Whoo... been a long time...

Suffice to say, this spring got pretty busy. I think the lack of updates was a pretty big hint.

The Troglobyte team and I finished four games (space shooter Neon Trigger, real time strategy Illgresi, first person shooter Illumina, and beat-'em-up Cadence). They were all pirated, Cadence within less than 24 hours, which we're quite proud of. Since they're free games it just means that more people play them. Additionally, we found that there were actual honest to god reviews for them, 2-300 words long even! We were super proud. However, there was also a portfolio that had to be done, applying for internship, volunteering at the Nordic Game Conference, etc. There never seemed to be enough time for much of anything, truth be told.
I've signed the necessary papers for my internship now, and I'll be moving "back home". That is to say, to the north of Sweden where I was born. When I was a child, my cousin and I were most upset that we had to move to the south of Sweden and both wanted to stay. So, we started the club "we who are going to move back to the snow when we've grown up" and were very cranky. A little over two decades later, we still live in the south. I'm of half a mind to suggest he moves up with me now that I'm moving.
I just need to find an apartment now...

The pigs, finished!

Amanda and I held our The Good, the Bad, the Babbler presentation, about character creation, development and representation at Kodachi-Con. The second time we did that lecture, first being at I Seriernas Värld 2013. Got some nice responses and feedback, which we are definitely going to use to update and improve the presentation.

In other news, Champions and Heroes turned three, it is running steadily on tumblr now as well. We've decided to give Project Wonderful a go, and see what happens. Touch wood and all of that.
The plan is to make multiple fanzines for next year's SPX/SIS, together and with Think Ink. Since I have to move for my internship things involving any kind of printing and conventions are a little bit uncertain, but the comic is definitely going to keep going.

I also finished Aquae Sulis for Think Ink's 9th fanzine Mysterious Tales, and lived in a dazed state of confusion when I had spare time after handing it in. I think I spent November to April with practically no time to myself due to the comic, my studies and the portoflio, and absolutely none that was guilt free. On the plus side, I still kinda like the comic, despite having worked on it for so long.

Additionally, SF-bokhandeln is turning 30, and they're hosting a ball in Stockholm in late August. The plan is to go as an imperial officer, but that's provided I find the time to make the outfit. Otherwise I suppose it's going to be one of the old cosplays.
Aaaaand there's going to be some camp NaNoWriMo this month too. I've already started, fallen behind, and caught up. One of my main characters finally decided on a plan, so now I know where she's at least going to try to go (hooray!) but there's a lot of incoherent rambling going on (boo!), but that's NaNo I guess.

After a long silence

I have returned. I have been way too swamped these past months, which I suppose I should have expected for my second year at the Game Assembly. By now my fellow second years and I have been divided into three teams of 22, and finished our first game. I've been bad at updating or this would already have been known. On the other hand I can direct you to Troglobyte's facebook page, with various videos ranging from team building to in-progress trailers, and our Indie DB page where you can play Neon Trigger, our first game!
Neon Trigger is a space shooter, and the story of dr Fox, a man of many talents and a lot of anger. It's got an 80s feel to it, and you fight space bikers. Neon, spikes, asteroids, what more could you possibly need? Reviews are much appreciated to help us grow and improve. It was made under a period of 10 weeks, but at half-time as we had studies demanding our attention as well.
The Troglobyte team has just started working on our second game, so far unnamed, which is going to be a real time strategy. We're all very excited over it even as we're starting to hammer out the basics of it. One and a half week done, eight and a half to go.

An early version of our logo, which has since been simplified.

I've also done my 12th year of NaNoWriMo. I've cheated, once again, and continued on the same story. This year was probably one of the most even years I've ever had. It was not that inspiration flowed like a wild river or anything like that, but that together with school I nearly had no spare time so it was a battle every day. It evened out and stopped being a pain to force out those words. They started coming at a reasonable pace, I found my inspiration probably because I was too tired to chase after it. It was a strange and somehow yet rewarding experience. And I finally got to introduce Fyren, who is one of my old characters who's still around, which was very exciting for me.
And speaking of which...

I drew him a while back, together with Zillah and Ziv who are both important to the story's history.

And then these three as well. I've got two half-finished trios waiting for a third party, and neither time nor inspiration for them at the moment. In part because it's now time to start working on this year's Think Ink comic. This year's comic is something I've wanted to do since 2011 when I visited Bath. I got super inspired at the roman baths there, and that's where the focus is going to be. This year the plan is to print in Japan, as Fanny is there for her studies and it would be a shame to waste such an opportunity!

Back to school

We started school off with an introduction to dynamics and... I'm honestly really excited. It's fun when things go right and, well, ok so maybe I spent way too much time trying to get that box-falling-out-of-cart to work but it came together in the end.

Speaking of the Game Assembly, I was going to post the cutscene pictures from the third game. I was kind of hoping that they'd get around to put it up on the homepage first, but that seems to be uh... a potential 'never' at this point. Only the top three text adventures (the first game we did) of my year are up, out of four finished games :(
So, with that said, here are cutscenes from our shoot 'em up:

The final one is the cropped version, because I have successfully managed to misplace the complete version. And by misplace I mean 'I can't find it on neither laptop nor external harddrive, and the school computers were wiped during summer so it's only existence at this point is in game'. Hooray, or something.
Oh well.

A little rest

Finally moved out of my old apartment and into the new. Still got a lot to sort out, but at least the vast majority is where it should be. Today I won't be running back and forth to clean at least, so that's a relief.
I have instead finished the basics on my Strong Female Pose picture, aka the butt picture, aka Dragon Age featuring Escher Girls and Hawkeye Initiative.

I've worked on it on and off since... late autumn during breaks at the Game Assembly. I didn't touch it for most of spring though. I'm still going to do some basic shading and add magic shine and whatnot but... yeah. Something presentable! Sorta. There are so many broken spines and snapped limbs I don't even know... The poses (all but Hawke) are based on 'female' poses of other works that are meant to be sexy I suppose. Well. It was great fun doing, and I might muster the energy to do a Mass Effect version in the (probably far off) future.

Speaking of the Game Assembly. The second game that I worked on, The Tomte, was nominated for Best Scenario at the Swedish Game Awards 2013. Which was all kinds of awesome, even if we didn't win. Hopefully it will be up at the Game Assembly's homepage soon, free to play.

Now that I've had a proper amount of sleep for a couple of days, it's clearly time to start camp NaNoWriMo. Plans are to continue that No Coffin Needed story.

I also continued doing those scribbly trio character pictures for the story. I've three other characters that have been finished, but no matching trio sets so... eh. Soon. Sooooon.

And now for something completely different: Fable 3

I like games. The Dragon Age comic Champions and Heroes that I do with Amanda has been running for almost a full year now, so that is a pretty big hint. And I feel that it's time for an update here...

So... I played Fable 3 a while back. I haven't played the first two games, but it is very friendly to people unfamiliar with the series.
It starts out with your older brother, king Logan of Albion, being an asshat. Now, Logan looks like this:

So, black hair? Check. Backslick? Check. Sallow skin? Check. Villainous beard? Check. Grumpy McGrumpypants expression almost constantly? Check. Position of authority? Check.
So, evidently, he's the villain. And, evidently, he's my favorite character. It doesn't hurt that his hair strongly reminds me of Rui from Eyeshield 21, who was one of my favorite characters.

King Logan gives you an offer of killing either your friend/boy- or girlfriend or a bunch of rebel leaders. You have to pick either, or he insists that he'll kill both of them. In other words, a lesson in how you can't save everyone and how to make hard choices, the asshat way. You make your choice, and someone ends up dead. Jolly good. At this point your main character decides that this is unacceptable and s/he has to flee and lead a rebellion against Logan. Cue adventures.

Now, there are some serious issues with this game.
- To even get to play the game that you've paid for, you have to jump through hoops, because it really, really wants you to take part of Windows Live. Regardless if you want to do so. I was on the brink of just saying 'screw this' by the time I managed to get everything sorted out. Unacceptable.
- It's buggy, and I ended up abandoning my first character and started all over again because I suddenly couldn't interact with anyone.
- Interacting with people is awkward, to say the least. You act like a buffoon, but that is the only way to make friends, apparently. It is also so time demanding that it's not really worth it.
- Interacting with major characters is 100% scripted. You can marry random npcs, or several at the same time if you house them in separate cities, but they have no personalities worth mentioning. There is no way of actually getting to know any character, and everything is kept as superficial as possible.
- One should not be able to save the world by playing the lute well. Really.
- No real replay value, because:
- The script railroads you, and it's not even shy about it.
- The game calls itself an RPG, but it is not.

Roleplaying actually involves making choices for your character and determining his/her personality. This game is so determined to railroad you that it refuses to let you do anything of the sort.
While the prince/ss is outraged and believes his/her brother to be a monster, I the player can't help but to feel that all of this could be solved if the protagonist and Logan just sat down and had a long talk. As the game goes on, you learn things which put your brother in a more favorable light, yet the protagonist seems determined to paint Logan the darkest black.

Some attempt at convincing you that your brother truly is as evil as he is designed are made, but they all fall flat. The main offender is a magical vision that a blind seer, Teresa, gives you. We are supposed to accept it as the truth, but it is a magical vision. It could easily be made up, or simply taken out of context. But no, the main character trusts this Teresa blindly, despite never having met her before, and condemns his/her brother instantly, despite having grown up under his guardianship and evidently lived a comfortable, sheltered life.

Now, in my eyes Logan has the best design and is the most interesting character in the game, and I would like the princess to simply marry him in true Targaryen fashion and rule Albion as king and queen. I even adopted a child and named him Logan II, hoping that the game would take a hint. It did not.
However, only half of the game is about the rebellion, the other half is about actually ruling the country. Which was the selling point of this game to me, because so many games are about taking the throne, but practically no games care about what happens afterwards. The scene where you finally confront Logan was absolutely lovely, except for the fact that I wanted to smack my main character silly. Because, again, there is no roleplaying happening here. Your character has decided how this will go, and you are just there to observe, apparently.

On the other hand, it's got some good things going for it:
+ It has beautiful clothing designs. Clearly borrowing heavily from 1700s and 1800s, they are really, really inspiring. The clothing designs is actually one of the most appealing aspects of the game for me.
+ The loading screens have pretty and funny posters, which I must say I really enjoyed. Probably the best loading screens I've encountered.
+ The quest 'The Game'. It didn't really fit the game, but since I giggled right through it I am more than happy to forgive it for that. I fear, however, that as a game master I am Jim.


Characters of note:
Logan - Easily the best character in the game. Best design, best writing, best development. Shitty ending.
Teresa - The blind seer that appears in visions and guides you. I strongly suspect her to be the main villain in the series, and I don't trust her one bit. Voiced by Zoë Wanamaker though, which is a total plus.
Reaver - Probably the funniest character in the game, in that 'necessary evil' kind of way. Also, Stephen Fry. Can't go wrong with Stephen Fry.
The Crawler - Yes. Yes, yes, yes. The oozing black goo - a thousand times yes. But it's still a very 2D villain.


When I really like a game, I make fanart, search for fanfic, and back in the day I'd also write fanfic. There's a period during which I am involved with the fandom, which may stretch on for years. Fable 3? I was pretty over it after a week.

5/10. Would have been a little higher, but I cannot forgive Windows Live.

The thing about titles...

... is that they ought to have 'umph'. A title with umph will make you pick it up and have a closer look. It sticks around in your brain, getting friendly with your grocery list and teases your imagination. They are also painfully hard to come by and I am notoriously picky and often forced to settle for less. I had no less than 20 potential titles for my drow story, but I've finally chosen Ilta Dalharuk ("her son") because it was relevant and yet neutral. Several of the other alternatives gave too much away or were just horrendously difficult to twist your tongue around.
So far I've inked 7½ of 11 pages in a period of about two weeks (!) and, well, it's looking good. I'm quite pleased with how this experiment is turning out. Unfortunately this would-be one-shot wants more attention than I originally wanted to give it. Three more scenes are clamoring for attention and... well... we shall see.

I think of it as my little break before I sit down and do some serious work on the Space script, letting my brain rest a little in dark caverns below ground before it's off to Mars again.

Now that I have a little bit of spare time again, I'm working on the iphone game once more. Trying a new style there too, to have the illustrations blend with the other artists' work. Interesting, to say the least.