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Thursday, June 17, 2004
Organic food sucks and I'm never going to eat it.
Yeah, sure, it sounds a little extreme. But when you spend two weeks -- and dozens of hours -- researching organic food packaging, see how you feel. ~_^
I'm basically 95% complete on this particular project. I just have to put a few things together in terms of documentation, for tomorrow. Phew.
Anyway, it's been an interesting week. Kill Adam: Volume 1 has finished and I've seen some great comments about that. It's good to see that people are supportive and that they read the work in there -- although Kill Adam is my RPG, it simply wouldn't be what it is without the heavy involvement and commitment from everybody who participated, particularly Shy, as he has worked more closely with me than anyone else in terms of developing a story and creating the focus.
Volume 2 will bring with it many enhancements, some of which I've previously mentioned. The biggest part of it hasn't yet been revealed though (except to certain people). When all is said and done, it's going to end up having been a very unique project. I hope that if nothing else, it inspires others to do some cool things with their RPGs, but you've heard all that schpiel before. ~_^
The main thing is, this is an RPG that I've become increasingly excited about as it's progressed.
One of the things that I'm really interested in next time around (apart from the most critical aspects of characters and overall narrative), is music.
I was talking to Alex earlier on, about music and its relationship with movies. Music and sound are really 70-80% of the experience when you watch a movie.
I remember going to a design conference where an ad producer explained this fact and demonstrated it in a very specific way; he played a clip of Jaws, where the shark attacks a woman at night.
He played it with no sound, then with a goofy/funny soundtrack, then with the real "Jaws theme".
As you can imagine, the changes in sound made all the difference; they fundamentally changed the meaning and perception of what was taking place on screen.
Obviously, the written word is something else. Unlike a movie, you're actually using your own imagination to visualize what's going on. Kill Adam 2 won't change that, in the sense that it isn't going to be 100% visual or anything.
However, the addition of music could represent something very critical -- particularly the addition of high quality samples, which will obviously work best for those using broadband. The music will be optional for both the participants and the reader (the reader will not be forced to download the MP3s, as they won't be embedded in the page itself).
But for those who choose to do it, they may find that it makes a difference. I will be interested to see the effects of that.
In the case of the first RPG, you can see that I've used a music track for the ending credits. It is my hope that a combination of rich description and rich audio will help to further immerse some readers and give them a heightened sense of the emotional value of a particular scene in the story.
Before Volume 2's sign-up goes live, I might talk a bit more about what I have planned, in terms of what hasn't yet been mentioned -- one thing I should mention, is that Kill Adam 2 will definitely feature a "cast and crew" rather than just a cast. This is because I'm relying on three people (including myself) to actually develop the "technology" that the RPG will use.
In that sense at least, I want to encourage some RPG creators to look at collaboration in a different way; you don't just have to collaborate on story, you can also collaborate with web designers and graphic artists. I really hope that this is one type of relationship that will increase over time, as people become more comfortable with using HTML in posts.
Anyway, I'll end this post on that rambly note. Summer's going to be great in Adventure Arena, as there's some huge stuff on the way (and Kill Adam is only one tiny example -- quite a few people are planning some awesome new stuff).
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