Smoke Town; An Introduction

Hi, I'm Nick (aka Feinbach). If you're looking for my portfolio, please visit my website instead at www.nicksandall.com. Thanks for browsing!   I will never forget the day that I learned what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be in my life. It's the day I found my inspiration, and the reason for me creating this whole world and everything that comes from it.

It was a Saturday night and I was meeting up with a handful of my friends from language school at a bar in Shibuya (downtown Tokyo).
  Two of my friends were from Korea, two from China, and the other few were Japanese. It was always a great time going out with them due to the ever-present language barrier. We had all been going to language school (excluding the Japanese friends, of course) for only about 6 months by this point so our Japanese was not good. Our conversations were composed of broken Japanese, a mix of popularized Korean words, plenty of gestures, and translation apps. It was exhausting but always tons of fun.

  To start the night we went to our favorite izakaya (a bar-esque restaurant) for some food and drinks. It's pretty common to jump from izakaya to izakaya so we went to a couple before our Japanese friends said they had friends at a bar with some live music. So we decided to head there next. By this time it was already about 2:00am. We arrived at the music bar and hung out for an hour or so. Friends left and came, here and there. At around 3:30 it was only Su (one of my Korean friends), Ro (one of my Chinese friends), and myself remaining. We were chatting with some new people that our Japanese friends introduced us to before they left. One of them mentioned that her favorite spot is just down the street and it will have more live music. Just before 4:00 the five of us headed there.

  There weren't too many people out but more than you would expect so late at night. After a few minutes of chatting, Ichiko (one of the new friends of the night) led us down a set of stairs that went, what felt like, underneath the street to a battered black and red wooden door. Despite the timid looks on our faces, she assured us it's a great place.

The entrance to the bar was barely wide enough for one person at a time and tucked in the corner was a bar no bigger than a standard kitchen island. There were no chairs anywhere and only 3 circular tables scattered in the open. At the opposite end of the door there was a single step up to a piano, drum set, guitar, and bass. There was nobody else there but it was easy to see that she was great friends with the owner/barkeep. We settled next to one of the tables and Ichiko asked us if we wanted to play a song or two with her. We all quickly denied her invitation out of fear. Sad with our refusal but happy to start playing, she headed up to the small stage by herself.

  She picked up the guitar, sat down on the only stool in the room, and moved the mic closer. Then she just...breathed. She drew breath in and out for about 30 seconds. It was odd, but I can still feel the calmness from her breath sweep the room. She slowly started plucking a few strings on the guitar rather irregularly. It felt almost accidental. The tune she started playing was eerie and empty but put us at ease rather than on edge. She soon filled it with lyrics. She wasn't quite singing, but wasn't quite speaking either. I remember thinking to myself that it was all rather strange. It was unlike anything that I had heard before. Although I couldn't fully understand the words she was saying, I found myself getting pulled into whatever she was doing. I could see her song come to life and I could feel its presence in the room. I looked to my friends next to me and saw they were feeling exactly the same thing. I then realized she wasn't really singing a song. She was telling a story. All of us, from completely different parts of the world with completely different upbringings, cultures, aspirations, and lives somehow all understood the moment. People always say music is universal, but it's more than music. It's the story. Stories are universal. I realized that everything I had done to get here, everything that I had left behind in search of something that I wasn't sure even existed, was for this realization.

  At around 6am we split our separate ways and all headed home. The trains were still closed so we either had to walk or take a cab. It was slightly rainy that morning but the shimmering street lights and neon signs bouncing off the damp sidewalk is one of my favorite things about this city, so I opted to walk. I'm still not sure I have fully deciphered that night, but I realized something.

I have always loved games but didn't know why. It was the stories. I had loved writing and even studied journalism at uni but didn't know why. It was the stories. Advertising; stories. Marketing; stories. All my passions had this in common, so I realized combining these passions is what I want to do with my life. Similar to how Ichiko used music as her medium, I want to share stories with people through games and their communities. Whether that's creating a whole narrative, an ability, a theme deck, an in-depth character, a design tool, or even a tool-tip in a skill description, I want to be a part of it.

  Luckily for me, I was in a country with an incredibly rich gaming culture. Unluckily for me, to get into a company like that I would need a minimum of high business level Japanese. Seeing as Japanese is one of the most difficult languages in the world, reaching that level takes on average 4-5 years of studying. That night I decided I will do whatever it takes to follow my ambition. I finished my year of language school and began teaching English for the time. I studied Japanese every day, 7 days a week, after work until late in the evening. About 1 year later, and I passed my business level Japanese test. I immediately started applying to any jobs I could find in the gaming industry. I struggled through dozens of fully-Japanese interviews until eventually, I was offered a unique freelance role. Nearly 3 years of freelance game design work, and I was asked to help design a game from the ground up. I was one of two lead designers on that team for about 2 years before I moved back to the States.

  That's why I created Statera. I am dedicated to creating an entire world filled with characters and stories that one day, I will share with people. When I finish this one, I will create another. It's still a huge work in progress and I know I have a long way to go. Along with this narrative-focused medium, I work on my programming and design skills every day. If you do end up finding yourself exploring some of what I have created here, please bare in mind that it is heavily unedited and I am using it as a notepad for practice.

I will never forget that night with my friends, nor that song. Ichiko only spoke 2 English words throughout that whole 7 or 8 minute song, but I can't get the feeling of being so deeply taken into her story out of my head. I'll never forget the night I wandered into Smoke Town.

  (EDIT: Ichiko's song is now available on English Spotify titled Smoke Town)