I am resurfacing

Okay, I know that it has been a while since my last post...okay, okay; almost two years. But I just want to let any that still check that I am still alive and planning to return soon. I have been thinking of a few things that I want to do. With my games, my fantasy world, my stories, and this blog. Hopefully I will be able to not only reveal my future plans soon, but also start revealing everything soon.

So, keep the faith and keep checking back. I will have a new post soon.

Movies and stuff

I got some exciting news today...well, it's exciting to me.

I found out when the next Hobbit movie is coming out and I got to see a trailer for it. December 17. Yeah, yeah. I figured it was coming in December, but to finally get confirmation and an exact date just makes me squeal with geekery (yeah, I just made that up). I also read more about the up coming Avengers: Age of Ultron. Some pretty exciting stuff.

Speaking of Avengers, I have been getting more and more excited for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie. When they first announced the movie I wondered why they chose them. I hadn't been to big on the comic, in fact I don't think I ever gave them much attention except when they were mentioned in one of the comics I did read. I mean they have a talking raccoon. A talking RACCOON!?! How is a raccoon super heroic? Those were my thoughts anyways. So, I was never really excited about it.

But, talking raccoon aside (I have liked some of the raccoon's lines I have seen in the trailers) the closer it has gotten to the release date the more I have been interested in seeing the movie. First of all, it does have my favorite villain in it, Thanos (my second favorite is Dr. Doom). I mean, anyone that can go toe to toe with Odin the all-father is pretty cool in my book. There is also the fact that I am a geek and it is a comic book based movie and part of Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so...yeah. I am excited.

I also feel pretty unexcited by the prospect of an Ant Man movie. He is one of my least favorite Marvel characters. But maybe the trailers and my own geekiness will win me over for that one too.

In other news, my writing/game project has been sort of stagnant this last week. When I started thinking about doing the Generation Demigod story line again, I also started to think about doing my multiverse again. I am not sure what it is, whether it is the sheer magnitude of the project or my belief that I can't do it, but quite often when I think about this project I get lethargic with working on it. (Is that the right way to put it?) So, hopefully I can get over this and get back to working on my project (which ever it turns out to be).

But, I have to get my daughter to soccer practice so I shall...

Write ya later.

Organizing my thoughts

Another fun filled week has gone by and it is time once again for an update on my life.

Woo Hoo!!!!!

On the game front, I did manage to work on it some this past week. I have started to flesh out more of the main quest line. I worked on a couple of new maps too.

Most of the week I did spend messing around with a new program that I thought might help me with my planning. It is called XMind. It is a mind mapping program that is suppose to help you organize your thoughts and help with brainstorming. Well, that is what the definition of mind mapping software says anyways. For me it hasn't helped too much. I have spent more time thinking about how I want the mind map to look like then I did about my project. I am not saying that the program didn't work. I seems to work good. I am talking more about the fact that mind mapping didn't seem to work for me. I have been doing just fine with jotting down notes.

That is why I am sticking with Evernote. I like this because I have it on my phone, my computer, and my tablet. I can jot down a note when I am at work and when I get home, I can pull it up on my computer and use it in my project. I also use it to make lists that I can set up either on my computer or phone and update them when I need to. But, like I said, that is what is working for me. As long as I make a note of my idea, I don't seem to have a problem remembering the connections.

I know I was suppose to do a review for Crusader Kings 2 last Friday. I didn't get the review finished yet because of the XMind thing. I hope to get on it and finish it this weekend so I can post it on next Friday. I will probably not get it done for this Friday though if I do, I will post it then and leave notice on my Google+ and Facebook accounts.

I have been thinking about starting up my Generation Demigod title again. I went to see Xmen: Days of Future Past yesterday and it got me thinking about a super hero storyline again. That always happens whenever I watch one of the super hero movies or read one of my comics. So, I may start working on that web series soon. Maybe. No promises. Not yet anyways.

Other than that, it has been a quiet week. Nothing exciting or terrifying happening (well, not to me anyways). So I will sign off for now.

Writer ya later.

Quickly to the post....

Alrighty, it is Wednesday and time again for me to attempt to post again. Well, I guess it really isn't Wednesday anymore, but since I haven't gone to sleep yet I am going to say it is.

I wasn't sure what I was going to post today until today, then I started thinking of several things I could do. Then I saw a shinny object and forgot about my blog for awhile. Did some chores, thought about the blog some more. Then I saw a squirrel (and you know how distracting those can be). Played with my girls, ate some supper, put the girls to bed and then decided that I was going to work on my blog.

Only just before I put the girls to bed I kinda told my eldest that I would work on some origami roses for her to give to her teacher tomorrow. Big mistake. Let me tell you, if you haven't ever done anything even remotely like origami before, don't tell your daughter at 9 pm that you will make her 4 origami roses by watching someone else do it on YouTube. It will most likely not happen.

I followed along pretty good for awhile, then the guy did something. Still not sure how he did it even after re-watching the video several times and making several more attempts myself. I could not get it to do the same thing. So, yeah didn't get the roses done. Luckily, my wife had a backup plan with some bookmarks with flowers on them. Yeah wife!

I have worked some on stuff for my review posts. Mainly my rating system. I had been thinking of doing a review of Agents of Shield since I just watched the newest episode this morning. But I think I will wait until the last episode (which is next week) and do a review of the season. Which does mean I will need to go back and re-watch them all so I can do a proper review. So, it may be a couple of weeks before I get my first review posted. Or I guess it is actually my second review since I did do one on that book. Anyways, look for my new review in a couple of weeks.

So, I guess I will end it here. I do need to get up and go to work at 7 am tomorrow. So....yeah.

Write ya later.

Game engines

Another week, another update.

Not much to report for this last week. I have worked a little on the Rose Angel Princess game. Mostly just working on the main plot. Evencia has helped with some ideas on the story. Some good, others . . . not so good. But she tries and I do plan to include some of them, it is a game we are both working on after all. I have also been working a little on the plot for my web series 'Generation Demigod'. I am debating on whether to set up a new blog for it or to see if I can post it on this new website I recently found called 'Big World Network'. It is a website that presents stories from different writers on a weekly basis and they do it kind of like a TV series. You submit your project and if accepted you sign up for a season, which is 12 episodes. They have four seasons in a year and supposedly you can go for as many seasons as you want. I plan on looking into it further before I make up my mind. The submission deadline just passed for their fall season so, I have time to make their winter season if I decide to go that route.

In other news, my main project is going to be 'The World of Nuarth'. This is going to be purely fantasy and I have been looking at what it would take to set up a website for it. I also spent yesterday looking at game engines. This project is going to be mostly in game format (at least for now). I had thought of using Engine 001 (the same one I am using for Rose Angel Princess). But the more I think about what I want to do with it the more I wonder if I am going to need something else. So, I looked around on the web for ideas and such. I found quite a few and have even downloaded a couple to look at. So far I am considering Unity, UDK (Unreal 3), Ren'Py, and Game Editor. Maybe I should say that the first two are being looked at more than the last two. Ren'Py is the only one I have looked at so far that doesn't require me to purchase a license or subscription to sell the games I make with it. But, it is more of an interactive novel engine than game engine. It does look neat though and I may do something with it, but it just wouldn't work for my main project (but it would work for a side project with in the main one).

Unity and UDK both have free versions so I can start learning them now and actually get started on my games, but I would need to now an actual programming language also. Unity seems to use C# and UDK seems to use C ++ and another one that I can't remember right now. The other engines were of the drag and drop kind, no programming skills required. But I do still plan on learning C ++ and maybe other languages also, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

My only other concern is trying to work with multiple engines at the same time. I don't want it to hurt my productivity (now I am beginning to sound like a business man). I know the big game companies will often use different engines in different game series that they put out, but they also have different teams that work with the different series. So far it is just me, myself, and me in this little venture. Which also brings me to the point of thinking that I really need to consider finding someone who can do the graphics for all this. But that is for another post (maybe).

Anyways, I shall keep trudging along and will keep the updates coming.

Write ya later.