Is this yet another pointless thread, abuse that power

[lordofduct]

What in the holy God damn hell is going on with this place?

I hear the worst, I hope the best, you all better not have been getting soft on me!

So what's up my brothers? Long time no see. I'm popping my head back in, testing the waters, and seeing if this whole worlds still the welcoming hearth it has been for me for almost a decade now (not counting just racket in the regards). I see we have a bunch of new faces in the room... well ok boy and girls, come on in, sit your lazy asses down, Professor Dyldo of Ductapetonland is here to confuse you will random ramblings from the patented LoD rant machine.

Today I merely have it set on crazy gibberish as I don't have a lot to bitch about. Nor is it set to super butt lick mode because there isn't any relevent topics for me to spew useless lengths of data about.

So where the hell has this shit for brains egotistical bastard been off to ignoring the good ol' back end of the interbutts? Well I've been out turning the pages and spewing out code in an attempt to actually make something of myself. Maybe take all this useless data in my head and put it use. And guess where my brothers... good ol' videogame land. Mrmmm, I loves me my videogames.

So tell me, what's going on. Hope to see you around the forums. Hopefully my interests don't trail, as they usually do, damn brain slugs telling me to eat paste on shards of drywall. Just can't hold my attention anymore. Ermmm, so hope my interests don't trail, and maybe then I'll get to know the whole lot of ya.


Oh and daps out to the oldies in here. Well those that haven't left... I'm waiting for the message from he knows who yelling at me for popping back in here. Hey, you know this was your fault, so don't come calling me nothing!

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

It's a madhouse I say!

Glad to have you back, Lord!

[Ack]

Hmm..well chief, I suppose I ought to ask: what games have you been working on? Care to tell, or did you have to sign some confidentiality waver or something?

[jp1]

In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey...

EDIT: Sorry your post reminded me of that song for some reason.

[lordofduct]

Hmm..well chief, I suppose I ought to ask: what games have you been working on? Care to tell, or did you have to sign some confidentiality waver or something?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I'm mostly freelance right now with a couple of confidential contracts sitting on the burner.

I'm still a nub really, but it's exhilirating actually finding out I found something I can actually do, make money at, and LOVE to death. Waking up in the morning for work doesn't feel like work. All I have to do is get out of this state I'm in, Florida has nothing for local jobs, so until I sell this house, I'm stuck in the remote freelance/contract crap.

[jrod1986]

I do miss your back-and-forth entertainment with Mozgus, Duct. I know he said he wouldn't come back, but I hope he does.

Anyway, it seems like every forum I've been on inevitably goes through a changing of the guard, if you will, for a lot of reasons. Unfortunately, this turnover almost always seems to involve the popular posters who made the forum what it was/is.

So I dunno, I'd say there are more than half a dozen posters on here (including yourself!) whom I pay attention to just because I see a certain username.

Keep it up you famous racketboys--give me a reason to keep living (or at least visiting the forum)!

[Ack]

That sucks. And unfortunately I can't think of too much in the region for that matter, unless there's a bigger scene around Atlanta than I think for game devs. But I suppose I ought to ask a question I want to know:

What is your favorite genre of game to work on?

[MrPopo]

This is like that second coming that the Christians are always talking about!

[lordofduct]

Well I can actually be very specific there. And actually sheds some light on a project I'm working on.

I got into this with a friend of my a while back, we both since childhood had an affinity for 'making' videogames. And we both have the same vision of ideal genre to create.

And oddly, it's "childrens' games". Not corny dora explorer childrens' games. But more robust and intriguing childrens' games. See when I was a kid on the farms of missouri (not Missouri actually... Connecticut) my mum read to me. She read books about witches and goblins, rabbits and mad hatters, girls with long hair and a desire to spread their legs, and great adventurers who traveled the world in seek of mystery. Staples like Grimm Fairy Tales, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, Timemachines, dinosaurs, dragons, princesses, and other magical creepy stuff that every boy and girl loves. That and it was backed by complex stories that eluded to more then how to count or to hug your neighbor. Not to say hugging your neighbor is a bad thing... but where the hell did the pain, sorrow, heart, heroism, even death go in children stories???

Some say children shouldn't be seeing this kind of stuff. But I beg to differ damn it. My version of little red riding hood had the wolf eating both hood and her grandma while the woodsman chopped him open to save them. My version of Cinderella had the wicked step sisters left destitute and blah blah blah. But alas we've been cutesified by Disney and the sort. And it drives me freakin' BONKERS.

I'm going to avoid the why's I believe all this, because it's both long and also will insight some anger in some people. It has in the past, I've been told I'm an awful parent who shouldn't ever have children for some of my views... and I scratch my head and ask, "well how did your parents do it?" And they concede that way, but they had it all wrong, and their parents parents had it wrong... so on and so forth. While all along I walk through the grocery store and see little princess brat telling mommy that she IS getting gummy bears and won't be eating her veggies because there's nothing mommy can do about it. Yeah there is, but oh no, that's socially shunned. Don't you yell or smack your kid. That's abuse... bah, beating your kid is abuse. Smacking your kid for talking back to the priest is NOT.




So anyways. I want to form my own independent company making epic childrens games with neat interesting and fantastic worlds. Think like if Guillermo Del Toro or Neil Gaiman were to make a videogame. That's what I want to do. Something both children and adults can get into.

One of our designs is this very weird open ended game built around imagination. It was an idea that spawned from the movies Pan's Labyrinth and Bridge To Terribethia mixed with the art styles of my good friend. It's a game where you are slowly drawn into this mythical world, and have to find your way back out or be trapped forever by an evil toad prince that steals the souls of children and saves them as trinkets he wears on his clothing. There are tons of objects laying around the world that you can use, but they don't serve any true purpose, instead you invent what they do as the player. Each object has a set of simple actions they can perform (like simple machines) that you in turn decide what they should be used for. The game then rewards you on how you decide to use everything given to you... instead of the black & white worlds of games like "Fable" and the sort where you're either good or evil... the game actually reacts relivently to how you interact. But on a more basic level as relationships aren't really a big thing in it (not many characters in a mythical land). But basically the more evil you do, the more the world turns evil and gets harder and harder to play in... being bad makes it hard to beat the game. But being to goody two shoes can also make the game hard to beat... not in the "being good is hard to win because you have to work harder" like Fable is (ugh that annoyed me... the game was designed to make you want to be evil... I mean come ON). Instead where being good caused the world to excellerate around you and again make it harder to find your way out. Obviousily work in progress...

Of course that's a huge project that are made of dreams at the moment. Instead on a more realistic level it still consists of games geared more towards being friendly to children. Not to difficult, but still kind of hard. Very puzzley, non-violent, and very pretty. Like when I was a kid, I preferred games like Ecco. Yeah you could be violent in the game, but you really didn't have to. It was mostly only used for defense in the game, the main objective of the game was to solve puzzles, put you in difficult situations, and pretty music.

[Curlypaul]

The place has changed indeed and many of the old posters have left or been drowned out by how many people there are on here now. Shame, but shouldnt lament it, things move quick.

Glad to see you back again, to hear that your career is coming along and to read your epic posts.

(Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie)