It’s autumn, and the weather fucking sucks. So, I’ve been staying inside even more than usual, which means although I’ve been more miserable, I’ve also got more done.

Aside from cleaning my bathroom, which was in a bit of a state, I finally implemented the barebones of my UI into my game. After spending weeks doing shit sketches and trying to find something pretty and practical, I went for a pretty boring but extremely practical setup: three columns, with the stats, inventory button, and current location on the left, the hand, deck, and permanent location actions in the center, and the quest log and faction reputation log on the right. It’s not interesting at all, but it works well, everything is übersichtlich (don’t know how to say that in English), and it’s functional. On top of that, I made a basic inventory screen, which shows equipped items on the left, categories along the top (clothing, weapons, quest items, etc.), and all the items as small icons in the center, with quantities included. I’ll either change it all later, giving myself a real pain in the arse, or I’ll make it pretty with artwork.

Speaking of artwork, I also asked a good friend of mine to do the initial sketches for the card backs. The design will be the sun and the moon together, like a tarot card or whatever. I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with for me; generally, I like most of the stuff he paints (I have three of his pieces up on my walls, including one he did for my birthday) so I have high hopes. I also know another artist who lives elsewhere than Berlin who I might ask to do my character models, as she does pretty great figures which I think would work well for my game. However, all of this means that the artwork in my game will be 2d, and actually, I’d like the backs of cards to be animated. Only slightly: maybe the sun and moon slowly revolve around each other, or something like that. But anyway, that’s an issue for the future.

I’ve finally begun properly thinking about one of the main storylines for the game. (Didn’t you know that thinking about writing is about 50% of actually writing?) It’ll focus on the revolutionary element within the city-state, who are disappointed (for lack of a stronger word) that although the world has experience enormous upheaval, the basic structure of society has remained unchanged, despite the majority of humanity having emigrated to the equator. And so, they begin a plan to overthrow the Anglo government in Caerdyf, and rebuild society from the ground up. You, as the character, can be involved in this revolution, fight back against it, or possibly even ignore it and simply see what effects it has on the rest of your story. That’s my basic idea at the moment, anyway; over the coming weeks I’ll see how far I get with it.

I believe as well that I’ve finally figured out a way to fix my novel. My last post documented how I was pretty certain that my novel is unsalvageable. Well, I no longer believe this. My solution is quite simple: isolate the town from the rest of the British Isles. When the kids are put in hospital, they’re quarantined. While there, more and more people begin to be admitted to the hospital with similar symptoms of theirs, but no immunity, and therefore most of the die or are seriously impaired by the failed parasitism. This causes the British government to put the entire town into quarantine, with military checkpoints on the roads, physical barriers, and patrols through the woods. It solves almost all of my problems: my kids not being believed, the government getting involved too early, the fact that my aliens aren’t really spreading outside of the small town the novel is set in, and a host of other issues which caused the plot to be neither fun nor realistic. So I’ve been writing (read: sitting around thinking about) that, too - rewriting it to not only fix the plot, but include the quarantine worldbuilding which, I hope, will mean I don’t need to throw the whole thing off my balcony.

So that’s where I’m at. On Monday, I recorded the drums for my band’s next single. I mean, I did the engineering, and my drummer played the drums, of course. We only used four microphones, but we got a pretty excellent sound out of it. After a bit of production, it sounds really professional - I used an isolated take of Smells Like Teen Spirit as a control, and I got it sounding pretty similar in terms of quality. One little trick I used which worked surprisingly well was adding a sample to the snare drum (which was sounding a bit thin) which triggers on every single snare. It gave it a lot more meat and punch. We’ll have to see how the rest of the recording goes - the drums aren’t really played to a click, so we’re sort of winging it when we record the rest, but I did some test guitar parts at home and it worked pretty well, so I’m hoping my bassist can do the same and we can finally mix our own single, which is what I’ve wanted to do since we started this band. DIY ‘till I die.

With regards DIY, I bought myself a grow tent the other week, planted two plants, and now I’m just waiting for them to flower, which should take around three months. I’m a little worried about Christmas, where I won’t be here to water them, but I did buy a homemade self-watering system which consists of a small spout that you stuck a plastic bottle into, and it drip feeds the plant. I need to experiment with the timing still - the first bottle was done in a day, and the next one I tested still isn’t empty after three - but it might be a solution for the fortnight I’m away for in December. Either way, I have more seeds I can use at a later date if these two die, so it isn’t the end of the world, and everything’s a learning experience, right?!

My girlfriend is visiting this weekend, so I imagine there will be a lot of drinking. I don’t think I’ll work on anything until Sunday, but I do have the whole day as she leaves quite early. I’m trying to get one small thing done on the game every day; this was a similar system I had with my novel, where I tried to write even just thirty minutes every day. This got me through my first draft (which is shit, obviously, but still) very quickly. If I can do that with the game, I should have all the mechanics in place pretty quickly.

Then it’s just the case of actually writing the fucking thing, which I’ve been putting off because I started reading the Hunger Games after finishing the films. My mate Billy was a bit incredulous that I would bother reading them considering I know what’s going to happen, but years ago I saw an episode of QI where they said people often enjoy things more if they know how they’re going to end. If someone had ruined the ending of Breaking Bad for me I would have been sick in their eyes, but then again, I think I preferred Better Caul Saul, and we all knew what was going to happen there (for the most part), so maybe there’s something to it. Anyway, they’re written in a pretty wooden style, but they’re nonetheless compelling - the characters are well fleshed out, and I find myself both sympathetic to and occasionally annoyed with Katniss when she’s having a tantrum. Then I remind myself that she’s allowed to have tantrums and act irrationally sometimes, seeing as she’s basically facing constant death throughout the first two books, whether from the Games or simply from starving to death. They’re surprisingly good (though I don’t know why I’m surprised, seeing as they were critically lauded when they came out). One nice thing about them is that events which are a bit confusing in the films (Thresh knowing about Katniss helping Rue, some minor details about Finnick becoming an ally during the Quarter Quell, etc.) are actually explained really well - believably, in fact; this was really nice, and they almost act as a companion to the films. One thing that annoys me, though, is why during the Quarter Quell, all the tributes who try to help Katniss and Peeta don’t just decide to not fight at all. They could all just sit on their podiums at the beginning, and the Capitol would be forced to either kill all of them, which would definitely spark the revolution, and leave them with no victor, thereby defeating the point, or let them all go free. Still, they’re like, 17 year olds, and are human, so they’re probably QUITE scared of being brutally killed. Duh. Anyway, I’m about halfway through the second book, so no spoilers. Or, give me spoilers, who cares.

Remember to wash your hands.