The following wall of text is a manifesto of my justification for wanting to develop a game. I might edit this a little later, but what you see here is enough of a final version to post.
The Legend of Zelda II, the Adventure of Link, has long been berated as the bastard child of the Zelda series. Many go so far as to not include it within the Zelda “genre” out of personal distaste for the game. But, I consider it one of my favorite games of all time.
There are many cases to defend the game, like unique gameplay and excellent player control, but my angle is specific: The game has the most interesting swordplay out of any I’ve played.
What would you like for Christmas? How about an Ant Farm!
Ant Farm was written, shot, and edited over two days. Besides drawing on Dick’s discussion of his ant farm (also see Ant Redux, Rodent Bot Fly), it owes special debt to Dick’s discussion of torches in Forest Walks: 1, 2, and 3, and Dragon’s post, The Better TP Lantern. And by the way — Protozoic does NOT endorse or recommend anyone making a TP lantern as it is very dangerous.
In terms of movie-making, we’ve attempted to properly light the indoor shots. This was done with two fluorescent lights bought from Lowes for a total of 30 dollars. Considering the cost, we were pretty happy with the result.
We hope you enjoy Ant Farm and have a happy holiday.
Download here in Quicktime 6 format or below for Quicktime 7. The Quicktime 7 video is smaller and looks better but might not play on all computers.
The discussion of torches and immolient soaked toilet paper rolls got me thinking: Surely there must be a way to have flaming textiles or paper products portably contained in such a manner as to avoid burning through their support structures or leak through the non-factory joined seams of their containers. To that end I’ve devised (probably re-invented) the hanging lantern on a stick (a.k.a. “flail lantern”).
A new film is coming out and I predict that I will love it and place it among my all time favorites!!! It’s by the same folks the brought us “There is Something About Mary,†so you know the film will leap over many social boundaries and rape several taboos.
Once we stepped into the trees enough to not be spotted on the road, I lit the torch. It burned amazingly well and bright, but here’s the shocker: You can’t see much with a torch in the woods. First of all, you have to hold the torch well away from your vision or it’s too bright for your eyes. Also, you can’t see but a few trees ahead of yourself. I noticed the wood underneath the torch head started to catch fire so I spread mud over that part.
We walked and managed well. There’s a problem with many forests on Delmarva; they are mainly made up one tree type, since the forests have all been logged and these are new trees. This tree, the loblolly, is has roots that are poisonous to many other plants and make the ground unfit for many other plants, except briars. This is why it’s so hard to navagate through Delmarvan woods, with such dense thorns. And, for us, we had to be sure not to light any tall or hanging briars on fire.
On the Friday of the predetermined weekend, I drove Joe Galetti, Buff and myself to the predetermined starting point. We reached it around midnight. The nigth was cool, calm and clear, just as it was supposed to be. We somehow convinced Buff (cute girl from Pocomoke City with an unfortunate nickname, also one of Doc Grogan’s research students) to come along with us. Joe’s girlfriend opted out, stating that she was sure something bad would happen.
The plan was to park my car in front of one of these state forest entrances, just off of a dirt road, and then walk west/south-west until we hit this one creek (labeled as a “river” on the map), where we would rest for a little while and consume our comestables before crossing back. Below is that same map with better markings. The black shows the roads, the east road being the one dirt road, the red being where I parked the car, the blue being the creek and the yellow being the general direction of intended travel. The dotted line also shows a road, Heather Rd., marked on a state map, but of which we couldn’t find any sign during a couple laps in my car in the daytime a few days before.
Bear introduced me to a video game back in the early 90s which sparked my imagination. This is Ultima 7, a classic role-playing game that features an expansive map and the ability to wander it where ever you please, doing whatever you please. I found it difficult to stay focused on any storyline when it was just as fun to get lost in the game’s forests until finding the occasional random encounter. Of course, as a 12 year old, I felt compelled to bring that fantasy world to life by grabbing a walking staff and a medieval light source, such as a taper, donning a cloak and losing myself at night in the woods near my home.
Pawns roll oak in rage for the war of nuclear-moon at time's end.
The premiliminary stage of storyboarding Ameviathan: The Green Machine is over. I finished the last frame Thursday afternoon. I have to redo a couple scenes, notably the opening, one scene in the middle and another near the end. Once this is done, I’ll scan the pictures and put together some sort of digital format of a storyboard/script combination. This will coincide with the final drafting of the screenplay, which I’ll say more about in a moment. My timeframe in which to complete the digital script/storyboard along with the final draft of the script is by New Year. After the new year, prop construction will begin.
