She was once a beautiful girl and fianc?e of the noble knight, Kasaan Parath. Now, Kasaan will do anything he can to bring back the woman he loved so much from the tragic accident that took her life 10 years ago.

The Fate of Ellicia.


If you haven't heard of it, or just didn't guess, this means that I am resuming progress on my isometric project, which has all engines up and running. If things go as planned, this September, we should see a LOT more work done on this as well. Wish me luck, hopefully I can find a few helping hands with this, as it's an overwhelmingly large amount of work for a single person to complete such an adventure on his own.

In other news, I'll be buying a PSP soon here. The release of the FF Tactics remake along with Crisis Core coming out finally prompted me to decide so. There are other games I'd wanted to try out, but now I figure there's enough of a list to just go find a used one of the darned things and just land myself one.

Sorry for such a lame, short blog. More iso-news coming very soon, I promise.

ChevyRay

Sounds cool.





I was to be getting a PSP for my birthday for all my portable gaming/media joy but there's a new version coming out I'd prefer which won't be for a lil while here in UK.

first of all, DON'T GET A PSP JUST YET!

around sept., sony is releasing a new, superior model that has faster load times, 8gb internal flash memory, 33% lighter, and - more amazing than anything else - can be hooked up directly to your tv/monitor to play all games and movies on a big screen :o :D

it's basically evolving into a home console/handheld hybrid.  can't beat that at all.

here's the news:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/breaking/new-psp-slim-coming-september-kinda-looks-the-same-277336.php

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secondly...
woo hoo!  so glad to hear that this project is gunning once more.


and, remember there's no shame in scoping back on the scale of the project.  no reason to try and make it overwhelmingly larger than you can honestly complete.

you could even continue the saga with additional projects in the future :)

focus on quality over quantity to deliver a compact and unforgettable experience - once that actually comes to fruition :)  way better than something that you never get to share with others because it never sees the light of day (not saying that you can't/won't finish a huge project - it just sounds as if you already recognize deep down that you're setting yourself up for an up-cliff battle of epic proportions).

Yeah that's sorta what I was saying (but I said with less detail ok).  The video out thing interests me cos I always thought it odd to make do with a handhelds screen when yer playing the thing at home.  Knew it was slimmer but didn't know about the load times.



Cannot believe some of the comments on that site though...

gah, i'm sorry about that.  i jumped the gun before fully reading your post.  guess i was just eager to get some money-blowing-prevention info up before any tragedies occurred ;)
i'm completely on board with you regarding the senselessness of having to use a handheld's tiny screen while at home.  i rarely play my gba games on a gba/ds at all.  i got one of those snazzy gba players for the cube when they came out, and have rocked my gba games on tv ever since.  and, i also played all of my gameboy/gbc games on my super gameboy.  just so much more comfortable and immersive to play that way.  now, if nintendo'd just find a way to output ds games to my tv :-

I can just see it now, two TV's stacked up on each other, and a stylus on the end of a broomstick to whack the bottom one with. :D

Er, how much is this new PSP baby gonna cost? I was planning on just getting a used one if I could... ah well, it'd be worth the TV connection :) I barely get to get away these days, so most of the time I'd be playing would be near a TV anyway. Cool, thanks you guys!

Well, with my record, I would blame you if you were saying that... but it's not solely the scope of my projects that drives them into oblivion.

Cool that you mention that though, because I just re-wrote the entire plot to do just that :). I focused a lot more on the character (as I'd already discussed, "silent protagonist"), and making the storyline a lot more sweet and personal. To spoil a bit, I'll say that the story revolves around the tragic accident that caused the death of lovely up there, and its effect on the people involved. It's not necessarily your average RPG plot, which could be a bit of a risk on my part, as you aren't just some average schoolboy or farmboy that sort of "evolves" into the world-saving hero by the end (the formul? of 95% of RPG games...). There will be [a lot of] character development involved, though focused on different mediums than usual.

You're right, though, CosMind, I should definitely cut this thing back as much as I can. Actually, I have the next 2 days off work, so I think I'll utilize the hours to focus especially on... not cutting back... but rather "compressing" the storyline, so instead of a stretched out story, you get a short and powerful connection. The only thing is, it has to be long enough to allow character development... both in a statistical RPG sense and an emotional, personal sense, but not too long that 1) I can't finish it, and 2) I get bored of it... or 3) it sucks.

I'll think heavily about this, as what you've said is probably more important than I've let myself believe to this point. Like I said, though, I'll definitely need help... because I'd like to work away at making every detail of this fine and to the point, while avoiding redundancy, but being the sole creator and designer so far makes it a little difficult to critique the story and game in an adequate manner.

Blah, I'm dragging on. More work, less talk; I'll have some news soon, keep tuned in!

that sounds like an incredible premise for a story - game or not.
i'm really eager to see you turn it into something interactive, and integrated into a rad game, no less ;D

i'll be glad to lend an eye/ear whenever you feel you need one or two.

Funny you said that :P whilst sharing the synopsis of my story with a good friend yesterday, he told me that what I had written there sounded more like a book than a game...

Hmm, is that a bad thing or a good thing? Do you think stories have to be written specifically for a game to fit into one well? Both the protagonist(s) and antagonists have dynamic motives, but there is no radical "good" and "evil" involved, so I'm hoping to develop the motives enough to make them convincing and immersive.

Good to see this is back on the cooker. Don't scare me like that again. I like this one. :P

i have a very strong opinion that, yes, they do.  otherwise, there is a big risk that you create a dope story, and a dope game - but the two remain separate entities that are just delivered by the same medium, which may lead to each not being able to reach its full creative potential.

narratives and games are just too radically different to exist together properly, imo.  i'm not saying that a game can't/shan't have a narrative.  what i'm saying is that the optimal way to write a narrative is not the optimal way to tell a story in a game.  personally, i prefer to let the game and gameplay be the story - which is why i nearly always skip non-interactive story segments in games (regardless of how good they are).  i'm there to play.  if i want to take in a rad non-interactive story, then i read a book or watch a film (note that i do consider reading to be highly interactive, but for the sake of keeping my argument unmuddled...).

of course, that is just my own personal preference and philosophy.  some people like linear, non-interactive narration way more than gameplay.  most rpg's tend to focus in this direction, and they have a huge fan base.  so do classic adventure games.  to each his/her own :)