Well, technically I'm working again. This will be true until, at last estimate, Monday. It's a temp job I got, and it's just basic data entry, but hey, it's a start. And it's more money than I make from normal unemployment. That's the good news. The bad news? My car's engine needs repair that will cost me most of any additional money I make. Also my back decided it hated me. I've had my back go out at times, and it usually was pretty bad; I had to walk with a hunch for a few days, exercise is difficult, and whatnot. But that hasn't happened in a while, and this was different. It felt like my side was the source of the problem, specifically my lower left rib. Ironically, the exercises I used to help my other back problems might have caused this one! Sigh.
But as depressed as I was around Tuesday, I'm feeling a bit better now. My back is at least 30% better, though I'm waiting until at least Sunday to actually get some exercise. And tomorrow's a Friday! Which means something again! Meanwhile, the screenplay I mentioned earlier is finished, or at least its first draft is. Now, all I have to do is get it critiqued by friends and family. From there, I'll do a few more drafts and even try to find an agent. Meanwhile, my next task is to find school, preferably something of the design area. If I can't find a permanent on job by August, my lease runs out in August anyway, so why not? But I'll explore that in details later.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
My Ideas: This Time Lost Beat Me To It
Today, we'll focus on the second of the RPGMaker games that I actually finished. Following my relative success with Oasis, I took a little time off to think about my next idea. I wanted to do something completely different this time, especially after playing the games others created. Some were ye olde generice RPG, yes. Many were even more cliched and formulaic than Oasis. But others found much more clever ways to use the system. The most famous of these innovative games was Remote Control, a game about a guy who is trapped in a television and forced to fight their way through popular (at the time) television show parodies like Pokemon and Xena. There were almost no random encounters and some incredible mini-games, even a fairly thorough dating game.
These inspired me to do something different, but they weren't my direct inspiration. That came from...a movie I don't know the name of. It was a minor action movie a decade ago about a heist that took place during a flood. That flood was what caught my attention. There was the urgency the average grind-happy video game lost, and the ever-shifting environment that turns peaceful settings into new hazards. After working on the idea for a bit, I was ready to get started.
And that was fine at the time. But then the idea got tricky. I'll demonstrate by explaining the plot. A guy wakes up on a mysterious island (I know,) with strange monsters and effects (I KNOW,) along with many people with mysterious, sinister pasts (AARRRGH!) I love Lost, but now I have to rationalize the similarities whenever I mention it. Like I did just now!
Eh, it's different enough that I can continue, and the game play itself is closer to Chrono Cross. I did away with both random encounters and standardized experience. Standard encounters can usually be avoided, though in some areas the path is too narrow to avoid the moving, visual enemies. And while they give money and items (more on that later,) they don't increase levels. Instead, experience is only given in boss fights. The normal path through the game is set so your main character at least will gain exactly enough experience to gain a level at each boss. However, the game is extremely non-linear, and fighting bosses elsewhere can be used to gain experience that helps boost levels.
But exploring is risky in addition to rewarding. Though normal healing and magic-bumping items are available, they're extremely rare, especially in the first couple of days. Instead, health and magic (called sanity points,) are only fully filled when you rest. However, whenever you rest, the day ends. And while the characters don't notice it on the first two days, every day, the island sinks a little, raising the waters. This is most important on the third day, when the island's lone village is flooded. Without the character's help, most of the island's inhabitants will drown or be killed by the monsters that rise up from the water. From there on, the stores are gone, and you have to pick among the surviving villagers as you explore. You will often find that if you go through an easier path to a location and rest there, you can't go back the same way.
All this is tied to the game's plot, as well. After the major twist on day three, the main character (the symbolically named Avery, damn you once again Lost!) learns that every other person on the island, even his friends and ambiguous lover, are guilty of murder or at least manslaughter! This leads them to conclude that the island is a sort of prison and punishment, or perhaps a test of will to the survivors. If they can survive, they might even go free. The mystery is whether the villagers deserve it and why Avery, who is innocent, is also stuck on the island.
The story's mystery and the players' freedom to explore as they see fit also means they can take advantage of the day system as well. Notably, they can use The Machine, a giant factory that characters can use to get new equipment. This is especially helpful after the village and its stores are destroyed, but while The Machine can be used to make more powerful weapons and armor than the village ever sold, it also had its costs. In addition to the game's money system, players had to find materials used to make weapons and armor. Finally, The Machine takes a day to make its products, delaying the results and ultimately making it inaccessible at the end of the game's time limit.
The day system also affects the ending. This affects how many other villagers besides Avery survive the island; the "bad ending" occurs if you wait until the last day to beat the game and only lets Avery live, and the "good ending" lets most survivors of the village (which can't be ever character) survive if the player finishes with at least day to spare. There are also hidden options; the worst ending occurs if you finish on day 2 or if you finish without witnessing the village flood or meeting the survivors afterwards, and the best ending requires Avery to beat the game alone on Day 1, which lets all the characters live.
This is nearly impossible, however, on the first game, so I implemented a New Game+ feature that lets the player keep the level, skills, and equipment of Avery and any other surviving villager. This also grants access to other hidden secrets, especially a hidden area located on the other side of the island from the village. This marsh sinks on Day 2 (the only place to do so,) has the hardest enemies to date, and is guarded by a nearly invincible boss. But beating it grants access to enough high-level enemies to boost the entire party to triple the level available in the normal game and a boss rush feature. But this was no ordinary boss rush. Instead, I got permission to use bosses from a good dozen other RPG Maker games!
Features like this make this my proudest actual game. Its writing may be amateurish compared to my modern standards, but inserting letters one at a time via game pad is agony in any situation. And the puzzles, customization and exploration, attempts at a deeper story, believable characters, and special features are enough for me to use this game in my portfolio, on the rare occasion it matters, even today. Hell, with enough of a budget, I'd probably try to make it today!
These inspired me to do something different, but they weren't my direct inspiration. That came from...a movie I don't know the name of. It was a minor action movie a decade ago about a heist that took place during a flood. That flood was what caught my attention. There was the urgency the average grind-happy video game lost, and the ever-shifting environment that turns peaceful settings into new hazards. After working on the idea for a bit, I was ready to get started.
And that was fine at the time. But then the idea got tricky. I'll demonstrate by explaining the plot. A guy wakes up on a mysterious island (I know,) with strange monsters and effects (I KNOW,) along with many people with mysterious, sinister pasts (AARRRGH!) I love Lost, but now I have to rationalize the similarities whenever I mention it. Like I did just now!
Eh, it's different enough that I can continue, and the game play itself is closer to Chrono Cross. I did away with both random encounters and standardized experience. Standard encounters can usually be avoided, though in some areas the path is too narrow to avoid the moving, visual enemies. And while they give money and items (more on that later,) they don't increase levels. Instead, experience is only given in boss fights. The normal path through the game is set so your main character at least will gain exactly enough experience to gain a level at each boss. However, the game is extremely non-linear, and fighting bosses elsewhere can be used to gain experience that helps boost levels.
But exploring is risky in addition to rewarding. Though normal healing and magic-bumping items are available, they're extremely rare, especially in the first couple of days. Instead, health and magic (called sanity points,) are only fully filled when you rest. However, whenever you rest, the day ends. And while the characters don't notice it on the first two days, every day, the island sinks a little, raising the waters. This is most important on the third day, when the island's lone village is flooded. Without the character's help, most of the island's inhabitants will drown or be killed by the monsters that rise up from the water. From there on, the stores are gone, and you have to pick among the surviving villagers as you explore. You will often find that if you go through an easier path to a location and rest there, you can't go back the same way.
All this is tied to the game's plot, as well. After the major twist on day three, the main character (the symbolically named Avery, damn you once again Lost!) learns that every other person on the island, even his friends and ambiguous lover, are guilty of murder or at least manslaughter! This leads them to conclude that the island is a sort of prison and punishment, or perhaps a test of will to the survivors. If they can survive, they might even go free. The mystery is whether the villagers deserve it and why Avery, who is innocent, is also stuck on the island.
The story's mystery and the players' freedom to explore as they see fit also means they can take advantage of the day system as well. Notably, they can use The Machine, a giant factory that characters can use to get new equipment. This is especially helpful after the village and its stores are destroyed, but while The Machine can be used to make more powerful weapons and armor than the village ever sold, it also had its costs. In addition to the game's money system, players had to find materials used to make weapons and armor. Finally, The Machine takes a day to make its products, delaying the results and ultimately making it inaccessible at the end of the game's time limit.
The day system also affects the ending. This affects how many other villagers besides Avery survive the island; the "bad ending" occurs if you wait until the last day to beat the game and only lets Avery live, and the "good ending" lets most survivors of the village (which can't be ever character) survive if the player finishes with at least day to spare. There are also hidden options; the worst ending occurs if you finish on day 2 or if you finish without witnessing the village flood or meeting the survivors afterwards, and the best ending requires Avery to beat the game alone on Day 1, which lets all the characters live.
This is nearly impossible, however, on the first game, so I implemented a New Game+ feature that lets the player keep the level, skills, and equipment of Avery and any other surviving villager. This also grants access to other hidden secrets, especially a hidden area located on the other side of the island from the village. This marsh sinks on Day 2 (the only place to do so,) has the hardest enemies to date, and is guarded by a nearly invincible boss. But beating it grants access to enough high-level enemies to boost the entire party to triple the level available in the normal game and a boss rush feature. But this was no ordinary boss rush. Instead, I got permission to use bosses from a good dozen other RPG Maker games!
Features like this make this my proudest actual game. Its writing may be amateurish compared to my modern standards, but inserting letters one at a time via game pad is agony in any situation. And the puzzles, customization and exploration, attempts at a deeper story, believable characters, and special features are enough for me to use this game in my portfolio, on the rare occasion it matters, even today. Hell, with enough of a budget, I'd probably try to make it today!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
My Ideas: I'm Writing Another Screenplay! Yay!
For the second year in a row, I'm planning on doing the Script Frenzy. And for the first year in a row, I give a damn. Well, that's not fair. Last year, I wrote for the experience of writing a screenplay, and in most senses, I succeeded. Technically, I failed to submit it in time due to a misunderstanding of when it ended, but I did write 100 pages in 30 days, so in theory it worked. However, it didn't really work as a screenplay. I didn't know enough about the design of a screenplay, to start with. Oh sure, I got the right font and an approximation of the correct layout, but before long it just became another novel with the occasional stage directions. More importantly, I didn't really care. I had a very novel idea, one I wouldn't mind revisiting, but the characters, the plot itself, and every complex detail was figured out as I went, with no outline or even assumptions going in.
Part of it was the timing, though. At the time, I was early into a horrific project at work that ate up much of my free time and more importantly my creative energies. This time around, I'm able to make unemployment work FOR me.
But that's not the important difference. The main difference is the topic of the screenplay. Like most of my novels and notably not in my first screenplay, I used characters, settings, and ideas that I developed for years. But this is different, because it's not just some old concepts. This screenplay is adapted from the pilot and a few other episodes of a television series I wanted to make since approximately high school. Based on characters I made at twelve.
This is different from my novels. This isn't about myself, or because I have something to prove. I think I accomplished this over the years. This is the fulfillment of a dream. At the minimum, this is getting a story out of my head after years of contemplations, maturation, and reconsideration. And hopefully, it could be more. I see this involving agents, and friends offering rewriting suggestions, and even selling this to a publisher. And in the wackily optimistic part of my brain, it involves sharing it with the likes of Tim Burton or Neil Gaiman (yeah, it's an animated film) and having them vouch for me, or even doing the direction! Hey, you can't write fiction without having fantastic dreams.
Part of it was the timing, though. At the time, I was early into a horrific project at work that ate up much of my free time and more importantly my creative energies. This time around, I'm able to make unemployment work FOR me.
But that's not the important difference. The main difference is the topic of the screenplay. Like most of my novels and notably not in my first screenplay, I used characters, settings, and ideas that I developed for years. But this is different, because it's not just some old concepts. This screenplay is adapted from the pilot and a few other episodes of a television series I wanted to make since approximately high school. Based on characters I made at twelve.
This is different from my novels. This isn't about myself, or because I have something to prove. I think I accomplished this over the years. This is the fulfillment of a dream. At the minimum, this is getting a story out of my head after years of contemplations, maturation, and reconsideration. And hopefully, it could be more. I see this involving agents, and friends offering rewriting suggestions, and even selling this to a publisher. And in the wackily optimistic part of my brain, it involves sharing it with the likes of Tim Burton or Neil Gaiman (yeah, it's an animated film) and having them vouch for me, or even doing the direction! Hey, you can't write fiction without having fantastic dreams.
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