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Part 3
Page 10: A Year of Waiting

1995 began with Devine sending an e-mail to the entire company on January 2, clearly concerned about the direction of The 11th Hour. "We left 1994 with no game complete," he wrote. "And in fact, I think it's in a worse state than when we left in 1993." He surmised that, "In the end, I think we tried to push completion of The 11th Hour into the hands of a group of people who had too little experience, too much ambition, and not enough management." By this time, Landeros had renamed the crunchcrew the "cruisecrew," and Devine agreed with his partner's sentiments.

"I think Graeme's e-mails got a little harsh at times," explains artist Mark Peasley. To many inside the company, the e-mails were downright caddish. Devine admits he went through an "acid period" after his migraine attack in late 1994, and his e-mail exchanges were in part mandated by the fact that his hours were usually 4pm to 4am, quite different from the normal 9-to-5 schedule of some employees (making face-to-face communication difficult). "I really don't think Graeme meant any harm with them," explains programmer Sherman Archibald, Devine's best friend. "I think he was just dealing with the stress in his own way."

However, the e-mail exchanges were troublesome to Landeros, who admits he and Devine had different opinions of how to run a company. "I was more of a stickler for running the company on a more professional level," explains Landeros, "but Graeme wanted a more friendly collaborative environment - sort of a mini-utopia. I don't think his mode of operation is necessarily wrong, but it was tough for me to handle." Indeed, this difference in protocol was something that came out of the woodwork as Trilobyte grew. With some 50 employees at the company, Trilobyte was even publishing its own glossy newsletter - Devine had a large audience over e-mail. To Mitsu Hadeishi, 32, project leader of Dog Eat Dog, it was a clear generation gap fueled by the 17-year age difference between the founders: "Rob wanted to do things in a very old-fashioned hierarchical way, and Graeme wanted a more consensus-driven business."

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By early 1995, Devine had moved up to work directly with his Crunchcrew on the third floor of the building, and he still fondly remembers the good times. "I'd go off to Toys "R" Us and buy a basket of Nerf guns, and we'd have fights with those," he recalls with glee. Although The 11th Hour was late, thanks to the impressive press tour demo, everyone was clearly expecting the company to meet its early-1995 ship date - including Landeros.

The March date came and went, and Trilobyte then pressed on for an April 28 beta. Soon, the pressure mounted again for Devine, who was solely responsible for the video compression. By March, he had formed a proxemic bubble of sorts so he could clearly focus on the technology. In a March 21 e-mail, he said he was "hanging a virtual 'Do not disturb' sign on the door for the duration of the project." As Dog Eat Dog project leader Mitsu Hadeishi remembers, "I walked into Graeme's office one day in April and said, 'Can we talk?' and he said, 'I can't talk to you.' He was just clearly stressed out."

The mouse artificial intelligence puzzle was one of the many perplexing technical hurdles to overcome in development.

Programmer Preston Moser also remembers the stress Devine was under: "I remember I had worked for 24 hours on one puzzle for the game, and I finally got it to work. I was really proud. So I took it to Graeme and told him about it. He snapped back, 'Oh, I could have done that in two hours,' and looked away." Devine remembers the incident and says, "That was absolutely awful, I admit it. I had never managed people before, and no one else was stepping up to bat. There was just an incredible amount of stress."

"Even the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland wasn't this late."
- Graeme Devine on 11th Hour's slippery slope release date.

Devine's stress was also felt by Landeros, who was eager for The 11th Hour to ship. According to Landeros, it was nearly impossible to ascertain the status of the project. "For all of 1995 I felt like I was caught in a bad dream. It was like that line from Chinatown: 'Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.' I didn't understand why we hadn't shipped the game, and I couldn't get a clear answer out of Graeme or anyone as to what was taking so long." The April 28 beta date passed, and as Devine said over e-mail to the Crunchcrew on May 3, "Even the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland wasn't this late."

The tension inside of Trilobyte was even evident to actor Robert Hirschboeck, who played Stauf. "The true toy maker, Graeme Devine, keeps his office door closed now, or wanders the carpeted corridors in his duck jacket," he wrote. Morale was at an all-time low, and employees were wondering if The 11th Hour was ever going to ship.

Tender Loving Care was a project that co-founder Landeros took a keen interest in developing with David Wheeler.

Frustrated by the lack of progress on The 11th Hour, Landeros became interested in a screenplay that 11th Hour director Wheeler had written called Tender Loving Care, based on the book by Devil's Advocate author Andrew Neiderman. "Rob came to me at one point and said, 'What about doing TLC at Trilobyte?'" recalls Wheeler, who was surprised Landeros would make such a suggestion about a screenplay that included sexual situations more intense than The 11th Hour. "I was surprised they wanted to do it because there were a lot of people at Trilobyte with stunted emotional growth," explains Wheeler.

In early 1995, Wheeler and Landeros took a trip along the Western coast of the US and fleshed out a concept for Tender Loving Care as both an interactive production and a feature motion picture. On April 16, 1995, Landeros submitted a proposal to Trilobyte's board of directors that asked them to support "RT" or "Rob's Thing."

Next: Rob's Thing