2 posts tagged “sketch”
A very quick sketch of Eye of the
Storm's main character. She is from Norway, and after LONG
deliberation and making sure no one else has this name (tusen takk til
SSB) I named her
Silje M[arit] Martinsen. There are some Silje Martinsens (I didn't want
a very rare and/or implausible-sounding name) but no Silje M.
Martinsen. Yay!
I originally wanted her hair to be blonde (read: yellow), but I didn't like the end result so I switched to orange. BTW she is going to change hairstyles during the course of the game.
I discussed ideas with Betonabrosz. He made me realize that since very little is posted yet, I should post a little outline of what my plans are...
Eye of the Storm is going to be a Nintendo DS game, in the 'Japanese' RPG genre (think Final Fantasy N, Chrono Trigger, etc.)
* mainly controlled using the keys, but with some features that use the stylus and the microphone (the latter will be optional)
* hand-drawn graphics, no 3D (unless we come across a great 3D artist who can create really stylish stuff... stylish is important)
* no real-time fighting (we're considering turn-based or phased fighting at the moment) and "button mashing" kind of scenes
* heavily story-oriented
* gameplay roughly 40 hours
* serious themes including war crimes, torture and genocide, but not a "gory" display - we aim for a T rating if possible
* aliens! psi! cyber freakishness!
The main character is a Norwegian military intelligence officer who is sent to Eren as a liaison officer a few years after the war. She is chosen for her skill with the māwal, but little does she know that it is going to do her more harm than good, at least in the short term...
After a nice intro set on Eren which showcases the game's unique universe and weirds the player out (at least that's the goal) the actual story is going to start on a planet that is much more Earth-like than Eren: this is so that the player is gradually experiencing increasing weirdness. If everything was dropped on him/her at once, it'd be rather hard to digest. (One of the themes is culture shock, though... so it will not be easy to digest, but I still want it to remain intelligible.) Silje's first task is to observe the operations of the Ereni Peacemakers, the subject of the following update...
I originally wanted her hair to be blonde (read: yellow), but I didn't like the end result so I switched to orange. BTW she is going to change hairstyles during the course of the game.
I discussed ideas with Betonabrosz. He made me realize that since very little is posted yet, I should post a little outline of what my plans are...
Eye of the Storm is going to be a Nintendo DS game, in the 'Japanese' RPG genre (think Final Fantasy N, Chrono Trigger, etc.)
* mainly controlled using the keys, but with some features that use the stylus and the microphone (the latter will be optional)
* hand-drawn graphics, no 3D (unless we come across a great 3D artist who can create really stylish stuff... stylish is important)
* no real-time fighting (we're considering turn-based or phased fighting at the moment) and "button mashing" kind of scenes
* heavily story-oriented
* gameplay roughly 40 hours
* serious themes including war crimes, torture and genocide, but not a "gory" display - we aim for a T rating if possible
* aliens! psi! cyber freakishness!
The main character is a Norwegian military intelligence officer who is sent to Eren as a liaison officer a few years after the war. She is chosen for her skill with the māwal, but little does she know that it is going to do her more harm than good, at least in the short term...
After a nice intro set on Eren which showcases the game's unique universe and weirds the player out (at least that's the goal) the actual story is going to start on a planet that is much more Earth-like than Eren: this is so that the player is gradually experiencing increasing weirdness. If everything was dropped on him/her at once, it'd be rather hard to digest. (One of the themes is culture shock, though... so it will not be easy to digest, but I still want it to remain intelligible.) Silje's first task is to observe the operations of the Ereni Peacemakers, the subject of the following update...
Yay, drawings. Gasp, if I keep this up, this blog might actually INTEREST people. Quick, delete! :P
So, where was I? Oh, yes, poor Mr. Chalmers. He has an interesting article I've never ever managed to get anyone to read. Abandon all hope ye who follow this link "Consciousness and its Place in Nature". It's about... consciousness and its place in nature. Because no one will EVER read it (I've managed to destroy quite a few threads simply by bringing it up) I'll summarize in one sentence: Chalmers divides the possible relations of consciousness and physics into 6 very neat categories. We know from experience that neat categories do not really work most of the time, but this article is ideal for concultures stuff: pick one of the six, proclaim it to be real in your fantasy universe, and presto, the Very Advanced Civilizations you will be writing about will have solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness. :P
Anyway, my choice is "type F". Let's quote Da Man:
Type-F monism is the view that consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of fundamental physical entities: that is, by the categorical bases of fundamental physical dispositions. On this view, phenomenal or protophenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of physical reality, and in a certain sense, underlie physical reality itself.
(and from then on, let's elegantly slide into the realm of science fiction... one of my nightmares is that one of my colleagues finds this blog and decides I am posting about Real Aliens and I'm some kind of wacko. I am not! I'm just a science fiction writer in my spare time. It sometimes generates real money, even.)
These poor protophenomenal properties (ouch) are called māwal by the Ereni. The māwal relates most closely to statistical physics, but the exact details should be shrouded in mystery (as I am not a physicist - I can't be everything at the same time!). One more thing it does besides creating consciousness is governing the ways consciousness interacts with other elements of the physical world. Let's just assume for the purposes of Shiny Fantasy World that psi is real. (Which could, you know, actually be so.) I am going to abuse parapsychology literature in a similar manner I abused Mr. Chalmers above, and lift the claim of Spottiswoode et al. that solar activity is related to psi. Go here for the technical articles
In the universe of Eren, each sun has a māwal rating that tells approximately how inhibitory the effect of the sun is on māwal. Both ends of the scale are rather inconducive for civilized species to arise.
0 - disruptive to consciousness. People don't even go there.
1-2 - consciousness is possible, but what humans would call psi is not, or just barely
3-4 - average psi
5-6 - lots of psi
6+ - w00t fireballs!!
(Yes, I know that Spottiswoode et al. claim geomagnetic activity plays into this, too. That is also assumed to hold true here, so ratings will be provided in the next section for planets, not entire systems.)
Earth is a 2, Emek is a 4 and Eren is a 6+. And yes, this is why our poor miners fled - the ghosts and similar scary stuff they saw was produced by the direct action of their consciousness on the physical world. Your nightmares are suddenly real, and a small underground facility is claustrophobic already... meep! :P Note: 320 years ago, when the Emeki abandoned the moon, they had no clue about this.
(And yes, this is why the forefathers of the Emeki settled in this system, but it isn't why their settlement was abandoned.)
Imagine a normal distribution... er... bell curve. Smack me in the head when I speak too technical. Most planets are in the average range.
Māwal sensitivity varies from individual to individual, usually greatly. This often creates divisions in society: eg. in the Emek of 320 years ago, talented māwal-users were Servants of the Empire, effectively enslaved, and "employed" by the Imperial Court... and as such, not a single one of them set foot on a remote mining colony, or directed anything more than a stray thought there... the court was busy using them to spy on each other. (Talk about decadence. :P )
In the Emeki Civil War that soon ensued, māwal-users teamed up with another group and turned against the Court, but that's a story for tomorrow, IY"H. (And maybe I'll get more technical about the māwal.)
So, where was I? Oh, yes, poor Mr. Chalmers. He has an interesting article I've never ever managed to get anyone to read. Abandon all hope ye who follow this link "Consciousness and its Place in Nature". It's about... consciousness and its place in nature. Because no one will EVER read it (I've managed to destroy quite a few threads simply by bringing it up) I'll summarize in one sentence: Chalmers divides the possible relations of consciousness and physics into 6 very neat categories. We know from experience that neat categories do not really work most of the time, but this article is ideal for concultures stuff: pick one of the six, proclaim it to be real in your fantasy universe, and presto, the Very Advanced Civilizations you will be writing about will have solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness. :P
Anyway, my choice is "type F". Let's quote Da Man:
Type-F monism is the view that consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of fundamental physical entities: that is, by the categorical bases of fundamental physical dispositions. On this view, phenomenal or protophenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of physical reality, and in a certain sense, underlie physical reality itself.
(and from then on, let's elegantly slide into the realm of science fiction... one of my nightmares is that one of my colleagues finds this blog and decides I am posting about Real Aliens and I'm some kind of wacko. I am not! I'm just a science fiction writer in my spare time. It sometimes generates real money, even.)
These poor protophenomenal properties (ouch) are called māwal by the Ereni. The māwal relates most closely to statistical physics, but the exact details should be shrouded in mystery (as I am not a physicist - I can't be everything at the same time!). One more thing it does besides creating consciousness is governing the ways consciousness interacts with other elements of the physical world. Let's just assume for the purposes of Shiny Fantasy World that psi is real. (Which could, you know, actually be so.) I am going to abuse parapsychology literature in a similar manner I abused Mr. Chalmers above, and lift the claim of Spottiswoode et al. that solar activity is related to psi. Go here for the technical articles
In the universe of Eren, each sun has a māwal rating that tells approximately how inhibitory the effect of the sun is on māwal. Both ends of the scale are rather inconducive for civilized species to arise.
0 - disruptive to consciousness. People don't even go there.
1-2 - consciousness is possible, but what humans would call psi is not, or just barely
3-4 - average psi
5-6 - lots of psi
6+ - w00t fireballs!!
(Yes, I know that Spottiswoode et al. claim geomagnetic activity plays into this, too. That is also assumed to hold true here, so ratings will be provided in the next section for planets, not entire systems.)
Earth is a 2, Emek is a 4 and Eren is a 6+. And yes, this is why our poor miners fled - the ghosts and similar scary stuff they saw was produced by the direct action of their consciousness on the physical world. Your nightmares are suddenly real, and a small underground facility is claustrophobic already... meep! :P Note: 320 years ago, when the Emeki abandoned the moon, they had no clue about this.
(And yes, this is why the forefathers of the Emeki settled in this system, but it isn't why their settlement was abandoned.)
Imagine a normal distribution... er... bell curve. Smack me in the head when I speak too technical. Most planets are in the average range.
Māwal sensitivity varies from individual to individual, usually greatly. This often creates divisions in society: eg. in the Emek of 320 years ago, talented māwal-users were Servants of the Empire, effectively enslaved, and "employed" by the Imperial Court... and as such, not a single one of them set foot on a remote mining colony, or directed anything more than a stray thought there... the court was busy using them to spy on each other. (Talk about decadence. :P )
In the Emeki Civil War that soon ensued, māwal-users teamed up with another group and turned against the Court, but that's a story for tomorrow, IY"H. (And maybe I'll get more technical about the māwal.)
