5punk

Dog Pants wrote:I did a words; Buying Blind: The (de)evolution of the demo.

http://www.geekinpublic.com/?p=246

There are a lot demos for console games available, if the ones you can get on PSN or XBL are any indication, certainly more by percentage than that of Steam games which have demos avavilable through it, but you're probably right that they don't get made until after the full game is released - I haven't paid that much attention.

The other topsy-turvy thing about them releasing betas almost in lieu of a prerelease demo is that we as gamers are supposed to be oh-so-grateful that we have been permitted this sneak preview, whereas actually we're the customers who are funding everything they will ever do, so they should show us a bit more damn respect.

Dog Pants wrote:One writer who stands out in my mind is Connor McCarthy. His writing style frustrates me because the grammar is terrible, but the content of the stories is very compelling. I still don't know if he deliberately writes like that or is published despite it.

Cormac McCarthy. I don't think it's that he can't do grammar/punctuation, but a deliberate style choice. Whether he's trying to be "street", attributing the entire text (not just the dialogue) to a character or just experimenting with the language in the same way that Shakespeare did, I don't know.

It would drive me insane as reader and unless you're as confident and acclaimed as he is, I don't think there's any excuse for it, as it's something which can be learned, or corrected. Stephen King did a thing in Carrie, where her thoughts were all lowercase italics with the words running into each other - which was really effective at describing her state of mind, but you couldn't read a whole book like that.

Dog Pants wrote:I wonder if the biggest thing stopping many creative people writing is just finishing a novel, because I've tried writing and find it difficult to get past the first chapter.

Sitting down and saying "I'm going to write novel" isn't how I would recommend getting into writing. Not if you want it to be fun and not just hours of staring at an empty Word document. You don't have to write the first chapter first, if the story you have to tell is big enough to fill a novel, then that first page - the one that grabs the reader's attention - should perhaps be the last thing you write, when you are at your most proficient: because the more you write, the better you get.

I think a hell of lot before typing a single word, and I think in terms of scenes, like in a film. When I've got it pictured in my head, I then sit down and write the most interesting ones out. Remember that scene in Inglorious Basterds with the German officer and the people hiding under the floorboards? I want every scene (where appropriate) to be that powerful, intense and memorable. So then, when I've finished, I go through it again, sentence by sentence at least three times and tweak it. And it gets better each time.

Then I note its position on a rough timeline and start writing another scene. Scenes are typically 400-600 words. Phobia and Springtime on Mars were both less than 400 words, and The Gift which is two scenes and a bit of background info was just shy of 1,000. Personally I find that's about big enough for a piece you might work on over an evening or two in terms of workload, and the end product is hopefully something that's punchy without needless waffle. Less is more, show don't tell, and your readers aren't stupid - they can fill in the gaps.

I'm glad you liked the stuff I did, I have a lot more planned and spent this evening typing up a bunch of notes I'd made on paper. Having a pen and paper to hand to jot down random ideas or dreams before you forget them is a great habit to get into. Apart from those three, I have five other ideas for stories - spending a week just thinking of ideas and scribbling them down is another good thing to keep yourself interested - but I don't know whether I should post them here or on the blog.

FatherJack wrote:Cormac McCarthy.

Bollocks, I realised I'd made a mistake earlier while shopping and forgot to edit it.

http://fiction.fatherjack.net/five-ideas-for-stories/ Five Ideas is up, pass 6667.

And so I return.. I have been AWOL for a while, but if you read the blog you may find out why.

It's not gaming, story telling (nice work FJ by the way), or in any way 5punky related, more a personal Blog/Diary kinda thing.

I am finding it a bit cathartic, don't know if I wil ever expand it to be anything more that what it is but its here if you are in any way slightly interested in the ramblings of a "mature", drunken, Scots gamer..

http://www.jockgit.com/blog

That's a very thoughtful blog Jock. Just don't go into detail if things get... grown up.

Thanks DP, I wouldn't want to inflict that on anyone...,

Another article up - 10 skills every gamer should have.

http://www.geekinpublic.com/?p=258

TheJockGit wrote:jock blog

Yay woo jock! Gratz on the lady, hope you guys are still going good. Tell that son to pull his finger out! Tell that winestorm to pull her finger out!

I done a blog, Maw! Games I Wish I Had More Time To Play (number 10 omitted so it doesn't look like a gratuitous list article).

http://www.geekinpublic.com/?p=274

Blog post up after a bit of a lapse. Year of the Indie explores the causes of the rise in popularity of indie games, compared to big-release AAA titles.

http://www.geekinpublic.com/?p=296

http://fiction.fatherjack.net/aunt-clara/ More fiction, after a bit of new-year lethargy, pass is 6667.

This is a scene from Sophie which I mentioned in the five ideas post. It's not quite the start of the story as I haven't entirely decided what order things happen in yet, but roughly the boy (Tom) has been shipped off to his Aunt's (Clara) for the duration of the school holidays, he's not long arrived and is just having a look around the house.

Excellent stuff again FJ. I'm not quite sure how you made a scene about someone washing up so compelling. Part of it is probably the sinister, Roald Dahl-esque extrapolations on the story my brain was doing.

I rather like that.

After a brief* hiatus, a new blog: Playing A Girl - why blokes play female characters.

http://www.geekinpublic.com/?p=331


*Lengthy

Well said dog. I play as a girl in most of my games. I can't pin down the exact reason but I guess it just feels cooler to have a girl kicking ass that it does a man.

My question back to people who either feel the need to insult or or can't comprehend men plays female characters is that why when a single player game enforces the gender (e.g. Lara "McTitties" Croft) it's not an issue, but when a player makes the choice themselves it is. Players make the choice for probably the same reasons the developers do, but nobody questions the developers.

Another thing is there is a disconnect between making an attractive or sexy character and being attracted to them. There's that stereotype that any man who plays a female night elf is WoW is knocking one out all the time. I make my characters mainly because of looks sure. I had a raft of female gnomes, which I would openly describe as cute, but I'm not attracted to them. Perhaps you can equate sexy/cute pixels to calling any other non-human thing that e.g. cars, pets, designs, it doesn't mean you want special alone time with them.

And yeah, a powerful fantasy female is just cooler.

I've always picked female characters, kind of in-keeping with the ph34r t3h cute ones Megatokyo meme/trope, but my use of them predates that. In the early days of online Quake, the only choice you had was colour, but by Quake 2 you could also choose gender.

I used that choice to distinguish myself, and to be recognised. I was fortunate enough to be playing mostly on university broadband, which gave me a bit of an edge. The female skin's effects were twofold - firstly players tended to notice me more, particularly when I killed them and secondly some players got super-annoyed at being killed by a 'girl'*. The results were pretty much the same, in that the other players would target me, or come charging after me the most, and that meant I got the most opportunities for combat, and the distracted/angered ones where all the more easy to pick off.

*With my name quite clearly still 'FatherJack' I wasn't trying to fool anyone into thinking I was actually a girl, but it seemed to have the same effect on some.

I have used the 'because I have to look at their ass all the time' line, but this mainly to jocks (not Jocks) who wouldn't really understand why I like making cute characters. In a strange twist of fate though, probably the most unwanted attention I got was from a Jock (not a jock) - our very own Jockgit, who followed Fj - my female half-elf Warlock in WoW around like a lost puppy because "her ears bounce", "like Jessica Rabbit".

Saint's Row is my one exception, though I think that's more to do with the actions, clothes and voice being funnier if you select a bloke.

Strangely, I don't really have a preference. I often play as female characters, but I just as often play as male characters. Like you say in your blog post, I don't really have any reason for it beyond what I feel like playing at the time. Its purely whim, although I've used the "I prefer staring at a womans arse" line a few times, its only ever been in jest. I don't know about you, but when I'm playing a 3rd person game I tend to be looking in front of my character, not at my characters posterior, regardless of gender.

I tend to pick the character's gender on how I view their in game role. To use diablo - to me a barbarian is a big angry dude, a demon hunter is a smart as a razor chick. I think the roles just fall in to place in my head and I'll not mess around with that, it's going to lessen my immersion.

I don't look at arses as I'm busy looking around and I honestly don't get the whole I'd rather stare at the arse story, it's not a real arse no matter how shapely, surely just have a break from the game and have a wank if need be? Unless of course that kind of stuff turns you on, in which case it's more efficient to wank whilst running around collecting bear's arses or looking through old ruins or whatever.

I don't notice if I'm getting attention for having tits on my character as I tend to phase out the cockbags that notice that kind of thing in a lecherous way. Likely thing is they know it's a bloke because generally I'm toting things like vaginodilda and cochgobla as my names.

The boob slider in aid of colon was an immense source of hilarity however, if only it had been a per boob slider.