DevDiary #3: Reformatting

One of the most important elements of writing is that before approaching a story, one should always consider what format that best fits the overall narrative. This should seem obvious, yet I see this mistake made so many times in final products - from comic books that would have made better short stories, novels that would make a better television series, and even video games that would make better movies. I am not above making this mistake. Not in the slightest.

DevDiary #2: The Dublin Man Is Standing Outside My Window

More than two years ago, my wife and I got married.  For our honeymoon, we went to the Republic of Ireland - somewhere that I wanted to go back to and that she hadn’t been before.  We had no plans in particular beyond, take the train to Kilkenny, stay there a few nights, and then return back to Dublin for the remainder of the week. 

Lindy spent most of her time sleeping, and rightfully so.  She was basically catching up on a month’s worth that she had missed.  I, however, had a lot of trouble sleeping.  I’m not sure if it was jet lag, the beds (which I’ve seen no evidence that they’re not made of drop forged steel), or the weird heat wave that had hit Ireland at the time.  By the time that we returned to Dublin, I was in a bit of a hypnagogic state.

The heat wave seemed to get worse when we were in Dublin.  The hotel room retained heat all too well, meaning that it remained about 90-degrees; even in the dead of night.  Being born and raised in Portland, Oregon, I’m used to cold nights, so the heat was like being in my own personal hell.  It was nearly impossible for me to go to sleep. 

Beyond our bed was a window that had sheer curtains.  They functioned such that I could only see shadows and silhouettes beyond them.  In my sleeplessness, my mind began to explore concepts despite my best efforts to prevent it from doing so.  These were idea that were fueled by some of my favorite sci-fi horror movies from when I was a kid; movies such as Alien and The Thing.

I would imagine a figure - humanoid in shape - standing just beyond the curtains, pressing its hand against the window.  I could see this figure’s shadow in the hallway light coming from under the door frame.  There was no where to go.  Nowhere that I could run.  Despite speaking the language, despite having been to Ireland once before, I was alone.  I was caught by some aggressive being - unknown to me in nature - in a foreign land.

The day after this wakeful nightmare, I drowsily stumbled into a pub, sketch book in hand, ordered a Guinness and some crisps, and began playing with this fear.  Apparently, this can be a rather useful state to be in as I knocked out five or six hand written pages exploring the characters, themes, and plotting, plus a concept sketch of the figure standing outside the window in the span of two pints.  The Guinness may have also had something to do with it.

I’m sad to say that I never really played much with this idea all that much for the last two years.  It stuck in the back of my mind as something to work with, but my attention was always on the Amazing Adventures of Captain Farr Novarider and the Wild Horses, and more recently on Express Line Number 7.  I think it’s time to rectify this.

For the months of October and November, this short story - currently titled “The Dublin Man” - is going to be the focus of my work.  I think that two months is a pretty relaxed schedule for a short story (I seem to remember being able to produce one about every week in college).  This will allow me some time to get some peer input as well.  Once November 30th comes, “The Dublin Man” gets a go, no-go assessment for publishing, and I’m back to Express Line Number 7.

Working on this short story will hopefully have a couple effects.  The first being that it comes at a fortuitous time in the development of the story for Express Line Number 7 where I’ve found some problems with a few of the characters.  This project will afford me some time to think on these problems while not making me feel like I’m being unproductive.  The second being that I get a little break, staving off any of the animosity or frustration that becomes common with large projects like Express Line Number 7.  It happened with The Amazing Adventures, it will happen with this one, too.

I’ll still be working on the Let’s MAD series as well as developer diaries such as this.  I might take the opportunity to do something other than a DevDiary next month.  I’ve had an idea for a show for a some time now (almost as long as “The Dublin Man”) that I would like to execute on just to see how it might go over, but we’ll see about that.

I look forward to trying to publish a short story for my first time.  This will be a good diversion that will, hopefully, re-energize me for writing Express Line Number 7.  I’m excited.  Are you excited?  I’m excited.

DevDiary #1: Early Process for Express Line Number 7

I put a lot of thought into what I was going to do following the Amazing Adventures of Captain Farr Novarider and the Wild Horses. Parts of me wanted to try my hand again at writing and illustrating a graphic novel - my previous attempt having fallen flat after I realized it was an overwrought existentialist nightmare that really didn’t seem to say anything other than “choice is tough.” I had considered a couple of other concepts for new audio dramas including a Dr. Who style time traveler series as well as a one shot about the creation and evolution of artificial intelligence into actual intelligence, but neither concept really held my fancy for long enough.

I wanted to do something that would be challenging, interesting for my self (and hopefully others) to experience, as well as something that was important to me. After giving it some thought, I decided to try my hand at developing an indie game. There were several story ideas sitting on my mental shelf that would work perfectly as games, but only some were attainable given my current resources and very limited programming knowledge. I eventually nailed my choices down to three items. And then down to two. And then back up to three. This was not going to be an easy decision.

Of the four total ideas that I was tangling with (one was eliminated early, but in the process of thinking about it, I came up with a new concept I really wanted to work with), there was a common problem. All of them were too far beyond my programming knowledge. All of them except one.

Express Line Number 7 is a point-and-click adventure game, featuring graphic novel-styled cut scenes, multiple solutions to puzzles, and, potentially, multiple endings and paths.

This is a story that’s been sitting in the back of my mind for sometime, and has gone through more than a few changes. Originally, the central character, Ian, was looking for a friend and a way to escape the enigmatic Express Line Number 7. As it went on in years, I found the original idea to be somewhat lacking in a couple of departments. Then main issue being that it was - putting it in the simplest terms - a little bit too emo.

I began to rework the concept, pushing characters in certain directions, adding new characters, taking unnecessary ones out, as well as putting a bit more thought into the setting and overall themes. Overtime, Express Line Number 7 became a very solid concept, and one that I felt was worthy of not only putting to paper, but publishing.

Express Line Number 7 is now the story of Ian, who finds himself aboard Express Line Number 7. He has no memory of boarding the train, is wearing clothes that he’s never owned, and has a ticket that he never purchased. In his pocket is nothing but a broken pocket watch. And he’s not the only one who this has happened to. In order to discover what lead him here, he must face unrest, lies, murder, and a very dangerous intruder.

If The Amazing Adventures of Captain Farr Novarider and the Wild Horses taught me anything, it was that I should sit down and not only hammer out the world that I’m working with - which a lot of the basic work was already done with Express Line Number 7 - but I should also plan out the actual execution of the project. The Amazing Adventures had this problem of me never knowing exactly what was next, especially in the first season. I had some vague idea of what should happen and how to do it, but no definite steps. This resulted in a lot of frustration and unnecessary back tracking on that project.

Early on, I decided that I really wanted to take this project as seriously as possible. I built an Excel spreadsheet that served not only as a design document, but a work flow as well as a financial tracker (with general ledger numbers for expenses and everything). As boring as this sounds, I actually had quite a bit of fun with it. I felt that I should be putting a poorly tied tie on and start adding meaningless letters to the end of my name.

I did not take the time to create a true schedule for myself. Writing the script shouldn’t be done by a certain day, nor should editing, nor should the core programming. Everything is meant to be as open as possible. Not only is this project a challenge for myself, it’s also a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see what it takes to build an indie game. Instead of a schedule, I created an goal outline and priorities. This way, I knew what should be up next, but if I had to double back and re-approach something, I didn’t feel like I had missed some deadline that, honestly, really doesn’t matter at the moment.

Something that they never teach you in writing or art classes is that by the time you are done, you will absolutely loathe your project. This was very true with the Amazing Adventures. Sometimes I get burned out, and this will probably be at minimum a two year project. I’m going to wear thin a lot. This time around, I’m taking steps to mitigate this mental wear-and-tear. Twice a month, I’m going to be working on something else. Be it a Let’s Play or something fun that is not Express Line Number 7, or one of these developer diaries. This will hopefully stave off my inevitable madness.

With future DevDiaries, I’ll be getting into more detail regarding the process of creating Express Line Number 7, from the stand points of programming, design decisions, as well as writing. Through these, you’ll hopefully get a picture of how the project evolves over the coming months. Be it narrative changes, design changes, or other little touches, so that when you see the final project you can see what went into it.

I still don’t know how spoiler-y I’m going to get, but I really like the Double Fine model of pealing back the curtain as much as possible. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments or over twitter at @boundcompass. I’m extremely excited to get into the meat of this project and for it’s eventual release.