February Snatches Days Again

Another year,  another February,  another short month with days snatch away from me once again.

We trudge on,  some progress being made,  a little progress over there,  a new concept here.

April brings about the return of Script Frenzy,  a month long run at 50,000 words,  which this year will not include a D6 storyline,  I’m taking a different approach to that month on another project.

Still we persist here,  slowly,  crawling along.  I myself will admit that I have opened the D6 file once,  maybe twice,  since the beginning of the year.  A downturn in the economy has seen an upturn in the number of hours I do elsewhere.  Like all good part time game developers,  we slog on.

Even when the month sucks somewhere between three and four days opportunity away from us.

MMX

T’is a New Year,  but you won’t find me wishing anyone happiness.

Nope,  this year,  it’s about profit.

Well,  not all profit,  but let’s face it,  with profit comes happiness,  so let’s just skip right over the to the important one.

Deep Six is our child,  our slow developing child,  and,  far slower than either East or I imagined.  But,  it is still developing,  as we slug it out developing our game.  When the Iron Wolves server went down September 3, 2001,  I was there, and when the Deep Six server rises,  I will be there.

Welcome to MMX.

Is there a doctor in the house?

You know what’s the easiest way to strike down any writer?

(You in the back,  it is NOT to divorce him.)

Th easiest way to strike down any writer is to infect him with something,  a little on the crippling side without the necessity of hospitalization,  but enough to take him right out of the income earning loop.  Give him the symptons of swine flu but call it a seasonal cold and not only does he get no income,  he also gets no sympathy.

(Yes I know,  divorcing him does produce the same results.)

I flipped out a week or so ago with a fever and spent the last seven days in bed.  Now whilst I am the first to support the notion of the afternoon siesta,  there comes a part,  usually about 10 minutes after the arrival of bedsores,  that I discover being in bed is no fun.

(Yes I know,  there are women who will say that about me too.)

After feeding the fever and starving the cold in the same week I have discovered a tooth growing up through the bottom of my jaw,  that’s not supposed to be there.

(Yes,  it is a tooth,  no,  you may not knock it out.)

After dropping a week of no income I’m now facing another week of no income and potentially,  no food.

(Yes I can see that extra weight around me.)

Back to back weeks off writing,  right in the middle of National Novel Writing Month?

(Yes,  it is that important.)

I’ll be tending to the laptop from under the covers of the doona this weekend,  forward all my email to the tooth fairy for perusal.

There will be a visiting doctor in a Deep Six story,  I haven’t justified his existence on the island as yet.

D6 is SF?

As a child,  the arrival of the film Star Wars brought a whole new definition to the books I was reading.  In the 1970′s,  there was an explosion in a reading genre,  I believe in part fueled by the space race of the 1960′s.  The genre was not new,  H.G. Well’s and Jules Verne had been writing in the style for years,  but until it had a name,  not even Issac Asimov’s contribution helped me to identify what would later be called,  science fiction.

Fast forward a few years and the child of the 70′s is now writing for a small gaming studio.  Like all writers,  there is a craft to be learned,  an apprenticeship that must be earner, and re earned,  as the skill is developed.  From the start,  the Deep Six game was formulated on the back story that sometime in the recent past,  a war had ended, and the island community had experienced a period of great influx.  With that influx however,  came conflicting emotions,   greed,  power,  and courtesy of a real life experience,  infidelity.  All the great starting points for any story.

By chance,  I picked up Orson Scott Card’s book “How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Inside the first chapter,  there was my explanation as to why the technology in Wells ‘War of the Worlds’ was more appealing then Verne’s ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea’.  What I didn’t expect to find in the book though was a definition of science fiction,  which included our work here at Deep Six.

Card’s definition of SF (science fiction) includes all stories set in the historical past which contradict known facts of history.  Our first publication,  Enigma:  Rising Tide is a great example,  but is the “lite” version of naval combat in the Deep Six world able to fit the equation?  Indeed it does,  because the fundamental premise of the idyllic lifestyle is this south Pacific archipelago,  which as satellite photographs will substantiate,  doesn’t exist.  Therefor,  it contradicts a law of nature,  and must be SF.

And before my eyes,  I suddenly found myself as a SF writer,  alongside the names of both film and text that created the pieces I had devoured as a child,  and carried with me into a writing career.  In that split second,  I saw myself standing on the podium rubbing shoulders with Douglas Adams,  George Lucas and to a lesser extent,  Steven Spielberg.  I suddenly had a label,  and Deep Six,  made so much more sence.

I have yet to work out why standing on the podium alongside us is Alfred Hitchcock,  but I figure,  he could just be making a cameo in one of my Deep Six SF mysteries.

National Novel Writing Month

I was laying in bed taking my (second) afternoon nap,  my thoughts were wandering to the cool evenings and the sunset when the lights in Las Vegas come on,  when I suddenly bolted up and realised,  I don’t have a damm storyline line for National Novel Writing Month.

November has become a frantic 30 day rush to pound out a 50,000 word novel.  No rewrites,  no addendum,  just brutal typing (and maybe a spell check pass through) for the entire month,  you can edit in December.  The principal behind the rush is get the words down,  and you’ll be less likely to procrastinate via editing.

My first foray was an adventure within itself,  the urge not to go back and correct was almost a hindrance.  Year two I was a more in tune with the mindset,  but not as in tune with preparation and consequently,  limped my way through the month until bolting streaking home with three days to spare.  This year,  I’m less then 20 days out and have nothing prepared,  nothing fleshed out,  not even a single new idea.

I dove into the memo books that I have and quickly found something that has for me,  become more pronounced in recent months.  While not a Deep Six storyline within itself,  rest assure that this storyline is most definitely a part of the Central Isles protagonist that we have developed for the game.  Only the names have been changed to protect those who did wrong – and you already know who they are.

From Simple Text, Monsters Are Born

Before World of Warcraft,  there was Dungeons and Dragons, a text based game in which the Dungeon Master described the world in which your story unfolded.

Before the multitude of RPG you see on the shelves,  there was Zork,  a basic text driven games in which the player moved through an environment on a mission or campaign.

In the basics of technology arose two monsters of commercial success,  both born from a principle of gaming:  keep it simple.

The subgaming world has been all beefed up with the recent news that Silent Hunter 5 will soon be available.  Capitalizing on the success of four prior releases,  version 5 is essentially,  the same goal.  Sink ships.

Deep Six will never have the same level of graphics (or capital) that Ubisoft will sink into SH5,  but,  it was never designed that way.  The game was set up as a basic submarine hostility to which we added storyline,  characters,  a history,  motives,  and emotions.  Every structure on the Central Isles has been designed with a purpose,  not just as a backdrop as your character walks down the street,  but as note in a symphony which leads into the next note,  and the one after that,  and when taken as a whole,  presents an image.

Work is about to begin on a new storyline for Deep Six,  inspired by an event elsewhere in the world,  but none the less still close to the heart.  Before a single word is written,  before a title even imagined,  before my lead pencil touches the first sheet (yes I do write them longhand) the back story of the other stories will be taken apart.  The characters and event of a dynamic campaign (which gamers have so long yearned for) will become the starters block from which the first words will be written.

And from simple text,  the monsters are born.  The characters we have shared heart ache with,  the women whom we secretly think about, and the villainous heroes that we cheer for,  hoping, praying,  this one time,  the adventure shared is one of success.

In The Real World

In the real world,  cable news television carries 24/7 coverage of events.  There are radio stations to cater to every taste,  some of them carrying what the young people call “music”  but to anyone else is a culture of denigration of women. The radio reports on the troubled spots of the world,  where people argue over oil,  where children carry weapons,  and where a culture of disagreement exists.

In the real world,  you work hard to for your family,  to watch it regulated away by those whom you have no control over,  and those who take without consideration for who you are,  or what you have done to make it happen.

In the real world there are villains,  hiding behind the facade of corporate names,  waiting to seize all that they can.

And then there is the real world of Deep Six.  Where there is no cable news television,  there is no television at all.  There is one radio station which services the entire community.  If you want the news you tune on the wireless where you can hear the headlines at the top of each hour,  and catch the evening broadcast at 6pm each night.  There are manners towards the ladies of the land,  whether they be rich or poor.   There are no other trouble spots int he world worth reporting,  for their own war continues on the waves around the island home,  and on occasion,  might wash ashore on a high tide.  There are arguments over oil,  but they are never the only arguments or life threatening,  they are about supply but there is little about demand.  Their gas prices do not rise on holidays,  for their lifestyle is a perpetual holiday.  There are no children carrying weapons,  suicide bombers or terrorist activities,  for there is a respect that disagreement does not entitle you to brainwash a child or create a state of fear.  There are rules for engagement,  agreed to both sides,  even when they disagree with the reasoning.  There is no culture of disagreement,  but there is a culture of empathy for your fellow man,  where people recognize there can be a different point of view,  but which they themselves have formed and has not come at the dictatorial command of another.

In the Deep Six world,  you work hard to for your family,  to watch it profit and help those whom you have no control over,  and those who need without consideration for who you are,  or what you have done to make it happen.

In the Deep Six world there are villains,  hiding behind corporate names,  waiting to seize all that they can.

Just makes you wonder why the rest of the world is not unlike the Central Isles,  a place where we don’t all have to be the same,  but where we can all get along.

When Will It be Done?

My friend Drizzt asked me the other day,  “when will it be done?”

Drizzt has some concern,  as others might who depend on us for their income (ex wives excluded) that the effort being put into this may make the results unprofitable.  A fair opinion,  which until the first years profits are made,  might also be valid.

However,  consider this,  how much effort does a father put into raising their child with no knowledge of the outcome?

Drizzt,  a father himself,  understands the “love” that is had for this project by East and I.  We could no sooner turn our backs on this then we could our spouses or children.  (We may on ex’s…depending on which one it is.)  We have fought against greedy selfish vermin who tried to steal our project,  against others who tried to kill the project,  and some who even abandoned the project.  Our perseverance is not that we cannot fail,  but more so,  we don’t care if others think it’s a failure,  we believe so wholely in the project,  we will stand behind it,  as we would our child,  not because we have to,  but because we believe in it.

“When will it be done?”

“When we are done.”

Until then,  “this is the story of three computer game designers,  two in America,  and one in Australia.  And they were each assigned very hazardous other duties.  But I took them away from all that,  and now they work for me.  My name,  is Deep Six.”

The D6 Speakerphone

Poltergeists, Servers, and Floridians

…and just what is it that these three vile items have in common?

You may have noticed a lack of attention on the forums and in the developers log for the past two months. Hell, you wouldn’t have even seen a new member approved on the board. Suffice to say that such inactivity, even for Deep Six, is some what akin to working in an iron lung. But that blood pressure was soaring once East got the bill for the last month with a couple of notations on it for “callout” and “repair”.

Callout? Who was called out, and who did what repair? Let the argumentative telephone calls begin.

It would seem that in late June, unbeknown to the Deep Six crew, poltergeists were having their monthly “who’s life will we upend now” meeting and started a BBQ within the facility that house one of our servers. No surprises, we were one of the damaged sites. However, unlike the Subsim fire, some Floridian forgot to tell us just how much damaged they had done, until of course it came time to put their hand out for the money.

“You want HOW MUCH for a callout?” was the vanquished cry out of Oregon.
“Grrrrrr grrr grrrr” was the snarling jaw of East’s bitch in California, just yanking on the chain to tear them apart.

After much ado (which was really about nothing – not calling us, not warning us, not advising us) the executive decision was made (before the product was lost) to make the leap and salvage what we could. So as far as the Floridian is concerned – Up Yours pal.

It will be a cold day in hell before we hand over another penny, but, we may drive by in our corporate black Range Rovers and run your ass over.

Let This Work

Otherwise there will be beatings.