Author: Douglas

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Okkatu at Sunset

Inspired by the fifth one down on the first column. Read related here and here.

:Another fucking floating city,: you think.

[Post | Edit | Cancel]

You’ve left the profanity filter on from last night at the bar. And afterward at the brothel.

> Edit

:I hate floating cities.:

Mom commented in your log recently that the in-eye cam is making her sick so you feed out 30 seconds of vid from your flit’s camera instead. The rest of your flight dumps to your on-board memory banks. You never know who or what you’ll find on approach.

:How did I not know Okkatu was a floater?:

:Dammit.:

:Dammit again!:

:Grrrr…:

> Admin > Feed > Off

Okkatu is the uprooted dome style floater. The graceful arc of it’s roof contrasted by the dribbling geometry of it’s belly. If you were to like any floater over another it would be the ringed ones with towers–thick torus with three towers rather than the thin ones with four or five. And leaning out not perfectly vertical. Those you knew where to berth your flit. This thing was like trying to find the ass on a jellyfish.

You drop the Bain’s twin-turbines down to a creamy 5400 HPM and aim for the center like everyone else tonight. Nav picks up the beacon 5 klicks out. You feel it direct you to lower level because it picked up your false ident–tonight you’re a 20 year mini-cargo drone instead of a heartbreaking tricked out hyperswoop. Looks like it’s communal showers with aliens and boys again.

Word count: 247
Day 164

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Accept Mission

Several months ago I read a posting for a job writing game scripts. I’ve read enough of the Internet to know that writing isn’t as glamorous as we hope. Writing is a skill and a talent. The technique of turning that skill and talent into cash is hard work. It’s a job.

I know nothing about game writing except game reading. I know that I gloss nearly everything in the script to find out where I need to go next, what I need to kill, or how many gold pieces it will cost me to armor up. All the other stuff is blah-blah-blah. However, there is still a plot. I have to feel like going from here to there and then performing some task follows a reasonable amount of logic otherwise I’ll just bail on the game even if I don’t read it.

The writer that answered that ad must do that plotting too–along with the crap dialogue I only scan–so I am still exposed to her output. I wonder if that plotting is different than what goes on in a novel.

Seems that in many ways it should be, but that when you know the whole game it probably isn’t. I suspect there are plenty of plots overlapping both temporally and spacially. I imagine there are a few missions that can occur at any stage in the game because they are above or aside the overall game. In these various raids your character earns hit points and experience points and money and plenty of other things for advancing his traits. I doubt he accumulates anything that disrupts the overarching plot.

A character never fails so miserably at stabbing Dastardly Wolves to death in the Growling Swamp that the various Non-player Characters stop offering him jobs to do. “Sorry Kyle of Blackwater you appear incapable of even the most trivial of tasks. I will wait for another Ranger. [OK]?” Or worse, “You’re the crazy man that walks into walls, stands as if stunned in the square, never eats or sleep, and the disappears for hours. Please go away. [OK]?”

But none of that was really where I meant to go in this. I meant to consider the style of writing. Is it like screen writing with EXTs and INTs? Is it like those second person “Choose Your Own Adventure”TM books?

Hmmmm?

Word count: 387
Day 163

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Brother Gane’s Maquette

Immediately you are struck by the misplacement of the man in the garb. Gane is like a rabbit wearing a hat or a puppy in a shirt. Doable; just not right. But you don’t know what you would change.

From top to bottom he’s Solex Guy. Gane’s dreads are rubbed evenly with alizarin crimson and pleat evenly left and right when he’s at Mass or ride high in a ponytail bound in a tight clasp near his scalp when he’s on the job. His split-sleeved cassock fits smartly. His blue and gold subdermals pulse professionally from the gaps. His cincture is tied expertly in the old style–thank-you brother Chabe. When he walks his boots clip precisely on the stoneways.

Gane’s hres are error free. No one unit tests their prayers as effectively as he. His knowledge of circuits, networking, hymns, and chants is unparalleled. If you had three sons and you wanted the third to be in the clergy you want him to be just like Gane. You just wouldn’t want him to be Gane.

He’s a faker, an impostor, or a liar. Or he’s deluded, confused, or biding his time. Clearly he’s unwilling to be bad at what he’s pretending but he’s not bothered to fully obscure what must be disdain.

Leaving it there. Everything else that I tried fell flat.

Word count: 219
Day 160