(NO ONE ROCKS HARDER THAN THE MOODY BLUES WHEN THEY'RE SINGIN' 'BOUT HAVING A CIVIL CONVERSATION)

Yesterday, I decided I would spend less time blathering nothings into the wind, and endeavor to write more story into the actual game.

And my first inclination for today is to go back on that promise. I want to blather about the gamedev that needs doing, how story needs to be on the back burner as I focus 100% on setting up the scene so I can finally get to the meat and potatoes of making this project worth playing.

It's a good place to be in, the game is becoming good, it's great that these systems are calling 100% of my attention as they come online. But with all my bitching and moaning about things not working out, I feel compelled to honor the promise of yesterday so before I dive into the project and wrestle with level design and a myriad of play systems I'll do a bit of dialogue writing and maybe we can

Prior to posting this i was googling "most famous video game intros/ dialogues" and none of it really helped. So I was going to default to some simple Dr. Suess rhymes for inspiration, but it just struck me that i'd just watched the first episode of one piece! And I had a great time with it and it struck me how simple it was, but still very heartfelt and fun. So I think i'll be using that as inspiration. It doesn't have to be rhythmic or wordy and scare people away by making them think the game is going to be filled with pretentious rhymes and obtuse verses.

So today I'll just be revamping the opening dialogue. Normally I just write it right in the engine which is actually really buggy and has no spell check so it'll be nice to compose it here and I can just paste it in.

Alright, so the vibe I want to go for is super chipper and fun, with a tinge of danger and intrigue. I don't want to scare the player away with over the top pirate flavor, or Dr. Suess rhymes, but I do want that hit of "ohhh that ryhmed!" here and there to really elevate key lines. So these are the thoughts that i'll use as a framework to revamp this dialogue. This is the first fish you'll talk to so i'll probably come back and revise this dialogue over time, but you gotta start somewhere.

The current dialogue:

Panel 1: A Lightbringer fish!? Here in the shimmering shallows!

Panel 2: Why I never thought I'd see such a thing!

Panel 3: Folk's lore say ye only show in times of great peril!

Panel 4: Everything be right as rainbow here in the shallow!

Goodbye panel (can't be long lasts just a few seconds): Hmmmm....

Thoughts: It's serviceable, has the intrigue, but doesn't really jump at you or feel very welcoming. Also doesn't really have any pizzaz to it. It's a bit "piratey", but nothing really clever. So let's try to revise it a bit without dragging on too much.  Going to try to take inspiration from the great Robin William's Hook movie, always loved this scene:

"Have to fly, have to fight, have to crow, have to save wendy, have to save jack... HOOK IS BACK!" Short, simple, tense, and memorable, instills the protagonist with a sense of purpose and sets them against the evil. And it rhymes! 

This is the first line of dialogue from Pokemon: Welcome to the world of pokémon! My name is Oak! People call me the pokémon Prof! This world is inhabited by creatures called pokémon! I was never big on pokemon, but I like how simple and to the point this all is. I need to remind myself not to go overboard, these are just lines of dialogue in a silly video games, people aren't coming here for verses and rhymes like a Dr. Suess book, just gotta add a bit of dialgoue and get to the gameplay.

Panel 1:  Who be spyin' SeaCrit cove!? Aye be Capin' Bottleneck. Eye be temperin' our tempers here in the shallows and eye don't much Appreciate outside meddlin'! Who be ye that catch me eye?! A thief!? A traitor who dare drop anchor 'midst me splend'r!?

(need to give bottleneck a necklace of booze and a cranky voice)

Panel 2:   There be somethin' peculiar about you... and t'ain't just yer bein' fool and hearty... This glimmer, this spark... "Quick as a dart that cuts into dark"... **Captain Bottleneck's face fades white**

Panel 3:  Lightbringer! Of all shores you crest here... I wonder, know you your name? Know you yer purpose? Leviathan's help us.

Panel 4:  **BOTTLENECK SMACKS HIMSELF ACROSS THE FACE** HAVE I FALLEN TO SEABED!? Mayhaps I've RUM inated too much again! Get yer bloomin' light out of my sight! Cast to the depths and don't come back! Sea you later mack!

Goodbye panel (can't be long lasts just a few seconds): The dawn of the Krack... The deep ones are back...

In the future we'll do some more in depth writing with deeper world building, for now just wanted to start developing a process and building the habit. I'm sure i'll miss blathering here about stupid crap, so i'll just do that too!

Next blog we'll revamp the "Excavasioner" which is also right at the start and get introspective about death and rebirth, while trying to keep the jokes about spawning entact. We'll also work to make these first lines a bit more endearing, I want the player to feel intrigue but also a sense of "hey you're welcome here, have some fun" as well.

EDIT: Quick tangent. Never thought i'd be doing this, but I think i'll be doing some world building soon! I never saw myself as a creative writer, that I would be coming up with races of people like elves, and dwarves, but fishy incarnations of people. I've already kinda been doing it, I have this idea of a town for the denizens who just want to "surf" the waves and enjoy their lives, but they're going to be a bit on the lazy side, living in a shanty town. You'll have the pirates which are already well established as crazed plunderer drunks. I've also got "the fallen ones" i have spent literally 0 time coming up for names of things right now. Fallen soldiers from the old empires, souls trapped within their cold armor, sort of transormed into evil instruments of death, unfealing. I'll probably create the freed spirits of these fish and they'll be their old selves and speak of the ancient days. How society crumbled.

I'm going to try to keep things in shades of grey, One Piece had a great direct message, "Just like there are good and bad pirates, so to there must be good and bad marines." Such a great, simple take. I'm going to try to keep it simple. But maybe i'll have deeper more excessive rambles i'll hide deep in the dark recesses of the game where I can really blather some blathers as I've done here. Maybe i'll ever find some old posts and repurpose them. There's gotta be a way I can translate some of these posts into a fishy realm, the struggle is the same through all of time. We are all trying to survive in our own way through the tribalism, the corruptions, and the chaos. We all struggle to find meaning and success in our lives and we all struggle with the ramifications of our actions, and posture to be the good guys, blind to the evils we sew along the way.

Anyway, much to do before we can get to these tertiary stories. My focus is not changing as nice as it would be to just do some creative writing. Gearing up to switch gears in a minute and put the axe to the grind. Today we will be be trying to create a key battle area that will sit right at the start of the demo, so this will be the first bit of gameplay the player experiences. Going to try to fill it with lots of well tuned enemies and interesting scenery that fits the enemies that spawn in each region of the area, and tune spawning such that it's a mini game in itself to swim about and fight the enemies to maximize loots and powerup drops.

Oi! Too much to do! I gotta stop myself thinking of it all or before long it starts to feel unsurmountable, to say nothing of this increasingly stupid world... Oh well!

Edit; Work went really well today I think. Nothing major, and didn't get too many hours in... but everything really felt like it was coming together. No big nasty bugs pop up these days, everything gets a bit more fun every day. Really just feels we're on course to this sucker being fun in the near future. Just gotta get a few more zones in place, and tun up the combat a bit. Also dawned on me I haven't had any terrible episodes where I felt like I was going to die in over 2 weeks, so really just content to feel normal of late, just stressing the game and not my health so much. Hope I'm not jinxing it by posting this!

I think a few more decent days and I will have a preliminary demo, not a great one, but one that reaches the point where it's better to have a little feedback than not, and that's a big milestone! Who knows, maybe we start turning heads soon...