I'll be updating this periodically.
Day one of Kates Career journal.
The Big Jump.
If I’m going to become what I want to be, I need to know it all, so that when the professionals come in they won’t take me for granted.
I want to be able to concept wat I draw, then design it, then program it without people looking at me like I need help. Of course I’ll need help. I wont deny that in a world with such differing jobs all sitting together I’ll need help. But I don’t want to feel stupid or get ripped off by ‘the best’. I need to learn a sense of music, maybe not play it but know how I want it to sound. I want to be able to do voicing so that the humans or creatures won’t be stiff and static, that will NEVER be a problem though, I’ll make sure of it.
As for a story, I’m not too good at a middle. I need writers who CAN truly write, not me and my wannabe skills. Someone that can put my words on paper and sound good. I need to be able to market, whether viral or in print. I need to be able to beta my own work, first and foremost, before anyone else gets to see it. Each of these things, they get split in to so many little things.
A conceptor:
Concepts the background
Characters
Items
Other important things
A designer:
has to make the
Scenery
Characters
Items and other important things LOOK real.
Programmers have to:
Make events work
Make characters move
Create an efficient button system that NOT ONLY has a simplistic learning curve but something that challenges the gamer.
And just with those things they have to pour it into a 40+ hour game. I believe that if I have to sell it for 60 dollars people should pay cheaply for each of those hours.
A 4 hour game should be 5 dollars. Not 15.
With music not only do I have to make a score that fits the theme of the game, but I have to (if needed) create theme songs with words that don’t feel forced and fit the music. ‘Why’ is an exellent example. Sanctuary? Nooot so much.
A story must have a compelling opening to keep the gamer hooked, drawn in. In a sense I believe developing MANY characters is good, but not over the top. A Bad example is Naruto, with like 3 main characters, your forced to like at least one of them, but then theres like 6983274350499 minor characters. A GOOD example of character development and diversity is the world ends with you, where there are just about 10 characters to follow, and while some of the characters have stereotypical phrases, what they say are so unstereotypical that you’ll remember them.
A background to the story is important as well, and is difficult to write out, because many are cliched. An age of prehistoricism is stereotyped to either IRW (in real world) dinosaurs, in cartoons the flintstones, and lastly in anime something along the lines of a FEUDAL era aka inuyasha. A good example of background in gaming has to be shadow of the collossus, because the whole ordeal gives you this ‘empty’ feeling. Wanderer is the ONLY one around besides these giant creatures, and then to learn he dies, makes the world seem even more empty.
As for the story, that’s the most difficult. Even with compelling characters and an interesting background, if its ‘we have to saaaaaave the world!!!!” is annoying. But a more personal level makes the characters seem selfish, which is idiotic because most people in the world are extremely selfish. I mean I don’t see us building schools in pakistan.
For the ending of the story you have to decide if its cliffhung or you want it to end there. A franchise will allow for your story to be long, but as with many long stories, characters aren’t interesting enough for us to care about them that long. One hit wonders get better marks because your not dealing with the story THAT long and is much faster paced. But down the line, DBZ, or say megaman or sonic (both better known for there early years) would be proven to be GREAT franchises. The problem with different iterations of the same thing is that awful comparisons by the fans “this wasn’t like this” this was better than this” even though as the designer you wanted the fresh start to begin with.
Then comes the genre. Shooting fighting rpg platforming strategy racing etc etc etc…..
Shooting has had a major push in the last few years, with RPGs on the decline. People want to play things that are more fast paced I would assume, and even with these ‘newer’ battle systems (which to me are upsettingly fustrating THE RAT IS IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE CUT IT OPEN).
Platforming has had a decline as well, with so many games looking like each other. Mario added the gravity into play, which is a good addition, but not something to carry the franchise beyond that game.
Something completely new would be exciting but incredibly difficult, or someone ELSE would have done it. A Great example is that of LittleBigPlanet, with its all customization ideals and ‘you make it’ levels.
Then comes the marketing. TV hurts money-wise, viral marketing (in the sort of games) is somewhat moronic, rather show your fans that you aren’t foolish. The halo ilovebees game was imo stupid because it had people wasting there lives on hype. Hype is good but you have to show off the game when getting a start. For example, if a mario game comes out, people buy it. A movie game comes out, people buy it regardless if it is good. If the game is sort of humorous, you have to show that side. Sometimes, like with final fantasy 12s marketing “LOOK a new final fantasy!” which turned of MANY people who had faith in the series. And of course there doing it again with 13. “look its got pretty people! But we’re not telling you anything about them or the story : D “ foolish.
Graphics aren’t as important as they seem nowadays. The “BEST LOOKING GAME EVAR” is final fantasy hands down. Style is needed and POLISH. I love to say polish because its very true. Super smash bros didn’t have realistic fat plumbers or ugly yellow rats running around. There were cutesy characters with polish. The older games tried using graphics to there advantage but sometimes ended with a scary looking game (with the right anatomy Metal gear solid) And with so many games looking ‘GREAT’ theres no point in creating the best looking game, but one that makes people go ‘wow!’
I will most certainly not do a dirt game. G.r.i.m.e. every shooting game has it, and several other franchises. I was somewhat dissapointed in SC4 because while the game had polish, I couldn’t find the green in the color pallette. Seiong mina was the greenist thing there (who would have thought a person rather than the BG) and so many castles just turned me off.
On the other hand I have no intention of making a pink game. Bright pastels will be thrown out the door, stepped on, then put in yi’s mailbox XD. I love lush lands, and believe that a game can look great without the SUPER detail that is shown in grime games. With splinter cell, being dark is what its about. I don’t expect sam fisher to run around in a coldesac rolling in bright green grass going ‘I CAUGHT ANOTHER BAD GUY : D “ nor do I expect such lush green in resident evil (zombies?) but it would be funny if they did.
NAMING. Oh my I forgot a great aspect of gaming. If you are playing as a character, there has to be variety here. ‘mario, donkey kong, pikachu, marth, roy.” Good variety in people and creatures. You will not name your giant lochness monster Bob. Not happening. Nope. On the flip side his name shouldn’t be a crazy hispanic with like 800 names. I’m the worst with names tho, so I should not be talking.
In
bouzouki (note the name of the series, which is referenced to the sport in the game called bouzouki ‘the ball’ happens to be IRW a string instrument .)
My characters were such like
- ‘Nick 182’ and then known as ‘Nickolas Larcross’ Where I got the name? Pfft I don’t know
- His friend ‘Emako’ or ‘mako for short, again, don’t remember why his name was such.
- Another character was someone unnamed but after redrawing him this year his name became ‘Kai-ser’
- And the paralell, a dog-like creature ‘Mal’ of which a year later I would come to meet a ‘mal’ and become good friends with.
In
Tovuja (again with this stupid naming pattern)
-Tovuja is the main character. His inspiration, in fact the entire story is inspiraled by Inuyasha. Its pronounced ‘toe- vu- ya’
-His best friend, is Mankeeh. Mankay is in fact a somewhat logical name for me, the alluded, ‘man’ stood for the human portions of the body and the ‘kay’ is for his birdlike genes. A ‘Mankay’ is the species, and aren’t given names, but tovuja decided to name this mankay ‘mankeeh’ which doesn’t differ in sound but at least makes him different from his anscestors.
-Then comes Aaron, the deamon portion of Tovuja, who I believe was partly inspired (more or less I decided it) after meeting an Aaron Dotson back in art club. Probably the most regretful of my 8th grade was not keeping in touch with that spazz.
-Next is “Christine” and theres really no question there :]
-Then comes the 1/16th of a deamon ‘Dario’ and ive used this name and variations on several occasions when I couldn’t think of a name (a fire mage in my first series was named darin) but it seemed to stick to Darios character so.
- There main enemy, Forsixa. Nope, really NO clue how I came uponn that name (four, six, ah. Horrah for even numbers), I was trying to find something somewhat dreading (as for the main evil) but not to the point of where you FEAR his name (hes no sephiroth or voldemort).
- and lastly, a recurring character by the name of Ashley. NOT inspired by who you’d think it would be, I know tragic. I came up with that name in like whatever class was pottery or basically crafts, from a very nice girl whom I talked with in that class named ‘Ashley’ and a couple months I would come to know and have a long distance friendship with, Ashly. :)
Sorry Cheeto, never had anything named after you D:
My names either foreshadow or make no sense.
Names I believe are retarded but I cannot judge
Vaan. Just sounds gay.
Nooj. Stereotypical.
I’ll think of some others.
Names I believe are a great that fit the character.
Kratos from God of War. Just sounds mythological to me.
Yuna from FF10. Her name always struck me right.
And names that make me laugh when thinking about it.
VEGETA. Vegetable and the saiyan prince don’t mix. Maybe in a blender though.
SCHERAZADE. (sheh, hera, zah day) Theres definitely a reason behind that one but not the one you’d think of. Non-inside joke wise, she looks and and her name fits that of an elf princess. Her voice….well someone needs to tape her mouth shut.
So that’s my take on naming.
I’ve begun to be very critical on my gaming (well rpgs and other games, im not critical in PATAPON or pixeljunk, which is a very fun series btw) on how they set up certain things. Such as (and Ive used this example before, in ff10 how yevon is clearly there ‘god’ but me not seeing it when I was younger that hes just a placemarker for peoples prayer (such as how the catholic church in earlier times would use god as a means of moneymaking on those who had hard times and believed god could help them) people in ff10 believe that yevon is there answer to the main problem, sin, because of the direct contrast. (sin- satan; kills, yevon – god; saves)
Another happens to be death scenes. Because I think very hard nowadays, the ending of FF7 Crisis core definitely caught me by surprise. Playing through an entire game to watch zack die was tragic. We knew it was going to happen, but to see how much he worked towards freedom (and ultimately only to clouds freedom) was truly heartbreaking. Then knowing that Cloud lost what was his only friend, instead of living in the shadow of him, he lost himself in zack to the point of BECOMING zack. Or at least taking on his accomplishments
Other ‘oh em gees’ moments for me at least was in The World Ends With You in that SPOILERS Joshua being the game master. For a game to have a purpose and to SEE the purpose in action was a nice change rather than like in ff10 when you ‘kill sin’ you somewhat felt empty. This is however relieved by ff10-2 with yuna patching things up in the new world without sin.
And, not really story was oh em gees happened to be Sonic rush and Rush adventure. When there are so many bad games in a row, you don’t look forward in series’ like that. It shocked me how well the games played, used the mechanics of a sonic game without messing up the challenge or being quote’ too fast. Then to add waterbikes and other such ideas (gummi ships to kh fans) that were implemented not so horribly that you DREAD doing them (except the sailboat, that was wayyyyyyyy too chaotic). But yes, the games revitalized my sonic self and currently wait for the newest sonic next month.
Speaking of which, just to finish this off, games I currently want to play:
Sonic chronicles brotherhood: first SONIC RPG. We’ll see how that goes.
Pokemon Platinum: because its ANOTHER pokemon game.
LittleBigPlanet: what I didn’t stress this one enough?
Ratchet and Clank quest for booty: I need some platforming high.
So yes anyways this is my world. This is why I’m SO critical about everything. When you enter games, careers in fact and this school stuff, this is what I’m pointed to. And NO MATTER, NO matter whose better than me, I’ll succeed. I don’t need to be student of the month, most artistic, or even most computer saavy. Watch me. I’ll succeed.
AND babysit AND get the 3 doom children on gba. BwahahahaHAHAHAH I’ve already got holley where I want her. : D
-Professor Kayton X/K08
