The Broken Hourglass: Proofreading

So no great big exciting news. Work on The Broken Hourglass continues to continue. Right now, mostly we're working on revision and overhaul.

Jason's fixing the endgame and doing a ton of checking on items. Theoretically the focus is on the finale, but of course everyone carries weapons and various Cool Named Gear, and then that gets checked and then he says "Oh, there are better ways of doing it" and then he's back at item-making.

Wes Weimer came out of retirement (Retirement from the game, that is. I wouldn't really describe a teaching job as "retirement" in the broader sense) to do some engine adjustment.

Paul is working on making combat more exciting.

Me? I'm reading through the quests, more or less in alphabetical order, doing quick edits and making notes. It's interesting--there are a lot of quests I have not read, some I haven't even seen summaries of--and very time-consuming. Like most things, it's taking more time than I planned. It's small stuff, mostly, but it needs doing. For example, fairly early on, an emperor was changed to an empress. The first quests still call her a him. And so it goes.

How many quests are there? That depends on how you define "quest": Some are definitely Quests with a capital "Q," long, sprawling, multi-part creations that are spread out over any number of files. Others are short encounters with very basic results and choices. They all have dialog, though, and it all needs proofreading.

There's some further writing ahead, but right now, I'm heading back into initial proofreading work.

Til next time!

The Broken Hourglass: Questing Continues

Writing and coding have gotten very intertwined around one another this quest. I'm moving back and forth between the two, doing the both at once, and am very aware of the possibilities as I work.  As with all writing, it is a matter of learning while I work, watching while one plot twists around another, and each element affects the next. So I'm checking and cross-checking both code and writing as I think "Hmm...but what if the player visits her first, and him next...but what if they go over there first instead?"

The most complicated, fiddly bit, of course, is the finale. I don't want people reaching the finale before they've figured out (or at least come close to figuring out) what is going on, but I also don't want to make the player run endless errands long after he or she knows what the truth is just because the code doesn't account for the possibility of figuring it out earlier.

I think I'll have the first full draft done tomorrow, but after that, I get to play-test it from all possible directions to see what happens, and adjust it accordingly.That, of course, is the advantage of doing most of the coding myself now: Changing things is relatively simple matter of going in and tweaking rather than a matter of emailing back and forth and risking misunderstanding (as happened between Paul & me early on with the outside guards). The drawback, of course, is that I lose the feedback--an outside reader can be extremely useful; I keep a head full of voices, but they don't catch every angle. Hopefully there will be people who can read and play through these quests at some point before release. Someone needs to point out the blindingly obvious ahead of time.

The characters stayed chatty for the first bit, bless them, but now, having said their say, they seem content to put their feet up and rest. "We told you what you needed to know," they say. "You know what we did and why we did it, and you know who we are. It's up to you to work out the details."  And so I circle, alter, tweak, and revise, moving closer and closer to the end.

(Yes, I'm having fun!)

The Broken Hourglass: Piecing Things Together

The quest I wrote about the last time I discussed The Broken Hourglass is coming together nicely. The characters are chattering away happily, and my grasp of basic code is improving to the point where adding it is no longer quite such an interruption to the writing.

I did have to stop yesterday to build a couple of stores, something I'm glad to say is much easier with Wscript than with Weidu (where, quite honestly, I only managed to make things crash when I was modding; Miloch & GeN1e built the working stores in Aurora). So, it slowed me down looking for the proper names of items they might carry, but not so much so that I lost the thread of the narrative, and I felt quite pleased with myself for getting it done.

And now, back to the narrative in question.

This ends your semi-weekly update.

The Broken Hourglass: Writing Once More

Having finished the last batch of minor quests and encounters, I have a new one to start, or finish, depending on how you look at it--it's based on some tantilizing bits left by a former writer/coder.

I've done the bit where I take a long, rambly walk and listen to the characters talk. Now I need to do the bit where I sit down and make it make sense.

The listening bit is always fun when it happens (it doesn't always); I hope they'll keep on talking while I write. Sometimes, they go all silent and stare at me with big eyes. "Remember," I'll tell the maybe-villain, "You were telling me all about your plan, and why it was a good idea, really." "That must have been some other bad guy," he'll say. "Me? I'm just sitting here enjoying my coffee." "What about you?" I'll ask the clue-giver. "Are you really going to let him get away with that?" He'll just blink sleepily and demand to be left alone.

But maybe this bunch won't do that.

Time to find out!

The Broken Hourglass: Puzzle Pieces

Progress and regress and progress again.

I spent the last couple of days discovering that a quest which I had tested in pieces did not work as a whole. In consequence, I had to take the whole thing apart and reassemble it (something that involved both revising the writing and the coding), testing as I went to make sure that each path worked. I'm not sure how many times through that took, either, since there are multiple approaches to the quest and multiple ways of solving it--I tried vaguely to work it out mathematically, but gave up early on and just kept on reloading. By the time I got it working, I was too tired to feel anything more than a distant sort of satisfaction.

Some sleeps later, and I'm capable of greater happiness: It may not be a big quest, but I wrote it and coded it, and it works!

Work on smaller encounters and miniquests also continues; several of them work, some probably work but need one more test before I settle them in and declare them done.

Paul's checked in at least one major quest, too, while I've been toiling away. So--yup, stuff's happening!

The Broken Hourglass: Today's Plan

Today's plan for The Broken Hourglass is to make sure three separate sets of journals are properly coordinated and have reasonable dates on them.

After that, barring further instruction--

I make Polylists!

Yes, indeed. I finally figured out the practical polylist--the premade shape, at least, and I'm pretty sure, from looking at the code, that I can do custom shapes as well.

It kind of depends--there are a couple of different possibilities.

I'm still more writer than coder, but I must admit, I see the point now, with code; it is no longer inconceivable that someone might actually prefer coding to writing (strange, but not inconceivable).

The Broken Hourglass: Screenshot

I keep meaning to blog about writing and about starting to learn wscript, but I've been spending all my computer time writing and learning wscript (and having a blast, somewhat unexpectedly--normally I hate picking bugs out of stuff).

So, for the moment, no real entry on strange error messages and odd commands.

Instead, I'll give you an entirely authorized and never-before-seen screenshot: the map of Mal Nassrin. Feast your eyes on it and wait impatiently!

The Broken Hourglass: Writing! Fun! Code!

That was fun!

Yesterday and today were days that reminded me again just how much I love writing, just the sheer joy of getting the words down, the fun of feeling them shape themselves; it's flying for the fun of it.

Productive too--I got two good, long character segments written and fixed some smaller bits and pieces here and there in other dialogs. I even found a bit of looping dialog in game and (lowers voice) I fixed it myself. Yes, I, even I, ventured into the tangled jungle of already coded wording and made it work right, and I'm ridiculously pleased with myself as a result.

Today's work is not-quite-finished; it's a thorny, tangled shrub instead of a nice, tidy dialog tree, but, like all trees, it can and will be pruned. The important thing is it's there, and I like it!

I also picked a thousand and one little coding errors out of said tangled shrub. Such is life, and life, today, is very good.

///

In other news, JCompton and I have actually managed to find another shared cultural reference! Multiple discussions of characters and concepts have floundered when one or the other of us has said "You know, kind of like X only different," and the other has said "Like what?" In the long run, it's probably Good for the Game as it means there is a much broader frame of reference, but in the short term it has made for much explaining and convolution, and that this, the second time, is worth a moment of silent contemplation.

///

Wanders off happily to prune virtual dialog trees.

And More on The Broken Hourglass

I am still writing for The Broken Hourglass (and I write on days I don't post--you know how boring one-line "I'm writing" entries would get?). The last few banters were, quite frankly, ghastly, but they do each have a couple of lines in them that are worth saving, and I'll build new and better banters around those. Sometimes, you have to write the really awful stuff to get to the good stuff. I wish that were not the case--I wish that the rough drafts were always at least decent, but, there it is.

I've also been revising a lot--mostly cutting words and lines out to make for tighter banters, occasionally switching words around or removing repeats.

And on another note: Jelena Jovović has some samples of artwork from The Broken Hourglass up on her website. It's down under "Commercial Work" at the bottom. Included are character portraits and some icons.

The Broken Hourglass: PC/NPC Dialog

Still at The Broken Hourglass writing.

Jason and I have talked our way through a good chunk of what I'd roughed out earlier; now I'm settling down to get more talks added.

Starting to feel more comfortable with my two 'troublesome' characters, though the one is going to need a bit more work on my part before I really feel comfortable with him. Got some more background from Jason, which should help--some of it will never appear in the game, one or two tidbits might make their way in via dialog.

Also added another conversation for Carind and Makarios. I'd like to see a bit more between them than exists as yet.

The Broken Hourglass: Writing Some More

Working on PC-NPC(1) dialogs now.

I've roughed out all the random responses & am adding some more actual discussions. I have to admit, sometimes I wish there were not nine different characters, but I can't imagine who I'd leave out, if I were to leave any out. I like them all; I liked them before I started writing for them, and I think players are going to like them too. They're a good mix, so everyone's going to find at least one NPC to love and one to loathe, and it won't be the same for each player.

Two of them I'm still working on the speech patterns for; I love what the previous writers have done with them, but I have a hard time fitting into that rhythm. I'll get there though; in the end, I want there to be no sign of who wrote which dialog.

In the meantime, though, I have to get back to actually writing for the game rather than about it. Yesterday I bogged down completely and ended up taking a long walk and pruning roses instead, and thinking hard about what to say. I'm about three dialogs ahead of myself now, and I figure if I write them, I may find three more on the other side.

Now, back to getting those conversations down on paper (or computer, as the case may be).

(1) Discussions between the Player-Character (the one the player is controlling) and the Non-Player Characters (in this case, the ones who join the player on his/her quest) for those of you who aren't gamers.

Can I Be Her When I Grow Up?

So I just shifted position in the library, in part because I hope it will help shake a few brain cells loose so I can get some more writing done (Don't laugh; it's been known to work) and in part because I want some tea (That, also, has been known to work) and there are only a few places where tea is allowed.

The place is, as usual, full, and on my way to a new table, I passed an elegant looking woman with a lovely, neat stack of book surrounding her and a tidy pile of beautifully written notes next to her.

She looks just like an author busy doing research ought to look.

I want to be her.

Well, not her, exactly, but the person she looks like.

The Broken Hourglass: Still Writing Some More

Spent some time today working on The Broken Hourglass.

Most of it was spent on the atmosphere stuff, writing for the little people who make the world seem lived in, the extras, so to speak. One of them has a very small quest associated with it.

Anyway, today's work was mostly filling in roughed-out outline work from earlier this week, not wildly exciting as most of the character discovery has already happened, but satisfying. It's good to see things taking shape.

I also spent a lot of time barraging Corvis with world building stuff, all kinds of random details that didn't make it into the initial world-building doc: "Do the Illuminated sing?" "Why is Atrus VI not Atrus I?" "Are there demigods?" "So where's the Imperial gossip?" And so on.

He can come up with an unbelievable amount of detail at the drop of a hat, too, though he has been known to say "Make it up yourself."

Also, Jason's got a new interview up, here. The English translation is in the dark gray bar to the right and takes longer to load, which can be confusing (at least, it confused me; I had to ask him what was going on). Take a look at the Polish part, too, though; it has the screenshots.

The Broken Hourglass: More Writing

Gotta love RPG writing.

See, the other day, I was working on The Broken Hourglass, and I had this brilliant idea for a micro-quest using an item from a major quest I worked on a while back. There's someone in one of the areas who really might want this item.

It would, I thought, be quick and a fitting use for the item.

I had forgotten (again) just how much time it can take to fill in the details. Four and a half pages and most of an afternoon later, I had written out a suitable number of approaches to "I have this item. Would you like it?" and assorted replies.

Whew!

It's fun, and it saves the strain of having to actually choose which of the brilliant (or otherwise) approaches possible, but it sure takes time!

The Broken Hourglass Update

Yep, still busy writing for The Broken Hourglass.

The characters finally started to come clear to me, after a long conversation with jcompton.

Well, that, and a drive to Disneyland. I was mulling them over on the way there, and, finally, started hearing them whisper to one another, so as soon as I got there, I pulled out my trusty laptop and started typing in Downtown Disney. Some survey-taking person came up to ask questions about what I was doing and pretty patently didn't believe that I was working. Just cause I was having fun!

Anyway...banter count is waaay up now (more than fifty, not counting what others had already written), most of them are pretty solid, some are downright good, and one has a great last line but needs the entire approach rewritten--but then, Jason just might take care of that. We shall see which of us gets to it first...

Oh, and another has a last line we keep debating.

So, seven more to go til I hit my self-imposed minimum-banter ratio.

In between banters, I've been working on the "atmosphere" encounters for two areas of the game and am about to start on a third.

Speaking of atmosphere, Liam/K'aeloree was hard at work this summer, sticking all those incidental bits and pieces of background noise into the game's world. I really noticed it this time, walking around the University and listening to the wood floors creak and the clop of feet on a stone floor. Amazing what a difference that makes. I mean, the music has been top-notch all along (as I believe I've mentioned, once or twice), but now the game has a lived-in feel to it.

Well, now to go back and see if inspiration will strike (Inspiration really does strike, sometimes, you know, though it always helps to stand outside in the rain, waving a lightning rod while you wait).

The Broken Hourglass

Whew!

Just spent another few hours editing banters.

Talked with jcompton for a while about them yesterday, he revised a few, I revised a few...

Today's toll: 20-odd revised and tightened, 7 axed, 2 roughed out.

The revised ones, by the way, are much improved, much tighter, livelier, and more suited to characters.

For the moment, though, I'm beat. Time to head to the library for the weekly concert series and maybe a bit of html practice (Yes, I'm trying to learn to make web pages. It seemed time).

The Broken Hourglass: Still Writing

I worked more on The Broken Hourglass yesterday & today. I really am almost done with this quest.

However, having spent such a long time writing it, I am now written out.

So--more later on quests, the limitations and freedoms of game writing, and the stuff I always forget.

For now, I will say that a) I'm tired and b) Yes, it was fun.

The Broken Hourglass: Makarios Ringtone

I find it vaguely amusing that there is a Makarios Ringtone out there. It's strictly unofficial, but since it comes off of the music posted on Planewalker Games main site, I guess it's ok.

And, yeah, I should actually be writing quests, not doing google searches on the game, or even working to figure out what Carind's last name will be (whatever it turns out to be, I bet it won't be on the list I just posted on the dev forum. That's ok, though, as long as it is pretty soon).

Still don't know Ioanna's last name, either, come to that. Diversions? Yup. It's the old "blank page" syndrome. Not that the page is blank, exactly, but I haven't been working on it yet, so it's all daunting and new and scary.

It's also all planned out and I know exactly what I'm going to be doing.

It's just that starting is always, inevitably, hard, no matter what I'm writing.

Enough! I will go write, I will go write, I will go write....

Guards! Guards!: The Broken Hourglass Ongoing

So, the first quest I wrote for The Broken Hourglass has been coded! At least, half of it is.

It would've been done sooner had I remembered the half-dozen or so guards stationed around the barracks--Qwinn and I spent a couple of days with him saying "Please send me something for the guards to say," and me saying "I sent it" and him saying "Oh good!" and then asking again for guard dialog, much to my bewilderment.

Finally, he thought to say, "No, the other guards, at which point I went back in and looked and saw that, sure enough, someone else had stationed some guards there, at an earlier point, and they do get to serve as necessary folk later on in the game, and I did need to write for them.

I'd noticed them, in a vague sort of way, a while back, and then forgot about them in a single-minded effort to get the quest done. That left 6 speechless guards standing around in an otherwise talkative city. So, with the specific set of guards located, I got their "On guard duty" lines written, some for before Important Things that I cannot elaborate on happen, and some for after, and that should be that.

*Makes note to self to watch for random figures wandering through the quests.

I figure he'll be asking me for clarification on the other half of the quest any day now--and I've another quest to revise (Oh, and did I mention, another one written? In case I haven't--and even if I have, because I'm pretty happy about it--I finished writing another one, and sent it off to be queued up for coding). So, progress is being made.

More of The Broken Hourglass

So, I had a good, clear space of time to write in today.

So I wrote.

And I can't tell you how it went because I do not know. It was one of those days, you know the ones--where you sit down to type and it is simply one word after another and you're not sure whether or not they are good words, and you won't even swear to the spelling (though Microsoft seems to think that part is all right), and you keep on typing the because the work has to be done and the option is to sit and stare mindlessly at a blank page, or to reload Facebook for the hundred and seventh time only to find that nothing has changed there, either, so you keep on typing.

So. I worked.

Maybe it was even good work.

I just don't know.

I do, at least, have one further idea for where to take tomorrow's scene, and that is something. I'm even almost sure that it is a good idea.

But for now--dinner sounds awfully good, and the dog is going to need her walk.