The New Journey

The Gonzo Journals

February 27th, 2023

Ah, video games. I’ve been in love with them since I first grabbed a stool and gave those Space Invaders hell at my hometown skating rink. Over the years, it went from there to Pac-Man, Dragon’s Lair, and, finally, The Last of Us. Man, I bet every pedo who never played the game stopped fondling themselves mid stroke when they found out Ellie was a lesbian last night. News flash, creepers, she’s been gay since 2013. You should really pay attention to the source material.

I’ve slowly weened myself off modern video games since the release of The Last of Us ten years ago. Number one, I don’t have time to get involved in something so deep. Two? No video game story will ever be as good as what I experienced playing through The Last of Us for the first time. The television show is taking some liberties to keep it interesting for those who’ve run through it repeatedly, but it may very well be one of the greatest shows of all time. Instead, I’ve gravitated back to some of the classic video games from my childhood.

Those games were perfect for someone like me. It doesn’t require you to invest a lot of time into a story line and you’re usually dead and on to the next in ten minutes. I got in a couple games of Satryn on one of my iiRcade cabinets this morning while I let my coffee cool down. Sometimes I even go the distance, get the living room as dark as possible, and put on some hair metal ambiance. I think my wife would draw the line at black lights, but we shall see. Damn I miss video game arcades! Bring the mullets and Marlboro’s!

In all my years of writing, not once did I think about combining my two greatest loves. I didn’t even know where to begin as far as pitching an idea to a video game company. It’s a damn good thing one of them reached out to me instead!

I have pitched it, tweaked it, and pitched it again. With the company’s blessing, I now tread into the unfamiliar territory which is “Guns Immortal”. This will be a classic beat ’em up game set in the old west. You’re going to meet Billy, Darlin’, and Marshall Baxter as they fight the tyranny of the evil alchemist Dr. Blankenship and his horde of the undead – yes, I named the main villain after my colleague B.L. Blankenship because he’s been an amazing friend and one of the only writers within my genre that I can stomach for longer than thirty seconds. You may even meet a few characters you’ve already read about in one of my books. I’m sure the context clues in this paragraph are enough to tell the more cultured among my readers which book I’m speaking of. This is going to be amazing! Remember that sequel idea I was working on about a year ago. Yeah…

I have been tasked with authoring the overall story of the game as well as the cut scene dialog between levels. At some point, I will even travel to a motion capture studio to be placed in the game itself! These are exciting times. In the next couple of years, people who own an iiRcade, Switch, Playstation, or XBox will be privy to some C. Derick Miller goodness without ever cracking a book.

Still, this is NOT the end of the dream. The vision that kicked off my writing career all those years ago showed me sitting in a crowded movie theater with all my friends and family and my name listed on screen as “written by”. This may be a tall order since 99.9% of my friends are no longer in my life. Meh, I can just fill those seats with complete strangers. Movie theaters are dark AF, after all. An ass in a seat is an ass in a seat. Call me, HBO Max. My characters are open to incestual lesbian relationships as long as it gets us on television. Just keep it classy. Make ’em shave first. No one likes a mouthful of seventies fluff. At least I don’t think they do.

Peace.