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End of the Month Updates
By Corvus | May 29, 2008
First off, you’ve probably already seen this, but… Zonino! Beyond Good & Evil 2!!
Now, that’s supposedly in-engine and I’m not sure how I feel about the look. One of the things I very much liked about the original BG&E were the stylized characters and environments. Still, a sequel to a less than stellar selling game? A game I loved? Well, I’ll be keeping an eye on it at the very least.
I’m playing Tomb Raider: Anniversary, Rain Slick Precipice and Viking at the moment. I’ll be using thoughts on those as filler while I get my blog back on next week.
Let’s see… I’m wrapping up the first chunk of my new Pogo.com contract this week. I’m still waiting to hear on some other opportunities that are floating out there. I’ve begun working on converting the UW series of posts into an article for the book, Well Played. For some reason I’m having trouble with the next NotM post on X-COM. I even know what I want to say, I just… have some writer’s block I guess. Perhaps I’ll dedicate Monday to breaking through it.
I’ve been playing with the new version of Blender 3D and its built in cloth, hair & particle systems. Wow. This application has come so far in a few short years. It’s really quite breathtaking and a testament to free and open source software.
I’m gaming on Saturday, which is awesome. I’ve got a fun session planned that’ll hopefully launch a fun three session story arc that we can wrap up before I leave for Portland in September.
Oh! I’ve realized that I’m terrible at writing game manuals. The current Renown manual is a barrage of rules (mechanics) and a little bit of flavor (aesthetic) that does very little to convey the actual gameplay (dynamics). I think that when faced with writing about mechanics I get overly granular and explain things as if I had a programming environment with a natural language parser. This is an important realization on several levels. First off, it explains why I haven’t made more progress on the RPG manuals than I have. Secondly, it allows us (Zakelro Story Studio) to restructure our workflow so that MsZ will have more of a hand in the writing process for these internal game projects. I’m pretty excited about that!
This shift in approach also frees up some of my time to nail down an illustration style for the Drachurae Cycle–from Renown to the RPG manuals to… other projects we’re talking about and keeping secret just at the moment.
I finally played a full game of Renown with the new decks over the weekend and I have to say, in all modesty, that it’s fun. It’s challenging and requires some subtle strategy, but if you’re into that sort of thing I think you’ll like it. I’m pretty much available to play Renown every Wednesday evening from here through the rest of the summer (I explain the game much better in person than I do on paper). So if you live in Philly, please feel free to contact me and let me know that you’re interested. I’ve also scheduled a big game at my place on Sunday the 8th and there are still a few seats available. We’ll probably make some homemade pizza to thank folks for showing up.
I’ll discuss the hexagonal card thoughts I mentioned earlier in more depth next week after I do some mockups and play with them a bit.
Enjoy your Thursday!
Tagged:beyond good and evil 2, blogging, madness, Renown, updates, very small chickens, work. |
May 29th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Oh, and be sure to swing by the Round Table post. I added an honorary entry this morning!
May 29th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Oh and there’s a new poll in the sidebar that commenters may want to take a look at.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Ok,
Let me be a bit lazy here, and ask questions for your readers. That is; for you, from your readers. Or me. Regarding the topic of comments seen in the poll.
1. What would the benefits of Disqus be for us? (I don’t know) For you? (You spread the comments around: quick look at http://is.gd/o1R) And the implications; would we have to sign up for Disqus? (No, not really - but it helps)
2. What would the benefits of OpenID be for us? For you? And the implications; would we have to sign up for OpenID? (Not really; Things would work like before, OpenID would be an option. And Any people have an OpenID, form TypePad, Wordpress, AOL, Yahoo and other sources.)
3. Yes, no… this would kind of work like right now. Have you put your posts RSS through FeedBurner? What about your comments RSS? With their WP plugin it should be quite transparent to us users, and more power to you.
Tormod
May 30th, 2008 at 5:28 am
1. I like the idea of the conversation being able to grow beyond my site and exist independently of the blog.
2. It allows you to be logged in permanently for commenting and merges your online identity.
3. Yes, I have everything fed through FeedBurner, with several of their services active (for example: that’s their Flare service at the foot of each post).
If I do anything with the comment (and that’s a big if), I will make sure that it’s entirely optional and doesn’t make commenting any more convoluted than it is currently.
May 31st, 2008 at 10:46 am
BG&E2: Hard to tell from such a short teaser, but I think the style is still there, albeit slightly submerged by higher polygon count and real shaders.