It's Ready!

  Nope, not the game... the Story for the game.

  It took several months of linguistic dickery, but it's finally (mostly) done.  Certainly done enough that I can finally script game events around it.  Not only that, but I managed to kill two (12) birds with one (3) stone by finding out a way to unify a LOT of my game plots together, forming a coherent universe.

  I've been complaining on the forums recently about the split in game design between Eastern and Western developers.  Not just in terms of gameplay (since both derive heavily from the other), but in terms of social expectations.  Westerners need bulky muscloid gun toting rapid monster men kicking space aliens in their genitalia (hint: their knees) while Easterners need fluffy tsundere moe-moe drama-mush gooey goo...  Well, that's about as asinine of a generalization I can make, but it got me really thinking.  Both companies are developing with escapism in mind and both design philosophies reflect their home culture's expectations of fantasy.  But I don't play games for escapism so I get confused at the stereotypes presented by both sides.

  I wrote a short story a while ago about the coming of age of the Dwarf culture (inspired by Dwarf Fortress).  How the Dwarves are no longer monsters that spawn in to existence, but people who have to breed, eat and live to exist.  It also dealt with the modernization of a fantasy world (such as military presence where monsters spawn) and the despeciesaztion (I need a better word for this) of the Human race.  It opened with a military helicopter shooting up a spawn of bandits... ya, old fashioned highwaymen, because they were a monster spawn... of humans.  There's a contrast in development philosophy when it comes to human enemies.  Some games just don't care and it's expected that you kill a few enemy soldiers, other games will slaughter monsters en masse and then come to a full stop when any "real" person is actually hurt.  I didn't really finish this story because of the game project.

  I also wrote another story of the responsibility of science to the people... and by wrote I mean I scribbled ideas for about 10 minutes and then quit.  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", but I posited that "Any sufficiently researched magic is indistinguishable from science"... to cross the cap between science fiction and fantasy.  I wanted to talk about the end of the magic age.  I'm sure some other literature has done the same - I don't know because I don't read much.

  So, I combined them.  Both stories as well as the motivations behind the characters of the games I do like.  I joked earlier that is would be silly to have a protagonist worry about not getting into college, but that's real... I don't play for escapism, so I want to make the characters as grounded as possible.  They should be worried about their jobs, their kids, the geopolitical climate... global warming, the drug trade - while taking place in an era where the youth culture is facing a renaissance of both progressive and reactionary ideals (to mirror how I feel about gaming - the tight grip I have on the great games of the past while most people I know only like the newest technology).  Set around the Cold War escalation of Magic and Science together.  The exact moment the barrier between "what is magic?" and "what is science?" is crossed...  and in one instant a hole is cut out of our home continent.

  But - and this is important - I want the story to mainly be about the protagonist saving HIS world from destruction.  He is aware of the problems other people have such as unemployment, education, the war, social pressures...  but these are their problems, not mine (his).  HIS world is just his love of the past, of swords and magic...  he doesn't want to cross in to the modern.  But when the world faces a disaster of never before seen consequences he has to leave his little fantasy bubble and join the new world - or ignore it.... but it's hard to ignore the world changing when people won't stop talking about it EVERY TWO SECONDS FOR TEN FUCKING YEARS.

  So, that's how I got the idea for how to unify the story to my game.  It's still going to play like a Zelda 2 game though.

Current Projects

  I'm having a REAL hard time deciding if I want to have wall grappling.  Lots of games do it (Iji, Spelunky), but I don't really have to have it.  Wall kicks would still be fun, but I don't need grappling.

Gaming

  Mostly some AI: War and Sonic Generations.  Some Doom 2.  I really wish I was better at deciding things.


Other

  My health is ok.  I lost weight last year, but this year I seem to be very stable.  I still want to lose more, but I can't do any more/less.  I'm already at my personal limits...

Old Games > New Games, Lok

Steam Backlog is Finished

  Took only about 2 and a half weeks.

  I learned a lot about what makes a game not fun.  Take the critically acclaimed adventure game Gemini Rue for example.  It didn't even work on my computer so it felt bad.  This is not the developers fault - it is a failing with Adventure Game Studio and certain drivers.  However, the problem is relatively rare.  So I learned that troubleshooting is NEVER truly over.  There is always someone who the game won't work for.

  I also learned that novelty goes a long way, even in a critically poor game.  This time I'm talking about E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, which has a Metacritic score of only 60, but I really like it.  It's hard, fast, you get plenty of unique abilities which aren't often used in FPS and the sound quality is very good - good as in it correctly works on my 9.1 surround system, something even Battlefield 3 doesn't do.  The translation is quite schizo though, with the characters randomly jumping from perfect politeness to gutteral cussmonger every other line.  A fan translation project is underway, which just goes to show that sometimes you just need to hook a niche of loyal followers.

  Lastly, I also learned that not everyone will like a game even if it is very highly rated.  In this case, The Elder Scrolls V:  Skyrim, which I really just don't care for.  Sure, it's an improvement over Oblivion, which is an improvement over Morrowind, but I didn't like either of those in the first place.  Well, ok, I liked Oblivion somewhat - hunting for nirnroot and crawling through the tall grass.  Did they just miss me as a demographic?  Nope, because lots of people I know like the game... a lot, they Game of the Year'd it.  Basically, I learned you can't please everyone no matter how hard you try.

Projects

  Lately I've been thinking what kind of palette/colour scheme I want.  My main project is a homage to Zelda 2, so maybe I should do a Blue/Orange/Red triangle.

  I still don't have any staff so I have to learn everything from scratch every time I move to a new concept (like audio/visual dynamics)...  which is annoying since there's no schools around here who teach anything remotely like this.

Gaming

  I'm burned out from 3 weeks of Steam.  But mostly I'm playing AI War: Fleet Command and E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy.

Other

  I've recently been struck with paranoia about the safety of my family, even though they're near by and I can check on them any time.  Maybe related to not sleeping.

Sleeping, Lok