January 28th, 1985 – Garage Studio Setup
Michael's garage no longer resembled a space for storing bicycles and old paint cans. It had transformed into the heartbeat of something bold and new. Thanks to financial backing from Alex's parents, the boys had converted the space into a functioning mini development studio—primitive by professional standards, but full of potential.
The Equipment Setup
IBM PC XT – The workhorse of their studio. Powered by an Intel 8088 processor and 640KB of RAM, it was equipped with a CGA graphics card and dual floppy drives. This machine handled most of the coding and design implementation.
Commodore 64 – Primarily used for audio testing and sprite work. With its SID sound chip, it allowed Mark to experiment with chiptune melodies and simple animations before transferring assets to the PC.
Dot Matrix Printer – Used to print updated design notes, debugging reports, and Alex's detailed game concepts for review.
Cassette Recorder – A low-tech but effective backup solution for storing sound tests and early code versions, used until they had reliable disk redundancy.
Graph Paper & Stationery – Alex's tools for designing dungeon maps, interface layouts, and overworld navigation by hand. His sketches helped communicate complex ideas to the team clearly.
Reference Materials – A stack of BASIC and assembly programming books, technical manuals, and magazines like Compute! and BYTE, most of which had been borrowed from Mark's dad, Damien.
First Major Hurdle – Three Weeks In
The initial weeks flew by in a haze of enthusiasm—until they hit a wall.
Their first major obstacle? Tile-based movement and screen transitions.
Mark had managed to get basic 8-directional sprite movement working in BASIC. But creating a smooth, tile-based system with screen-to-screen transitions quickly spiraled into chaos.
"I can't get it to stop glitching when the sprite hits the edge!" Mark groaned, smacking the keyboard as the screen flickered and the sprite got stuck in a loop.
Michael leaned over the code. "We're choking the memory. If we keep loading all the screens at once, it's going to crash everything."
Alex, who had been sketching out dungeon ideas, set his pencil down and leaned in. "Okay. Let's try this—what if we break the world map into chunks? Load only the adjacent screens into memory and reference them through a call table?"
Michael raised an eyebrow. "Like… a primitive paging system?"
Alex nodded. "Exactly. We fake a big world, but the game only sees a small slice of it at any one time."
It wasn't elegant, but it worked—and it was their first real breakthrough.
Alex grinned, but kept the rest of the master plan in his head. He knew the full codebase and final design intimately—he could've done it all himself if he wanted to. But this was never meant to be a solo act. He needed Michael and Mark to grow—to gain the skills that would one day allow them to lead their own projects.
Besides, they were on the clock. Nintendo's version of The Legend of Zelda would be coming soon. They had to finish first.
They were officially in the trenches now.
Four-Month Time Skip – May 28th, 1985
Spring had come to life—and so had The Legend of Zelda.
The garage now breathed with activity: walls papered with index cards, corkboards covered in code snippets and dungeon layouts, labeled floppy disks stacked in crates, and the steady clack of keys filling the space deep into the night.
Development Summary (February – May):
February – Finalized core movement and world grid systems. Refactored engine code twice for smoother performance.
March – Implemented combat mechanics. Mark handled enemy AI while Michael built object interaction and collision logic. Alex finalized puzzle design and scripted NPC behavior.
April – Dungeons locked in. First boss fight tested. Music and SFX built on the C64, then adapted to the IBM's hardware limitations.
May – Final polishing phase. Debugging, interface tweaks, title screen art, and a basic password-save system added. A playable full-length demo was compiled—limited in polish, but fully functional.
Alex calculated they'd need another month or two to finalize everything. But before then, they needed to figure out how to release it—starting with showing the game to their families.
Demo Night – That Evening
Hence, the boys decide invited their families over to the garage to showcase their project. Folding chairs were pulled out, sodas passed around, and the boys gave a brief—nervous—introduction.
Micheal's parents David and Maria sat toward the back, David's arms crossed as he watched with quiet pride. He'd seen Michael obsess over computers before, but this? This was different.
Maria leaned over. "You see how happy he is? He hasn't stopped smiling since we got here."
David nodded. "Haven't seen that look since he was six. I guess they actually did it."
Near the workbench, Mark's parents Damien and Donna Hunter stood side-by-side.
Damien, normally unreadable, allowed himself a rare smirk. "That's our boy," he said quietly. "Didn't think he had it in him."
Donna nodded her head approving. "It's beautiful… I thought they were just goofing off in here."
At the front, Alex's parents Oliver and Martha stood close, Martha's hand pressed over her heart as Link entered the first dungeon.
"He really… made this," she whispered.
Oliver gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "They all did. But… I still can't believe Alex was apart of this."
The changes in Alex were greatly exaggerated to the point that both Martha and Oliver sometimes wonder who really made it out of that accident. Both Martha, and their three other children have been helping home school Alex for the last four months now.
Within just two months in Alex had caught up to his siblings level, leaving them with little more to impart into him. Which greatly surprised everyone.
On the other side Duke, Ashley, Jennifer, Gabriella, and Grayson were all present too, seated along the side wall. Duke and Grayson had helped occasionally—debugging, playtesting, even helping with minor sprite work—which helped speed things up.
The demo ended to soft applause. The game wasn't perfect, but it worked. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. More than that—it had heart.
Their parents beamed.
That's when Alex stepped forward, with an innocent smile on his face, this sight made both Martha and Oliver a little nervous at that smile.
Then Alex said the one thing no one expected:
"There's still one more thing we need to figure out: distribution."
That word hung heavy in the air.
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There was a pause silence as Alex's word fell, as everyone began processing the words Alex had just utter. While Oliver on the other hand sighed in exacerbation at this situation, while Martha on the other side had a slight frown on her brow.
" Do you know anything about? " Ashley question, as whispered into Duke ears, as Jennifer and Gabrielle who were seated cl
Most of the parents and siblings sat stunned by the statement — all except Duke and Grayson, who had helped during development and were privy to the trio's internal thought process. They weren't surprised when Alex stepped forward to say it out loud.
Maria blinked. "Distributor?"
Damien leaned forward in his seat, brows furrowed. "You three went looking for someone to help sell your game?"
Michael and Mark exchanged glances — suddenly realizing that this part of the plan hadn't been fully discussed between the three of them, either. Not in detail, anyway. The question of how they'd actually find a distributor or publisher still hung loosely in the air.
David, seated with his arms folded, gave a thoughtful nod after a long moment. "That's a very valid point," he said, his voice calm but sharp. "You boys made a game — which is incredible. But how are you planning to bring it to market? You can't just walk into a store and put it on the shelf. Who owns the rights? Who handles logistics, quality assurance, licensing?" His legal instincts were already kicking in.
Alex didn't flinch. "I've been thinking about that," he said. "The U.S. game market isn't in a great place — not since the crash in '83. But Japan's a different story. It's booming. Companies like Nintendo and Sega are pushing boundaries over there. If we want to make an impact anywhere… that's where we start."
That earned a few wide-eyed looks.
"Sega?" Donna repeated.
Alex nodded. "They're a Japanese company that's been in the arcade business for a while. From what I've learned, they've recently started developing home consoles."
"And where exactly did you get this information, little brother?" Duke asked, suspicious.
Alex waved him off with a half-smile, not wanting to dig too deep into the specifics.
"I keep up with the latest gaming news," Alex said simply.
David raised an eyebrow. "Alex… you're nine right?"
Oliver chuckled but didn't say anything — watching his son with a growing curiosity. Intrigued on were this was going.
"But I also know you're not just guessing," David added. "You've done your homework, haven't you?"
Alex nodded once. "Yes, sir."
David exhaled, leaning back. "All right. Then we can start putting a real plan together. But this is going to take serious legwork. Contracts, negotiations, translation, copyrights. A business entity — unless you want to hand this over to someone else entirely. Which, frankly, I wouldn't recommend."
Martha looked from Oliver to David. "You're saying… this could be real?"
David nodded. "It already is. These kids made a fully functioning game from scratch. If Sega or anyone else bites? This could be the beginning of something much bigger — a real company in the making."
"I can help with the legal framework," he continued. "But we'll need to formalize things first — set up a company to hold the rights and manage any offers. Since the boys created it and funded it, we need to make sure it's all above board — especially for their protection."
"Who handles the business side?" Maria asked.
"I can help there, too," David replied. He glanced at Oliver. "But I'd also suggest bringing in someone familiar with Japan — someone who understands the culture, the language, the industry expectations. I might know a guy from law school — working out of Tokyo now. I'll make some calls."
The room buzzed with a new energy. What had started as three boys tinkering in a garage had grown into something far more ambitious.
Michael turned to Alex, still processing it all. "Huh.... that want better than I expected?"
Alex smirked at Michael's words, " We made something that in their eyes, has the potential of being successful and making a lot of money if done right. Why wouldn't they support us this one time. "
Michael's and Mark blinked as they process Alex words, thinking about carefully it didn't seem to far fetched.
Alex grinned. "First we had to make the game. Show that we can actually do it and make a damn good one that could even capture their attention even just a little."
Mark shook his head, smiling in disbelief. "You're out of your mind."
"And that's why it's going to work," Alex replied simply.
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