Category: Updates

The Lightbringer – Yeah, I finished The Lightbringer! I’ll say it again if I want to!

Development – Priorities shifted yet again. Last week, I started my latest project for Team KAIZEN. For the next month, before PlayStation Experience (PSX) in December, I will be polishing their 3D fighter Shattered Soul to a pitch-ready demo in the event someone important at PSX would like to play it. 😉

Writing – I’ve subjected myself to a ton of reviews and analyses, I’ve watched game footage and cutscenes repeatedly, and my Final Fantasy XV analysis is coming along. If I’m going to beat a dead horse, I’m at least going to say something that’s constructive and enlightening that no one has said before. Also, Chapter 6 of The Twelfth Hour should be done today! FINALLY!

The Twelfth Hour – I made it through Chapter 5 finally! On to Chapter 6! Also, I posted the current opening to the book here. Some interesting feedback I received about it will be up next week.

Development – In addition to helping Team KAIZEN record some audio for a pitch video, I also did some development on Shattered Soul and Burst! for them. I made a visualization of an audio waveform and wrote some code to smack characters with a swinging boat ride.

Other – Our new venue was a little strange, but Cheeky Geeky Vaudeville was a success! Also on my road trip to Montana, I discovered that a friend of mine had a copy of the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Limited Edition release, which includes a version of the script. It had some interesting discrepancies in it. I’ll share some excerpts in a couple weeks. Finally, I beat Final Fantasy XV! I’m planning to write a story analysis or revisit Kingsglaive or praise the Omen trailer more or something soonish.

Theater and Audio Teching – The last two weeks were and this week will continue to be strange because of Cheeky Geeky Vaudeville and Team KAIZEN, but for now, I’m back! I spent a good chunk of the last two weeks preparing for the Cheeky Geeky Vaudeville variety show. I’ll spend the entirety of this week traveling around Montana to help Team KAIZEN record some audio for a pitch video and to act as theater technician for the CGV show next weekend. Once again, if you’re in the Missoula/Montana area next Saturday evening, come see it!

Writing – Additionally, I wrote a couple more writing critiques and took on editing another novel for someone. I also got back a few critiques of Chapter 1 of The Twelfth Hour. Surprisingly, reviews weren’t nearly as mixed as they were with My Eliza! Overall, reviewers were intrigued and particularly loved two of my lead characters but were slightly overwhelmed by the amount of information, characters, and perspectives in the chapter. The negatives I somewhat expected, but the comments about the characters were a pleasant surprise. One reviewer, however, thought pretty much the exact opposite: the story was so slow as to be nonexistence and the characters were flat and boring. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, have an affinity for arguing with reviewers, and thought the review was shallow and uninformative, I decided to prod for details and argue my case. I ended up having an interesting conversation about POV, dialog, and present tense with the critiquer and getting some ideas on other things I can improve. When I return from Montana, I’m planning to release the complete conversation and the first four sections of The Twelfth Hour for some context. So look forward to that! In the meantime, I’ll continue working away at Chapter 5. I’m about halfway through editing it.

Fan Nexus – A surprise nerd convention also occurred in Spokane this weekend. A couple friends of mine going to it reported that the attendance on the first day was shockingly sparse for the amount of professionalism and passion put into it, so I decided to go to it yesterday to show the brand new convention some support. I ended up having a conversation with three publishers in a panel where I was the only attendant. I wish I’d prepared better, and I wasn’t such a social idiot, but regardless, it was a great opportunity!

Writing – As I wanted to do, this week I focused on writing critiques. I wrote three reviews through Critters and provided feedback on a pitch document for Team KAIZEN. I also got my first bit of feedback on the first chapter of The Twelfth Hour. So far, I have about the same problem I did last time I gave this to someone to read. I don’t explain why characters are the way they are until after they start acting like assholes. Great. My writing skill hasn’t improved in eight years. 😛 At least this time, I did it with a different character, not the same one. Speaking of The Twelfth Hour, after struggling with it for a couple weeks, I finally figured out how to order the sections in chapters 5 and 6. The previous draft was a bit of a mess. I think I’ve finally got it. At the very least, it won’t be such as mess. Once I finish reviewing and making notes on each section, I’ll be editing again.

Development – This week, I sent off the current version of the PDF splitter application I built to the guy who hired me for evaluation by his team. I did a little bit of work in Burst!, working on displaying a soundwave using Unity UI. Mostly I got caught up on Shattered Soul. In addition to modifying Burst!, I’ll be extending the combat system I built in Shattered Soul for Team KAIZEN.

Cheeky Geeky Vaudeville – Missoula’s annual fandom-themed variety show returns on October 14th. As the technical manager, I gathered light, sound, and projection requests from performers and started writing up cue lists and plans this week. If you’re in the Montana/Missoula area on the 14th, go see it. 😀

Improvised Incoherence – I edited and released three episodes of Improvised Incoherence on Saturday, one more episode than I thought I would have with what I recorded. They are… a blast from the past.

The Twelfth Hour The other major thing I did this week was prepare and submit the first chapter of The Twelfth Hour to the Critters website (finally). It’ll be up for review in a couple weeks. I’ll probably spend more time reviewing stories on Critters between now and then to see if I can encourage more people to take a look at it and get lots of feedback. How terrifying. O.O

Burst! – Finally, I started familiarizing myself with the code for Team KAIZEN’s rhythm game Burst! this week and audio visualization in the Unity Game Engine. I’ll be updating the fireworks that appear in the game and making the editor that our volunteers use to create the button combinations for each song and difficulty nicer.

The Twelfth Hour – This weekend was my birthday, and I ended up saying, “It’s my birthday, and I can write if I want to.” Then, I worked on The Twelfth Hour for 30+ hours and didn’t do much else with my week. At least the protagonist’s arc in chapter 5 and 6 has a sensible beginning, middle, and end. Now that that, the backbone of the chapters, has been better defined, it’s time to revise the other sections, figure out how to order all the scenes, and determine what is extraneous crap that needs to go in the garbage.

RPS Wars – I ran out of job-related programming things to do, so I worked on Start and Pause menus for RPS Wars. Team KAIZEN, however, just asked me to work on another video game Burst! for them, so I’ll probably have to set RPS Wars aside again.

Improvised Incoherence – Before I dropped everything in favor of writing, I got a couple hours of video editing done on the next episode of Improvised Incoherence. We’ll see if I actually do something other than write this week. Maybe I’ll finish it finally!

The Twelfth Hour – It looks like I’m going to be editing Chapter 5 and 6 at the same time because all the scenes with my protagonist I wrote and placed out of order between these two chapters. I wanted to change a few details about them, but because of the order I originally wrote them in and the protagonist’s consequential stinginess with sharing what happens and why, I’m basically rewriting them. It’ll be good though. At best, the protagonist won’t contradict himself. At least, he won’t contradict himself for vaguely-explained reasons.

Improvised Incoherence – I must have spent a couple hours screwing around with clip lights and microphones, but it’s recorded! I used a lapel microphone for the first time, so we’ll see how that turns out and if it cancels out the terrible lighting. Content-wise, I’m excited to get these episodes put together. They’ll be… different.

PDF Splitter – I finished implementing the latest batch of requests for my PDF splitter application. This means, while I’m waiting for more feedback, I can get some video editing and writing done… I hope. I spent an hour today hunting for a copy of the original Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children English movie script and reading tidbits from The Reunion Files Artbook. It made me happy, but I don’t know how more Advent Children trivia will help me be a productive member of society. 😛

The Twelfth Hour – I’ve got one section left in Chapter 4, and then, I’m on to revising Chapter 5 of 12. I’m thinking I’ll also take the time to format Chapter 1 for Critters this week. Then, I’ll get a sense of what the response will be/how crazy I am. Maybe there will even be things I can fix.

Improvised Incoherence/Speech Therapy – I mostly spent a crazy amount of time revising The Twelfth Hour this week, but I did manage to write a little on the Elysium vs. Foodfight! script and dig up things to comment on (you’ll see) for the next episode of Improvised Incoherence. The next couple episodes of Incoherence especially will be entertaining ones I think. Also, I’m not sure if it’ll be in Improvised Incoherence, Speech Therapy, or an Extra Life article, but I really need to talk about Final Fantasy XV (provided no one has said what I want to say multiple times already). The way it tells its “story” baffles me more and more the farther I get in it.

PDF Splitter – Just as I finished commenting and cleaning up my code, I got feedback on the PDF splitter application I was hired to make. That means I’ll be focusing mostly on implementing the latest requests and revising The Twelfth Hour this week. Maybe I’ll at least record Improvised Incoherence, but we’ll see.