What follows, is a fictional conversation between the lead developer at Renegade Kid and the head of publisher Mastiff, the two companies responsible for the Nintendo DS game, Moon. I believe it took place around the time it was delayed back in November of last year.

Mastiff: Wow! This is fantastic! I love the work you guys did with the cut scenes! The voice work is top notch! The game looks and feels great! A 60-frames-per-second first person shooter on the DS! You tell your team they’ve done a bang up job! I love it!

Renegade Kid: And just to think, in about a year, we’ll have this baby ready to ship out, setting the bar for all games to come on the DS. You won’t believe what we have planned for the twist ending.

M: A year? Your deadline is at the end of the month, so we can launch during the holiday season. This seems good enough. Hey, I’m in a vehicle now on the moon’s surface. This just keeps getting better!

RK: It does, but we didn’t get to put any new enemies in yet for that section, hence the dummy security bots from the previous ones. We need more time. All we have is a two hour game and a five minute vehicle section. See, you finished what we have done so far.

M: What’s the problem? I loved what I’ve played so far! Just give me more of that. Copy and paste some of the levels and implement some back tracking to add some length. I can give you another month. Shoot for early January at the latest.

RK: But another month will only allow us to copy and paste levels and possibly design one actual alien to fight. Maybe two if we rush it and make them super low resolution.

M: Now you’re talking! With those levels, just change the colors of the walls, and no one will notice. We may not be able to hit the holiday crowd, but we’ll certainly get the kids with the gift cards!

RK: But what about the storyboard? We have this great revelation towards the end, but rendering these cut scenes and recording the voice work will simply take too long.

M: Don’t worry about that. This is the DS we’re talking about here. One or two fully featured scenes are enough. I like that explosion you put at the end of the first boss fight. You can staple that at the end of every fight to make it look like we’re not slacking. As for the story, the two talking heads with a text box worked well enough for Metal Gear Solid. Just throw some of those together. All we need is enough to get people excited for the sequel!

RK: I guess you’re right. Let’s just hope people don’t lose interest before that awesome “To Be Continued” cliffhanger at the end.

Like a beauty queen: Nice exterior, but as interesting as a wet carrot.