flowed easily over dinner, eventually turning into a lively game of Monopoly. At some point during the game, Alex's head began to droop. He fought it for a while, but exhaustion from the long day finally won. He fell asleep right there at the table, cheek resting on his folded arms.
Oliver gently lifted his youngest son into his arms as they prepared to leave.
"Thank you for having us tonight," Martha said, holding a tray of leftovers.
"No worries — we're the ones who should be thanking you," Francine replied, shaking her head. Her voice grew quieter, a touch sad. "Honestly, we thought you'd forget about us once you moved on to better places."
Fred comforted his wife as a tear slipped down her cheek. Oliver and Martha shared a quick look. Martha set the tray down and pulled both Fred and Francine into a tight hug.
"Never. You helped us so much over the years — you're practically family," Martha said firmly.
"Yes," Oliver added, still holding a sleeping Alex. "We wouldn't have made it this far without the both of you, and we'll never forget that."
Soon Duke, Jennifer, and Ashley joined the embrace. "That's right," Ashley said softly. "You're both basically our grandparents, even if we aren't related by blood."
Fred and Francine's eyes welled up at the words. Most of their own children barely visited anymore, except during the holidays. In that moment, surrounded by the Williams family, the old couple felt truly seen and loved.
---