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Archive for June, 2009

C-File 170 is Posted

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

In case you wanted to know, here’s C-File 170, written for my friends on the road, moving back to Texas, as I type.

Forest Tileset

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Check out my latest forest tileset for RiftMaker (thus far):

forest-master

A Theme for RiftMaker

Monday, June 8th, 2009

I’ve been struggling over the RiftMaker storyline, but I think I’ve finally hit on what the story of RiftMaker is about, that is, what it’s theme is.  Read no further if you want to be surprised by the storyline (provided this one even makes it into the game).

My idea is that RiftMaker should be about will-to-power versus submission.  The concept of the RiftMaker as a sword that allows you to cleave realities and visit alternate timelines embodies will-to-power.  Without it, the humanity of the world are merely helpless pawns of a great cosmic drama played out by the gods.  But with the RiftMaker, a chosen few can escape.

The two intertwining stories (Rile and Tobias) will represent two different ways of approaching the question.  Perhaps Rile starts out cocky and a little too charming, only to have his hidden vulnerability and insecurity emerge when he decides that following the “good” Gods and submitting his will to theirs is the only way to know any kind of peace.  Perhaps Tobias starts out sweet-natured and gentle, but his underlying self-absorption and concealed arrogance emerge when he decides that the Gods’ story must be defied, and the RiftMaker used.  I’m still working out how this will all play out, and what the various alternate realities will look like and do to our heroes, but things feel like they’re coming together.  I think.

Geoglyphs

Monday, June 8th, 2009

There’s something about enormous, ancient drawings etched into the surface of the earth that give me a wonderfully goose-bumpy eerie feeling.  I wish I had seen the Nazca lines when I was in Peru, but that didn’t happen.  I guess I’ll just have to watch YouTube videos about geoglyphs instead.  Probably better anyway, since you can’t really see the glyphs from the ground.  The “Atacama Giant” in Chile is probably the creepiest, although the Cerne Abbas giant in England gets my vote for the silliest (also - probably not ancient).