Progress Report

I am continuing to write some content and mess with images and image ideas.

It looks like I will optimize for 1024x700 resolution as the best match between tablet and screen resolution, and that I may need to use a flexible layout. So, that is one decision down.

I have been working on my drawing skills. I also discovered that there is a plugin for Carrerra that will let the program render to vector format. That resolved my decision about an upgrade path for 3d and, actually, has me reconsidering using 3d art and rendering as one of my solutions. So, I reinstalled Daz studio and am in the process of reminding myself how the system works. Next up, playing with shaders, lights, and textures to see if I can get the sort of clean line-art-like render look that I want.

I have a few more concept images drawn, and have also typed up the first-pass text for the initial demo. I want to put that text together in TWINE, and a couple of other engines just to see what it will look like.

Next post will be on games that influenced me. It would have been this report, but I misplaced the list and need to move to the next task.

Progress report.

I have been looking at game engines, and Ren'Py is interesting enough that I am plugging through codeacademy's tutorials on how to use it.

I looked into screen sizes and resolutions, and decided to use the Samsung Galaxy Pro's 1024x600 as my minimum legible size. Folks can make things bigger, but I will try to make all pages readable and useable at that resolution on a seven-inch screen. Oh, and I do not like scroll bars.

I am mapping non player characters to each other and to specific locations. I think I will end up building the first Beta with only one or two locations and only those characters who play a role. Other characters may be seen, but won't be interacted with. I am also working on what I call my Russian Novel chart. Why that name?  When reading Dostoevsky and his buddies, where everyone has three names and many of them are jawbreakers, the reader begins to think of R-dude, S-dude and so on. I want to make sure that all my npcs and all my Anthropomorphic Manifestations have distinctive names (David Weber's recent novels haveplots that involve places called Monica, Meyers, Maya, Mesa, and at least one other location beginning with M.)  I also want to make sure that they are all visually distinctive. This may break down as players start to throw transformation items at npcs as well as at themselves, but I will do my best to control the number of people and faces to keep track of.

I have sketched out a few more scenes and encounters.

Finally, I have been sketching some concept art for the GUI and characters.

Here is an early draft of the GUI for pages that mix sequential art, some spot art, and about 170 words of text in a 1024x600 pixel window.

My current thought is that a number makes a decision, a letter provides information.

The numbered buttons on the right are choices. The letters on the bottom and the time-location boxes at the top are intended to be constant. The bottom boxes will open up more detailed information when clicked/touched/typed.

I have not yet decided how that information will appear.

Game Proposal: Ghost 5:16

I have been working on some stories and ideas recently rather than posting here, and one of the ideas would make a good interactive game and would also help me solve some visual narrative problems with other stories.

You can see the full proposal on the file tab above.

Laia's Diary Updated

 The story Laia's Diary is updated with days 8 and 9. http://artiebartfast.blogspot.com/p/laias-diary.html

Pesky Blogger won't let me use anchors to take you directly to the new prose.

The Wolf Story

The world of the Morphing Flash is turning into a better setting for stories than for games, in part because I already know how to write stories and don't have to put in the background work that a game would require.

I posted the preliminary notes for The Wolf Story, the first story in this world, over in the stories tab.

http://artiebartfast.blogspot.com/p/wolf-story.html

Laia's Diary, Days 1 and 3 posted

I posted the first two items in my old story Laia's Diary over on the stories page.

Direct link:  http://artiebartfast.blogspot.com/p/laias-diary.html

Random Thoughts

Work has been busy lately, and somehow I went a month without an update. Bad Artie.

A couple of minor notes.

My pseudonym made Caroline Pierce laugh, which just about made my day.  (A kid moment beat it out for best thing of the day. Sorry Caroline.)

I think that instead of trying to get the stories perfect and post them, I need to just post them as serials, and include any rewrites or fixes in the changelog or daily digest. The gaps are just too long otherwise.

I have been working on the story growing out of the morphing flash concept. Right now it looks like a straight story in the "tough chicks and magic beasties" horror-romance genre that is so popular right now. But I don't know how tentacle beasts will play with the romance audience, so I may need to adjust content or target some more.