Not quite a month has passed, and I’m definitely hitting my stride during this current creation-cycle in my life.  (I haven’t completely dropped playing games and reading, but I’m doing so from a much more critical angle.)

[There’s a TL; DR at the end of this post.  “Too long; didn’t read.” a/k/a “a summary” in net-nerd-speak.]

I have two Twine projects in play right now (yes, both new), but each one has a different skew to their storylines and the logic behind each is different. (The current version of Twine addresses many (if not all!) of my frustration-points when I was working on Hell Breaks Loose!  This is great news!  I may have to get back to HBL again… but not right now.)

One of the projects is pretty linear in its pathing, and while each of your decisions will have a definite affect on the story, there are specific milestones which you cannot avoid.  (How they will be traversed, however, is based on your decisions.)

The other Twine project is a bit more sandboxed.  You will have options which will creep up and affect you.  In theory, this should affect how all of it comes to pass.  This is the more daunting project.  I’ve already let feature creep make itself at home in this project, in a big way.  I’m still working on more details.  It will probably always be a work-in-progress where you’ll have to pay attention to version numbers.  *big smile*

And now for the bigger news…

I have decided how I’m going to do Game of Slaves.  For real.  Seriously.  Honest… and for true.

Maybe that should have been the headline?  *grin*

My ambitions for GoS have exceeded my resources (time, mostly), but it would be a dishonor to myself and the project if I didn’t try to maintain the meatiest parts of it.  (I’ll be updating the “about” page for it soon, as I can hardly wait to share the details.)

Here’s the current vision I have for GoS:  It will be a TF (transformation)-themed MUD.

I have never been a huge fan of PvP gaming, since it usually puts the casual gamer at a disadvantage.  (I will have that addressed!)  However, I am a huge fan of multi-user games.  In the vision I have, other players will be a tremendous help… but also add a whole new dimension of content.

(For the record: “PvP” is player-vs-player, typically in opposition to one another.  Not always where I want to be.  However, PvP the online comic is wonderfuls!  I’ve been following Mr. Kurtz and his work since beyond forever!  It’s about gaming and gamers, in general.  They hit my old-school-gamer, bleeding-edge-tech, and funnybone buttons repeatedly. You should read the strip.  Seriously.)

A MUD is a Multi-User Domain (or Dungeon, which may be most appropriate in this instance).  Simply: a text-adventure with other players in the same game, at the same time, able to interact with each other.  Usually the MUD’s world is persistent, meaning that when you come back, things are where you left them… unless someone/something came along and moved them.  Also, you pick up in your progress where you left off.

Yes, some people don’t care for text-based games where you have to do a lot of typing.  For that, I apologize.  I’m not an artist, and my skills at drawing/painting/sketching are poor, at best.  A clickable interface for most common actions might be a happening thing, but we shall have to wait until I get a number of other things ironed out.  For reals, and such.

Okay, I feel like I’ve thrown a lot into the world in this missive, so I’m going to wrap it up and get back to my projects.  Which one?  Yep.

[TL;DR :  I’ve got two Twine games added to my open-projects list. I’ve decided to make GoS using a MUD engine. It will be TF-themed. It will be awesome. Read PvP online comic. Seriously.]

– Cameron

(PS: I’ve long-wanted to be able to give a shout-out to Scott Kurtz.  And I finally had that chance.  Awesomeness.  (Yes, that’s a real word.))

(PPS: Why does my spellcheck accept “gamer”, but not “gamers”?  …or “spellcheck” for that matter?  Wait… I think I asked this in the past.  Oh well.)

(Post-post-postscript: My writing style today has been brought to you by “Nikki”, a 90’s girl for whom I have been writing dialogue.)