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OK, I really wanted to finish this storygame by myself, but I'm going to be copying Quiller/Kiel/Briar/Tan/Romulus/Beta/Taco/whoever else. With the deadline looming, I'm still being lazier than I'd like to be. End isn't really going to be a pretty short story rather than a huge epic, but I still need to get moving.

I won't have a set amount of work to do, but I'll report back and tell you guys how much I've done. As long as I feel I've been productive given the time I had I'll be satisfied.

So, this is the place to come if you want to say mean things to me when I'm being lazy.

Hooray for more motivation threads! Briar should feel proud for kicking off the whole trend.

So, what've you got to show for today, eh?

Well, I haven't been working on the story itself so far today, but I've got a useless pre-published storygame of sorts ready.

And a synopsis, for those of you who are interested.

End follows a story about an old man who, long before the apocalypse, once lived a happy life. One day, his wife died. Eventually, he had an argument with his only child, leading her to leave home at a pretty early age and hardly ever contact him. He became depressed and lived a lonely existence for some time.

About 10 years later, the apocalypse arrives, and Earth's population is slowly killed off. There's pretty much no hope left for the planet. The protagonist will have one last thing left to do before he dies along with humanity. What that one thing is will depend on the player's choices.

That's...unbelievably depressing sounding. Which, narratively, is a cool premise and I can't wait to play it.

Your pre-published storygame is more useful than anyone else's - it's like an entire contest running commentary!

I hope you make it a good one!  I can't wait for all these games to be published as stated before.

Thanks! Good luck with yours too.

Sounds dark, Tev. I look forward to reading it. I'm really glad Madglee decided to do this. :)
 

Thanks, guys. The encouragement is appreciated.

Yes, 2015 is going to have a great start for CYS. Lots of good reading by so many authors. And the new storygames section will be overflowing with quality stuff, not WC fanfics and other atrocities. :D

There have been quite a few WC games lately. One of them was actually decent though.

23 new storygames - I know what I'll be doing first week of January, haha.

Same here! =D So excited.

>_> Decent for a WC game is not saying a whole lot, you know. I think everyone was a bit ... generous, considering the quality of all the others, but I will admit that some are ... "ok" or as I put in one review "tolerable." Honestly, though, all of the stories I read for my rating completion trophy have left a really sour taste in my mouth concerning the series overall.

Oh yeah, that decently lengthy one with pretty good ratings. I haven't read it, but I saw it on new storygames.

That's if all 23 are completed, and that's doubtful. Still, it's nice to know that a lot of people are prepared to do it.

Good luck!

(Lol, I thought you were Cool74 for a moment XD)

Thanks!

(But I'm merely one of the cool guys.)


74TeV

Gosh, these similar user pics are confusing me so. Took me a while to realize who this was. Forgive me.

I love the premise of End so far, even if it sounds like it's going to crush my soul. It's pretty cool that you have a nice compilation of the entries in the game so far. I might have to take a peek at those myself. Will be looking forward to hearing your updates. Good luck with you entry!

Thanks! Good luck with yours too, even though I know very little about it.

Sorry about that. My intention is to keep it under wraps until the deadline for intent to enter passes and I have wrote enough done that i'm happy with.

I might reveal my story later...  So it will be a... s a...e a... c a... r a...e a... t

...?

Good luck.

Thanks!

I'm a little busy tonight so I'm unlikely to work on End at all, but we'll see. If I do, I'll post later on here.

Bad 31TeV! Get back to work!

Good luck Tev!

Thanks. Good to see you're motivating the competition everyone. :)

I don't mind motivating the competition. I want people to do the best they can and make really cool story games.

 

I'm just messing around, Taco. :P

Me too. I'm pretty excited for the beginning of 2015. There's going to be a lot of good stories out.

Uh hu. Can't wait to read 'em all. The only challenge then will be catching them before they get bumped out of the new story game section and get lost in the hundreds of other story games.

I guess they'll probably make some announcement on an official thread with links to all the contest entries.

Yeah. Hey, do you know when madglee will come back on?

No, but should be soon if he's going to be closing the contest for new entries. Then we'll finally see exactly how many people are entering.

I know there'll be at least a few more then 23. That's.......... alot of people to say the least.

You, Beta and IAP are the only people not listed that I know are entering.

So yeah, at least 26 entries, which is a lot. But I seriously doubt that absolutely everyone will get theirs done on time.

I know that I'll be hard pressed to get Hell Storm done on time, and that quiller will be pressed to get Halcyon Days done too.

Also, I noticed something. Madglee said that there were 23 intentions to enter, but only 22 names were on the list. I'm not sure weather that is just a typo, or if that's intentional. 

Whilst I haven't been updating this thread, I have been making steady progress each night on End. However, tonight was different. I got distracted by another story and did some worldbuilding for that instead. I had some ideas in my head and it felt good to write them down and flesh them out a little. Turns out I had more in my head realised (who would have thought?) and I could go on for a while just sorting out all my thoughts for this particular setting.

So, I need you guys to scold me for getting sidetracked and tell me that I should work on End instead, what with the deadline and all.

Shame on you! No getting side tracked from writing, or no dinner! *says in that scary scolding tone mothers use when dissapointed*

Hey man.  That's cool that you are working on a different game, and it's good not to be too focused on this contest.  Maybe you should ease back on the reins a bit...  MUAHAHA!

Just kidding.  But honestly, it's fine to work on other stories!

Thanks guys! Much appreciated.

I did a Quiller tonight. I had some coffee then went to town, doing illustrations for all the characters, chapter covers and the intro page. Will be working on the artwork for the epilogues tomorrow. That'll be after doing character art for the stories of all you guys who are entering the contest.

Okay, so not really. I didn't draw anything and I'm certainly not offering to draw anything for anyone else. I mean, I could but it'd be terrible and probably just make your story look worse, if I'm honest. It's for the best for everyone if I just stick to writing for this contest, although I suppose it isn't inconceivable that I'll learn to draw for when I publish other storygames in the future.

Sorry Quiller for making fun of you, but you have been known to draw stuff for people a lot even when you're busy. :P And that's a good thing, because you're very generous and helpful and your artwork kicks arse.

Jokes aside, I did copy Quiller in that I did actually have a coffee and write like a madman. I made good progress thanks to the caffeine and the right music. I was able to concentrate and not get sidetracked this time. I haven't gotten to develop the characters, plot and the world as much as I would have liked before having to dive into heavy writing because of deadlines and stuff. But I'm still enjoying myself and that's the main thing.

May your keyboards stay clickity-clackity, fellow post-apocalyptic contestants.

XD

How much did you get done?

XD

3 pages, which is good for me. And it's not going to be a huge epic or anything anyway. A fairly short story.

Nice. Keep up the good work!

Hmmm. I didn't know that you're an artist too. 

Care to show some of your artistic talents off here? 

I'm not. If you read the whole post you'll see that I was just joking and I'm actually terrible at drawing. XD

Nme skims large post I believe.

I should probably work on my story too...if only life were not so cruel to give me no decent amount of free time to work on such a story.

The irony.

Maybe this wll put in a good state of mind for your story. 

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think it quite fits. Besides, I already have a particular soundtrack in mind for this story anyway.

But... it's called The End. XD  

Yes, I did notice. But the mood of the song is far too cheerful. Also, my story is called End, not The End.

How do you equate the Doors with cheerful? 

*goes and checks hyperlink* 

EDIT: You realize I'm messing with you, right?

I don't know, I only listened to the fist part of the song (tl;dl) and it seemed too upbeat to fit with the story I have in mind.

I know you're messing with me. I was messing with you right back. Sorry I didn't make it too clear.

The best part is when he starts talking about killing his family. :P 

I didn't listen to most of the song so maybe the lyrics were dark, but from what I heard of the tune it was not depressing sounding enough.

My laptop charger is Farked so I won't be able to make great progress while I get a replacement. Delivery could be next week. I'll try to work at the library but it means I won't be able to stay up late to write. I can't complain because 8.30 am - 10.00 pm is excellent opening hours for a library.

I am very disappointed in you... I am too ashamed to even look at you now. T.T

Thank you! Someone who actually understands how to motivate someone. I appreciate it.

I try my best. q:

I wil have to speak to your parents about this, young man. You are in BIG TROUBLE, mister!" 

Meh, my parents know about my charger situation and my story.

Ok, I got lazy busy over the past few months so I kinda lost steam with End, the story I was writing for the competition. I'm going to abandon that for now. I'd like to turn my attention to another story that I have more ideas for at the moment: Elementium.

I've been fairly secretive of my stories up until now but I'm planning to reveal more from now on. I want to update this thread at least once a week with something. Feel free to poke/encourage me to stick to a weekly schedule.

This week I'm just giving you a generic intro for some of my ideas and a little detail on the kind of fighting style that one of the main characters will have. Hopefully at some point in the future, as I gain more ideas, I’ll start writing scenes or more in-depth descriptions to make things more interesting.

Elementium will be a third-person fantasy storygame which follows several protagonists, the primary one being Serrene. She is a young mage who is conscripted into the military. She is thrown together with other mages to form a small elite team whose task will be to sneak behind enemy lines, sabotaging and gathering intel.
(Like I said, this part is really generic and boring sounding because I haven’t even sorted out the details yet. Most of my ideas so far are in the characters and magic mechanics than the plot and setting. I might change the latter parts completely.)

One of the most prevalent and powerful types of magic used by battle mages is elemental magic. In this world, instead of classical elements such as fire, elemental magic is performed by producing and manipulating special substances called magical elements, also known as elementium. Each different form of elementium has different properties, much like chemical elements. There are five basic magical elements but there are many more advanced elements, each with their own colour.

Our main heroine Serrene is particularly gifted in the use of white magic, meaning she can produce quickly and control large amounts of white elementium for a mage of her ability. The white magical element, often likened to plasma or a beam, is characterised by:
- emitting bright white light
- low density, allowing it to be moved at high speed
- high temperatures which cause burning without setting alight what it touches

Might be a bit vague without reading what this ability is like in action, but we’ll get to that eventually. If you have any thoughts or questions let me know, but I can’t guarantee an answer (I might not know the answer or might not want to tell you).

In other words, fucking lasers.

Me gusta.

Yes, white lasers would be a good way of putting it, except that it is matter so you can control its movement and get it to keep still and stuff.

Always pleased when I see a (good) female protagonist. I like variety, dammit. The same stereotypical hero over and over again bores the hell out of me. (I mean, I do like playing as a dude, but ladies are capable of having and participating in adventures, too.) I'm also pleased to see a white mage as a protagonist, because that's also comparatively rare... your definition of white mage is different than I would've expected. It's interesting, though. 

So I haven't been working much on characters and plot this week. I've been focusing more on how spells and magic work because I've been finding it really fascinating and ideas keep popping into my head all the time for it. So today I'm gonna go through the basic mechanics of Serrene's most basic attack spell, the white boar.

All elemental spells are comprised of two parts: [colour] [animal]. The colour represents the element - in this case white, the blazingly hot and fast-moving white element that Serrene specialises in. The animal represents the movement and the function of the element. The boar is a type of spell that releases elementium (aka the substance known as a magical compound) in a straight line at the target. All colours and animals are interchangeable. For example, Serrene might release her white elementium in a slower but more controlled way, changing her spell from a white boar into a white serpent. Similarly, she could alter the element whilst retaining the same type of movement to perform a black boar spell.

Even though an experienced elementalist can perform a spell in a split instant, there is always a step-by-step process to be followed. Here is an example using Serrene with a white boar:

1. Draw mana from the body
Every cell in the human body naturally produces small amounts of what is known as clear mana, or mana without an element. In order to perform elemental magic, one must draw upon this clear mana and convert it into the desired colour of mana. Different parts of the body are associated with and have affinities for certain colours. White mana is best drawn from deep within the abdomen.

2. Channel the mana from your body and into your staff
At this point, the mana has been converted into a colour associated with an element, but is not in a tangible form of magical compound (elementium) just yet. For that to happen, it must be moved or more properly, channelled, out of the body and into your staff. Depending on the animal of the spell, channelling can involve different paths and patterns. For the boar, it is the most direct route straight through the arms and into the staff, where it will travel up to the staff and into the gem tip at the top of the staff.

3. Materialise the mana into elementium
Inside the gem at the tip of the staff, there are numerous microscopic hollow chambers. The mana which is channelled into these chambers is then materialised and turned into physical matter - elementium. In this case, the white mana becomes white elementium inside these small chambers.

4. Release the elementium from your staff
The elementium which has materialised in the staff must be released from the staff and come out into the open air for it to be used in battle. This is done by a technique called telekinesis, which is performed by using clear mana to move material objects - in this case the elementium inside your staff. In the case of a boar spell, clear mana is channelled through the same direct path as the white mana, moving through the arms and staff into the gem, finally pushing the elementium in a powerful stream out of small pores in the gem tip. The resulting white beam-like spell is a simple but fast and damaging spell, burning through targets.

Unfortunately this ended up being a boring post, but the storygame itself won't go through in this much detail the technical processes of spells. It would just bore the reader. This post was mainly just me sorting my thoughts out for myself. I am considering making an in-game book with details about magic and how it works in this universe. I don't know if anyone would actually read it but again, it would be good for myself to know how everything works.

Sounds kickass Tev.

So does different colors have different results? This sounds like an interesting way to do magic, and I would read an in-game book about how it works.

Yeah, the previous post explains how the colours work. Each colour is a different element, and an element in this case is in some ways more like a chemical element than a classical element. Each colour of element produces a different substance known as a magical compound, also known as elementium. The different elements have different chemical properties from one another, making them all better suited for different uses. Elemental magic involves producing a substance (elementium) and then manipulating it using telekinesis.