Big Fish Games used to run a community games site, similar to EA's Pogo.com.  I was initially hired to Design and Produce games for this site, and one of my creations was a word search game called "Madame Libra":

The game never really caught on, but I still think it was a fun premise. Madame Libra was a gypsy fortune teller, so the game took place inside her crystal ball.  After players found all the words in the list she would choose 3 or 4 at random and generate a mad-lib style fortune using those words.

I wrote a tool in Excel that allowed me to build word lists for different "categories" (i.e. "action words", "animals", "places", "people", etc.)  Then on another sheet I could type in funny fortunes using this format:

You will slip on a [food] and fall into a giant vat of [food_plural].  A large [adjective] [animal] will lick you clean.

(This might create a fortune that looked like this: "You will slip on a kumquat and fall into a giant vat of chocolate pudding.  A large hairy lizard will lick you clean."

Everything was going great until a few days before launch. I was on the bus to work, adding some last minute fortunes, when I came up with this one:

You will travel to [place] and [action word] many [adjective] [animals]. 

Seems pretty safe, right? Figured it would generate fortunes like this:  "You will travel to Timbuktu and tickle many slippery zebras." Imagine my horror when I hit the "Generate Fortune" button and my lovely computer randomly generated THIS fortune:

"You will travel to Africa and capture many colorful humans!"

I literally gasped, and very nearly fell off my chair on the bus. Needless to say, I had to pour over all the word lists and look for other potential issues. (I found the word "hairy" in the adjective list and "clams" in the plural animals category... we had a lot of grandmothers playing so that was clearly a heart attack waiting to happen.)

I'm sure I didn't find everything, but I never heard about any complaints so I guess it worked out okay.

  

1. They were greeted at the front desk by several actors in costume, and lead back to the main conference room.
   
2. Affixed to the wall, in front of the conference room door, was an antique wardrobe full of large fur coats.
3. Moving past the coats our guests had to then push through a half dozen live pine trees, covered in fake snow.
4. Beyond the pines they were greeted by a 3D rendered lion, hovering in mid air directly in front of them. (We projected a video onto a curtain of dry ice that was falling from a trough installed in the ceiling.)  The lion boomed, "Welcome sons of Adam and daughters of Eve! I am Aslan the lion. Welcome to this exciting presentation, blah blah blah."
5. Every wall in the conference room was covered with a faux stone texture, and painted to look like actual rock.
6. There was a large ornate table in the middle of the room and it was covered with silver chalices, pewter bowls, and plates of meat, fruit, and cheese.
7. Inside one of the many flower arrangements on the table was a hidden camera and a microphone. Live audio and video were beamed to a "control center" in an adjacent office, so the pitch coordinator (wearing headphones and holding a clipboard), would know exactly when to send in the next group of presenters.
8. As if that wasn't enough, Amaze put a raised platform in the back of the room and set up 4 beautiful wooden thrones for the executives to sit in during the presentations.

Now here's the kicker: just before coming to the meeting the executives signed an agreement with a DIFFERENT developer.  So Amaze did all that work and the decision was finalized before anyone actually got to see any of our presentations.

I spent several years working at an Internet startup back when they were all the rage, and shortly after leaving the company my "worthless" shares of stock were suddenly equivalent to about a year's salary.  (Had I sold them all at the right time I could have retired early, but I don't want to dredge up that painful memory.)

With my found money in hand I gave myself a year to start a small company, with a business partner who, as it turns out, didn't actually do any business.  I spent the next ten months designing and prototyping an online game called "Pawns" that was kind of "Magic: The Gathering" only with collectible characters instead of cards.  (Hey, this was many years ago -- it was an original concept at the time.)  

By the time I was finished with the prototype my "free" year was mostly up, but I did manage to pitch the game once to a local company called Amaze Entertainment.  They passed on the project but liked me enough to make a job offer.  I was exhausted and out of money so the "negotiation" went like this:

Other than that one attempt I've never been too interested in starting a company, despite my many years of industry experience.  I just want to make games, and running my own company would not leave me much time to do that...

Before the tradeshow was known as "E3" (Electronic Entertainment Expo) it was called "CES" (Consumer Electronics Show), and it was usually the best and the worst 8 days of my year.  It was a treat to see all the new titles, but it also meant 4 days of standing on my feet, twice a year, showing off whatever new game we were working on, or had just released.

I don't remember what year it happened, but on the final day of the show a short man and his wife stopped by to see the booth.  I noticed that he was from "Microprose" but I didn't see a name on his tag and if I recall I thought he was just some marketing dude.  I did sort of a half-assed demo of some game I had been working on (I was soooo tired), and then I asked the guy about his job.

He said, "I'm a game designer.  My name is Sid Meier, it's nice to meet you."

It was like someone punched me in the chest.  I actually stumbled a few steps backward before I re-gained my steely composure and asked, "Whatsa how -- Sid Ma-- hammana hammana..."

I honestly don't remember what happened after that, but I recall that he sort of wandered off looking a little bewildered.  Always nice to make an ass of yourself in front of one of your idols.  <sigh>

I love robots.  My daughter, however, is not a big fan. 

Almost 15 years ago I made a robot pet that I named "Cybert".  Every morning Cybert would undock from his charger, navigate into the master bedroom and then deliver a random "wake up" greeting. After making sure my wife and I were awake he would read us the current news headlines, tell us the local weather, and update us on our stock portfolio, before rolling back down the hallway to wake our daughter.  

After knocking on our daughter's door three times (by bumping into it), Cybert would back up and wait for the door to open.  If it didn't open within 5 minutes he would loop back and knock again. When Cybert detected the door opening he would say, "Good morning! It's a beautiful day!" Then he would navigate back into the spare bedroom and re-dock with his charger.

Here's an early video of this "alarm clock" behavior:

The video was shot before I completed the door knocking stuff, and a few weeks later I changed to a voice with more personality. I also made Cybert move faster.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to update the video...

My daughter did NOT like to get out of bed in the morning so she quickly grew to DESPISE my little creation. Over dinner one night I asked, "Hey!  Isn't it pretty cool that you have your own robot to wake you up in the morning?"  She replied, "No! How would YOU like it if some robot rolled down the hall and started banging into your bedroom door and -- " At that point she must have seen the delighted smile growing on my face.  "-- Oh you WOULD like it!!!"  

She was NOT amused at the time, but we laugh about it now. 

It probably didn't help that the first morning Cybert woke her up he yelled at her! It's kind of a funny (albeit "geeky" story). 

I was trying to build a robot "pet" so I devised a way to give Cybert 9 different "moods":

The robot would generally wake up every day somewhere in the "Normal" box, but then his mood would change based on his "Security" (y axis) and his "Happiness" (x axis), which were constantly being updated via sensor readings. So if Cybert was in a dark room for an extended period of time his SECURITY variable would decrease, moving him toward the Afraid box. Bumping into something would cause his HAPPINESS to go down, moving him toward the Upset box.

Cybert had hundreds of different things he could say, and I wrote 9 different variations for each comment, one for each mood.  So if his battery was running low and he was feeling Playful Cybert might say, "Robot needs food badly! Ha Ha!", but if he was feeling Afraid he would likely comment, "Oh no, my battery is running down!"

I was still working on the Mood Matrix code when I realized that Cybert could wake us up every morning, so I switched gears and began implementing the new Alarm Clock behavior. On the morning of the first test run I got up early and it was pretty exciting to hear the robot come rolling down the hallway. He came into our bedroom right on time, woke us up with a friendly greeting and then he read the news, weather, etc. Everything was working great!

Cybert then asked, "Would you like me to wake up Autumn?" I said, "Yes", and off he went. He knocked on Autumn's door three times and pleasantly told her it was time to get up, then he backed up and waited. As I expected, her door didn't open immediately, so 5 minutes later Cybert knocked again. Only this time I heard him say, in a deep menacing voice, "GET OUT OF BED, I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN, YOUNG LADY!!!"

WTF???

It took me awhile to figure out what had happened. Cybert "woke up" in a Normal mood, but while he was downloading the news, weather, and our stock info he was sitting in a dark room, causing his SECURITY to go down. When he bumped into Autumn's door (to knock) it caused his HAPPINESS variable to go down, which bumped his mood into the Angry box. Everything was working as designed, but his behavior surprised me! 

In a weird kind of way it was almost an emergent behavior! In any event, that was the day my robot yelled at my daughter.  

I've told this story many times over the years, and I suspect that some folks don't believe it really happened. But I swear it's true.

My first industry contact was a programmer named Troy Lyndon. We were pretty good friends for many years so I wasn't surprised when he invited my wife and I to dinner so we could meet his new girlfriend.

I called his apartment to finalize our dinner plans and I apparently caught him in the middle of an argument with his roommate. I can only guess that the phone got knocked off its base before it had a chance to ring, because no one picked it up but I could hear the ENTIRE fight.

Troy was complaining that the rent check was late, his roommate was complaining that Troy owed him money for the phone bill. Then the subject changed to dirty dishes and laundry all over the floor. They were really screaming at each other and almost coming to blows.

Someone stormed off to a different room and then I heard someone else hang up the phone.

I'm not sure what gave me the idea, but an evil plan began to form in my mind.  I waited a few minutes and called Troy back. He picked up the phone and the conversation went like this: (did I mention that I minored in Theater?)

That night at dinner it was REALLY hard for me to keep a straight face, but our conversation was dominated by talk about ESP, paranormal phenomenon and the untapped potential of the human brain. Troy kept saying, "I never believed in this stuff before, but how else can you explain it?" He was so excited.

I feel kind of guilty that I never told him the truth.

My first week at Dynamix, Jeff Tunnel asked me what kind of game I wanted to design.  (Those were the days, huh?)  Hedging my bets I asked, "What kind of game do you WANT me to design?"  He said I could do anything and he sent me off to be creative. 

I spent the next week cooking up an adventure game proposal that I absolutely loved.  Jeff wasn't in his office so I triumphantly dropped the 5 page proposal document on his desk.  On the way back to my office I ran into an old friend and after a few minutes of polite conversation I told him about my game concept.  He got a strange look and asked, "An adventure game about a tabloid reporter? That sounds exactly like Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders." 

Sure enough, when I glanced at the door Jeff was standing there with a very concerned look on his face.  I still had a stack of his papers clutched in my hand but I couldn't put them down.  In fact, I couldn't move at all for five or six seconds as my brain comprehended the compromising gravity of my situation. It was a quintessential deer caught in headlights scenario, and my worst nightmare.

I made up a weak excuse, grabbed the document (which he was holding in his hand), and slunk out of the room, quite red in the face. I'm sort of surprised he didn't fire me.