Fielder

I’m developing a new computer game, and I think I have a winner.

It’s a cross between Everquest and Doom, with a touch of the old Monopoly board and a lot of gratuitous violence thrown in.

I call it “County Seat Streets.”

The computer game environment consists of four major intersections on four one-way streets, with an ornate courthouse in the middle. The main character is female, with the body of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, and the face of Mary Horn. Real­is­tic-looking county commissioners come and go, and the players’ pieces are diminutive Mus­tangs, Beemers, Dodge Rams and delivery vans.

Everyone has a weapon, of course. After all, this is Texas.

The object of the game is to successfully maneuver through all four intersections without being sideswiped, rear-ended or squashed. Those who mouth obscenities into their webcams will have to sit in the “road rage” box and will get their property appraisals raised.

The first intersection in the game is eastbound at Hickory and Elm streets. The object here is to get through the red light with enough gasoline left to finish the game. Players who doze off or get out of their cars to shop because their car is stuck in construction gridlock must put $200 in the community chest.

After negotiating past a UPS truck parked in your lane in front of Denton County Independent Ham­burger, you come to the Locust-Hickory intersection. Head­ed east, the one-way street suddenly becomes two-way. If you don’t turn north — and you can do this while the light is red — your lane suddenly belongs to a city bus lumbering toward you. Unless you’re really good with a joystick, this causes a play called “head-on collision.” The computer screen erupts into loud sound effects and fake blood and you lose 10 points on your insurance rating.

Skill and luck are equally important a little farther downhill, since the two eastbound lanes get squirrelly in front of the Record-Chronicle office. If, in­stead of turning left at Bell, you want to go straight and take advantage of an awesome shortcut to the McKinney Street courthouse, you have to adroitly veer to the right lane. And if you want to turn right, you must access what seems to be a line of parking spaces in front of the fire station.

Now, that Hickory-Locust in­tersection is a most interesting part of the environment. West­bound on Hickory, you have to turn north onto Locust or be mashed by a Hummer and an angry citizen leaving Commis­sion­ers Court in a hurry. But the oncoming eastbound lane also must turn north there, causing many a standoff and risking the creation of a drive-through window at Hooligans. They’re both fighting for the left lane, since the right lane is occupied by parked Coors Light behemoths.

The computer environment is further complicated by city workers having turned Cedar Street, which intersects all the east-west streets, into a mud pie. Sitting at the red light westbound on Oak, you realize your lane just became a sea of orange cones and you have to switch to a fast game of Snake or wind up in an intimate relationship with the wooden Indian in the Wine Safari window.

At this stage, you have completed phase one of “County Seat Streets.” The first one through gets to park on the Square. Both the winner and the loser get towed after two hours.

Gamers, beware: The next phase is not for the faint of heart. Beyond this phase there lie dragons, and heavy weaponry is re­quired. I call it “Find an Easy Way to the Mall.”