Okay. That’s chapter one. I think. It’s a very early chapter at the very least. I won’t post updates on this story every week, but I will post every new chapter. If you have any suggestions, questions, edits, or criticisms, please send them my way. I’m not done editing this by a long shot, and pretty much everything could change. It’s all about the rewrites. 

Once again the globe game jammed and I helped. According to the Global Game Jam site, more than 40,000 people in 109 countries formed teams to make games over the weekend. Computer games, board games, card games, whatever type of games. It’s a lot of fun.

a small bit of progress. At this pace I’ll be done in a decade or so. I’ll post updates on this story from time to time, but maybe not every week.

A few weeks ago I started on a story. I got a short way into what I thought was the introduction, when I realized that, not only would this story be larger than my previous ones, but that wasn’t the introduction at all. That was second or third chapter material. I have also written some stuff that would have to happen much much later. This led to writing an outline and some other character stuff. And then I rewrote and revised that outline again and again. So what I’m saying is maybe this is the start, and this might be long. I’ll just keep plugging away and see what it is when it’s finished.

Best Games - Asteroids Video game creators have been ripping and rehashing ideas from other games since the start of the medium. If you combine the 2D physics sim of Space War with the overwhelming odds and impending doom of Space Invaders, you arrive at something like Asteroids. Even the accelerating heartbeat soundtrack and ufo klaxons echo the sound design of Space invaders. So many aspects of Asteroids are cribbed that it seems unlikely it would be noteworthy, but it’s the way the the game refines and reframes those core concepts that sets it apart.

funny. Two mondays in a row fall on holidays. well i hope that everyone has a great new year and i will continue with the story next week.

I hope you are having a very Merry Christmas and a happy holiday.

I would post some of the later stuff, but that would read very disjointed, since it would be excerpts and scenes from different places in the story that I haven’t tied together yet. Instead, here is some more refinement on the intro and the introductions of two of the main characters. Enjoy. As always comments and criticisms are very welcome especially at this early stage. 

This one might end up being a bit longer. I’m still writing the outline of the story and I have a few passages blocked out at different points, but this is the opening couple of paragraphs. I had a lot of ideas that didn’t get used in the last story with these characters, and I figured those deserved exploring. This story will likely be many pages long, maybe even chapters long, so I might not post it all here, all of the time. 

After hearing the raves of many 3D artists over the last few years, I finally broke down and bought Substance Painter. The fact that it was recently discounted pretty heavily might have had something to do with it. Why I let at least two similar sales pass me by is a little less clear, even to me.

Best Games - Lego

I start counting the names on the wall. There are probably close to fifty years worth of autographs up here. Most are written in marker or ballpoint pen. There are a couple scrawled out in nail polish and lipstick. One signature is almost certainly written in mustard. At least I hope that’s mustard. I stop counting at forty seven and start looking for names I recognize. Most are completely Indecipherable. I stop trying to read them and start looking for empty spaces. Some small patch of wall that I can write in later.

Coming along. This will be another one of those ‘story stubs’. More figuring out a character than a true arc. I’ll wrap it up next week. I start counting the names on the wall. There are probably close to fifty years worth of autographs up here. Most are written in marker or ballpoint pen. There are a couple scrawled out in nail polish and lipstick. One signature is almost certainly written in mustard. At least I hope that’s mustard. I stop counting at forty seven and start looking for names I recognize. Most are completely Indecipherable. I stop trying to read them and start looking for empty spaces. Some small patch of wall that I can write in later.

Another multi-part story. This one will probably only be 2 or 3 parts at most. I had to cut it off here for reasons that will become obvious next week.

Best Scary Games - Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Aliens vs. Predator -1999 Half-Life 2 does so many things right. It is a fantastic action game that tells most of it’s story though the environment. The set pieces are satisfying and seem to have a purpose in the world. It can make you feel fragile and powerful all at once. It’s really just a great example of what can be done in the first person shooter genre. It is also terrifying. There is a discomfort woven into the fabric of Half-Life 2 that gnaws at you long after you shut it down. There are areas of flat out, jack in the box jump scares, but when the adrenaline stops pumping, you are left with a sense of crushing dread and hopelessness that few games are able to match. Sure a leaping, spider like, headcrab is immediately terrifying, but the implications of wretched stalkers, humans reduced to barely living automatons, is truly the stuff of nightmares.