Thought

8/6/08
I muse about what a relaunch of the Double Dragon games would be like here.

6/27/08
I've been busying myself working on a "novelization" based on one of my more infamous screen names. It's been through a couple of incarnations so far:

I initially tried to do it as an audio drama only to learn that my voice would not work well portraying a variety of characters.

I tried to do it as a comic strip, except my lack of skill at sequential art reared its ugly head. As much as I would have loved to have been a comic artist (save for the bad pay) I simply can't draw characters consistently enough to sustain panel-by-panel work. Additionally, I lack a real sense of orientation. To keep a comic interesting, you have to draw the characters from different angles; approach it like a director does a movie or television show. I'm just not that creative when it comes to "camera angles."
I've written a good chunk of the start of the story but I still want to incorporate some art into the work. Which of course opens up the issue of character design and art style. Should I do something realistic looking? Anime-like? Early American Cartoon style?
Anyway, below are some preliminary sketches I've been mulling over for several months. I've recently hit on a set of designs I like and will proceed with the illustrations.

This story's pacing is different from work like my Sonic the Hedgehog fanfictions, which averaged ten pages each chapter. With this, each chapter will only be about one page long and have a corresponding illustration. This is similar to the Japanese "light novels," which are often used for novelizations based on anime and manga and are largely text with occasional illustrations.

4/14/08
In video games, if watching "storylines" that require you stare at the screen for hours on end as the characters gyrate, emote, and converse without your input is your idea of "progress" then you really ought to stop playing video games. Go watch a movie or read a book. Video games are meant to be played. Time wasted learning about some character's motivation could have been productively spent actually playing the game instead.

A downer ending in a movie does not make the movie profound, well-written, or daring. Liking a downer ending for no reason other than it being a downer ending does not make you an intellectual. Even worse if you mindlessly like a downer ending that defies the internal logic of the rest of the film or defies logic in general and is a downer ending for no reason other than to give the appearance of being profound, well-written, or daring. And it makes the person who likes that ending a proven imbecile.

Just because something is written for children doesn't mean the standards of writing should be lowered; it still needs a coherent plot and consistent characterization.