Put-Peep(tm) began with a story and a setting. The setting is a tiny version of one of the offices I’ve worked in over the years. There are some real things, though referred to vaguely. Games I’ve really worked on are only mentioned in the Meet the Author section.

Featured very prominently is a Crystal Castles arcade cabinet. A long time ago, a bunch of us chipped in to buy the cabinet, and since I was the last person left at the company who bought in, it is now mine. When we moved into a newly renovated office, I was told there was no room for it, so I left it with others at the old office. Recently those colleagues had to move office, and wanted to know if I still wanted it. Of course I did. However it had stopped working. I will have to fix it, but I rented a van and had it moved to my garage where it is covered in blankets right now, waiting for me to find someone who can fix it.

The last I saw of it working, its screen was wonky, but it was still trying to play properly. So it shouldn’t be hard to fix.

So in this game (story) the Crystal Castles cabinet is in one of the meeting rooms. It’s off when you start the game, but you can turn it on and play it.

When you play it, you see a brief description of a play session. Randomly, one in 20 plays (which are all described the same) you will see a * appear in the description. These are Asides, which, if you type >* you will see an Aside about Polybius, the mythical arcade cabinet.

There is also a 1% chance you’ll win the game when you play.

And when you successfully complete the Red Chamber room, if you play again, you will win. After all, you’ve been rewarded. Right?

This is a developer blog so I will put spoilers here. Kinda hard to write a dev diary without spoiling the game.