mattc, The Contributor

Member Since

5/8/2017

Last Activity

10/1/2017 6:47 AM

EXP Points

198

Post Count

217

Storygame Count

0

Duel Stats

1 win / 0 losses

Order

Sage

Commendations

5

Want a good thesaurus? Here's one:

https://www.amazon.com/Rogets-International-Thesaurus-Barbara-Kipfer/dp/0061715212

Alternatively, you can use the free and inferior http://www.roget.org/

 

If anyone wants to check up on what I'm doing now I (should) have it all here. Below are updates to the project(s) I'm working on right now.

 

I live in Australia so I'll probably spell words such as 'legalize' as 'legalise'. Fight me.

 

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Current project(s):

#1

Title: Fantasy Adventure Story Thingy?

Stage in writing (~>):

[*Still happening] Initial brainstorming - developing ideas

~> Planning stage - making diagrams and so forth

[OUTDATED] Eureka! I have an idea. I want to make a medieval-fantasy 'strategy' storygame (emphasis on story since the game aspect of all this is still new to me). By strategy, I'd like to have a story where, as a commander of an army, you need to lead your troops to victory. I'd like to base the social + military hierarchy in this story on either Rome or pre-Meiji era Japan (when there were Daimyos and cool shit like that). It could end up being a mix between, or become completely different. So far, the plot will have a narrative throughline of divine(religious?) fanaticism (hopefully portrayed in a similar way to 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman) that threatens to destroy the world. It starts out as open conflict against another nation and turns into a 'save the world' scenario. Along the way things happen. My main focus at this point is figuring out what happens in the story and deciding how I would structure the CYOS (https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/standard-patterns-in-choice-based-games/). If anyone has any suggestions or wants to talk about this, shoot them at me.

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[SEMI-OUTDATED]The medieval-fantasy genre is now expanded to include elements of steampunk. After some quality feedback on my basic idea, I have derived some more vision into what I'm doing. That is:

1.

I'm going to have most of the narrative stakes tied to the strategy segments of the story. This means that the course of the story and the outcomes of its complications are mostly decided by the reader's decisions during such segments. That doesn't guarantee only significant choices lie in these segments (but considering the scale of how much would probably be in here, who knows?). After those segments are finished, the focus will shift back to progressing the story, which will then build up to another strategy segment.

2.

This project will be a storygame, which means there'll be less emphasis on items or other fancy scriptwork. Variables in the same vein as 'scores' or 'stats' will be integrated into the story. 

3.

The structure of the story will (most likely) follow a branch and bottleneck format. 

"There is a story, it branches around, maybe there's some love interests or minor quests, etc. Perhaps some of the branches lead to tips related to the best strategies to employ at the next bottleneck point (or perhaps a later bottleneck). Then, the bottleneck is a high point, and a battle of some sort that takes you into the next phase of "non battle" time and lots more branching, maybe some story development that follows from before, maybe some other stuff."

- Ogre11, 2017

Thanks to mizal and Ogre11 for the feedback!

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/writing-workshop/message/22828

I am currently in the planning stage. Once I have an outline I'll start writing, and along the way flesh things out. Feel free to ask any questions (within reason) about the story.

While I do appreciate any offers of co-authorship, currently I cannot spare the extra time needed to coordinate with another human bean over this project. Later down the track this may not be true, but until then I'm doing this in my downtime.

I should probably record the dates of these so here it is, update on 12/05/2017.

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~> We have an update! I have now finished planning and I know where I want to go in terms of plot. There is one prominent change.

Since I want your decisions to affect the course of battle etc., I decided to have the setting/world change depending on the choices you make. An example of this setting change could be, in Battle A of Timeline A, large catapults will be used to send flaming balls of lead crashing into a column of cavalry. In Battle A of Timeline B, steam-powered, automatic turrets spray cones of death at armoured vehicles. Depending on whether you invested in training your soldiers, developing technology etc. etc. these massive changes will accommodate for your decision. 

So I'm now officially in the writing phase! That is, once test block is over. Again, if anyone has any queries or ideas (within reason) - I'd love to hear themWhile I do appreciate any offers of co-authorship, I'm now planning on keeping this a one-man job. Thanks anyway!

Date - 01/06/2017

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Currently using yWriter5 to do things alongside NotePad, MS Word and OneNote.

 

    

Trophies Earned

Earning 100 Points

Storygames

Fantasy Adventure Story Thingy?
unpublished

I want to start off by challenging myself so I went for possibly one of the hardest 'genres' to do well (my opinion) - especially in choose-your-story format. Fantasy adventure. I have reasonable confidence in my writing ability and want to see what I can learn from this foray into storygames. 

This is an adventure. So I want to include lots of fun things to read whilst maintaining a cohesive narrative 'through-line' and a 'good plot'. There will actually be a description about what this thingy will be when I have reached a stage in my planning that warrants me to do so. My progress can be tracked under the 'Current project(s)' (can't miss it) section in my profile.


Recent Posts

How do you judge people? on 9/28/2017 2:09:02 AM

I'm pretty sure the parable of the lost sheep (just google it) shows how the Christian god deals with this. JC literally says "there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." Makes sense, seeing that he's the father of everyone etc. and, therefore, it's as though your child has stopped being an arse.To emphasise this, there's the parable of the prodigal son. Dunno the point of asking us cheeky humans how we would act as God because we obviously aren't all-loving or all-righteous.

About the whole justification thing, JC has god-mode on and can tell whether or not someone's truly repented - so mental gymnastics don't work. Unlucky.


Help categorizing a story? Also ideas/feedback on 9/24/2017 10:16:08 AM

Sleep on it, figure out a plot, brainstorm and plan in whatever way you prefer. Hopefully the ideas here help out, but you really should have a better vision of what you want before working on the mechanics of everything in your story. Good luck!


Help categorizing a story? Also ideas/feedback on 9/24/2017 9:38:14 AM

I think this article sums up everything nicely.

An age range of 11-13 if the kid is really precocious, lol.


Help categorizing a story? Also ideas/feedback on 9/24/2017 9:03:27 AM

Oh yeah... I think the main reason he hates Lewis is 'cos of the whole atheist deal he has going on and his observations on how Lewis isn't a real Christian (dunno, but it's something like that). About the themes in HDM and Narnia, he argues that the loss of innocence isn't something to regret (AKA, growing up and being an adult) while Narnia sort of laments the departure from childhood (Pullman explicitly said that was his big criticism on Narnia). I don't really know what he has against Tolkien, but nevertheless I found his story a very good read.


Help categorizing a story? Also ideas/feedback on 9/24/2017 7:59:01 AM

Although it's not a primary focus, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials pulls off a civilisation of bears with their own culture and traditions - and incorporates their aims of self-preservation into the grand scheme of things (a multiverse-wide conflict between witches, dragonfly-riding midgets, the papacy, so on and so forth). It manages it all by telling a more personal and introspective recount from the perspective of a pre-adolescent girl swept up by the events (deals with themes like the loss of innocence etc.). I'd recommend this trilogy to anyone (it's a shame there's not much recognition for how well-written it is), but to the OP especially as it seems to fall into his/her interests and it would probably provide some insight into how to deal with large-scale, muddied premises.

Anyways, I would only allow a select few species of animals that gain sentience.


Help categorizing a story? Also ideas/feedback on 9/24/2017 6:36:27 AM

What's the focus of your game? Is it more concerned with story or plot? Are there any literary devices that you'd use? Is there a specific genre (mystery etc.) and(or) it's conventions that you're playing with? Answering these questions would make a clearer picture of your story for yourself and others. Having answered them, you could decide in what tense you'll write in etc. etc. and get around to fleshing out the finer details.

Insects like ants would dominate everything everywhere.


Skool Sucks on 9/13/2017 10:50:12 AM

If you're bored because everything you're doing is easy, do something you find hard.


A very sincere message to my fellow homo sapiens. on 8/15/2017 11:56:53 PM

Actually, I found their reasoning.

Cannibalism, like all of these points, should ALSO be made legal. Good point on it being flesh already dead! Instead of burying the dead of our race in a way that the body is preserved, instead, let me propose that bodies of the dead should be cremated, buried in the ground so that the body can decompose quickly, donated to medical science, or broken down into its nutrients for use as food-stuffs. With food shortage being as it is, remember Benjamin Franklin: Waste not, want not!


Human Nature in Charchters on 8/15/2017 11:35:33 PM

This reminds me of an activity my group did when I was studying drama (and re-enacting Lord of the Flies). Since we were performing with realism (as in, there isn't a lot of stylistic/abstract blocking), we made an 'in-depth character sheet' that was literally the script but with annotations. These annotations described what our character's goal was in each scene, and how he would achieve his goal. For example, Jack's long-term goal would be to rule his own tribe (the hunters) - and to help him do that he needed Piggy's glasses (to make fire). Since he wants to remain the alpha dog, however, Jack will stand at an elevated position upstage centre and be a bossy dick while shouting commands etc. Once we were done with all the annotations, each of us had a pretty good insight into the personalities, faults, merits etc. of our character. Keeping this in mind, you could apply this method to pretty much any text study (like Macbeth, To Kill a Mockingbird etc.) or your own writing to get a better sense of everyone in your story.

Anyway, I just wanted to leave my two cents here.


A very sincere message to my fellow homo sapiens. on 8/15/2017 11:15:29 PM

" wrote: >>>> Congratulations on your hilariously facetious portrayal of abortion as a means of population control. The positions stated on your Web page show to what absurdities abortion could lead. It simply devalues man to nothing. I hope this is blunt enough for all those pro-aborts out there. Have a blessed Easter! -Dominik

<<<< Looks like the joke's on you, Dominik. It must be tough getting through life with the cranial capacity of a chipmunk. We are pro-abortion. Shall I say it again? Pro-abortion, Dominik, as in sucking human fetuses out of vaginas with a bloody great vacuum. Now Dominik, you're not a vegetarian, are you? Does the thought of eating flesh bother you? I hope not, because we think pro-life cretins like you should be munching on those fetuses, Dominik. That's right, not only are we pro-abortion, we are also pro-cannibalism, as you would have discovered if you were capable of comprehending anything other than the Reader's Digest edition of the bible. And I'll bet you do read the bible, Dominik, don't you, so you'll be delighted to know that we're also pro-sodomy. Yes indeed, the only thing we'd like better than watching you dine on mangled human fetuses would be watching you get fucked up the ass with a giant rosary, while our entire board of directors take turns peeing in your mouth. Of course you'd probably rather kill yourself than submit to such an ungodly invasion of your sacred sphincter, and that's just fine with us. I hate to be pushy, but it's time to go. We'll all be much better off. Eat a queer fetus for Jesus, Dominik, and then SAVE THE PLANET--KILL YOURSELF!"

 

^ Cannibalism for Jesus