I exhaled. “Thanks. Aimee said she’d ask around, too.”
I couldn’t deny that I was worried about this club. I’d asked a few people I knew in math class but didn’t get a committed answer from anyone. What if no one showed up?
Cass seemed to be reading my mind. “I wouldn’t worry about the game-dev team. It’ll be fine.”
Cass was right. Everything would be fine.
And everythingwasfine. Sort of. I’d been worried no one but Aimee and Cass would show up to the meeting, but when I got to MissZhao’s classroom after school, it was full—but it was all people I knew from theDragon Arenaguild. Jayden, Omar, and their friends. Even Hana was here, and sitting at the same table as Aimee and Cass. All Devin’s friends were here. No Devin, thankfully, but still.
“There you are, Samaya!” MissZhao said from her desk near the door. “Great job assembling a team. Including you, there are exactly ten people here!”
Of course there were. If there were more than ten, I could have maybe kicked a few out. Like my ex-boyfriend’s best friends. Or his girlfriend. But since the team could be up to ten people, I had no reason to get rid of anyone.
MissZhao spoke to the others. “Okay, Samaya here is in charge.” She looked at me and smiled. “Go ahead, Samaya. I’ll be here if you need me.”
Okay. So I guessed this was it. I took a deep breath and walked to the front of the room. No one looked at me. Everyone kept talking to one another. I cleared my throat.
Kavita, a grade-eleven girl from theDragon Arenaguild, yelled, “Guys, everyone listen to Samaya!”
I smiled a thank-you to Kavita and looked around. Cass gave me a supportive nod. I took a breath. “Okay, so, thanks for coming. I am putting together a team to enter the National Youth Developers Mobile Game Competition. We’ll need to come up with a concept, do all the design, and write the scripts and code for the game. Plus, we’ll need a marketing plan. The competition is in May, so there is a ton of time. I’ll start assigning people jobs. Does anyone have a preference for what they can do or—”
“Why do you automatically get to be leader?” Jayden asked. He was leaning back in his seat, next to Aimee, with his arms crossed on his chest.
I gave him a pointed look. “I’m team captain. This team was my idea.”
He shrugged. “So? Take a finder’s fee, or something. I don’t know. We should run like a democracy, not a dictatorship.”
I shook my head, getting annoyed. I needed to be the leader—this was for my scholarship applications. We hadn’t even started yet, and he was already causing trouble? “Who said this was a dictatorship? This team was my idea! It wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for me. We’re going to all work together, but I’ve taken all the computer and coding courses the school offers, plus math and physics.” I knew for a fact that Jayden hadn’t taken computers.
“Game design is more than just coding. It’s an art, not a science,” he said smugly.
I gritted my teeth. I’d known Jayden as long as I’d known Devin, since they’d been friends forever. He hadn’t seemed to have an issue with me when Devin and I were together. We playedDragon Arenatogether well enough. Dark Mages and Light Mages always had to work together to some degree, and even if we didn’t gel as well as me and LostAxis, I did enjoy playing with Jayden. But he’d always been one of those “just playing devil’s advocate” guys. I’d always found him a little annoying. Right now he was a lot annoying.
“I know game design is an art,” I said. “That’s why I asked Aimee to be here, too. This is a team effort. Cass can be in charge of coding, Aimee art design—”
“And you get to call all the shots.”
I looked at Aimee, but she didn’t meet my eyes. I couldn’t believe she was actually into this guy.
I decided to move on. “So, I was thinking an adventure role-playing game with some puzzle element will really—”
“Why an RPG?” Omar said. “We should do a first-person shooter.”
Several others in the room saidyesss, orthat would be awesome. Alex said RPGs were for nerds, which made me snort a laugh, since wewerenerds, and Alex played a warrior onDragon Arena—an RPG. Omar agreed and started talking about some mobile first-person shooter that I’d never played.
Omar didn’t normally push my buttons like Jayden did, but still. I wouldn’t have guessed they would have an issue with building an RPG, since that was the type of game we all used to play together. I was losing them.
MissZhao caught my eye. “Need help?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nope. I got it.” I was supposed to be the leader here. “What kind of game do you think we should make?”
Everyone started shouting out their favorite types of mobile games. Puzzle games, psychological horror games, word games, cat-collectinggames. No one was stopping to listen to anyone else. It was getting louder. I was getting a headache.
MissZhao hollered for everyone to shush.
“I have an idea!” Kavita said loudly. “Why doesn’t anyone who has a decent game concept do some market research and come back with a proposal? We can vote in a few weeks.”
I smiled at Kavita, grateful. Maybe she should be in charge of marketing. “That’s a great idea. Then once we have the game type finalized, we can pick a development platform, write and finalize scripts and concept art. Then after we code the thing, we’ll—”
