games - Ina Disguise

Best Adventure Ever update

November 1, 2017 No Comments

I am not quite sure what Sam is supposed to be doing in this one, but I am sure I will find out.

I am usually very neat when it comes to things like this, even when it involves several hundred images.

I think I have covered just about every element of Wolfe’s work in the course of establishing the character. I am not sure whether players will fall madly in love with him straight away, but I am sure that they will want to be him.

It is not easy to strike a balance with Wolfe, you always have to tread a line between comedy and stifled admiration for the level of achievement. So far, we are covering more than two decades of work in a few sentences before commencing the adventures themselves, all of which have to be significantly different.

For fans of the series of free Best…Ever books, yes, Kira is also in the game, however she will probably not be meeting Sam as she is busy telling the other half of the story for people who are interested in improving their health.

Between Kira and Sam, the player will be handed quite an armoury of information with which to go forth and amplify.

The story is not just about health, however. Because of the directly oppositional nature of Wolfe and I, I have incorporated commentary into social interaction, so for players, who I anticipate to be between 15 and 30, there is a lot of material to work through in the course of playing through the many threads.

It is quite mentally exhausting however, I had to think about something else for three days, so I have re-started Mood Machine for a bit of light relief. It is set in Victorian London and is steampunk inspired.

I may also start the Boris book at this point, since I am now gagging to get back to the original book and have upwards of a year’s reading to do even to get a light coverage of background to build upon. The Boris book should take me about four months of work, and I have artwork to finish, some of which will take a month or so for each piece.

So, effectively the very difficult jigsaw puzzle that has been the Wolfe saga is becoming clearer. I do hope that people are willing to put the work into playing it, because I think it is a worthwhile piece of art.

creativity, games

Exciting work due for release very soon

October 18, 2017 No Comments

Several pieces in the new collection are nearing completion and Best Adventure Ever is going extremely well so far.

I failed to ask Wolfe about contributing the music, but I am sure I will find some interesting free to use psy-trance for it as the story moves on.

So far it is fairly cutting edge stuff in terms of game making, not in regard to technical prowess, which has been kept to a minimum to avoid problems with multiple formats, but in terms of educational content within gameplay.

If things go as planned, it is an excellent rehearsal for the game to follow, and should stand me in good stead for the future planned projects, which will take me somewhat longer to construct.

I do need about seven days sewing to finish the latest carpet, so it will probably be out after the first of the furniture, and then a new crop of work will be started for early next year.

Will be starting work on the Boris book very soon, which should take us to early summer before I recommence work on the most important book of the lot, at which point I will have to pester Wolfe again in the hope of getting some discussion of future projects that are already underway.

Apart from that, the Ina Disguise rebuild is plodding steadily on.

creativity, games

Results of recent trip and game preview

October 8, 2017 17 Comments

https://youtu.be/mtVZ6GA7M_s

You can assume from the title of the video that I managed to achieve an almost normal conversation with Wolfe, although I still growled at him at least once. Caging lions is hazardous, what can I tell you?

Seriously, I think I would like to get on with the work now that I feel slightly less wounded and am not doing anything remotely secretive.

I cannot tell you how much better I feel. I had a terrible break out of nervous psoriasis because of the stress, but I am not nearly as freaked out as before I went, so the silly thing to do turned out to be the right thing to do, not for the first time.

The game is just in the laying out stage, and the story is likely to be modified to reflect the updated image, which I had been unaware of due to avoiding him.

Ina

creativity, games

Games in Development

August 29, 2017 No Comments

OK I was just having a look at Wild West Online, which looks promising, although I will not be participating as I am too busy, and realised that I had not extensively described the ones I am actually working on. There have been significant delays with the game projects, as I had hoped to send some work to the Gambia, but as this was not possible I had to take care of all of it myself

Best Adventure Ever is the one relevant to the David Wolfe project, and will be suitable for PC, Mac, tablet or mobile. Although the visual novel is not the perfect format for the original story, I felt this was a good idea for maximum coverage since I am a noob to the games market. I have not decided on whether to attempt to make any actual money on it as all the work on the Wolfe project is intended to gain reach rather than profit.

It is the separate story of Kira and Sam Redwood, who in terms of graphics freakishly resemble Wolfe and I, in a sort of self hating kind of way, and their progress through a series of dating episodes. Sub-choices are made via consumption – what you choose to eat, drink and do moves the story along. As you can see, the graphic quality is rather nice. Without giving too much away, the game is intended to improve the knowledge and confidence of the player no matter how they feel about themselves, and so I think it is a worthy project. I don’t know why I still care about doing this for nothing, but never mind.

Mood Machine is a steampunk adventure set in London, and tracks the friendships of young people making their way in a mysterious society where people have, for a variety of reasons, disappeared or died. This one is more about psychology and how people interact with one another, and contains rather a lot of nice bits of economic history.

The two games are intended as entries into the games market with a view to creating the game I really want to make, which is a much bigger job and will also feature Wolfe. (this family thing is most inconvenient in terms of game character building, Wolfe) Although this was also intended to increase his reach, I think I will have to offer avatar selection for this game, and so I may include Icke and Robbins as possible selections and widen the games outlook. Gamers have been awaiting a decent cult builder for a long time, so I think this is a nice back scratching way of serving the market.

In terms of hold ups, I could do with some technical discussion and I need to build up some more skills to get to this third and most important game. I have the courses available, but have been significantly delayed in getting on with them, and all of this is secondary to clearing the studio, which needs to happen fairly soon. I think the first priority is to complete the visual novels and see how that goes. If it goes well, then full steam ahead with Best Guru Ever.

There is also the risk that Wolfe will object once the game is complete, since he chooses to ignore everything I am doing. I haven’t hidden any portion of what I am doing, so I suggest if he has any objections, he gets on with making them before I put all this work out.

FYI – he will not. I do not know why he considers it a good idea to ignore work that is being done. The rule in these circumstances is ‘do it until they stop you’ but it is really a waste of everyone’s time. Extremely frustrating if you are trying to make things happen and very disheartening.

games, health

A crippling workload

June 15, 2017 No Comments

A crippling workload

Hurrah, the posts from 2016 were unexpectedly being stored on Goodreads, and so I am replenishing the new site with the old posts. If you are interested, you can now scroll back for a year so far, but as there are so many posts, I don’t think I can do them all in one night.

As regular readers will know, the furniture collection has been very expensive to produce, which has caused major hold ups. I am seeking a contract or two to finish off the first few pieces, so that I can get on with Lucifer Ogilvie.

In addition, complications regarding my mother have meant that I am unable to do as much work as I have in the past, it is now turning into a huge legal conundrum which I am strangely unphased by. So far, I have had to sit in a room full of people who have either already lied, or are in the process of lying because I am such a horrible person for taking care of my mother and avoiding people.

What is most irritating about this, is that people who don’t actually know what has been said or done are now jumping on the opposing bandwagon on the assumption that I have somehow forced a career driven carer to lie about my mother, and a pair of vile nurses to assume that because I am very polite, I am also a pushover. Imagine their surprise when I chased them from the house shrieking thank you, thank you!

Anyway, for the raw foodies watching this saga, my mother now has proper arms again, and I am working on reinflating her legs after the concentration camp style nutrition in hospital. She is not hugely conversational at the moment, but as you all know, detox involves a lot of sleeping. I am restretching her muscles at the moment as she was suffering from contracture.

According to the vile nurses and her doctor, this means crushing her legs even more and drugging her so that you don’t hear her scream in pain as her muscles waste. Instead her legs are gently being stretched with a fierce rub of menthol to restore her muscles in much the same way her arms have responded. At 90, she has in three weeks recovered her ability to sit up by herself, so I look forward to seeing how these legs turn out when they are done.

The NHS seem to be genuinely offended by her recovery, which is most upsetting. Not quite as upsetting as her absent children’s wish to kill her in a care home. Yes, looking after her is blisteringly hard work. No, I do not begrudge it, although I certainly should given the family dynamic she set up in advance of her dotage.

Anyway, I am thinking I should get on with the shoe collection to pay for more resin, and I need to work on the computer games.

Toodle pip,

Ina

creativity, economics, games

The Gamebia Project Update 2 and Boris Johnson

April 7, 2017 No Comments

I know I haven’t been posting a lot recently. Mother has been in hospital and I am a bit stressed about a forthcoming court appearance as I continue to attempt to run a family of exceptionally stupid and vindictive people who seem intent on making people unhappy just because they can.

The furniture is significantly held back by lack of funds at the moment. The hazard of making more expensive items is that they require more money to develop. So far I think I have the new principle about half right, but it will take another £600 or so to finish the first few pieces and free up space for the next six, never mind finish them.

The distraction of the Gamebia Project has meant that I have not started working on the book for Boris as yet. I have some background reading still to do, although some of the biographies are less than flattering so far. I can see why Boris withdrew authorisation from one of them, as I find myself liking him and Stanley, in particular less and less as I read it. Not my cup of tea at all, but then I am wildly unsuccessful at social climbing or making money, unlike them. It apparently pays to be a cold and selfish fish.

I am selling off the detritus from the Gamebia Project as progress seems to be exceptionally slow. I am still being updated by my former friend, although I suspect he is only bothering because he thinks he will get more stuff that way and I have lost interest entirely due to the very slow pace of development. People often think films have to be epic slogs, but when you need to put out two a day you have to be a little bit more pragmatic. At the rate he is working, he will never make any money from youtube, and he has not even attempted to create the project on fiverr, which on my schedule would have started paying for his rice by now.

So much for trying to help people that cannot be helped. The subject of the project apparently only sees one word in ten that I write, and so he has no idea how the project has to be managed. As he has now stopped pestering me online every time I am on, as he did before he got the equipment, I cannot even repeat the same information ad infinitum to put him on the correct track.

So, I think the next affordable bit of product development is going to be the range of shoes I was planning, which has an initial outlay of about a hundred pounds or so. The Gamebia has, due to cashflow issues, left me without even that for the forseeable future, so I am understandably nervous about going ahead.

The games project and the writing then, since it costs me nothing. I could have farmed some of the work for the game out, if my Gambian friend had paid any attention to what I was saying, but I am having to do it myself.

Getting very bored with pacing myself for normal people. It seems piteously slow. I guess that is how my former muse, Wolfe felt. Nobody sees your vision like you do, and anything else seems like a distraction if you don’t pay attention to the lesson you are learning.

creativity, economics, games, motivation

The Gamebia doing very well

March 4, 2017 No Comments

The Gamebia Everipedia Page

So far, this project has cost a lot of time and money, but I believe that my efforts have not gone in vain, since I have about £600 quids worth of equipment almost ready to head out to the Gambia and another £600 quidsworth awaiting my attention. All for as little money as possible, since I do not actually have any.

The Gamebia facebook Page

At this point, the project is in profit, and has made about £100. This is subject to change as the capital equipment gathering can be quite costly, although my salvage skills have proved extremely useful. So basically I have saved money by learning how to fix a few brands of computer and encountering standard problems that other people do not apparently bother to learn how to fix. You would be extremely alarmed to know how easy it is to break into your computer, for example. You might want to look at that.

The Gamebia google plus Page

Trying to explain social media to somebody who has only seen it on a mobile phone is also odd, especially as I decided fairly early on that social media was of limited use for Ina. I have amassed a bit of knowledge along the way though, although losing the old blog was a tremendous blow as I was storing a lot of information on it. Even if you are paying someone to manage your material, you still have to back it up because people are stupid.

The Gamebia linkedin Page

Also, trying to explain to the future owner of The Gamebia that this stuff is not actually mine, is quite interesting since I have set it up so far. There are things I cannot do, but what I have done I have put into his name, since I will be letting go of the project once it is into a good and hopefully profitable routine.

In conclusion, the project is thus far going well and attracting some enthusiasm, although we cannot get started on the actual work until the first package arrives in the Gambia. There are a few more things I can do, such as putting a cat video on the Gamebia youtube page to get the partnership sorted out, but mainly I seem to have taken up computer salvage so far.

Catching up with artwork for World of Interiors is high on the priority list right now – I will be in April’s edition, which will be out this month.

creativity, economics, games

New Project – The Gambia

February 3, 2017 18 Comments

I just opened the studio after a three week hiatus whilst I got the computer games off the ground, only to find I had left a heater on. Not good.

Family stress is likely to be intense over the next six months as I try to preserve my mother against all odds due to the most unreliable friend I have ever had. The fact that this ‘gentleman’ was supposed to be a pillar of the community has just made his common-as-muck behaviour far far more expensive.

Being me, I have decided to make this the springboard for yet another project. It is a salvage operation which is designed to help generate some future income for a community in the Gambia. Not strictly a charitable act, since if the games are successful, this will give me an enthusiastic crew of people to work on future pieces of work.

For those who don’t get it – this is how to make the most of the world the way it already is, and make it sustainable for a population across the globe to actually survive. The ‘liberal’ sentiment that has you demanding more refugees to reduce your income apparently does not understand the concept of ‘labour specialism’ or the benefits of economic variety.

Were I to want to move to Africa, so far I would move to Morocco, which is a bit like the Europe of the 1930s in terms of economy. Ironically, I was made more welcome there than I was in London. As a Scot, this is not entirely surprising but it goes to show that struggling people are a whole lot more welcoming to certain people than people who believe that they have earned the right to be mean-spirited, self protective and bad mannered.

As someone who has worked hard all my life, to so far have next to nothing, with what I have left about to be taken to pay for my comparatively secure mother because of the inaction and snobbery of a lazy old man, it would seem strange to most people that I would choose to use my remaining time to benefit a community in a country I will probably never be able to afford to actually visit. My friend found this very strange, until I pointed out to him that it is in my nature to be practical and helpful before I think about my welfare, at which point he remembered that this is indeed the case.

From an economic perspective, it is most interesting already how people can be financially oppressed by something as simple as lacking a postcode or secure mail service. I am having to come up with ingenious ways of getting around a system in which you can send ten mobile phones in secure parcel, only to find that only three are in the parcel by the time they arrive.

As for the costings from this end, there is a subtle bidding war between parcel companies that has expressed itself via facebook and twitter. The cost of sending my parcel is going down by the day, via adverts that look as if they have randomly appeared on my timelines. We have even automated bidding wars.

Anyway the first two games are going well. I have a strong concept for both, and I think Wolfe, in particular, will be delighted at what I have come up with in terms of infogaming. It is a lot of work for one person.

Ina

creativity, games

The Best Adventure Ever FTAO David Wolfe

January 19, 2017 No Comments

I am getting on quite well with the game making side of things, and so I have decided to release Best Adventure Ever as a visual novel.

David is familiar with my graphic rendition of him, so he should not be too alarmed, but I need to make sure he is aware that I am planning to put his name on it, since it is unlikely that he will find an alternative method of reaching gamers.

I have just started work on the graphics, and am working on another piece of work designed to appeal to the more mature visual novel reader, who is not stuck in the anime/hentai groove and wants to try something a bit different.

One of the many fascinating things about Second Life, is how different we are from Americans. We even imagine ourselves differently. Americans tend to want chunky musclemen and tiny women with boobies, Europeans and others have a wealth of alternatives to this in terms of appearance.

Several times I have found myself in a room full of people debating, from all over the world, and we all agree versus the Americans in the room. You have no idea how culturally different they are until you try discussing philosophy or culture.

Anyway, Best Adventure Ever was a very complicated story, and now it will be several complicated stories, so it will take a while, but in the meantime, here is a lovely picture of David having fun on the beach.

creativity, games, politics

The Gambia, and a general progress update

December 10, 2016 No Comments

I see the deposed President of the Gambia, Jammeh has decided on a strategy for clinging to power. As a result, many young Gambians are proposing to take to the streets to protest.

It is interesting that scenarios like this still exist. To any hardcore strategy gamer, the plan is merely entertainment, and seems rather simple and quaint. Jammeh has decided to promote key members of the military, denounce the impartial IEC who supervised the vote, and replace them with a corrupt, self selected version who will give him the result he wants.

As a formerly keen player of Tropico 3, I can tell you that this does not lead to long term stability. It does lead to a more violent form of government which employs increasingly immediate means to quash dissent. I have advised my friend in the Gambia to stay well out of it and read some politics in preparation for deposing the guy, rather than rushing out and getting himself killed.

It is unfortunately unlikely that there will be any international intervention. The Gambia has a small population of two million extremely poor people, and since Jammeh’s announcement that he now considers the Gambia to be Muslim, this makes it less likely that anyone will rush to the aid of the population, which is not a good thing if you happen to be Gambian.

What Gambians should bear in mind, is that nobody remembers a dead protester. They remember the great educationalists, the politicians, the social actors that survived.

Jammeh, unfortunately, looks physically healthy, but his current behavior indicates that his knowledge of history is lacking to the extent that he is using techniques that are as old as the hills. There are safer, and better ways of eradicating corrupt rule than getting killed. Look for free texts online and get them printed off or saved if you can, for reading up on historical ways of removing dictators rather than getting yourself shot.

Another nice snippet for this week, is that my blonde bombshell is considered to be acting out again. He has my so far undying admiration for this. Boris, so far, is turning out to be more interesting, more fun and far better looking than his predecessor. Nice one, Boris. We were admiring your powerful brand earlier this evening.

The artwork is not going too badly either. Jemima Khan is looking good, Iain Duncan Smith is on the way, and Darius Guppy is going as expected. I am not sure how many I will release at once when they are complete. Although it is not a taxing daily workload, the curing times mean that these pieces are very slow and space consuming, so I may yet be some time with the artwork.

The game is also progressing nicely, and I should be past graphics preparation and into writing after the weekend. This is the first of three that I want to release at the same time, preferably alongside Best Adventure Ever and Lucifer Ogilvie, so it will be a few months yet.

As you can see, I had to restart the blog again, as wordpress had some problems updating. I sincerely hope that this doesn’t happen again, but I will have to start backing up more often.

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