Up Yours Productions

Figure drawing

2012-02-09T18:55:00.000-08:00

It's a bit dark, but still visible. Done with pencil and kneaded rubber.

Doodles from my art lesson

2012-01-31T23:15:00.000-08:00

I've been taking art lessons from a painter I happen to know. Yesterday, (01-30-2012) we decided to do some doodles in lieu of our normal drawings.

I'll have to upload some of my normal drawings at some point.

Infinite Mechworks

2012-01-20T00:36:00.000-08:00

This is an idea I had for a game, with major inspiration from Battletech, Lego, and Fallout. Minor inspiration comes from Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Sound of the Sky/Sora no Woto, Big O, and probably a few other things I forgot about.

So, it’s a mech game. Where you build your own mech. But not like Armored Core or Front Mission, where you buy body parts and weapons and put them together to make a mech. No, this goes into much more detail. Instead of buying arms, legs, weapons, etc., you buy armor plates, servos, and so on. (Hence Lego and Nuts & Bolts.) If designing parts is too much for you, you can buy schematics, or buy them pre-assembled.

Of course, you can try out your mech in a simulation to see how well it works. At first, your simulation only covers movement. You can buy software that contains extra simulations, for a price. (Or just pirate it, if you have the connections. The quality of the software varies, depending on where you get it from. Cracked simulations might be unreliable, honeypots, or just plain inaccurate.) Purchasable simulations include AIs to fight, firing ranges, obstacle courses, and so on.

The setting may seem a bit familiar to some of you. Some time in the future from our perspective, there was a war. A very large war, fought with weapons of immense power. This sent civilization back a few hundred years, but things have recovered since then. Modern technology is inspired by pre-war tech, but is has simpler construction and materials. Thus, mechs are common but lack the power and strength of their inspiration. (Hence Fallout, Sound of the Sky, and Big O.)

In the game, there are two kinds of components you can buy. Modern components are of varying quality, but are common and will work with almost anything. Components usually only work with other components from the same manufacturer, due to different standards. However, you can buy bridges that let you mix brands. Pre-war components are rare and expensive, but incredibly powerful. You can use them with modern components via a bridge, (or just by soldering it on in the case of armor plates) but the added power and stress costs means the resulting mech probably won’t last long.

The player receives job offers via email. What jobs you’re offered depend on your notoriety. These missions are from various interested parties such as corporations, governments, or just anybody with cash. You can also explore the world map, delving into ruins. However, all the low-hanging fruit was picked clean long ago. The only ruins left to explore are either treacherous to navigate, claimed by someone, or well guarded.

Standing on the Lip of the Canyon

2011-08-17T00:40:00.000-07:00

I just now had a very evil idea for Obake. However, this idea requires some context.

In Obake, you have three weapons that can be fired at any time. Firing a weapon slows your ship down somewhat. Firing two makes you go slower, and three slows you down to a crawl. Normally, this would be an incentive to not fire all your weapons at once. However, you need to be precise in order to dodge some of the more complex bullet patterns the bosses throw at you.

However, firing also heats your ship. Get it hot enough, and your weapons cease to function until the temperature goes back to reasonable levels.

Your ship also starts going faster again, smacking you directly into whatever bullet you were trying to dodge.*

Now, there is a way to cool your ship if you don't have enough time or leg room to let go of the trigger. You can graze. That is, you get very, very close to bullets. This is what the title of this post refers to. The more weapons you have firing, the more damage you deal to the boss, and the slower you go. Yet, you need to constantly graze lest you overheat.

Now for the evil bit. There is a score multiplier that changes, depending on how hot your ship is. If the meter reads 53% for example, your multiplier is x1.53. Thus, the player is encouraged to keep their heat gauge high, putting themselves in even greater peril because of the promise of a bigger reward. Granted, most players don't care about score. I am certain that a good portion of Obake's audience will, however.

*JackMackerel suggests; "If you overheat, have a trollface flash really really quickly on the screen." I'm tempted to put this in.

----

Edit: Shlapintogan mentioned something interesting that I overlooked. Keeping your heat high increases your multiplier, but discourages you from grazing. We managed to come up with a workable solution for this mutual exclusivity, though. Grazing has its own separate multiplier, which isn't as lucrative as the heat multiplier.

To prevent the player from having to look away from the play field to check their multipliers, sound cues are used. For example, there is a tick sound played every time you graze a bullet. As your graze multiplier increases, the pitch of the tick changes. Likewise, the heat meter has its own sound and pitch changes.

Thus, the player has three options.

1) Play it safe, and don't worry about score. Graze only when you need to, and keep your heat low.

2) Graze when you can, and get a small bonus.

3) Keep your heat up, and get a large bonus.

4) Attempt to juggle both, possibly net record scores, get bitches, and lose a bit of sanity.

The last option would be impossible for all but a small set of players, so Shlap suggested this. Have a region (45 to 55% or so) that if you stay in for both bars, nets you a bonus. Once both bars are in the sweet spot, the player is notified via a chirping sound. As the player sustains the bonus, the chirping gets more rapid, culminating in a ding that tells the player they have completed the bonus. Look to Beat Hazard for refinement and inspiration.

Like Snatch, but with cyberpunk (sort of)

2011-06-12T04:37:00.000-07:00

The setting is inspired by Ghost in the Shell, but the game itself would be a lot closer to Shadowrun. Full-body cyborgs* exist, but are uncommon. The PC just so happens to be a full-body cyborg. Since he's an enforcer for a mobster, this comes in handy. One day he tries to screw over his boss, and gets put in a sexbot for his disloyalty. His first task is to shut up a mole for a rival mobster. It's possible to sell yourself to the other guy, but only if you do it right.

From here, you have a few options. Work for your boss and gradually regain his trust, or betray him and work for his rival. Each path has its own quests and storyline associated with it, as well as an ending.

Or, you could try to take down both bosses yourself. Might not want to do this right away, though. Keep doing jobs and making friends. Buy a safehouse. Once you're well-connected enough, you might just be able to pull off a mutiny. You can do it any time you want, but you might want to check if your friends have your back.

You upgrade by buying better bodies, armor, weapons, and firmware. You can also upgrade what you already have. Since your inventory is limited to what you could realistically carry, it's a good idea to invest in some built-in tools for your body. All the bodies you buy stay with you, and you pick which one you want to use for the mission. You can also arrange for a drop at a predetermined location, in case you need to swap during the mission.

*People with just a brain and some spine to call their own. Everything else is robotic.

Cat and mouse TPS

2011-03-04T02:15:00.000-08:00

As the "cat", the player chases somebody through a procedurally generated urban environment. The player is always locked on to the target, and can adjust their aim with the mouse/right analog stick. Of course, the player has to dodge obstacles as well as whatever the "mouse" is throwing at them.

As the "mouse", the player is running away from somebody through the same environment. The difference here is that the player needs to get to a designated location. In order to lose your purseuer, you can shoot at things to create obstacles, take tight turns, go in unexpected directions, etc.

No matter who the player plays as, the game is about speed and quick reflexes.

Idea for an eroge

2011-01-08T04:29:00.000-08:00

There are two kinds of eroge. Those that are plot with porn, and those that are porn with plot. This is the former, with the tropes of the latter.

A normal, average Japanese teenager wakes up to a normal day. At the breakfast table, his little sister seems a bit more reserved than usual. At school, he finds that his childhood friend is a bit shy about talking to him. The class president barks at him rather harshly- more so than usual. Everything seems a little bit off. It isn't for a few days that he realizes that he's in an eroge- a very smutty one at that. People he's known for his entire life have been reduced to stereotypes. Needless to say, he doesn't take this very well. After a slight internal breakdown, the game's first choice is presented.

This is where the game's save system comes into play. You see, this game doesn't have a normal save system. Instead, it tracks which choice points you've encountered, and which choices you've taken. As the game progresses this becomes a large map, filling itself with your choices. At any time you can exit to this map and go to any other point in the game you've already been to. This is essentially an automation of what eroge players already do- make a map of choices and save at every opportunity. The catch is that the PC remembers his choices, and new ones appear as he gathers more intel. Thus, the player might want to go down a bad end in order to learn something.

Obake -crazy bullets

2011-01-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

Ponicalica showed me a tech demo he made recently for what i'm calling crazy bullets. Here's a short explanation from the man himself.

"Every frame, they set their horizontal velocity to one of -4 and 4 and their vertical velocity to one of -3.5 and 4.5.

Basically, it's one of these except tweaked a bit to get the bullets to drift down."

I'm not sure how to write these into the fluff just yet. I was thinking that what the player sees is an abstraction of what's actually out there, for the player's and the PC's convenience. This doesn't change the gameplay at all, but provides a good explanation for why the bullets are so visible. The crazy bullets appear a lot bigger than they actually are in gameplay, though. The circle that the player sees is just where the bullet is likely to be at that given moment. It's dangerous, but you can plow through a field of crazy bullets and not get hit.

This doesn't seem like something a lot of players would risk, though. Perhaps area denial is a better role for the crazy bullets? It'd tie in with the fluff, as well. UAVs can't be sure exactly where these bullets will be, so they steer clear entirely.

Transcendant State info

2011-01-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

Note to self: fill out the section below, but don't forget to write about areas other than the poor cities. Talk about the capital as well.

Note to others: this isn't done yet. Feel free to read, but there's more coming.

Leprosy is common in certain areas. Those not inoculated are forced to adopt prosthetics, for obvious reasons. Official prosthetic surgeons are often weeks away and far too expensive for the common leper, so being a street doc is a profitable business. Street docs tend to be somewhat lax about safety, unless it directly concerns them. Street prosthetics tend to be rather haphazard and cheap, and aren't always accepted by the body. The process of installing the prosthetic is very painful and bloody, necessitating the application of painkillers. Unfortunately for would-be cyborgs, the only available painkiller is a homemade alcoholic drink that usually contains motor oil among other creative ingredients. This is also used as an antiseptic.

More notes.

Somehow, a Transcendant State spy has managed to infiltrate (MAGIC NATION). Your job is to take the place of his contact, and reroute any useful information to us.

(MAGIC NATION) technology is about advanced as Earth's, minus anything to do with computers. It's never stated outright, but (MAGIC NATION) are kind of like the Amish. It's not that they hate technology or advancement, but that certain things are outlawed- mostly computers and prosthetics.

Opening for an RPG idea

2010-12-31T02:45:00.001-08:00

The player starts in an office, at a computer. The PC is reading an article titled Cartographer I project delayed, researchers refuse to explain why. We hear a door opening, and the PC quickly alt-tabs to a program with various data on it. He swings around to face the person that just entered the room. It is a man in his late twenties, wearing a lab coat.

PC: Yes?

PERSON IN LAB COAT: Well, since we're going to be using your soul for the project, we thought it would only be right for you to decide the physical features of the host body. I've uploaded a program to our intranet. You can use that to decide what you'll look like in your next life. It's in a hidden folder in the main directory, so you should be able to find it pretty quickly.

PC: Thanks. I'll get right on it.

PERSON IN LAB COAT: I'll leave you to it, then. (beat) By the way, your reaction times have slowed. I managed to read that headline before you switched windows.

PC: (muttering) Dammit...

The PC opens a terminal window and opens the program. Another window pops up, and this is where the player designs their character. Options are body shape, skin tone, facial features, sex, etc. The player also names the PC here.

Once the player is done, fade to black.

The player sees nothing, initially. After a few seconds, the player's eyes open to reveal a white room with a door. It takes a few seconds for their eyes to focus. The PC is on a bed, and gets up. The PC stumbles for a bit before regaining its balance.

VOICE: Ah, you're awake. Glad to see that, I am. How are you feeling? Good, I take it? If not, feel free to rest.

PC: What's going on? Where am I?

VOICE: Hm. Seems you haven't recovered any of your personal memories yet. At least you know our language. Anyway, you are the result of an experiment to capture a soul and put it in a dormant body. As you can tell, the experiment was a success. You are free to leave the room now. If you have any questions- and I'm sure you do, feel free to direct them to anyone who's not working.

The player hears a click, and a light just above the door handle changes from red to green. Once the player exits the room, they are free to explore the lab. Talking to the staff lets you learn more about the project, and the surrounding world. You can also visit an obstacle course and a firing range, as a combat tutorial. It's about lunchtime when you wake up, so there are a lot of people with free time. The in-game clock doesn't advance until the player exits the lab, by the way. This section of the game is basically a tutorial, so the player isn't required to talk to all of these people and is thus skippable. I'm looking at you, Custom Robo.

At the firing range, the player has access to various firearms and is allowed to train with them. The guns available are mostly (BORDER NATION) weapons, but a few (CYBERPUNK NATION) and (MAGIC NATION) weapons are there as well. You are allowed to fire at targets, and can choose the range. Moving targets are available as well.

The person at the firing range has some knowledge he's willing to spare you for, mostly about weapons. Which weapons are best for what situations, the differences between various manufacturers, etc. He talks at some length, and you have the option to request (politely or not) that he stop.

He also mentions a challenge he has for you. Give him however much money you're willing to bet. Complete the challenge, and he'll double it. Try as many times as you want. The challenge is designed to be impossible, but you can win it. You'll just have to cheat. Sneak in your own weapon, mod it, use special ammo, rig the course, etc. If he isn't going to play fair, you don't have to either. Bet a small to medium amount, and you'll get double if you win. If you bet a lot, he'll still accept, thinking that you can't win. If you beat him, he'll admit this and offer you everything he has on him. Since this challenge was off the books from the start, and he tried to con you, you have a lot of leverage. Thus, you have a few options.

1) Give me the money.

2) Bullshit. You're holding out. (He is. If your speech skill is high enough, you get the extra cash. If not, you get the regular amount and he hates you a little more. May be this could tie into a later quest?)

3) Keep your money. I'll take a favor. (He thinks you're talking about a sexual favor, which the PC corrects. I'm not sure what to do with this option. Maybe have it tie into the same quest? Any advantage this gives you should not be required to complete said quest, but would make it easier.)

4) Keep your money. I'll take a gun. (He can't give you one of the range's weapons, since they're all licensed to the range and kept in stock. If one of them went missing, the bureaucrats would know. Instead, you get to choose from his collection. All the guns have women's names. Mabel, Vera, Beatrice, Jayne, Seras, etc.)

Whether you take the challenge or not, you can pay this guy to mod your weapons.

In the cafeteria, the player can ask about the outside world. If they do, they're directed to a specific person. In-game, this is because he knows a lot about history, politics, etc. Design-wise, it's so a bunch of dialog doesn't have to be recorded several times over by different VAs. Once the player talks to this person, they can discuss the following topics.

- What is the soul transfer project? (An experiment to capture and transplant a soul into a dormant body. The project director's health was failing, so he offered himself as the donor.)

- I remember the name Cartographer I. Do you know what that is? (The Cartographer I is the first man-made satellite, currently under development. Its main purpose is to see what's behind the Fog Wall.)

-- Fog Wall (A border of fog surrounding the continent, about three miles from the shore in every direction. Nobody that has gone into the Fog Wall has ever returned. The player doesn't learn this for some time, but it's actually utility fog.)

- What's outside the lab? (Player's question is answered, and conversation turns to the political state and how it got there. From then on the player can ask about any of these topics.)

-- (MAGIC NATION)

--- Magic (Not as diverse as the magic you'd find in a "normal" fantasy setting, but very powerful. The downside is that you're literally using your soul as ammunition. It's also possible to absorb memories, adding them to your soul. This results in more "ammunition" for spells, but is likely to drive the receiver insane. Since this isn't like regular fantasy magic, maybe I should call it something else?)

---- Sleeper agents with false memories

--- Political state

-- (BORDER NATION)

--- History and founding (Born out of the latest of many conflicts between (MAGIC NATION) and (CYBERPUNK NATION). The two nations have been fighting for as long as anyone can remember. )

--- Political state

-- (CYBERPUNK NATION)

--- Prosthetics (Think Ghost in the Shell. Prosthetic eyes are common, as are minor body mods. In the poorer cities, you can't afford a good prosthetic. Thus, infections and rejection from the body are common problems. Moonshine is a common antibiotic.)

--- Political state

Quest idea for Operation Mindfuck

2010-11-29T22:26:00.000-08:00

Your (BORDER NATION) contact mentions a suspicious man they found. he claims to have lost his memory, but he is really a dangerous man working for the (BLACK MAGIC NATION). Since using black magic uses your soul (and thus memories) as ammunition, it is possible that he may be telling the truth. It is up to the player to determine what to do. Options are as follows;

Kill him- better safe than sorry.

Not sure yet- keep him around for study.

He's harmless- keep him around, and give him a life here.

He's harmless- Tell him the truth, and let him decide what he wants to do.

He's useful- Lie to him. Since he has no memories, he has no reason not to trust you.

(Note: Make up a new name for this game.)

Some notes

2010-08-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

Idea for Obake's final mission: Mid-mission, you get cut off from command. You're going up against impossible odds. You're fucked. When you get cut off, the music stops and is replaced with white noise. This continues until the level is over, or whenever comms are restored.

The goal of this is to make the player really feel like they're fucked. It will be hard. Very hard. But if the player can push through the barrage of bullets and defeat the immense force, they will feel an incredible sense of relaxation.

I might want to expand on this a bit. Mention it on IRC, and possibly with William on GTalk if he doesn't join the chat.

Another idea; Faptau saves the day by being the only Tau actually good at melee. All that wanking did some good, I guess.

Colliding Worlds

2010-06-02T17:53:00.001-07:00

I thought of this on the bus. Here's the chat I had with Blackmoon when I bounced the game idea off him. Additional notes are below.

----

Joel:

I had an interesting idea for a game on the bus home.

Ever played Knytt?

mysticblackmoon:

Nope.

Joel:

Well, it's a bit like a Metroidvania, only there's no specific order and very few enemies.

Really though, the focus is the scenery porn.

mysticblackmoon:

Alright.

Joel:

Look it up some time.

Anyway, my idea was pretty much that, only in 3D and with Mirror's Edge or Assassin's Creed-style parkour.

mysticblackmoon:

Hm.

So it'd be kinda like the 2008 Prince of Persia, but not suck?

Joel:

Yeah.

Oh, and I liked that game.

mysticblackmoon:

It was pretty, but not fun.

Joel:

Well, I liked it. I guess we can agree to disagree.

I was thinking that the setting would be a bunch of different landscapes sort of shoved together.

mysticblackmoon:

Indeed.

Hm.

Joel:

If you can't imagine what I'm talking about, think a patchwork map.

mysticblackmoon:

No, I kinda kinda imagine.

Joel:

The plot (or what little plot there'd be) would be about this.

Basically, something has caused these plots of land to be removed from their original place and be smooshed together here. In order to get the land (and yourself) back to their original places, you have to collect these MacGuffins.

mysticblackmoon:

Hm.

You think you'll ever work on it?

Joel:

Maybe.

I'll put what I just said on my blog.

If I ever have the resources to make this kind of game, I'll probably go digging through my blog for inspiration.

That's where Obake came from, actually.

mysticblackmoon:

I see.

Joel:

Yeah.

It's very useful that way.

----

The PC is a short-haired blond women, possibly wearing a white hoodie. The parkour person with a hoodie is kind a cliché, though. I'm not sure if I want to do that. Hope is a possible name for the character. Dunno why.

As I hinted, the main focus of the game is the scenery porn. The plot coupons and parkour are there to give the game some actual content. Scenery porn is like a condiment- if used right, it can make something much better. It just can't work by itself.

The plot coupons give Hope knowledge and abilities. Say, the first plot coupon she picks up lets her sense what general direction plot coupons are in. Others might improve her parkour. In fact, maybe this is how she learns it. This also lets us explain the plot easily. Whenever she picks up a coupon, we're treated to a little video that shows what Hope has learned. Again, easy plot device.

Just an idea I had.

2010-05-23T00:46:00.000-07:00

I first typed this up stream-of-consciousness to a friend of mine via GTalk, so that's why the paragraph breaks are the way they are.

The protagonist is a normal guy in high school/college/whatever fits the story best.

He's also kind of a loser.

So, this girl he's had a crush on for a while finally starts to take interest in him.

And becomes his girlfriend.

And has sex with him.

And becomes subservient to him.

And so does everybody else- he suddenly starts getting better grades, etc.

I'm not when he'd realize this, but he's a subconscious reality warper, not unlike Haruhi.

Even when he realizes this though, he can't control it.

The world starts to seem like a dream.

I'm not sure where I'd go from there, but whatever happens would be very fucked up, mind-boggling, weird, and very, very, interesting.

Escape From San Francisco

2010-05-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that San Francisco is a beautiful city. I've also wondered why no sandbox games are set there. Sure, San Andreas has something resembling it and Crackdown is obviously inspired by it, but there's no games that actually take place in the city. I for one, would like to change that.

I don't have much of a plot yet, so for now I'll just put out bullet points.

The PC is a cyborg- I've always liked the concept of a cyborg. The augs should be pretty obvious- it looks cool, and shows who and what the PC is.
Mechanical monsters called "Jackals". Ten foot long black quadrupedal hunters with huge claws and more flexibility than seems possible. Nanotech, maybe? They also have hexagonal half-domes in place of heads. It's one big sensory organ- they can't sense anything else. It detects various forms of radiation (including visible light) and sound. The Jackals also have a very good sense of direction, and will not stop at any cost.
Ooh! A revelation! The PC is an early cyborg, hence the appearance. The Jackals based off newer tech, which uses nanomachines to do most of the work. There should be big dudes with nanoaugs as well.
The player should be able to move through the city very easily. Something a little like what games like Just Cause 2 and Prototype do. Some way for the player to get in the air quickly and easily. I also liked the building climbing of Assassin's Creed, The Saboteur, and Crackdown. Maybe have something like that, but more flashy and automated? Euphoria or another similar engine might be a good choice.

Shiny New Australia

2010-05-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

An idea for a manga or something I had a while ago. One person (Let's call him Bob for now) has conquered the world. As a gift, he's given Australia to his best friend Alice. Alice believes that what Bob has done is utterly wrong, and does everything in her power to dethrone Bob and free the world.

So she accepts.

Well, she accepts, but she's really preparing for a huge coup, dismantling Bob's power in the meanwhile via underhanded trickery and other tactics worthy of a true Chessmaster.

Unfortunately, that's all I have for now. I'll have to mention this to some tropers, see what they think of it.

Gameplay correction for Mach Racing

2010-04-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

http://kotaku.com/5520839/one-little-change-to-how-cars-will-fight

I'd thought of how powerups might stack, but I think this would probably work better. Alt-fires are good, anyway.

Now I just need to decide how or if the player can strafe...

New title for BLADE

2010-03-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

Farming Armageddon.

I realized on the way home from a friend's house that a certain Iced Earth album I have is called Framing Armageddon, not what I previously thought it was. I then realized that that would be a good title for the BLADE series. I've been looking for a new name for a long time, and I've finally found one.

Since the series is about war and those profiting from it, I think it's fitting.

Unperfect Utopia

2010-02-08T17:17:00.000-08:00

Fuck Utopia (Idea for GTA-esque game)

What would the underworld of a utopia look like?

I'd thought of both these ideas a while ago, but I never thought of putting them together. I might have to make this into a game one day.

Ideas;

PC is an average Joe who starts to notice that he doesn't actually enjoy the utopia he lives in. He decides to do something about it, by causing chaos. Make things a bit more interesting. As the game progresses, he starts to seriously think about toppling the utopia.
The game takes place in the capital city of the utopia. It is very clean, with an emphasis on bright solid colors.
At the start of the game, the cops are unarmed, and mostly doing things like helping kittens out of trees. There's no crime, so the police is unable to deal with serious threats, such as yourself. This will help the player ease themselves into the game, and shows the state of the city. As the game progresses, they become better armed, more numerous, and smarter. In general, the police represents the state of the city.
Everything is destructible, with destroyed things slowly rebuilding themselves via some sort of applied phlebotinum. Probably nanotech.
What allies would you have? Maybe the underground I mentioned in one of the threads. Mr. Cales has a very nice idea there.
The game's story changes depending on your actions. Not by way of choosing "good" or "evil" missions, but your general conduct. A "good" PC will be a revolutionary figure, while an "evil" PC will be an immoral bastard in it for the fun. A "neutral" PC wants to topple the utopia, but hasn't given much thought into what comes after. He figures somebody will pick up the pieces, just not him.

Haven

2009-10-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

This is something I made up in the shower (yet again) for Mach Racing. It's based on Big Blue and Green Plant from F-Zero, but most of it is my own material.

Haven lives up to its name in many ways. For some, it is a welcome retreat from their daily life. For other, richer folk, it is a place to live in solace. For those who wish to stay away from the public eye for whatever reason, it is a welcome hiding place.

It is a beautiful planet, its biosphere preserved by law of the local government. Human settlements are few and far between, separated from the rest of the area by powerful force fields.

Because the biosphere is so closely guarded, the populace can not feed off of it. Thus, Haven imports almost all of its necessities. Thus, a few sacrifices have been made. For example, race tracks have been built within various settlements for racers to compete in, but more importantly to provide the government with much-needed income. There are currently two such tracks on the planet, but there are plans for a third.

The first is built within the capital- or rather entwines it. The track dives and meanders between the buildings and the trees. It is somewhat controversial due to the noise and the way the track is built, but this will be rectified as soon as enough money is raised.

The second is built in one on Haven's floating cities. It goes above the main shopping district, passing by the commercial sectors, strategically avoiding the residential district but staying close to it, and finally going into the ocean. The course is a huge boon to the city, though it does have its detractors.

Are the UGG unnecessary?

2009-09-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen doing anything with them, even though they would probably play a huge role in BLADE, especially the first game. I think it might be a good idea to write them out and have humanity become space-faring some other way. Lost precursor tech, maybe?

Nah. Too cliche. I might do a twist on that, though. I'll have to think about this. I'll also have to talk to Aaron about it and see what he thinks.

This blog is now under Creative Commons

2009-08-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Aaron was worried that someone'd steal our ideas, so I told him about Creative Commons. So yeah. If you're going to take our ideas, please give us credit.

That doesn't mean that I don't want you to take our ideas, though. I'm sure that I'll never turn all of these into games. Thus, it's up others to bring these ideas to fruition. If inspiration strikes you, please do something with it. Even better, tell us about it!

Some more plot for World War III

2009-08-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

I was just reading an article on TV Tropes called Cut Lex Luthor A Check. While reading said article, I came across a great plot for World War III. The war originally grew out of a cold war between the US and China. However, the real reason the war was started was to stimulate the economy and rush development of new technologies. A you play through the game, you see this in effect. Militaries become better-funded, technologies become more advanced and reliable, and later go into civilian use.

I'm not sure how to tell this in-game, though. Maybe you meet the person responsible for starting the war? Maybe it's never actually revealed- just implied.

So yeah. Just quick thought I had. Figured I'd write it down rather than forget it.

Shmup idea

2009-06-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

Something I came up with recently. It's your standard vertical shmup with lots of bullets flying, big bosses, etc.

The special thing about this game is the customization. You can grab scrap metal from downed enemy ships to upgrade your ship in various ways. You could give yourself another gun, upgrade one of your current guns, fortify the hull, increase the ship's speed, whatever you want. Or, you could use the scrap to make an option a la Gradius. You also have different kinds of options, besides the usual extra gun. You can make an option that grabs scrap metal, an option that acts as a shield, or simply give an option a gun. The options themselves can be upgraded. For example, you could make a collector able to carry more stuff. You could also make it more durable, more maneuverable, etc.

What I'm trying to do with this game is to make sure that the player always has an objective beyond "get to the end of the level". I want to make sure that the player can always get more powerful. I expect that when I start to actually make the game, I'll be spending a lot more time making more and more upgrade paths than I will designing the levels.

Edit: This game is now under development. I'm working with some of the other Kunin people on it. For now, it's called Obake, though that is subject to change as there's already a game with that name.

Anyway, we're still in the concept stage as of now. (12-04-2009) I hope this turns out good.

Two more weapons

2009-05-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

These ideas have been in my head for a while now, and I might have mentioned them before. For some reason, I've never written them down before. I typed this up after I read this thread on the TV Tropes fora.

Modded Jackhammer
Setting: Near-future, with a ton of Black Box-driven future tech
Plausibility: Possible, but might be cumbersome, unreliable, or inefficient
Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. An auto-shotgun based on the Pancor Jackhammer that can fire three different kinds of ammo. I might discard the Jackhammer idea however, and use an original design. Possibly one with three barrels, one for each ammo type. Said ammo types are; Standard 12 gauge shell, Dragon's Breath, and slugs.

Lightweight SMG
Setting: Same as above.
Plausability: Would probably work
A smallish submachine gun with a large cylindrical magazine. The main gimmick is that it's meant to be held Guns Akimbo. The recoil is low and the ammunition is caseless, so you don't need to worry about ejecting shells hitting you in the face. I even made a model in SketchUp. It also has a grip and laser sight in case you only have one, or don't have the Powered Armor it was designed for. (Said Powered Armor includes sight lines extending from the barrel as part of its HUD)

Three game ideas

2009-05-20T23:35:00.000-07:00

Heroic Bloodshed Third-Person Shooter

The plot of this one will be worked out at a later date, and frankly it's not important. For a game like this, the plot is just windowdressing. The gameplay is standard TPS fare, but with your character growing in power as he racks up combos. The game starts off fairly realistic, but as your combo increases the art becomes more stylized, and so does the gameplay. You can pull off stunts, land precision hits without aiming, and do other fantastic things. This also affects things such as your health, enemy AI, and your ammo count. You have no HUD, letting the game manipulate the variables from behind the scenes.

Forever War

The setting is similar to Total Annihilation. Civilization got destroyed long ago and the military are the only survivors, fighting for a cause long forgotten. Soldiers are cloned and raised from birth to fight. As the campaign goes on, you gradually learn the cause of the war. So far, I have three ideas for the backstory.

The War was started by two generals who loved nothing but war. They conspired to create a climate of endless conflict to make their own paradise, at the expense of everyone else. Through advances in nanotechnology, they are still alive, and are still commanding their armies in their hellish paradise.
The same two generals created the war, but they're long dead. Nobody has any idea what's going on, just that everybody on the other side has to die.
The original conflict was small, and escalated out of proportion. It kept growing, until it engulfed all of civilization.

I'll probably end up using the first scenario, but the second might be a better choice.

The protagonist is a commander in one of these two armies, and eventually discovers the reason behind the madness. Seeing how pointless it all is, he strives to stop it the only way he knows how. War. He gathers people from both sides and leads a rebellion, taking on both sides at once.

The gameplay will be similar to that of a normal RTS, but on a planet-wide scale. Instead of bases, you have gigantic cities. Instead of units, you have armies. Despite the apparent similarities to the 4X genre, there is little to no micromanaging. Your cities automatically expand and gather resources to expand your control over the planet, and new cities are even made without you choosing where to put them. You just give the general orders. (i.e. "Expand this way, and focus on building mechanized infantry.")

Revolution

A sidescrolling shooter with themes of revolution and war. Each locale has its own color palette, reflecting the state of that area. You start as a revolutionary, helping to free a country from its oppressive regime. After many struggles, you finally dispose your rulers After this, you take help the rest of the world, destroying other totalitarian powers. Some see these acts as ones of heroism, while others say that your government is unjustly imposing its will on other countries when it has no right to. Eventually this results in an all-out war against your regime. Thanks to your efforts, you stay in power. Eventually, the protagonist realizes that the revolution he once supported has become the very thing it was fighting against, and takes his own life.

Survival horror war game

2009-04-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

Most survival horror games tend to do with the supernatural. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are examples. However, I think that it might be scarier if there are no supernatural elements. Just reality. Now, what's the scariest place that can be seen in real life? War. In this game, you would be a civilian trying to escape a war-torn city. Just about anybody with a gun would fire on you, due to the heightened tension. Grab one if you want, but it would slow you down and make you a lot noisier. You'd also have the option of putting on a dead soldier's uniform, but soldiers might not be convinced of your disguise. If they seem suspicious of you, your best bet is to run.

The idea might need some tweaking, but I think it's pretty good. Also, what war should it should be set in? The Iraq War? Vietnam? World War II? Maybe a fictional war set Twenty Minutes Into The Future?

A better question is why I get my best ideas at one in the morning?

the peacocks plume (first two plus a little of chapter three) hope you like it!

2009-03-22T21:43:00.000-07:00

I.CALTYLST

Tuesday 6, 9:37 pm, West Bluntron highway

Mike Greenwood was driving home after a ten hour shift at the factory, when he casually glanced out of the window of his car to see a seemingly endless row of billboards on the West Bluntron highway. One particular billboard of the bunch caught his eye. Nothing special, just an ad for another pathetically predictable drama, but it was the release date was what he was interested in. June 13, 2091, the fifth anniversary of that horrible day. He pulled over off to the side of the highway and stared at the date on the board. It was only a week away. He slammed his head into the steering wheel, in such a way that the horn did not go off, as he hated that horrible sound, even through his silencing headphones, just the thought of it made him shudder. There he began to silently weep. Not for unpreventable things like death, no, he wept for something much more sorrowful. He wept for the terrible implications of deeds none but his own. After wallowing in self pity for just over an hour, he decided that instead of going home to eat, he would go out; anything to get away from the love can’t be for three sign, and drove off.

He sat down at the table for two (the smallest they had) close to the door at L'oeil, French for the eye, around closing time. It was a small, rather isolated, place with no windows, and coliseum seating overlooking the kitchen. Fancy, but not shockingly frou-frou. In particular its walls were very bare, white; except a few cameras in the corners. People did not come for the scenery, they came for the food. The quality that Mike enjoyed the most was the quietness. The building was completely sound proof, giving it a sense of removed ambiance. He just could not stand loud restaurants. It was a bit expensive, though. There were twenty five some odd other customers in the building. Among them Mike stood out. In his grease stained factory worker clothes, (he even had his name tag on) he just stood out. The fact that he was still wearing the sound eliminating headphones (he was a regular and they just brought him what he usually ordered) did not help. It looked as if he could not afford to eat here. Of course those who thought that were right, he could never have gone here on his current salary, but he had some leftover funds to waste.

He was about half done with his quiche, when a hooded man in a dark cloak walked in the door. His face was clouded in shadow by his large hooded cloak. It was almost exactly like looking in a mirror for Mike, a mirror that turned back time 5 years. After about a second of intense staring he decided that he was being paranoid and picked up his glass of the finest cabernet. The man turned around to shut the door. Mike saw, on the back of his cloak the small insignia of a peacock’s featherhead, that tiny little eye. Mike knew it all too well.

He stared at the symbol incomprehensively. “How? Not here! Not in Bluntron! How could they have spread this far in these five years?" Mike thought to himself, mind racing. He heard a small click, and the three gunshots. The man had shot the 3 surveillance cameras in the restaurant. He had produced two revolvers from his cloak. There was uproar of fear from the customers.

“Settle down" the man voiced to the bunch, as he removed his hood. This revealed a mask, typical Peacock regalia. It was featureless and round with two eye holes. In green on the black mask there was a single, big heartbeat line as that of an EKG. “I’ve taken the liberty of padlocking the door shut…" “Just like a Peacock," Mike thought to himself. “Using 20^th century technology to pull a heist." “…and no one gets out," the man continued “until everyone hands all their valuables to me." Guns still in hand he pulled out a bag.

“No way in hell!" said a bystander. He produced a handgun, and five others did the same (not too uncommon in Bluntron, a very harsh city).

“So stupid," thought Mike “guns won’t help against a Peacock."

The man raised his mask just enough to reveal his mouth. He chuckled, breathed deep, and then let out an extremely loud wail. It was 10 times as loud as a gunshot. The acoustics in the building caused the noise to bounce back and forth, resonating throughout the restaurant. Mike spat his wine. Even through the headphones it was the second loudest noise Mike had ever heard. At least half of those standing fell to the ground, and those with guns lost their aim to block their ears, and that was all the man needed.

“Why noise? Why did his trait have to be that horrible noise?" Mike thought to himself as he uneasily felt a massive tingling sensation on his upper back. His own was returning.

Six gunshots later the man had killed all the distracted gunslingers. “Why did he have to kill so loudly? There are so much better quietly efficient ways to- No! I will not think like that again!" Mike weakly willed himself.

The man held out his bag again and said “any takers?" That was the last thing he said before he died.

Mike stood up and began to thrash about as if trying to throw something off his back. “Please, no!" He yelled. In his face he had a look of raw dementia and horror. It was too late. Thirty two cord-like tentacles shot out of his back. Four flesh-tone muscle wires went straight down the robber’s throat; completely mutilating his vocal cords, burst out of his neck, then snapped his spine. Simultaneously the other twenty eight tentacles wrapped themselves around the heads of everyone else in the room but Mike. Within half a second all were dead, necks snapped.

Mike stared in terror at the horrible efficiency of himself. There had been no screams. No additions to those of the past. His tentacles knew that was how he wanted it. He looked around at all the bodies, real people he had killed, then up at the florescent light fixtures, and heard a faint hum over the room full of death. As he stared at the lights, he realized that this was as close to sweet, sought-after silence as he was ever going to get.

In the back of his mind he heard it coming, coming back to haunt him, hundreds of screams, the screams of those he had killed. The headphones were no use. He took them off and slammed them into the ground “Useless!" The screams swept over him, like a wave of dread. Those horrible, horrible noises, came back to him, and crushed him with the weight of knowing how many he had killed. “How could I have coped with this much death, coped and continued to kill, so long ago? Why couldn’t I've stopped, stopped before she was dead?" He accusingly asked himself.

The last scream struck his mind. It was the dying scream of his wife, impaled through the stomach with a tentacle. And the scream stayed, scarring his mind just as it did five years ago, spawning his hatred of loud noises. He screamed, but never louder than she did, as much as he tried; “It was an accident! You weren’t supposed to be there! This isn’t how it was supposed to be!" begging for her forgiveness, never to get an answer, but her scream. He laid there mourning for a while.

Mike got up, the tentacles had retracted by now and he was no longer sad, now he was angry; angry not only at himself, but also his mentor, a Peacock. He was not always this way, there was once a time when he had killed no one, and was innocent. A time before that man had twisted him into what had killed his wife. He hadn’t known what to do with his powers before his mentor. Things just happened. Then he came and reshaped Mike; made him a tool of his own gain. The death of his wife woke him to what he had done. Now, five years later, Mike planned to reshape his mentor in a completely different way.

Noticing that his shirt had thirty two quarter-sized rips, he walked over to his assailant. He took off his shirt, replaced it with the man’s, and stole the cloak and mask. He removed his nametag and put it in his pocket. The man's shirt was a little big on him but it’d do. He stared at the man, who was still clutching his guns in death; Mike had killed him so fast that his muscles were still tense. In closer examination, they looked like very nice pistols, but they wouldn’t help him where he was going. In one of the pockets inside the cloak there was a small pager-like device which read “Program complete". Mike tossed it aside and checked the other pocket. There was the key and a small note that looked hastily written. It said “pier 89.5, Thursday 8 @ 2 am ‘spoils’". Tomorrow night. He would atone for his wife’s death; atone the way he was taught how. He walked out the door with one thing in mind; if he was liable to kill those around him, he would kill the Peacocks, all of them.

II. Vengeance renewed

Tuesday 6, midnight, L’oeil, north Bluntron

Gerald Zane rubbed the bud of his diet cigarette into the in-car ashtray as he got out. “Less addictive my ass."

He had gotten about two hours of sleep that night, before he got a call from the Bluntron head of police. He looked very menacing when he didn’t get sleep, the scar on his left cheek stood out more over his bags. It was times like this where he wished he had just retired when the FBI forced him out. But walking into that crime scene made him remember why he hadn’t.

“What the hell happened here?" The room was strewn with dead bodies; the once white walls and floors of the restaurant were contrastingly stained red with blood. Lying in the doorway there was a shirtless man clutching two pistols and a bag in his hands. Next to him was a shirt. “Strange…" he thought as he stroked his massive scar, which he did a lot when thinking about a crime scene. The man on the ground’s head was almost completely decapitated, his neck holding together with a few muscles and flaps of skin. It didn’t look clean though, like an axe would have done it. It looked like the tendons and ligaments were torn apart, and the spine was snapped in two. “Very strange…" Gerald stepped over the unfortunate body and into the slaughtered restaurant.

“How many dead?" He asked his partner, Jason Philips, who had arrived on the scene about ten minutes earlier. At age thirty, Jason was fifteen years younger than Gerald. This was in no way impeding to their job. Though young, he had been around the block a few times and wasn’t a rookie. What Gerald liked about Jason best was that his only desire in life was to clean up Bluntron of its many mobs.

“Thirty three" Jason responded “twenty six with snapped necks, six dead from bullet wounds to the head, all six holding pistols, and this guy." Jason looked down at the nearly decapitated man.

“No survivors? They even got the chefs?"

“If I had to take guess this guy would be the initial assailant, started to kill people, then messed with the wrong guy, who then killed everyone and left."

“Do we have any proof that the neck-snapper did not come with the pistolier?"

“We’re missing a body." Jason pointed over to a table in the restaurant which had a half-eaten quiche and an open bottle of cabernet. What was important though, was that there wasn’t a body near it.

“Do we have surveillance?"

“No, the surveillance cameras cut out for thirty seconds outside and inside the building. We believe that during those thirty seconds Mr. headless shot the ones inside."

“Damn, so this must be connected to those recent robberies." Bluntron had been hit with a massive crime wave in which every crime had been unseen in this very fashion.

“Yes, and this must be what they used." he held up a small device that looked like a pager. “I found it next to him." he pointed to the shirtless man.

“What is it?"

“Well it’s a one-program wireless computer that was programmed to, with the push of a button, hack in and blackout any surveillance cameras nearby for exactly 30 seconds. This is not what you see every day. You’d need a really good programmer to pull this off."

“I want our crew to get me the surveillance of the thirty seconds before the blackout."

“Right away" Jason motioned over another cop and told him what to do. Meanwhile Gerald saw that one of the men, who had been shot in the head, had a very strange watch. It looked as if it was far too tight, or even a part of his wrist.

“Any of the bodies disturbed?"

“It doesn’t look like it, except for shirtless here…"

“None? All their valuables still in place?" Gerald walked over to the watch. It wasn’t moving.

“Yes." The crimes also seemed to have everyone killed at the crime scene. No witnesses, but this was the first time that the bodies hadn’t been looted.

“Jason what kind of watch is this?" he walked over to Gerald.

“Why that’s a life watch."

“A what?"

“It’s a very expensive watch that runs off your heartbeat, very fashionable ..." he paused, thinking. “…we can use it to find the time of death!"

“You lost me."

“They run off your heartbeat with a little needle that gains power through your blood flow. If they stop getting power from your heart, they stop, so they’re designed to be worn at all times. Each one has to be custom made to fit your wrist, so they are very expensive. When this man died his watch stopped."

“The new Rolex."

“What?"

“You make me feel so old."

They found a total of seven men with life watches, five with necks snapped, and two with gun shots. The five men with their necks snapped had died within a quarter of a second of each other. Those with gun shots had been killed fifteen seconds earlier. All deaths had taken place very shortly after the surveillance failure. Gerald and Jason looked at each other with the realization that twenty six people had to have had their necks snapped at almost exactly the same time.

"This is insane! They would have needed twenty-six people to come in, have him shoot six bystanders, while everyone else grabs a neck, rip their own guy’s head nearly off, then take quiche guy hostage!" Jason ranted.

Gerald walked over to the shirt lying on the ground, he had a hunch. He flipped the shirt over to reveal thirty-two quarter-sized rips, no blood. These weren't bullet holes. “What if one man snapped all the necks?"

“What?!"

Gerald looked at Jason with a cold, solemn stare that Jason had never seen before. Gerald sighed and looked at the ground in preparation, as if he was about to say something very hard to say. He looked back at Jason and said “Have I ever told you how I got my scar?"

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Gerald Zane had just finished filing the report on his most recent drug bust when he realized he forgot the date. “8/18/2082" he jotted down. Looking at the date he saw that he had been part of the bureau for almost fifteen years now. He slipped the file into a folder as he walked off down the hall. He stopped at the water cooler when he heard a siren go off. The Pentagon had been breached.

In all the years he had worked there, there had only been one breach before this. It was in a different department, so he wasn't authorized to see its full effects, but rumors of massive casualties stalked the halls for months after. They weren't too unbelievable, it takes a lot of power to breach the pentagon, and even if the agents were well trained, they were only human.

Twenty seconds later three men came running down the hall. One man was riding on top of another who was running at Olympic sprint speed. The third was stranger yet; he was walking on tentacles that shot out of his back, and moving almost as fast as the sprinter. The man’s body hung like a coat on a rack, or a lifeless puppet being controlled by the tentacles. All three men were wearing dark cloaks and featureless black masks with green images on them. The sprinter’s mask bore what looked like the tendrils of a black sun, the rider, a brain, and the tentacled one, appropriately, an octopus.

The sprinter and the rider dashed past Gerald. He stared as they sprinted down the hall. There was a scream and he turned his head back. He saw that the tentacled one was using excess limbs to stab and kill anyone he saw; the scream was from his partner, Floyd Slade. The blood began to pool around Floyd's body. His boss, the girl in the office next to his, the man who worked across the hall, even the janitor, were all soon impaled just like Floyd. Gerald watched as those he worked with died around him, in awe of the uncanny death machine. A tentacle darted straight toward Gerald’s head. He dropped the now unimportant file to try to catch the oncoming death whip. He caught it but its end lashed around and sliced his left cheek open; he hadn’t realized their tips were that sharp. The man retreated his first failed tentacle behind his cloak.

Gerald could see the man’s eyes through the mask’s eye slits. Whether they stood there staring at each other for a second or for a minute Gerald was not sure. Together, awestruck by each other, they hovered over the bodies of Gerald’s coworkers, as the pools of blood grew. Gerald had never seen anything like his eyes before; they were abnormal, blue and red. If this man wasn’t the scariest thing Gerald had ever seen, they would have been beautiful. The man had a look in his eyes of confusion, anger, and behind that the raw intent to murder. In his years as an agent for the FBI, never had he seen a face so devoted to causing death, that wasn’t insane, that is. Apparently people didn’t block his tentacles that often, for this seemed to have really pissed him off. Gerald felt his gun at his side, his hand not too far away, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot the monstrosity. Was it fear? Was it awe? Why was he compelled not to shoot? Cowardice? Intimidation? Or was it just a moment of weakness?

Finally the man broke the silence by looking down the hallway and saying “If I didn’t have somewhere to be I would kill you thrice over for wasting my time." He rushed away through the hall still dangling, suspended by his harness of uncanny flesh. And Gerald’s gun lay in its holster, untouched.

Gerald turned back and saw all the dead. He realized that his left cheek was covered in blood. He touched his hand to his cheek then stared at the blood. Why had they died, and he lived, the coward that he was? Even in the FBI he had never come this close to death. Half a second later and it would have gone straight through his head, and he would be lying on the floor with them, dead as he deserved. But he was alive, very alive, and with this life of his he swore to avenge their death, for he already had the chance, and he needed to redeem himself.

And he stood there thinking, the blood of the dead now staining the coveted marble walls and floors of this building. His own blood began to flow down his face like a river of the cowardice he now exiled. Still the sirens flailed, amplifying his failure. And he stared at his finger bearing his own blood, cowardice.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“The man ran down the hall to the library. The head librarian was the only one who worked in that department, the bureau's own 'keeper of secrets'. This woman knew every secret the FBI has. Her life was worth more than the president's. The cloaked ones kidnapped her. As a witness, I was filled in on a few things; the cloaked people were believed to be the lasting effects of a massive illegal genetic experiment, and Dr. Vladimir Zimmer's doing. Thirty five years ago today, the FBI found Zimmer's warehouse and 25 of his employees, but none of his 'children'. He had escaped. The children we have no what he did with, or even how many of them there were. There was nothing for us to follow, we had no leads, and the case was closed. He turned up 10 years later after having committed suicide. 10 years ago, they, the experimented, although we don't know how, began to gather each other, and formed a mob. 'The Peacocks' they called themselves; I have no idea why. They were extremely organized, efficient, and deadly. The FBI had taken notice and tried to stop them, which brings me back to the librarian. She came back a week later in a near vegetative state, knowing only how to breathe, walk, and say 'they know everything', once every five minutes exactly. The creepiest insanity I've ever seen. No amount of therapy helped her, and the Peacocks sent us several exact copies of data reports of very high level secrets, data reports that had never been removed from the library, since the librarian herself read them. 'Off memory' they said. They didn't want the FBI interfering with their business, and, much to my discomfort, that's exactly what they got. They closed the case saying that the peacocks knew too much for the Bureau to continue fighting them. That's why they forced me out, I wanted to fight them, but no one else did. I became obsessed with them, and my work suffered, so they booted me.

Jason stared jaw-dropped. "Wait. Two things. One, there was a breach at the pentagon nine years ago, and the media wasn't told?"

"Yes, the pentagon faces a breach about every 10 years, but we keep it under wraps so there isn't a panic."

"O K... then two, you’re saying that a murderous octopus-man killed these people?"

"Two things. One, they were more like ropes of flesh not like an octopuses'. And yes, yes I am."

Jason stared back at him as if he was crazy. Gerald said "Look at me. Would I make this up?" The vengeance in his eyes said it all.

"No."

"What I've told you here today I once swore to keep from the public but I also once swore to protect the people of Bluntron. I've just put the second before the first, which is why I've told you this. I need your help to kill this guy. Do not tell anyone what I've told you. Period."

A member of the tech crew walked over. "We've got the surveillance footage."

The tapes showed the missing man. He was wearing the shirt nearby the nearly headless man, and his nametag read 'Mike Greenwood'. Then came Gerald's proof. 'Mike' looked up at the camera to reveal his eyes. Red and blue. They were different then Gerald had remembered, more sad, but unmistakably the masked man's eyes. "Find out where 'Mike Greenwood lives."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Gustav walked out of the suit shop, fully content with his means of affording it. He had no house, no car, no social security number; he was invisible to the government. So many years he had lived as a street urchin, it felt good to finally be, or at least seem to be, one of the rich. This was his fruit, this suit, the fruit of his labor. A Mr. Ronald Dickens, or at least that was what it said on his card, had died for Gustav's fruit; his blood was the water that would soon grow a plant bearing innumerous fruits, be they deliciously ripe or incredibly sour.

What compelled him to kill Ronald Dickens, he himself didn't know. Ronald was just some guy, who the hell knows why he was hanging around the back allies of Rundov. Gustav slit his throat, threw him in a dumpster, took his wallet, his cards, and left. It felt good, taking something for his gain.

Under Gustav's arm was a file that he had carried with him ever since the death of his father. All the years, he had kept it in pristine condition, almost identical to the day he was given it. It was only slightly worn from him reading the pages countless times. He had memorized the pages the first time he read it, but he read it again and again since then, as if not trusting his own mind.

So, a week later, here he was, spiffy, in a suit of Ronald's money. He finally had a goal, and was heading towards it. A Mr. Samuel O'Brien worked at a nearby firm in human resources, and Gustav, or Ronald Dickens, was going to talk to him over lunch about 'business'.

"So... what is it you want to talk to me about, Dickens was it?" Samuel said, bored.

"Yes, Dickens. Do you like power Mr. O'Brien?"

"Yes, but who doesn't these days? That's why it's in such high demand. And the shocking lack of suppliers doesn't help that. What get-richer-quick scheme are you pitching me?"

"One you've never heard before, I'm sure."

"Please I've heard them all; salesmen come to me like flies to a lantern"

"And do you know why it's you?"

"What?"

"Do you know why you are the target of salesmen?"

"My money, I assume. You work your way up from nothing in an orphanage and this is what you get... Salesmen. It sickens me."

"Yes, you climbed your way right up the ladder of society. A real success story."

"As I said before, what do you want?"

"As I said before," Ronald didn't like him, Samuel could tell. "Do you know why it's you? Why you've been so successful coming out of an orphanage, why people are drawn to you 'like flies to a lantern'?"

"What are you alluding to, Mr. Dickens?" No one had ever disliked Samuel, or at least didn't show it. No one.

"Nothing you can help, yet. People like you, enjoy your company, want to be around you and hell, even want to promote you. It's in your genes."

"What?" He had never known his parents, so he imagined them to be great people, people that must have lost him.

"What if I was to tell you that you were genetically better than the people all around you?" Samuel had always felt that way, but told himself it wasn't true. "That you had a power over them, something that no one else in the world has; you just need me to show you how to use it. You think people like you now, with my help, they will need you, desire you, do anything it takes to gain your favor." This was certainly the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Samuel O'Brien.

"I know bullshit when I see it. This is bullshit." Yet something told him to deny it.

"No, it's your duty. We are, because of our father, better than those around us. We are peacocks living in a world of poultry. Proud, intelligent, beautiful, why it'd be like slapping god in the face not to rule them, so... lesser."

"Our father? How would you know who my father is?"

"Well I don't know your biologic father, nor my own, but I knew the man that made us who we are, who raised me as a son, and would've raised you, had he the chance." Samuel was torn. He had always wanted to be something great. But he still told himself that this could not be true. It was a sham. "Come on, you and I both know it, you feel it in your bones, your better than a simple HR person, so how's about it?" he was right. Samuel had always felt better than this life, unchallenged. He didn't work that hard yet he still advanced beyond those around him. "We, together, liberate other peacocks from their chicken coups. And we as a race run free unbound from the lesser poultry that is man, and do what we please as beyond human." Samuel stared deep into the red eyes of Gustav, and felt for the first time in his life that he wasn't alone with a world of people that silently liked him or wanted his money. Gustav was just as strong in will as he. Samuel felt as if Gustav, or Ronald, was the first real person he had ever met.
III.THE GAME IS AFOOT

Time undetermined.

Mike walked into the bank for the first time, and yet he had been there before. He looked at all the faces who had stopped to look at the fool in the octopus mask. He felt like a fool but not for why they thought he was. This moment of cold isolation allowed his veins to now pulse with a familiar emotion, removing for a moment his self loathing. This emotion was rage.

As he walked to the center of the building, he heard the door open and close just once. He knew exactly who it was but did not turn around. His anger prevented him from doing so, he believed.

The lights went out, and with the signal struck he unleashed his unique brand of fury. Time seemed to slow as one by one the despisers were struck down by his tentacles. They each died, impaled and screaming. Mike felt again the twisted euphoria that now demented him. The suspense caused by these screams was unbearable, yet he continued. Clockwise they died, mike going down the line as the deaths slowly moved behind him, as though his arms were the second hands counting the minute. The minute tentacle primed itself as the people died, the louder, combined screams empowering it. This clock of death was both witnessed and powered by both the euphoric and shocked Mikes. The minute was up and the last tentacle shot, stabbing the person directly behind mike.

For the first and yet the thousandth time Mike heard the fatal scream of his wife. The death rattle never seemed to cease, as the rest of the world plunged into darkness, and he fell into this void. The unbearable weight of what he had just done amplified the noise, and the speed of his fall. He turned to see the new ground at which he was falling, to see the grand eye of the peacock, the insignia that had so forsaken him, growing ever larger as he closed in. He hit the ground, and the eye engulfed him, only to find he was within his wife's body and the scream was his own. For a moment he stared at the tentacle in his breast, then up at the face of a man he hated, himself. He was shrouded by an octopus mask; he saw only his own eyes. As they stared into him, as he stared at himself, the impaler laughed. He laughed a laugh that slowly overthrew the sound of his wife's last breath. The Impaled Mike died.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Mike awoke suddenly, gasping for air, as though out of hellish waters that almost drowned him. After a moment he thought "The dream is back, after all these years, its back". He realized that the tentacle that had killed his wife, second row, sixth down, had shot into the hotel mattress.

He had left his apartment with everything still valuable to him, his wife’s necklace, the money he still had, and his mask and cloak. He even abandoned his car. The receptionist on the first floor of the complex had told him his rent was overdue as he was walking out of the building. He promptly slapped 4 times his monthly rent on the counter “I’m going out for a while….”

“Well,…Where are you going?” asked the astonished receptionist.

“Phoenix, Arizona… ” he thought at first, he needed somewhere for the cops to be lead to falsely, but then he got a better idea. “No, I’m heading to Rundov.”

He now wondered, sitting in his hotel room staring at the clock, if that was the right idea. What if he actually was going to Rundov… where it all began. The clock struck noon. He had an old ‘friend’ to visit. He had no idea if he would be there, but he had a hunch.

Mike took a taxi off to the defensive perimeter of a suburban neighborhood called Manza, the dwellings of the ultra-rich of Bluntron. They were completely isolated from the poor masses. The company heads could rule from inside their fortresses, and the children never left the walls. As if an entire community refused to conform to the mass farming with artificial light, the super skyscrapers of 1000 or more stories, the interconnected web of highways. Mike had broke in once before with his ‘friend’ to ‘evict’ a man who had messed with the Peacocks. Then the other Peacock decided to buy the house.

He was a chess enthusiast, the Peacock, and his trait was brilliance, sheer brilliance. But he cared not for what he was made for, making money. To him it was merely a tool for life, the calculations were easy, and that’s all investments were. They had called him “Numbers” in the Peacocks. He amassed a lot of money for the peacocks, and assisted Mike in their collapse by removing nearly all the funds. It was strange, though, to mike, when he had asked for his assistance, he hesitated as if concentrating really hard. It was the first time Mike had seen him stumped, while not playing chess. Then he decided that Mike’s cause was worthy enough for him to do everything he could.

Manza was protected by 20 foot high walls encompassing the community, with the exception of 4 cardinal gates. These were heavily guarded as was each watchtower every 50 yards. However they did not have their own sewage system. That was how mike had entered last time. “Wings” was off duty, and so they went through the tunnels. At 1 o’clock he got out about 5 blocks away from the wall. Now, he was to find Numbers at The Chestnut Tree Café.

It was about a 10 block walk to the once thought quaint shopping center. Mike remembered that this place had one thing he had only heard of in books before his last visit, trees. Not the uniform, common bio-engineered for anti-CO₂ trees, the dome trees (they were shaped like domes); no, they were the trees of old, not uniform at all, a collection of the strange, bound by history, diverse and yet similar. An isolated anthology collected by the last that cared. Gardening had become an outdated sport practiced by only those that could afford the cloned seeds. Nonetheless, to mike they were breathtaking. In every shape, size, color, like a mad zoo of wood. These trees were not average.

It was strange to him, being in this neighborhood. He was an outsider, and yet he went undetected. None knew or questioned his purpose there. Just people going about their life with him walking into and soon out of their lives. As if a reaper of death passing someone on, just accepted by society. He even looked the part, his cloak flapping in the wind. A dampening black spot on the rainbow of wood, leaves, and the various painted colors of the houses. Mike was out of place, in a place that accepted him.

He approached the café and looked at the sign saying “since 1984: over 100 years of service.” And wondered if that could be possible. It must be part of a larger chain that changed the name of one of their shops, so to put one here.

Numbers was playing chess at a table for two, alone. He didn’t seem to notice Mike; he just kept staring at the chess board, in a different world. Mike saw a black move that put the white king in check, so he moved the piece. “Check.”

“Stupid move, Mike. After that the black side has no way of winning.”

“What?” Numbers moved the pieces rapidly, 13 or 14 times.

“Checkmate. Assuming the white side will play will the best possible moves, the black side has no way of winning. The end becomes foreseeable through your random act. From the moment you moved that piece, the game was over.”

“You win again.”

“Mike, there are 20 possible first moves in chess. From these 20 moves spring untold millions of games, each unique. Until you can see all of them, all the possibilities adding all the odds, can you call a winning side or a losing side. I am neither, just an observer, trying to watch the best, and hardest possible game.”

“But it all ends the same, with a toppled king.”

“You overlook what has true value, the casualties. A good king doesn’t lose a single man.”

Mike paused. “The Peacocks seem to be getting back together. I was hoping you would know who might be leading it.”

“I suspected that would happen. I wasn’t contacted, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not. You should have some kind of idea about who the hell would possibly bring back the Peacocks.”

“As you might recall the two heads are probably not it, being that one is deceased, and the other is, well, in the ice box. It might be one of the people high up on the ladder, because they’d need to have the very same information that got the Peacocks together in the first place, Gustav’s file, and the only people who know about that are the few of us at the top.”

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“Well Siphon has ample, um…. people skills.”

“He went insane with Plumages’ death, there is no way he could head a mob.”

“Remember: you’re an Ex-mobster with 32 tentacles and a grudge against sound. Don’t count out the impossible.” They stared at each other for a second as Mike eyes seemed to dislike that comment. Numbers took a sad pause and diverted his green-and-red eyes back to the Chess board. He though there for a moment, contemplating his final moves, as he searched for a possible future with a stalemate instead of loss. It was a shame that he was still looking forward with so few moves left. He should have thought about how he played the game; reminisced on his best moves, the skilled player he was. He swallowed and then asked “Mike, have you come here to kill me?”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Gennaro Vitale entered the dark hallway and turned to his bodyguard. “Are you sure about this?”

He nodded. Gennaro looked at a sign saying “Dr. Rupert baker: therapist.”

RTS game about the apocalypse

2009-03-04T23:18:00.001-08:00

Just an idea I had a while ago.

So it's time for the apocalypse. Heaven and Hell are waging war on Earth, and humanity's cought in the crossfire. The nations of the world decide that they don't want this war, and don't want the world to end. So they fight back.

Heaven would probably be the faction most suited to newcomers to the genre, with powerful units being unlocked fairly early on. As a trade-off, they don't have any uber-powerful units. Hell would start out pretty weak but they get some great powers and debuffs. However, these powers require sacrafices, and are most of Hell's strength. Fortunately, they have a ''lot'' of sacrafices. Earth on the other hand, has TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture technology. Their campaign ends with them nuking Dis.

Also, both heavenly and infernal forces have upgraded their weapons since biblical times. Earth still has the best stuff, but their tanks can't shoot hellfire.

Bloodplast

2009-01-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Bloodplast is a very useful substance. You know how in some first-person shooter video games you can heal your wounds just by waiting a bit? Bloodplast attempts to recreate this, sort of. When a puncture wound is sustained on a suit of armor equipped with bloodplast, the stuff will expand to fill the gap and harden upon exposure to the air. It also helps soften blows. This is by no means a substitute for armor repairs, but it's the best we can manage. Bloodplast is also easier to destroy than the standard plates, due to its nature.

Keep in mind that you have a limited supply of bloodplast. To refill, inject a bloodplast syringe (the contents should be an opaque white) into the marked spot on the side of the plate over your heart. (Assuming that it's on the left.) There should be a small aperture that will open when the syringe is inserted. Once the bloodplast has been injected into the suit, wait a second and then hit the area with a fist. After the first whack, the bloodplast will begin circulating. NOTE: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO INJECT BLOODPLAST INTO ONE'S OWN CIRCULATORY SYSTEM. DOING SO WILL RESULT IN DEATH.

A character and some weapons

2009-01-07T23:24:00.000-08:00

Gasp! A new post! Anyway, I've thought of quite a few things for Leonidas or Whatever I'm Going to Call This* over the past few days, such as weapons, a new character, and some badass creeds for the characters. Without further ado, let the blah commence!

Sniper: I'm not sure what to name this guy, mostly because I haven't decided on his heritage and personality. His weapons are an Akimborama** personal defense weapon for close encounters, and two shoulder-mounted computer-aided low recoil sniper rifles described below that are attached to his suit. He takes good care of them.

He will not be a Cold Sniper, but I haven't decided on his personality yet.

Sniper's special rifle: This isn't a customized rifle. This is an entirely new design built by RND specifically for its owner. It is a very long gun, almost Freudian in its proportions. The fact that it is also a part of its master's suit helps him steady the gun and handle the recoil. The gun is also entirely ambidextrous, allowing two of the beasts to be attached to one suit and subsequently dual-wielded.

It also is on a slide for when not in use. when the gun's master no longer needs his trustworthy companion, he will simply raise it up and slide it down along a mechanism built into the weapon. Once the gun has found its temporary resting place, it fits snugly across the back of its master's suit. When the weapon is needed again, it can be brought out is a second. Reloading is equally painless, as the magazine is stored on top for easy access and replacement.

If some long-range sniping is required, the gun's onboard camera will activate and zoom in, augmenting the user's manipulations of the controls with its own fine adjustments. The gun's master need not look through the camera itself- he can look through the camera and see what his gun sees. The controls are located on the handle for easy access.

Another fine feature of the rifle is the Gauss Accelerator at the end of the barrel. When the gun is fired, an electromagnet at the end of the barrel will activate, assisting the stalwart bullet on its journey. Once the projectile has passed, the electromagnet's job is done and thus it deactivates.

Super-silenced pistol: A long-range pistol used by this guy for when he needs to be stealthy. Considering his audacious personality and the company he keeps, it doesn't get much use. The design is now being used by the Japanese military.

The pistol is pretty normal, except that it uses rather large ammunition (caseless rifle rounds) and is entirely encased in a soundproof plastic and rubber combination. Because of these factors, the only sound from the gun that is audible to the ear is the click of the trigger, which is not covered for obvious reasons.

The weapon is notable for being completely silenced, yet very powerful due to the chosen cartridge. However, because of the chosen ammunition, the handle is somewhat long and has been padded at the sides to make up for this. The rounds are also slanted, and pushed into their correct position when loaded into the chamber.

The result is a totally silent handgun that can blow your arm off. What's not to like?

*I'm thinking I might use "Wars of Our Sons" as a title. How's that sound?

** Designed to be dual-wielded, but works great if one is held with both hands.

Fuck Utopia!

2008-11-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

Alternatative title: What's So Good About Utopias?

The game takes place in a perfect world, where there are no poor people, the economy is stable, the government is completely uncorrupted, and everybody is happy. Except for you. The PC doesn't get what people see in utopias. What's so good about a perfect world? What's wrong with mindless chaos? Let's do something about it!

You have no goal except to turn the city into rubble. There are no story missions, and you get your weapons off of the corpses of your enemies. On that note, take only what you can handle- the cops will send bigger guns after you the more attention you get, and thus the opportunity for bigger loot.

The game will have completely destroyable terrain and objects, which will repair itself over time due to some Applied Phlebotinum- only for you to destroy it again.

Ideas are welcome.

Can beauty be scary?

2008-10-22T20:23:00.001-07:00

One of the main things that horror does well is make innocent things seem scary. Creepy Child and Monster Clown are two examples off the top of my head. Horror also tends to be very dark and brooding. This obviously prays on our fear of the dark, as we don't know what the hell's in there. Now, what if somebody inverted this?

My base idea is that something's sweeping the land any whatever it "corrupts" becomes extremely beautiful and picturesque. Of course, there's nasty stuff hiding in this transformed landscape, (camo?) and you are trying to make things right again. Once the area is restored, it looks... realistic and dull. What I'm trying to get at here is that we need to make pretty things scary and make the player glad to be back in the brown, dull, and dark city streets. Thoughts?

Also, something really nasty happens if someone's in the area when it's transformed. Maybe he turns into a baddie, which you will probably kill if you want to stay alive. Also, you should not find this out until you find what's keeping the area this way and destroying it.

Thoughts?

WW III intro

2008-09-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

This is the cutscene that we see once the player starts a new game for the first time.

Scene opens into a bunker, everything is in near-grayscale, a la Gears of War. (Or whatever’s considered “Next-Gen” by the time this comes out) We see through the eyes of some soldier, going through the bunker obliterating everything in his way. There is much gore. After a little while,sirens go off and alarms activate, making everything look red. A loud voice calls out; “We are at DEFCON 1!” Our character steps out of the bunker as this is being said, and sees a nuke going off in the distance.

Phil wakes up.

It is dark, and he is in bed. His cell phone beside his bed is currently declaring the end of humanity. He picks up the phone and answers it. He starts to get out of bed.

“Hey! Where are you? I’ve been looking for ya.”
“You just woke me up.”
“Well, get your ass down here- we have a mission to do, remember? Ross briefed us last night.”
“Right, right.”
“Just don’t stay up late next time.”
“Right. LIGHTS!”

The lights turn on. Phil’s room is white and would normally look clean if discarded clothes and other assorted items weren’t on the floor.

“Couldn’t you just use a switch like everybody else?”
“What’s the fun in that?”
“Just get your ass down here.”

Phil opens the door and walks through the ship on his way to the armory, then the hanger. We see several people having breakfast, telling jokes, playing games, etc. After a while, Phil finally gets to the hanger, where the rest of his squad is waiting.

“Get in the damn dropship.”

Idea for a Magnificent Bastard character

2008-07-29T00:03:00.000-07:00

Note: I'm copy and pasting this from a post I made here in the TV Tropes fora.

Said character is the main general for a deliberately small anarchist military colony that frequently collaborates with similar colonies. There's really no structure, everything's based on trust and and IOUs are pretty much the local currency- you do someone a favor and they owe you a favor.

Anyway, he's trying to prevent World War III from getting too bad, and he has about 150 ex-fratboy soldiers in Powered Armor at his disposal. As I said, he's a Magnificent Bastard, though he's a good guy. Actually, he's half Magnificent Bastard and half Crazy Prepared- he manipulates people and politicians like puppets, but his plans don't always work out. Thus, he has contingencies. Lots of contingencies.

The origin for all of this is pretty simple- he's a DM. His players (who are also main characters) would constantly go Off The Rails and he would therefore develop these contingencies in advance. Later he started to try to convince his players to not want to go off the rails, thus his Magnificent Bastardom. Another favorite tactic of his that carries over into his war strategies is the Red Herring- convince the players that they've gone off the rails when they were leaping on them, possibly from another plotline he'd set up.

Anyways, I'd like some feedback and a possible name for this character, as Ross Cortney dosen't fit him at all.

Operation Infiltration

2008-02-28T23:25:00.000-08:00

Note: the title is tentative. If anyone can come up with a good title, I'd be glad to hear it.

You are a mercenary for some big corporate entity, doing covert work for them. Your job is to go into enemy locations, get their secrets, and leave without anybody knowing that your employers are to blame. However, how you do your job is up to you.

You have a few options. You can go the covert approach, using the latest in active camo technology to blend into your surroundings and sneak your way past guards. Alternatively, you can run in head-first with grappling hooks and Hollywood stunts. Lastly, you can go in balls-out with twin rocket launchers and a minigun as your sidearm leaving only destruction in your wake.

However, you'll need to buy these things first. You get money for the missions you complete, which you can spend on upgrades for your suit, neural enhancements, gadgets, and weapons. At first, you're your average merc with a fancy suit generously provided by your employers.* After you customize your gear though, you can jump fifty feat, copy guards' clothes, and wield guns half the size of the choppers they were meant to be mounted on.

The story will be worked out later.

The reason you didn't have to pay for it is because you're the beta-tester. Betas are not without their bugs...

Universe of genetically improved

2008-02-05T21:44:00.000-08:00

Note: This universe is a lot like the movie GATTACA, and the Last book in the Universe. However, this universe has a key difference: Those who are visibly genetically defective, or different in any way (no matter how minorly), are incarcerated and regarded as monsters. The principle behind this universe is that if gene therapy was publicly availiable, then humanity would split into two breeds, the normals, and the genetically improved. The genetically improved are of course wealthier, and higher members of society. However, in this universe, normal people are so jealous of their beautiful smart strong counterparts, that they reject anyone in their ranks that they view as defective, hence the incarceration. Out of envy, the genetically untampered wish to purify their own population as much as possible.

This story's plot currently is about a middle class (normal) girl who is hired to become the handmaiden to a grand class (genetically improved) girl. After numerous conversations among themselves, and with members of the monster class (people viewed as defective), whilst touring a monster house (genetics prison). They discover that the system is broken. While trying to find ways to fix it, they discover that a virus might destroy the Grand Class, whose expertise is needed to run the advanced society. This is especially likely to happen, if an arrogant grand-classer is elected into office, who may just employ genocide as his policy. Even if they cannot cure society, the trio must still find a way to drive off the immediate dangers.

Characters:

Kristin: Mid-classer who's best job opportunity is to serve a Grand-class bachelorette. Is somewhat aware of and angered by the social injustice around her, but not greatly so.

Azalea: Grand-classer who is betrothed to a smart, strong, and hansome (but arrogant) bachelor named Salazar. She is secretly unhappy with her betrothal, but is not quite sure how to justify her feelings. Posesses some pity for the lower classes.

Mark: Monster-classer who has been incarcerated for Asperger Syndrome. He lives with his annoying autistic cellmate Grant. Has always been aware of society's injustices, but can do nothing about them. He is glad to finally enlighten someone with an open mind when Kristin and Azalea visit.

Grant: Autistic cellmate of Mark. He cannot speak, and is easily overwhelmed by loud noises.

Camelia: Azaleas mother. She is very stubborn and insistent on Azalea marrying Salazar.

Salazar: Arrogant young man who has been betrothed to Camelia. He scoffs at the Middle Class, and expresses hate and fear toward the monster class. Azalea dislikes him, but has grown up in such a proud culture that she cannot tell why.

How to Break a Game

2008-01-23T10:48:00.000-08:00

A while ago I found a little game called Clive Barker's Jericho. At first it seemed to be pretty cool. It starts out with an amazing intro, and it goes downhill from there. I start out in a plane with my teammates and I am given a briefing. We than get out of the plane and in to some desert. After that,there's a small tutorial, which is pretty helpful and not at all jarring, since it introduces a few things we might need to know. Once that's done, I follow my team into some ruins, and promptly fall down a hole. I'm instructed to hit the right movement key. I think "Shit, not one of these again". It's a timed-press sequence. I grab on to the right ledge, than the left one, than the right one above the first one. After that, I grab on to my teammate's hand. I fall. I start the sequence over. I must have tried this fifty times, and I didn't get right once. That is not part of a good game. It isn't fun, it isn't challenging, all it does is piss me off.

Why do people insist on puttting these kinds of things in games? Jericho seemed like a great game, but it all went to Hell as soon as that sequence started, and prevented me from playing an otherwise good game. Here's a general rule of thumb; if it isn't fun, don't put it in the game. I'm not specifically talking about the timed-button-press stuff, though. God of War proved that it can be done right. For example, there's a minigame in Super Mario Galaxy where you have to destroy some trash with bob-ombs. The trouble is that you have a time limit of thirty seconds to destroy the trash, and bob-ombs take five seconds to explode. Not to mention that it takes a bit to aim and fire the things. All in all, it ain't fun.

As I said earlier, if it isn't fun, don't put it in the game. Fortunately in SMG's case the minigame was optional, and therefore avoidable. I hope someone takes note of this, and that we'll never have to see another of those damn minigames again.

Demonagoge creation story

2007-12-26T09:34:00.000-08:00

My name is Time, and I am the storyteller of the story of Demonagoge. Long a go a great man, named Life, created the universe. He could create great things, animals, people, even worlds. And that was not all he could do. He could also destroy his creations in a funerary wrath. He decided that he would create the greatest race of people, that was his goal. Try after try each race filled with greed and stole from others of they're race until they would all become corrupt. His wrath would come down upon them and he would try again.

And then it dawned upon him that he should create someone to control the others, a manipulator. Alas he failed in this too, for the manipulator was corrupt with power. So he tried again, and failed. So he made two manipulators; one of life, and one of death. The manipulator of death 'marked' the people he choose and sealed their fate; what they would do, and when they would die. The manipulator of Life could play with them like puppets, as long as that didn't go outside of their ' mark'. They could not harm each other. This failed too, for the manipulator of death was corrupt and the manipulator of life was weak.

So, in his wisdom he held a battle royal of sorts; 100,000 participants, demons, fighting for the position of Satan and Natas, the two manipulators. The two were to watch over the human race. Despite their efforts, other corrupt demons spoiled the humans. Satan begged "Life, don't kill us; we can save this race yet, by starting over, just us three." "But life said "No, you have served your time. We shall make humans the next wave of demons, the second war shall be more successful than the first, and they shall be fighting for Demonagoge.

Demonagoge part one by fish111

List of Game Concepts

2007-11-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

Note: This is old as fuck, and won't be updated. If you want a list of my game ideas, use the "concepts" tag!

This list will be updated as I come up with more ideas for games.

BLADE (Now renamed Farming Armageddon)
A series of sci-fi FPS games centered on war. The games in in-universe chronological order are: War of the Masters, World War III, Civil War. The first deals with an alien threat known as the Masters, and their various genetically modified servants. The second game is about WWIII. The third game involves a Civil War between the BLADE colonies. As you can see, all three titles are somewhat self-explanatory.

Gods Among Us
In this game, there is a god for everything. You play as one of these gods- the God of Kinetics, specifically. One god is trying to use his powers to take over the world. Naturally, it's your job to beat his ass into the pavement.

Let's Play Dancing!
A video game-themed DDR clone. Will feature songs and characters from any series we can license. Once you beat all he song on Very Hard, You can select which dancer to use for each song.

Mach Racing
An F-Zero clone with Mario Kart-style deathmatch and a track editor. Also includes weapons. Each vehicle has a special trick. For example, one can strafe. Another can recharge health very slowly.

"Operation Infiltration"
You're a merc hired by some shady corperation to get intel they need. You get this intel from complexes owned by the target corporations. Sometimes, they may require you to destroy or otherwise sabotoge things owned by the enemy corps. You can sneak your way in, blast your way through with stunts and speed, or blow the place to hell. Expect resistance.

"Operation Mindfuck"
An RPG codenamed for its plot style. Will include many plot twists. Will use an expanded version of the engine for the latest Elder Scrolls game, or whatever engine Crytek's using.

Paradox Mansion
You are trapped in a living mansion, where all temporal laws have gone to hell. Actually, that may be where you are, considering the things you've seen. Doorways no longer lead to the same place they did a few minutes ago. Objects form into golems. Even gravity doesn't apply here. Oh well... at least there are some people here who are willing to help you.

Tei Tenga

What DOOM was supposed to be. The game was originally a lot more complex, but John Carmack turned down that concept. However, this version of DOOM may still see the light of day. Read the DOOM Bible here.

Fuck Utopia!

SiGL

2007-11-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

The Shield Grenade Launcher is an interesting support weapon. It fires a sticky grenade that projects a spherical shield after about a second after it latches onto something. The shield has a radius of about one meter and lasts for twice the amount of time you charge it by holding down the trigger. The maximum time the shield can last for is 15 seconds.
The primary fire will let things go out of the shield, but not in. The alt-fire does the reverse.

There are many tactical uses for the SiGL. For example, it can be used to render an enemy helpless via the alt-fire, or it can serve as a shield for an ally. You can also use this to temporarily block a path as well.

Please note that SiGL grenades will bounce off of existing shields.

Express your own tactics in the comments.

Weapons for World War III (BLADE)

2007-10-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

Magnum- Not your regular gun. Then again, nothing at BLADE ever is. It acts like a regular eight-shooter, but it uses explosive charges. The alt-fire lets you unload the whole gun at once. The barrel spins for about a second, then it fires the charges in rapid succession.

Coilgun Targeter- Does just what it says on the tin. The gun does function as an assult rifle, but its real power is the alt-fire, which puts an infrared target for the overhead Cruiser to open fire with its coilgun. It takes about half a second to aim, fires, then takes about half a minute to reload and recharge the coils.

Minirocket Launcher- A minirocket is basically a powerful grenade with wings. These were developed to make Rockets more accessible to infantry. Also, the size of the ammo allows for six minirockets to be stored at once.
Allows for fire-and-forget and LASER-seeking modes.

Springsword- A katana that has its blade contracted when not in use via matter compression techniques. Named for the kinetic force made when the sword is 'unsheathed'. Because of this, many people put the sword to an object and spring it for massive force.

Items for Mach Racing

2007-10-14T15:43:00.001-07:00

Rocket- (RO) Goes straight, small damage, fast
*x= X RO are fired

Heat-Seeking Rocket- (HS) Same as RO, but homes, (accuracy depends on heat, so it would be more accurate in a cold track) goes faster, and does more damage
*x= X HS are fired

Scrambler- (SC) Does 1 of these effects to nearest opponent: reverses controls, (35%) causes static to appear on screen for a while (like blooper in MKDS), (20%) fires all items in stock, (5%), stats such as health, items, and speed on HUD dissapear for a while (30%)
*x= None, if you have a SC, you can not get another until you have lost the first

Shield Shed- (SS) Lose shield, causes shock wave, damage equal to power of shield upon use
*2= 1/4 of shield remains
*3= ½ of shield remains
*4= Shield remains
*5+= Shield goes to max

Teleport- (TP) Switches places with random racer
*2= 75% chance you will advance in place
*3, *4= 100% chance you will advance in place
*5+= Switch places with racer in 1st place

Mine- (MI) Lays a moderate damaging but easily avoidable mine behind you
*x= lays x mines in a horizontal line behind you

Dusk

2007-10-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

This is an idea I found when looking through my email. I originally sent this to Oog, another person on the team.

An optional location, but there's a mighty big sidequest here. EVERYONE in Dusk seems to be out of their mind. For example, there's the kid with the gas mask asking if you're his mummy, the gravekeeper/butcher, etc. Basically, the whole town's fucked up pretty bad. Your job is to find how it became this way, and how to turn it back to normal.

Keep in mind however, a store in Dusk sells some very... interesting equipment. The equipment's effectiveness increases with the amount of kills you've ranked up. Still, all this stuff's rather expensive, so if you want to get the equipment, you might want to "purify" Dusk a bit later.

Once you purify the town, it will quickly grow, becoming something very different. The poor people will move in, making the place their own. They have pretty good prices on everything, but not all of it's top quality. Still, there's a way to rectify that, by donating to the "Rebuild Dusk Fund". Others will occasionally donate as well, but you'll have to do most of the spending yourself.

Partially inspired by the Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child". Do a search for it on Google Video.

~Joel

Random Ideas

2007-10-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

On my computer, I have a folder called the Vault. This serves the same purpose this blog does, but deals more with the specifics. (Usually). Here are two ideas from the Vault.

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A small reconniscence robot, used for mapping terrain and spying, among other things. A plate can be affixed to the top to carry things, usually beer.

The bot has a simple design- a body and six legs, ending in pads* used to stick to walls and ceilings when needed.

*NOTE: The Mk. I did NOT have the pads, ending in prongs instead. The pads were added after a rather nasty incident when a high-ranking soldier was accidently stabbed in the right foot with one of said prongs. To quote the victim; "It's been at least half a year since the incident, and my foot STILL stings a bit whenever I move. Also, I can not move my toes in that foot."

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A standard multiplayer FPS in the style of games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena, and Counter-Strike, but with a few new things, such as wallwalking a la Prey, but applied to the entire map.

One of the biggest features will be the weapon customization system. You start off with all the standard weapons, pistol, shotgun, rocket launcher, etc. You can buy upgrades for your weapons to increase their stats. Upgrades may also affect more than one stat. For example, a pistol scilencer will silence the gun, but will decrease the stopping power and spread.

The way you earn money depends on the gametype, for example in CTF, you will get a sizeable amount of money from capturing a flag, whereas in DM, the only way to get money is from frags. Also, you can LOSE money from doing things such as spawncamping. Don't even mention teabagging.

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The first idea is for BLADE, and the second is a game concept I thought of while I was in the shower.

~Joel

BLADE Politics & Government

2007-10-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

BLADE cities (colonies) are largely independent of each other. Also, each colony is suited to a specific purpose. For example, One colony may be dedicated to astronomical research, while another is dedicated to robotics.
Colonies are usually located in orbit above planets, in cave networks, or are huge starships known as Cruisers. The latter is a bit risky since they are often dependant upon other colonies and other cities for food & supplies. However, their mobility allows them to go to places where they are needed. Cruisers are usually dedicated to exploration, scientific, military, and medical purposes.

One of BLADE's main principles is the population limit. Each colony is limited to a population of about 1500. This limit may be increased or decreased depending on the wellbeing of the colony. The purpose of this is so that every body knows each other, and get along well. This defeats the purpose for laws, so they are hardly ever made, if at all. If things things get really bad, people may be forced to leave. People will continue to do so until all is right again. Fortunately, this has happened much. Unfortunately however, the people that were forced to leave in one such situation formed their own colony and militia, and procedded to attack their original colony. Other colonies helped to defeat the attackers, but others deciede that if they could do it , why couldn't we? And they did, beginning the BLADE Civil War. *Sigh* Tough times... tough times...

"Power Struggle" FPS gametype

2007-10-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

The basic idea is that there is a path which each team is trying to go down. However, they can not go any further until some condition is reached. Maybe the game could compare the amount of kills each team has had recently, or there could be an ball each team is trying to get to the opponent's side. Also, there would be a neutral zone. A map example at the start of a game might be something like this;

   ===========================
G=============B=============G
   ===========================

Later, it might look like this.

   ===========================
G========B==================G
   ===========================

And at the end, it would look like this, at which the blue team could get the ball through the goal.

   ===========================
G==B========================G
   ===========================

Of course, the path would be more convulted, with hiding spots, and other stuff.

B: ball
G: goal
=: path
The darkly colored =s are spaces the opposing team can not go into, no matter what. These areas would probably be spawn points, to keep down the spawn camping.

Come to think of it, this is a bit like the Bombing Run mode of Unreal Tournament, but one goal consists of an entire round.

~Joel

BLADE Data Rescource Management

2007-10-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

Just something I thought of while I was idle. It's a bit techical, I know, but I think this is a good way for mods to be made.

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All of BLADE's rescources are put into .pak files. (.zip renamed, or whatever compression method suits the game best.) Textures are stored in textures.pak, models are stored in models.pak, etc.
The BLADE editor will allow you to compile your map into an install file. (.bri [Blade Rescource Installer]) Executing the installer will ask you for BLADE's file directory. Once you supply this, the installer will add the mod's files into their respective .paks, and add a .brl (BLADE Rescource Library) file. This file simply lists the location of the maps needed for the mod, which in turn list the location for the textures and other things needed for the map.
To uninstall a mod, you can do this from inside the game, or by executing a program in the BLADE directory. (Uninstalling the mod from within the game will also activate this program). Uninstalling a game will only remove the files needed for that mod that are not requested by any other mods. Since a lot of mods will be using the base models and other things, you'd damn well better not delete them!
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~Joel

Big Rigs review

2007-09-14T21:23:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've heard of the game. X-Play featured it in their "Games You Should Never Buy" segment, and GameSpot also, did a piece on the game. Take almost any review of Big Rigs on the web, and you will find that the reviewer would like to meet the president of Steller Stone, cut off his limb, open up his chest, take out his intestines, and hang him up by his own entrails. I however, consider it one of the most entertaining games in history. At first, the game just seems buggy, however you soon realize that this game is not even beta quality- this game is pre-alpha quality.You can drive up sheer cliffs, go through all buildings (and bridges), go outside the map, and go 3000 mph backwards. In short, don't play this like a game, play it like a sandbox. Just fool around. I assure you, it is fucking hilarious.

~Joel