Tonight We Riot is a game about naive idealism.
I was walking out of a Starbucks on Hesperian, the one in the parking lot of Rasputins where a car manages to run into it at least once a month when I hear a call from behind me. "FITZ! FITZ!"
No one has called me by that tag in at least twenty years, so I knew I was in for a flashback episode. Fucking hell. Sure enough, I turn to see a memory shuffling toward me in brooks brothers business casual carrying fresh produce from Ezzys kiosk up the block.
I knew who it was immediately, we skated together, worked punk gigs, and performed extracurriculars in service of "the cause" through most of the '90s. Even though I don't remember ever seeing him sans army jacket, G.G. Allen t-shirt, and chucks.
We get to catching up and he asks me what I've been up to, after the synopsis he says, "Sounds about right." I thought to myself, "Why does everyone say that?" He tells me he got married, became a CPA, kicked the bottle, and had kids. I said, "It happens."
He lived a few blocks up and invited me to lunch and to meet the fam. I asked if that was the move considering the current state of the world. He replied, "Bro, really? You just walked out of Starbucks." I stared at my Caramel Macchiato like the traitor it was and said, "Let's go."
We pull up to a nice crib on the good side of San Lorenzo. He introduced me to his husband and kids, who instantly began to give him shit for bringing someone over. I was like, "See!" I heard drums in the garage so I head out there to find his daughter, looking eerily like him back in the day. I ask her what bands she's into, she replies, "No one, everything sucks."
I head back in, look at him incredulously, and motioned back towards the garage. He begins laughing his ass off and says, "She has no idea, thinks she is rebelling against me. I'm having too much fun to tell her. Not that she would believe me if I did."
The only other time I had a chance to talk to his daughter was when I snuck out to the backyard to smoke. She saunters over, bums one, and asked, "Was my dad always this lame?" I had no choice but to tell her the truth, "He's cooler now than he was then."
Anyway, Tonight We Riot is a video game that is trying very hard. Pardun the passo reductive but I'ts basically State Of Emergency using tools at hand. Play it and have fun.
Shouts to info. rip TB rip TC rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : Games : Shore
