Timewaster's Guide Archive

It's Urban Fantasy month over at http://realitybypass.blog.com (My blog.  Heh. Shameless plugging here.) So we have author interviews up every Monday and Friday.  Thus far we've seen interviews from Anton Strout author of Dead to Me, and Jackie Kessler author of the Hell on Earth series.  Come on over and see who else crawls out of the woodwork. 

~J

I remember reading these some time ago, and then stumbled on my print out again the other day and thought they were well worth the share:

Kurt Vonnegut

Eight rules for writing fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

Found this this morning on a friend's site and had to share:

http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2006/11/interview-with-amanda-fitchindie-rpg.html

This is rather cool.  I played Aveyond and enjoyed it very much.  Enough so that I'm working with RPG Maker after listening to some of her efforts and successes.  She's been the top selling game on several portals as well as from her own site.

Well worth the read!  Especially for aspiring game designers.

~J

hell reserved for people that decide to run LOUD yard machinery at 6 in the morning on a Friday!  Yes...my neighbor is trying to make us all hate him.  Usually he waits to pull this crap at about 7 on a Saturday, but today he got up extra early just to till his yard.  And, since I am mean, I called the police.  Yes, that's me...the fussy single woman who wants to sleep until her alarm goes off at 7, thank you very much.  Being scared out of bed by the sound of attacking rototillers is NOT my idea of a way to start a Friday!

Grump.

~J

Currently there are some personal differences that are affecting the forum and the TWG site.  I am not going to comment on those, but feel strongly about speaking up for the site.

The lead in for the new article on the TWG page is inappropriate and embarassing.  I just got a call from a friend that I had sent to the site - I link here from my blog as do others - today wanting to know if I was pulling their leg about this being a serious and professional site.  The article itself is fine, thematically, but very difficult to read because of errors and formatting.  I know Spriggan doesn't proof, but someone needs to. The errors are bad enough that I stopped reading at about the half way point.  The link to the forum that should be at the bottom is also missing.

I'm going to beg, for the sake of the site, that nothing be put up until these differences have a chance to be dealt with in private.  TWG is a professional site and I, for one, really don't want to see it fall apart.  Many of us have come to love it here and to appreciate the people we interact with, and I'd hate to lose that.

~J

http://www.rampantgames.com

This the website link for a few indie games from local game developers.  The main owner of the site is a friend of mine who has been poking at me to actually try playing his games instead of just commenting on how pretty they were and retreating to go gab with his wife.  Sooo...I downloaded the demo of Void War, and discovered that it was, indeed, fun.  I'm not a huge flight sim or space flying fan, but I had a good time rocketing around and blowing up the other ships, and myself at least once.  I even managed a few rounds with a laptop mouse because my other mouse took a break...I think it's dying.

Outpost Kaloki, found on the same site, was another download that I spent my 60 minutes on and found hysterical.  Simming style game, but with a fairly simple tech tree and a theme that is simple enough that it's a good one to start kids with and amusing for adults too.  The happy princess was just a little too sacrine and I stopped clicking on her, cause I couldn't take the giggling.  My nieces, however, thought she was hysterical.  No more playing games when they're visiting, though it was a good distraction for them.

So there's my random experience in game demos this week.  Both of these games won awards in 2004 and I can see why. The game play for both is straight forward, entirely different from each other as they come from different designers and have different goals, but engaging.  It didn't take long to learn controls and by the time I'd finished the demos I felt confident...enough so that I may have to consider full downloads to try the multiplayer mode.  Heh...or maybe I'll volunteer to do a review and see if they'll let me download the full versions for cheaper.  

~J

Rep David Hogue, of Riverton, has successfully taken a bill (HB257) through the Utah House that would make the knowing distribution of video games with violent content to a minor a third-degree felony.  This is the same punishment as for distribution of porn to a minor.

Some of the problems with this little bill is that the definition of violent content is very broad and can be interpreted under any of the following:

* is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors;
* taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors;
* is glamorized or gratuitous;
* is graphic violence used to shock or stimulate;
* is graphic violence that is not contextually relevant to the material;
* is so pervasive that it serves as the thread holding the plot of the material together;
* trivializes the serious nature of realistic violence;
* does not demonstrate the consequences or effects of realistic violence;
* uses brutal weapons designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain and damage;
* endorses or glorifies torture or excessive weaponry or . .
* depicts lead characters who resort to violence freely.

Under those rules MOST games could be defined as being violent, and anyone hosting such games on their webserver, or in a store where it might be purchased by someone and shown to a minor can be prosecuted as well as parents that allow such viewing.  Add to this that the basis of the bill is that video game violence leads to violent children, a fact that has still NOT been proven in any reputable study, and you have a unique situation.

I'm not saying that kids should be exposed to highly violent games.  I do NOT think that's healthy for them.  Then again I don't think it's healthy for adults either, but that it is a personal choice and should be left to the adult in question.  As far as the kids, where are the parents?  They should be monitoring what their children are playing and being a part of their lives, not leaving it to the government to mandate what can or cannot be purchased or played.  With such broad interpretations in the nature of violence one could be arrested for letting your kids play "Mario Brothers".  After all...someone has to stand up for those smushed mushroom guys.  Right?

~J

This game for the PS2 is quickly winning a lot of acclaim and it fully deserves it.  The interface is a smallish bass guitar with a toggle switch to keep track of the strumming, a whammy bar and five keys on the fret board for note selection and chording.  The music that is used is classic rock, and the game just all around fun.  The easy level is easy enough that some of my nieces and nephews were playing and doing well.  The Hard levels are a good challenge even for the musically inclined that think they can blow it away with one try.  Definately worth the play.

~J