Thursday, September 24, 2009

Sammy Davis City

Guitar Slinger was Brian Setzer's best album with the Orchestra... seriously. No, seriously, go listen to it sometime, it was the perfect balance between old rock / country, modern rockabilly, and big band. Uh.. anyway...

I'm hoping to bring a new era to David's Video Game Insanity today. I actually beat a game over this past week. Then today I sat down and wrote a review of it. And, well, it was pretty damn smooth. I actually enjoyed doing it. This is a pretty big change over how it's been over the past two years, especially this past year. I don't know when it began but playing games started to take a back seat to writing about them, and then I got to the point where I really didn't want to do either. That's pretty damn sad. I also wrote an editorial over at DVGI today that explains how I think this came to be. The important thing is that I think it's no longer an issue. I also got in touch with Retrogaming Times Monthly and let them know what was up, that once again I'd be missing an issue but in November I should be back full force. That was a nice feeling as well. If you're super interested I suggest reading the editorial, it puts it better than I can put it down again.

In other news, I'll have a Vectrex home arcade system heading my way next week. A great little piece of early 1980's technology. Once it's in my hands (or on my table I should say) I'd love to do some solid reviews, since there really aren't a lot out there.

Monday, September 14, 2009

I Begin Video Game Development Once Again Today

After many, many, many false starts over the past ten or so years, I'm finally getting back into game design. This time I'm going to do most of it myself and the outsource a little talent here and there for the things I know I flat out can't do (illustration for example). Originally I planned on having a team of at least five people work on the project but after sitting down and looking over how it all works, I think I can do most all of it on my own. Which is great, because with the history I've had on projects like this, even one other person not totally committed tends to kill the whole smash.

As Pedro Cerrano said in Major League:

I stick it up for you Jobu. You no help me now...I say fuck you Jobu. I do it myself.

I don't want to release too many details but the game is a visual novel. It will not be hentai based nor a dating sim, just a straight visual novel with branching aspects. Actually, I think it'll be something that a lot of people can relate to, especially those that play these type of games. I hope to have something of a proof of concept internal demo wrapped up in about three weeks. I said internal, that's because it will not be released to the public, instead it will be used to possibly bring a couple other select individuals on board. I know I can do all but the character graphics on my own, as well as most of the writing, scenario design, game design, character design, and all of the Foley work. Character design and music are the only places I really need look elsewhere and I have my music person in mind already. A lot of the basic framework will be set up this weekend and into next week. Although most say to start small, I'm aiming for this to be at least a 2-3 hour game when it's all said and done.

Wish me luck.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Updates

Considering that for the past couple years I've been the only person posting in a general topic blog myself and a couple friends once used, I figured I'd instead put those thoughts here. Granted I do eventually hope to change a few things around and get Zeroeleven.blog back to something of how it once was. A big problem with me posting and writing stuff online lately is that I really don't enjoy using the computer I currently have. I miss my old rig that didn't survive moving a little over a year ago. While the computer I've been using since is quite decent, I'm once again in the technology rut. Although the previous computer was old, it still never held me back from running the applications that I wanted to. This one is different. Same goes with the frequent lockups. Although it's faster, it's simply not as stable. Because of this I'm in the market for a replacement and have begun socking a little cash away every now and then.

Now the reason for posting this. As some may notice, the title of this blog has changed a little. Going forward all my general postings will appear here rather than at Z11 until I get Z11 back to how it was. I usually post about things I just enjoy in general. Most are still industry or tech related so they should fit in fine here.