I’ll do it on monday!

Okay here’s another yellow/blue sketch for the first background in my game. Notice the perspective is better. I screwed around with the levels to make the pencil marks show up better, it’s mostly for viewing online. The final version will be cleaned up totally, and inked darkly in order to start the process of coloring the image. I may not get to coloring it though until i’ve actually created and animated some stuff (stickman style… yes I probably said something to some of you about not making a stick version, but for hand animating i’ll probably just do it for walk cycles before getting down to business).

Let me know what you think. Note: I didn’t leave enough room for a door to open inward, so i’ll end up having to redo this, which i’ll probably do anyways considering i need to go get myself a ruler as well.

Keith

Well you probably know by now, but the way i’m doing my rooms are i’m doing some concept thumbnails to get the layout I want, then proceed with what i call the “yellow” sketch… I use a yellow colored pencil and block in the major shapes. Then it’s on to blue sketch, where I add details, before finally going over for an initial trace… then this should be where i get all the major details in before doing a clean up and and ink.

I just want to know from any of you whether this looks okay or not, perspective-wise… realizing it’s a sketch and not even the final at that. I modified the layout slightly which gives the character more walking room… the hamper is on the side in front of the bed, and you can actually see mos of the bed now. Note you can see into the closet which is empty, and out the door into the hallway, as well as the drawer cavities (or whatever you call them)… and then of course some spots for posters. I plan to add the extra stuff like door, closet door, drawers covers on the bed, lid to the hamper, and actually the posters themselves probably as seperate elements… Actually the posters will be created on normal sheets, then the images scaled, shrunk and perspective corrected to fit on the wall correctly, but that’s way later. Also the computer desk chair will be added later. I had also blocked out some sort of book case or something for the foreground, but not sure if i will add anything.

Let me know what you think.

Keith

Boy is that a lot to swallow. In any case, I’ve been doing several sketches of the first scene or room, and it’s literally a bedroom. John Thomas’ room. This is the layout I liked the best because it was the most interesting, however there may be some problems dealing with the character navigating the room… Things are a bit too close, and you can see more of the top of the dresser than you should, but I’m still working it out. Your goal as a player is to help John find his library card… Of course the room will be a mess and you’ll first have to clean it. This is also where you’ll be introduced to the somewhat different interface, when I get it working, pie or radial menus, and with more options… you’ll have some verbs like look, get, talk, and so forth, but also you’ll have modifiers in it’s own little nested pie menu, like in, on, at, or behind, or under… Haven’t decided what all I want in there, but i’ll try to make it as simple as possible.

Here is the sketch, let me know what you think about the layout?

Keith

Hopefully this will work. If you see the video in the following post, just leave a comment. You DO NOT NEED to play the video, it’s quite embarrassing as it is. But I was having a problem embedding youtube videos — I guess wordpress has this problem of mangling the tags. Well one solution is to modify some stuff that messes with the tags, another is to use a plugin, however I don’t have access to making folders where the plugins go, so the only thing left is this, which requires you turn off the visual editor (under users and your profile, down at the bottom there’s a little checkbox). You write your message save, but don’t publish, then turn off the visual editor, embed your code, and then publish and re-enable the visual editor. So let’s see if this works, shall we?

Keith.

Edit: I decided what the heck, play the dang video. I didn’t realize they were judging on most views. Not that i’d get any now anyways.

You read it right.  I’m canceling the challenge.  “Why?” I hear you all ask in dismay.  Just because.  No actually I’ve been working on it, and not been real restrictive of keeping my time logged.  Sometimes I sit and stare at the blank paper, sometimes I get to talking about it with some guys and get ideas even when I’m not trying to put in hours.  I guess I just don’t have the discipline to challenge myself this way.  Not to mention the fact that I’m still on the beginning of making John Thomas’ puzzles, and I have six other characters to work that out on.  So it could easily take more than the 75, give or take, hours to just complete that part.  The other thing is I have a problem with the time.  I was trying to restrict my work to a 1 hour resolution.  So if I only had 30 minutes I may not work because it would cut into an hour, and I wanted to count hours.  I could count minutes but that would sort of sidestep the purpose of the 100 hour challenge, as I wouldn’t have a frame of reference into how I work my time.  In other words, I wouldn’t be able to judge how much to squeeze out of an hour if I am just counting minutes.

I wanted to be true to myself, and not shirk some time just because it didn’t fall neatly into an hour.  So I’m thereby closing the challenge and instead going to just work whenever I can.  I will *NOT* however stop making the game.  The puzzles are coming along well in my opinion, and it’s a great story (well not to brag or anything, people may think my stories are stupid, but I feel it’s good enough to warrant my attention).

I will also continue to update you through the blog about progress on the game.  Now that I’ve gotten the bad guys plot lines finished, and I’m starting to work on John Thomas’ puzzles, things are sailing along.  I hope also that without the challenge I’ll just work any time I can.

Thanks for your support (those few who read and comment).

Keith

Viridian has now just included our irc channel on his about page!

So give him a visit when you’re so inclined.

Keith

A quick note, I will no longer be adding the previous tags to the bottom of the post.  I just realized you can easily navigate individual posts if you use the links above the post itself.  Otherwise you can pick the category (Enchanted Lands) and click the post you want to read.

On with the update.  Well I did a whole 5 hours.  Well actually 2 hours before, and 3 tonight (last night).  Got all the bad guys plot lines in, which means tomorrow I can start on maps.  That should be fun.  After I get all the maps in, I’ll be working on puzzles and the game system in general, that should get kind of tough, but i’m up for it, after all it is a challenge!

so 30 out of 100

30/100

Keith

Here we are in glorious #7.

I had some trouble about Max’s plot lines because everything was supposed to happen prior to the first main character entering the game (the player entering the game).  But I resolved it by making Max’s plans coincide with everyone else’s, and I added a new goal something to make it more complete.  Max plans to conquer the realms… so what does he do, just sit and wait while the good guys dispose of him.  Not so.  As well as taking care of what he thinks are the important players, he’s also building a machine that will open a portal large enough to march armies straight through.  The machine will happen to use quicksilver (the magical mineral enchanted lands runs on).  So now there’s a secondary goal of trying to stop the machine.  (Actually considering it’s so late in the game so-to-speak, it will probably only show up as John enters into the mines.  Or maybe even when they all go to storm the Administration Castle).  In any case now Max has plenty to do while our heroes are trying to busily thwart him.

I only spent an hour though, and only got Plot Line A, Plot B will be written soon (today or tomorrow).

So far that’s 25 hours out of 100.

25/100

Keith

Previously: Enchanted Lands 100 hour challenge update #6

Okay so here’s the deal, the last challenge update was number 5, and I was at 20 hours. Now I went back and actually rewrote a significant portion of the character plotlines. However the hours got up to about 26 or something like that, so I figured I wouldn’t count that time in that I was simply rewriting the same stuff I had written. So i’m going to cheat a bit. I did add new material to a few of those stories, and I just added The Cowardly Werewolf’s plot lines. I’m going to say 24 hours total. Yes I know it’s a cheat however I was only going to impose this limit on myself. 100 hours doing 40 hour work weeks (if you did this as a job) is only about two-and-a-half weeks. So even if I did twice as many that’s only just over a month of actual work. Enough to prove that I can do this this way. In any case I’m sure it’s not going to come out to twice as much. Probably any extra time would have padded out to 3 weeks of work.

In any case here it is. 24/100 that is 24 hours out of a hundred. which means I still have 14 hours to work on plot lines. Which is where I will do the evil characters plotlines. (7 major baddies as described in the last post).

24/100

Keith

Previously: Enchanted Character Fun

Okay I did mention I would be outlining the characters. Of course only one person is actually interested as he made two comments to the effect :-)

Special thanks to the one person for caring.

By the way you still need to marry that girl! ;-)

Okay on with the show.

As anyone who’s read these posts should know, Enchanted Lands is in a dire situation. The King acts oddly now. The schools and lands are closed up and a mysterious man by the name of Max Millions has bought up all the assets.

First the good characters:

We have Harold Halfway. Harold is the typical old balding wizard with a blue cloak and pointy hat. He was the one that suggested to the King to turn the lands into a tourist resort. And the King wasn’t sorry, it’s been thriving until Max Millions came in, that’s when all heck broke loose! He only has literally half of his magic. Apparently He gave half of his magic to the woman he was going to marry. She in turned shared it with another, thereby stealing half of his magic. For instance if you wanted him to cast a spell for breakfast for two eggs, two pieces of bacon, and two pancakes, you’d get one of each. If you needed a magic map, only half of it would show up at any given time! In any case Harold needed to find someone who could help get Enchanted Lands back on his feet. At this time, of course, he would not dare cast any spell, instead he gave a young man a silver ticket (A quicksilver ticket, which is the magical metal that the lands run on) disguised as a contest in a Benny Wonkey Bar. Once this young man opened it a portal opened unto him. This young man’s name was John Thomas.

John Thomas lives in our world in Oregon to be exact. He’s not got many friends, or a girlfriend, and his nose is always stuck in some fantasy novel. Just the sort of person that could help Enchanted Land get back on it’s feet. He was pretty ordinary, just like yours truly. When he bought his favorite type of Benny Wonkey Candy Bar a portal opened, and he stepped through. When he did, it appeared as if he was on some flying train. Well a train at any rate. A fat extremely short man jumped up put a device on the wall, turned it on, and then went to a beautiful young lady’s seat. She had the look of royalty. John thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. That’s when the short fat man sprinkled some fairy dust on her, thereby putting her to sleep, slung her over his shoulder and jumped out. The train started spinning and out John went like a light. The young lady just happened to be the Princess Karen from the realm of Verdance.

Princess Karen is a real Honest-to-goodness Princess. From the realm of Verdance. It’s rumored that they have the power to imbue normal people with magical powers, but so far no one has been able to learn the secret. She’s also a beautiful redhead, green eyes and a nice… well uhh anyways She wishes she wouldn’t get such preferential treatment for being a Princess. She was on her way to Princess Prep to give a speech on the Beauty within when she gets some Fairy dust sprinkled on her, and as she’s blanking out she see’s our hero John stepping through a portal.

Count Roy, a misunderstood vampire. That’s right misunderstood. They don’t drink blood, in fact they drink a wine made from a berry that looks alot like blood but is quite sweet. They do create immortals like themselves by a bite on the neck, but never against anyone’s will. Only a wooden stake through the heart will kill a vampire. Garlic really has no effect. And they do turn into bats, so that reputation is well earned. Count Roy runs the only hotel still operating within the lands, called the Bats-In-The-Belfry Hotel where prices are so low they’re scary! Poor Count Roy, angry mob’s destroyed his family line, and now he has no one to share eternity with. He’s old friends with Harold and Harold uses that fact to get him to turn into a bat to spy on stuff. His hope is that he can find a woman to share his life with, immortally, and to repopulate the vampire race.

Roland the “oversized” dwarf. How can a dwarf be oversized you ask? Because his daddy was a giant. His Dad left when he was young. Being so large the dwarves kicked him out of their mines. All his life he’s been on a quest to find his Daddy, and learn why he left. Also he longs to be welcomed as a dwarf. Who knows maybe opportunity will show itself.

Sir William the Unicorn used to be a great Knight, but his hard-heartedness got the best of him. And old woman who he turned out on a cold and rainy night cursed him to be a Unicorn. A Unicorn that’s been hunted by the infamous Black Knight who likes to eat unicorn steaks! Sir William’s only hope is to find the woman that transformed him and find a way to get himself changed back. But this is hard as he can’t speak. One day Princess Karen spots him, and somehow he is able to indicate that he was enchanted. So Harold is put on the job, only it works halfway, which means Sir William can only Talk, at least he can talk now!

Kurt Wulff aka The Cowardly Werewolf. One day Kurt was walking in the woulds when suddenly out of nowhere a wolf jumps out and bites him. Being nervous and slightly neurotic, when he turned into a werewolf, something entirely different happened to him than happens to others. He became exceedingly scared. So cowardly he can’t hurt anything or anyone. This may be more of a blessing than a curse however, as Red Riding Hood seduces wolves for Maximillian Spells Army. Being that he’s afraid of everything he manages to get by her wicked watchful eye! Who knows maybe he could convince some of the werewolves not to work for the “Bad guy”.

Now for the bad guys. There had been rumors of a guy that was banished returning to resume his terrible experiements.

None other than Maximillian Spell - notorious black wizard, who was trying to imbue tourists with magical ability so he could raise an army to conquer all the realms connected to Enchanted Lands. He came back under the guise of Max Millions and inserted a puppet King to do his bidding. Now he closed down all the schools and trapped some tourists. Some princesses, would be fairy godmothers, Knights in training! Then when the Lands lost money Max Millions came in swooped down and bought out all of Enchanted Enterprises for a song. Now he runs the place with his second in command the evil mysterious and wicked Violet Moonshadow!

Violet Moonshadow, very beautiful, with long dark hair, and nice uhh fair skin. She’s the Sorceress who stole half of Harold’s Magic, arranged for Princess Karen’s kidnapping, and turned Sir William into a Unicorn! She’s also Editor in Chief of the Enchanted Villain Monthly which showcases a new dastardly evil-doer each month! When Max wants something done, she makes it happen! Usually though she leaves the handywork to Barty the Gnome king of the greedy gnomes!

Barty the Gnome is simply greedy. He kidnapped Princess Karen, had his gnomes kidnap the dwarves and hold them hostage. Any manhandling is done by Barty! He works for Max simply because Max will allow him to loot the realms when he’s sitting on the throne and running the lands!

The Black Knight — Ahh a mystery wrapped in a big black suit of armour. He usually commands Max’s armies. Not much is known of him, other than his particular taste for Unicorn meat. He’s pretty much killed the whole Unicorn population and now is told of one other… (Sir William although he doesn’t know it yet!)

Zanzibar the Great is a great deceiver! He was a not so good magician in our world. And he usually exposed all the magicians secrets, something forbidden by the code! His final illusion was something that would threaten the whole existance of magicians. As they’re threatening bodily harm he manages to escape into a conventions of wizards, who just happen to be real wizards, and he stepped through the portal. Once he realized he could make a fresh start he pretends to be a Wizard. Attempting to trick Max, Max catches him in the act, and likes it so much he decides to use him for deceiving others!

Crooktooth the Dragon is a mean dragon. You see all the other dragons had to be enchanted, to terrorize villages! But not Crooktooth his mouth bothers him something fierce. Max makes a deal with him to fix his teeth if he commands the other dragons and terrorizes villages and so forth.

Finally we have Red Riding Hood. You see she’s really not a nice girl like in the stories, instead she’s a wicked evil woman. Her and Granny had a scam going… she would seduce the werewolves and granny would be waiting to smash them, grab them, and bag them. Then they would strip the hides and sell them. They had a good thing going until Granny actually got eaten. With the money she made she went into hiding deep in the gnome kingdom. She used to be Max’s girl until he got banished. When he got back he employed her to build him a werewolf army. Unfortunately Kurt is the last one and he’s too cowardly.

I think that about does it. Only a few people read this which is okay, hopefully it sounds interesting. Next i’ll start exploring plotlines possibly. And very soon i’m going to start up my 100 hour challenge again, as now i’m writing wholly new material

Thanks for reading

Keith

Previously: Back on [Enchanted] track, part 2!!