monologue

[monologuevn]

month 3: done!

Through sheer force of will, I managed to post the appropriate amount of posts over on the backer blog this month. Here's a summary of what we've done, for those curious:

Laid out the Narrator path

Talked about goals in writing; how to portray relationships, representation of minorities

Reviewed the timeline to see how we’re progressing (not to schedule, but we’re okay with that.)

Talked about a few games and how researching them has helped me with Monologue

Gathered a few more resources

Refined our mechanics

Started thinking about characters and emotional arcs to complement the (frankly, boring) narrative

Made plans for the rest of the pre-writing phase.

Backers! Go look; unless you've been obsessively refreshing the blog, I can guarantee that there are a bunch of new posts. Non-backers! Look at this list. It's a great list, right? Yeah, I think so too.

[monologuevn]

psst backers

if you haven't looked at the blog lately, you should! there are educational diagrams. like this one:

STORYTELLING!

[monologuevn]

month 1: over!

First of all: Dearest backers! There is a post on the secret backer blog asking you guys for feedback about the month; I would be delighted if you were to head over there and let me know your thoughts.

Everyone else: I'll reiterate what I said over there.

We started with a chat post, and now we’re almost halfway through the design document. Boo-fucking-yah.

Boo-fucking-yah indeed. As always, if you are curious, you're welcome to toss $5 my way. Now would actually be an excellent time to do so - you have a month's worth of posts to read, and you'll get to see me developing the main narrative arcs in real time, if that's your thing. It's definitely my thing, but sadly, tossing $5 at myself would be an exercise in futility.

Right! It's the weekend. I'm going to sleep, and I shall return Monday. Ashkatom out.

[monologuevn]

I have finally made a post about The Stanley Parable

In summation: brilliant, yet depressing. Have an excerpt:

This second narrator draws your attention to the fact that, for the game to exist and to mean anything, the narrator and Stanley need each other - but for this partnership to exist, certain limitations are accepted as gospel by the player; the game world is limited, Stanley must either follow or disobey the narrator, the only interactions possible are the interactions designed. The game even drives this home further by creating a glitch that is not a glitch and then asking if finding said glitch was ‘worth it,’ once the player stumbles across it.

"Why would you think that, Stanley? That this videogame can be beaten, won, solved?"

The player thinks that because, for the most part, that is how videogames work. TSP flips the table on this concept, saying that because your efforts are all predestined and accounted for, there is no winning - just the game ending. Then it gets nihilistic as fuck and equates the game to Stanley’s life. He worked a boring job pushing buttons, having his decisions made for him, so he began dreaming of a place of unlimited possibility, where he could take the red door or the blue door - but the artificial construction and the limited possibilities of Stanley’s dream world slap the player in the face, as someone who turns to video games - pushing buttons, to interact with a world of infinite possibility - as a form of recreation.

This is the Let's Play I watched, and the game can be found here. It is so, so worth your time.

[monologuevn]

almost caught up from when I was sick!

Finally finished the concept paper for Monologue, which is available over on the secret backer blog with commentary, if you backers haven't checked recently! Just two more posts, which I will do tomorrow, and I will be caught up from the week when I was sick.

It's almost been a month already. That feels unreal to me, but that's how games go, I guess! Tomorrow I finally get to get stuck into the design doc, which I've been looking forward to for the entire three weeks I've been doing this.

I have an unhealthy love of design documents.  I think it shows.

I'm hoping I get into a schedule soon, so that I can get back to doing my fan stuff alongside working on Monologue. I'm guessing I should get acclimatised to a daily obligation soon and get into a routine, but routine and I have never been friends. Still, it looks like this is how my life is going to be for the next year, according to plans:

I don't know if this schedule will be accurate, and to be honest having a schedule for the next year terrifies me, but hey. One day, one week, one month at a time. I'm already halfway through pre-planning, after all, and that just happened all on its own!

I'm still excited, but it's a slow burn kind of excited now. I think that'll serve me better, in the long run.

[monologuevn]

a peek at behind the wall

I took a break from the concept paper to talk about involving others in the creative process and how it is a double-edged sword over on the backer blog, and this line is something I am particularly pleased by:

Sometimes, in the pursuit of creativity, you need to flip someone off and say, “Yeah, it’s gonna be hard and full of things I’ve never done before, but I’m up to it."

It's probably only a matter of time before I start yelling, "YOLO."

[formerlyashkatom]

Can you explain monologue to this 0-attention-span-but-super-curious follower

As a matter of fact, I can do it in 250 words or less!

Games are about control.

Most games place the control of the protagonist in the hands of the player - creating an instant link and appeal through escapism into another life. The epitome of this can be seen in the Silent Protagonist, silenced so that the player can identify fully with the character, with no immersion-breaking responses to choose.

The problem with this is that the narrative remains out of the hands of the player, a counterproductive selling point for an interactive medium. The player is often given half-hearted choices and a railroaded narrative instead, ruining the immersion by handing the player a choice between two extremes, neither of which the player agrees with.

Monologue seeks to explore these themes of control and choice by framing them as a conflict between narrator and player, with the protagonist of the game caught between them. The protagonist, starting as a fully-controlled avatar of the player, will quickly become aware of their lack of control, and seek to regain it.

The protagonist will have to exploit the narrative in their favour by appealing to the author, appealing to the player, or attempting to find glitches and loopholes within the unwritten rules of the game. As the player guides the protagonist through their path, the sheer power of control over narrative and the player’s role in shaping it will become apparent.

In fifteen words or less, it’s a visual novel I’m developing where the narrator keeps dicking with the player.

Currently there are a few people who are paying me about $5/month for access to the dev blog, so they can watch me develop the game in realtime and ask questions and learn things about design and writing and processes. More info on that is here, if you’re curious!

[monologuevn]

[10:28:52 AM] Ashkatom: I kind of want to have gender options in Monologue

[10:31:03 AM] Ashkatom: just there

[10:31:05 AM] Ashkatom: for peeps

[10:31:09 AM] Choco: the game asks you a series of seemingly irrelevant questions to determine your pronouns

[10:31:16 AM] Choco: what is the boiling point of water

[10:31:21 AM] Ashkatom: snrrrrrk

[10:31:21 AM] Choco: do you have eyes?

[10:31:24 AM] Choco: how big are your nostrils

[10:31:28 AM] Ashkatom: do you have... TWO eyes

[10:31:42 AM] Choco: what is two plus two

[10:31:59 AM] Ashkatom: when confronted by llamas, do you prefer she/he/they

Choco: your house is on fire! do you leave? Cheese/Blanket

[10:32:14 AM] Choco: the narrator has discarded your test results and randomly assigned you the pronoun Hth

[10:32:28 AM] Ashkatom: your pronoun is now hth

[10:32:33 AM] Ashkatom: hope that helps, friend.

[monologuevn]

I just realised that I never showed you guys the final logo for Monologue! The process of creating it (and a quick lesson on design theory!) is up on the backer blog, and it's a good read. It contains me looking at the FedEx logo and screaming "ART," after all.

I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of people who haven't seen the design process, and what associations they make with the logo!

[monologuevn]

the next monologue post is so long that even longcat feels inadequate

I'm sorry, Monologue backers. You're getting hella notebook scans.

[monologuevn]

new post up on the backer blog!

It is about research, and very super serious writer problems.

Let’s go on a tangent for a minute: I hate research. There, I said it. I hate meticulously justifying every detail of a story; it robs me of the joy of discovery. Some people delight in that, but not I. I’ve literally tried to write this post six times, and every time the same conversation happens in my head: “What do I like about research that I can write about?” “THBBBBBBPBPBPBP.”

[monologuevn]

Welp, this project has already paid off.

[monologuevn]

howdy friends!

Casual reminder that the secret backer blog goes live today! I'll be changing the password and sending it out within the hour, and the first post should go up in a bit less than three hours.

As always, info on how you can join us is right here, and if you sign up in the next week, you're in for this month. I'll be posting some tasty things on this side of the paywall throughout the month, too, so hopefully even if you can't join us, you'll still be entertained and informed.

I am excited and nervous and happy. This is gonna be fun.

[monologuevn]

Errant Signal is the discussion of games as a medium, a cultural influence, and Art that I have always wanted. I've recommended the channel before, but this video is only ten minutes long and an excellent example of the thoughtful discussion to be found on said channel, so I present it for your viewing pleasure.

[monologuevn]

so in preparation for this project I've been crawling around the internet

and looking at different examples of design docs to make sure that mine does what it'll need to, and I came across the original pitch for Bioshock, which is hella different to what it eventually became.

The player takes on the role of Carlos Cuello, a down and out "deprogrammer" assigned to infiltrate a religious cult on a remote island and "rescue" a wealthy heiress from the clutches of the cultists. Once on the island, however, you find out that all is not as it seems.

Certainly puts Infinite in a new light.

[monologuevn]

the plot thickens

I've been brainstorming stuff for the first month of the backer blog and I think I've come up with the topics of the eight complex posts for the first month! 

In general, the first month is going to be all about the preliminary research and organisation, what that should cover, and how I'm covering it. As part of the research, I'm going to be reviewing a couple games, focusing on themes and genre conventions - I've already written one of the reviews, and I think it's a pretty neat look at how VN mechanics and conventions can sometimes hold a story back, and how to work around that. I'm also going to be doing a bunch of mini-reviews as I establish what's in the field I'm working to add to!

After that, I'm going to talk about the behind-the-scenes organisation of a game project, which is more technical and hands-on than meta, but which should still be interesting! I'll be covering the basics of what I do to keep organised, including the construction and customisation of a design document, asset list, and possibly even how to timeline it all out with a Gantt chart if I'm feeling really enthusiastic.

As part of the design doc shenanigans, the backers will get to see me develop the basic premise of Monologue into a workable seed idea, and how I go from 'some sucker getting jerked around' to 'here is the sucker's life story and also they have some friends with equally interesting life stories,' so the month will also have writerly value as we start filling out the design doc!

The smaller posts this month will probably be about the importance of research and critical research, identifying and using themes in writing, exploiting tropes, and a bunch of research and organisational resources. If you have trouble getting from 'vague idea' to 'workable idea,' this month will be a super valuable resource for you.

As always, you're more than welcome to join us! The backer blog is $5/month or less, and I don't automatically renew the payment, so if you just want to check out the content for one month and then skedaddle, you're free to! Information on pricing and how to sign up is here.

For those of you following along on this side of the paywall, I'll be posting little snippets of things as I go, and I hope you'll enjoy them nonetheless. Blogging starts for serious in November, and it's going to be a tonne of fun!

[formerlyashkatom]

n. discourse by a single speaker

Hi guys! I’m doing a thing, and I would be honoured if you were part of it.

A few days ago I made a post about wanting a silly VN where the narrator and protagonist were locked in eternal struggle. It got more positive response than I expected, to the point where I thought, “Well, why not?”

There are a million reasons why not; developing a VN is a lot of work! There’s the planning, writing, editing, creating or finding art and sound assets, programming, and testing just to begin, and I am only one person. I’m pretty tenacious when it comes to long-term projects, but it is a massive amount of work, and I am not an expert in any of these things – save, as a matter of opinion, writing. And that is the one reason why: I have a story to tell, and I want to tell it to you in the best format possible.

Let me just go into the potential story a bit. I’m tentatively titling the project Monologue, and it’s going to deconstruct how players and creators each shape the story of a game by interpreting the interactions of the two literally – you, as the player, will be jerked around by the fourth-wall-breaking narrator, messed with and plotted out as you try to figure out a way to turn the tides within the construct of the game. I’m hoping to explore storytelling through mechanics and as a monologue of the creator – because, in the end, every project is limited by the scope of the creator… except, possibly, player-created narratives in games. If you like the manipulation of control in The Truman Show, or the Hussie-Caliborn struggle in Homestuck and all its implications, or if you’re a fan of my fic (hi!) and liked I2 of FBaTN, this concept will be something you will enjoy.

As you can tell, the possibilities of this game have me pretty excited, and I think it’ll be an interesting development journey! This brings me to my point. I want to share the process of developing the game with you. As a game where the creator/consumer relationship is explored, I think this adds an extra delicious layer of meta – plus, as an avid consumer of game critique and meta and academia myself, I’d love to share what I know. It’s not much – I’m still new, and learning – but it is interesting.

Here’s the down-low: I don’t require much money to live, but I currently have 0 money and have to beg loans off the parental bank to pay my bills. I’d like that to not be the case, so I’m going to use what talents I have and my desire to create interesting things to propose a partnership between me, you, and your wallet.

I’m going to start a dev blog for this game. I’m going to do my best to post at least two in-depth posts and three less-involved but still interesting posts about the process of developing the game per week - if I fail one week, I’ll make it up the next, so that the monthly ratios are correct. If you’re looking to become a developer in future, this blog will be your jam. I’ll be covering everything, no matter how good I am at it and how well I perform. Subscribing to the dev blog will cost $5/month (or less, in some cases) and is packed with benefit to you. See below the cut for details if you are intrigued and want more information! If you are not intrigued enough to check this out, that is totally cool and I understand completely. If you think it’s a cool idea nonetheless, a signal boost is just as appreciated.

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