Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Wasteland

CZK takes place in New Mexico. I've done a bunch of games set in Colorado, but I think the tally to this point is:

Colorado: 3
Boston: 1
New York City: 1
Phobos: 1
Las Vegas: 1

I can safely say that if I do a sequel to A Crimson Spring, it won't be based in New York City, which is the one area of the planet I dislike more than any other (almost solely due to NYC sports fans, the most ignorant yet arrogant subsection of people on the face of the planet). I think you can write an effective game if you loathe the setting due to intense personal experiences, like if you lived there. Otherwise it's a pretty short game:

In a world where people with the worst accent on the planet believe that Chien-Ming Wang is a better pitcher than Roy Halladay, someone is picking off citizens ... with a sniper.

Johnny Hollywood: "..."
Holy Avenger: "..."
The Wonder Twin Jayna: "Form of, crickets!"
Jayna: "..."

See? There's no reason to tackle the plot. You'd hit "z" a zillion times to let the deaths pile up. Sort of how like you've only won in Circus Atari when you've killed five of those flailing speds intentionally.

But yeah, the new one is in New Mexico, a state I've had good experiences in. We're taking a trip to Vegas and then, on the return side, we're going to see some of Utah. While I have taken photographs for CZK in New Mexico proper, running around the wasteland is close enough for my purposes. So the trip becomes one where I can get some additional material. We are living in a world where "Rumble in the Bronx" was shot in Vancouver, so I think I'm in the clear if I use a dusty side street in Nevada instead of Pueblo, in other words.

This all leads to a greater point, which is that the creation of these games does take up almost every facet of my life. I'm going to try to make a couple arcade-style games after CZK, but for all I know I'll feel dead inside like I normally do after finishing a text game, in that time slice where the next game isn't defined or conceived.

But man, would it be fun to get a joystick-controlled game done. The only reason I hesitate is because the first one will be a learning exercise and probably crap. Ah well, it will be free and there's no archive of arcade games that will let it be downloaded for years to come, so it will work out OK.