Kusanagi wrote:Seriously though, I love Jack and Jill, it is like the flip side to Rick and Silvia, that much darker and more desperate without going overboard. That oh so awesome spot that DTF resides, and that I try to (miserably) maintain, that spot between the cliche gentle and rampage. Course I'm just speaking from my own bias, but the hell with it, more Jack and Jill please!
Agree.

Purely "gentle" or "rampage" stories are pretty boring . . . I for one really don't care much for the latter at all (with a few exceptions), and the former can be pretty limited too, though I'd probably take that of the two. (DrKarl's "Visitor" series really tended towards that end, but was still pretty interesting . . . same for PoetVirgil's Online, though those are very different stories overall)
For the story to be interesting, even with the "gentle" sort of character scenario in this genre, there still has to be some level of danger or risk in the interaction itself to really make it interest (at least with those elements present in certain parts of the story). You can (and should) have other conflicts as well, but having those elements of awe and danger/risk (as subtle as they may be at times) in the character interaction itself is kind of the core within the extreme size-difference premise in general IMO. -And you can even have situations where that interaction is almost entirely innocent and playful, but still have undertones (possibly subconscious) of the physical dangers of interaction at such scales.
More recently I seriously started thinking about this and what really drives the interest behind this (in general and for me personally), and what specific scenarios or specific elements within those really pull me into the interest in general. Some of the realization behind that is what contributed to some new interest in developing my own story ideas and to finally reading Arilin's "Dark Romance" essay on the topic.
The actual character conflicts of the gray areas between pure "good" or "evil," "hero" or "villan," etc, is something that goes WAY beyond the context of this set of sub-genres of ours, and this is something that certainly could be applied on top of the above comments, but also in general.
I just like more complex characters as such, and even if you want to have a really super nasty character that the reader loves to hate, it's always interesting to me if there's some sort of compromising feature thrown in that contradicts this to a subtle extent, and gains him/her/it some small degree of sympathy from the audience. (likely more so for some people than others experiencing the story)
It's kind of like comparing the story structure of Greek comedy/tragedy to Shakespearean comedy/tragedy and more modern great works. This comparison doesn't work so much on the character end of things, since there were some more complex (not black and white) characters in the Greek plays, but I mean to draw an analogy between the sort of black and white simplified character structures and the "pure" comedy/tragedy of ancient Greek plays vs the greater mixture of story elements in the likes of Shakespeare's works. (in the end, still being real tragedies or comedies, but with a mixture of other elements in all cases as well)
There's probably a better comparison than that, but this one jumped to mind. :p
arbon wrote:Haha, I got a mention as well. It’s a good thing this particular story is over, because the discussion is quite literally all over the place. I mean, Jeez Koolkitty, I haven’t found any actual works from you yet, but by the time you actually get around to writing and posting something I’m willing to bet it will be lengthy and it will take inspiration from /everything/.
I wouldn't be discussing like this if this story wasn't finished already . . . which is a point I specifically mentioned earlier too.

TBH, I regret not putting up that separate discussion thread for Jack and Jill earlier . . . the original thread ended up kind of messy because of that.
As for my own work . . . I don't have a huge enthusiasm for writing with any sort of consistency, with the exception of discussions on various topics of interest. (which I easily go overboard on :p . . . and I've done that a LOT more on some other forums than I have here; I'm a huge nut for hypothetical discussions on a number of topics . . . from fantasy to philosophy, technology, history, entertainment, etc . . . but especially the meshing of technology and history -"what if" scenarios if you will; speculative fiction is awesome

)
That said, I do have a few story ideas I've gradually been working on for a while, but they haven't gone much in the way of actual story, and a lot more in general concept/premise and setting (and basic development of a couple characters).
If I had the genuine urge to start pouring out page after page of story, I'd definitely do that, but as it is, it's mostly been me occasionally musing on the topic and then making notes for it. (for a long time it was nothing but mental notes . . . I think the initial story ideas started materializing in early 2010, then I lost interest for a while, and I finally started typing out notes and details at the tail end of last year)
And it may seem even stranger, but I didn't even really consider blending in some of my personal favorite interests into the scenario until pretty recently. (the historical thing was there from early on though . . . setting up a backstory for the setting and having the main character reflecting on some of that was the only "meat" I had to it early-on) I'll stop there though as I'll ramble even more if I don't.
Honestly, I was cautious about mentioning having a story idea in general for a while . . . not so much self-conscious, but I didn't want to get expectations up for something that may or may not happen anytime soon (or ever). The first time I mentioned it on here I think was early 2011 and I coupled that with "if I ever get around to writing" to not press the issue too much.

And I maintain that now too . . . and I'll probably restate that if I do post the first segment of the story too. (I'll probably have more I want to continue, but when/if that will happen I probably won't commit to :p )
And from that perspective, I totally understand why there's long-neglected stories from some really good writers on here, including some of DTF's works in question.
I also have absolutely no plans to do any sort of creative writing professionally . . . it took me long enough to settle on a computer science major, and I'm happy continuing with forming a career somewhere in the area of programming/software development/software engineering. (I have a huge set of interests, and it took me long enough to narrow down "some sort of science or engineering field" to that one . . . and I'm still not sure what specific field I really want to aim at :p )
TendoTwo wrote:What I meant was actually their creation, Donkey Kong was originally going to be a Popeye game but Miyamoto couldn't secure the rights so he created Donkey Kong, Pauliene, and "Jumpman" instead.
There's also the whole thing about Donkey Kong being created specifically to repurpose a bunch of existing arcade machines that were running what ended up being a relatively unpopular game. (sort of like Lunar Lander to Asteroids) The name "Mario" itself is, granted, more of a chance event or "accident" as such, from the initial "jumpman" to adopting the name of the Nintendo of America office landlord. (Pauline gaining her name in a similar manner, though she of course wouldn't be re-used as Mario would)
TBH, I think the Success of Donkey Kong in general and that springboarding Myamoto's status within Nintendo had more to do with his ability to push with later prominent characters/game designs in general rather than the name and visual design of Donky Kong's original player character to be extended into later games in general. With the typical art styles being used, it wouldn't be that hard to imagine "Mario" not being implied to be directly carried over to later games and series (Mario Bros in 1983 and then the Super Mario Bros franchise itself manifesting in the late 1980s). In fact, they largely retconned what little identity and backstory "Mario" had in the Donkey Kong days when moving on to Mario Bros. (aside from the name . . . and the fact he was faced with a challenge involving platforms and jumping around obstacles/monsters)
But in general, when deciding to re-use the basic identity/design of a character (even if only in name, basic appearance, and general actions associated therein), developing further complexity and even shifting directions to well beyond what was ever depicted or implied in the original work (or early concept phases of a single work) is pretty much inevitable. The other option would be to not re-use that character at all (or as often), and design new characters and/or series to fit to that game/story/whatever.
In fact, I know some gamers and gaming history fans who are rather critical about the state of excessively long running series and sequels compared to the innovation of fresh or new designs apart from that -personally, I don't agree with that and think that the two things are neither mutually exclusive nor bound to be "better" in any given instance. (there's a lot more factors that come into play more in terms of making a game and/or story good or even great; the fact that sequels to an established IP make marketing easier is certainly a big win for the management/marketing end of things, so as long as a game actually fits the style/quality of a series well enough not to actually hurt PR, that makes a lot of sense too IMO)
Plus, some people like to blame problems with game design or story (including non-games) to "forcing" a design as a sequel/spinoff rather than an original game. (I just touched on that with Star Fox adventures earlier, and again, I think that was screwed up because of the
way they went about modifying it rather than the issue of converting Dinosaur Planet into a Star Fox spin-off in general . . . the only common complaint -unrelated to game design or story quality- would be it "not being a Star Fox game" in gameplay/design, but that's no different than complaining about the RPGs in the Mario franchise)
Sonic was originally about a rabbit that grabbed objects with it's ears.
Sonic wasn't anywhere near that straightforward AFIK . . . in fact, the rabbit thing wasn't even remotely close to the main character design being considered. (there were a bunch, and one of the few that came close to the level where Sonic was chosen was the Teddy Roosevelt-like caricature which was later reworked into Eggman/Robotnik)
And in terms of the game design concept itself (character/story aside), the main concept came from Yuji Naka wanting to have a very fast paced "Mario like" platform game some specific added features that catered to the speed aspect.
And it's funny that you mention the rabbit character concept, since several Sonic inspired games (Quik the Thunder Rabbit and Jazz Jackrabbit) did use that, but perhaps more significantly, the fact that Michael Katz (1990 Sega of America president) along with Sega of America marketing staff became very concerned over the use of a hedgehog as the theme character for what was to be a major release for the Genesis. They felt that using an animal that North American kids wouldn't generally recognize or associate with would make it tougher to market in general (I think he may have even suggested that a rabbit would have made more sense). In the end, of course, they worked around that, and the excellent game design itself combined with the massive amount of advertising put behind Sonic's image in 1991 totally mitigated any possible problems (and internal concerns) related to that in any case.
And Star Fox was originally just a 3D testing app made to see how well the FX chip could perform, that they found fun and made into a full game.
No, just no. Star Fox emerged from years of work with 3D game design from Argonaut programmers (namely Dylan Cuthbert), most notable Starglider and Starglider 2 on 8 and 16-bit home computers. (and brief programming experience with Flare 1 Slipstream hardware intended for the cancelled Konix Multisystem)
There was indeed a rudimentary 3D test demo using software rendering on the base SNES hardware, and Argonaut presented that to Nintendo suggesting that the very limited performance allowed with software rendering could be expanded by a coprocessor of some sort to be included on-cart. (something already being done on the SNES in various forms -like the DSP-1)
Following that, Argonaut and Nintendo formed a partnership over both 3D game design projects (beginning with what later became Star Fox) and Argonaut commissioning Ben Cheese to design the M.A.R.I.O. chip (later renamed Super FX GSU-1). -It's also notable that Argonaut already had experience with Ben Cheese from their time with the Konix Multisystem. (Cheese was one of the 3 engineers who formed Flare Technologies and designed the Slipstream chipset -Cheese designing the DSP -which was the processor used for sound and 3D math)
The more arcadey game design (compared to the freeroam sim style of Starglider) is something Argonaut was already considering trying with a 3rd Starglider entry. In fact, this is something Dylan Cuthbert had already pushed towards with "X" on the Game Boy (Japan only) where he designed the 3D game engine for Nintendo R&D1, and he's stated in interviews that a lot of the design aspects that went into X later contributed to Star Fox. (X was designed after Cuthbert's initial work with the Multisystem in 1989, but before starting work on Star Fox -needless to say, the graphics are significantly more primitive than the 1988 Starglider 2 and more on the level of the 8-bit versions of the original Starglider)
I'm sure Nintendo's game design and programming staff had a lot of input on that as well. I'm pretty sure the story and character design came mostly from Nintendo's Japanese staff, particularly going by the types of story concepts Argonaut was typical of up into the early 90s, but I could be wrong with that assumption. (it's definitely a big departure from the stories of the Starglider games)
The 3D art design and modeling was certainly Argonaut's style though, and Starglider 2 shows that pretty prominently.
In any case, Star Fox was a deliberate game, not a "happy accident" of any sorts, and progressed from years of work preceding it on Argonaut's end. It didn't grow out of a tech demo, but it did become a possibility thanks to Nintendo agreeing to partner with Argonaut and adopt the coprocessor design Argonaut proposed. (I'm not sure when the actual design of the Super FX chip started . . . Argonaut could have been banking on that already and had Cheese working with them before the Nntendo connection was established, but I haven't seen anything on this one way or the other)
Mario, Sonic, and Star Fox were all created by accident and these weren't their original plans, but I think we all agree its better it happened this way.
I'm really going to have to disagree here . . . none of them were really created by accident, and all 3 cases have rather different examples of characters, story, and game design coming together.
I don't disagree that there are many other examples that apply to the sort of outgrowth akin to what DTF did in Nature, but I don't agree with the examples you gave in general.
In fact, the best example that comes to mind, is probably Dark Shadows. That originally started as a gothic drama with a smattering of fairly subtle supernatural elements tossed in, but part way through the first season, things were looking shaky, and with the real possibility of the show not making it beyond the first season, the writers were given some room to go a little crazy with things (might as well have fun with the script and go for some interesting ideas that network executives typically wouldn't allow for a show concept). They upped the supernatural elements starting with ghosts making definitive appearances in a major story arc, followed by a phoenix character in the next story arc, and finally the arrival of the vampire Barnabas Collins early into its second season. Barnabas was only originally intended to be part of a relatively short story arc as well, and had originally been characterized in the typical "cold" villain like Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula. However, Jonathan Frid (playing Barnabas) decided he wanted to put a more complex spin on the character rather than a straight up villain, and he adapted the character to what some refer to as the "reluctant vampire." He retained traces of his human morality and was thus in deep self conflict with what he was, yet was still driven by the instincts and dark nature he had.
What had been intended to be part of a single story arc became the core element and defining character of the series which would go on for another 4 years, and produce a feature film tie-in. (not to mention a re-make series in the 90s and the recent Burton film) Not only that, but it established a sub-genre for supernatural horror which really hadn't been visited before (especially in mainstream mass media).
Not identical to what DTF ended up doing, but closer to the same creative branching I think than your video game examples. (I'm sure there's some good examples in the video game world as well . . . and bad examples as well -where the drastic deviation of an earlier/smaller/simpler idea or complete story/design gets distorted into a mess)
I know the humans didn't consider them part of the same society, but didn't the cousil view them as the same race? A Sturkor was about to forcibly sign up all of humanity with the Thak when Grady intervened after all.
Yes, I was just contrasting exactly how far off it was to catigorize them as such given the overall situation.
And BTW, I have never played Wing Commander, so all those references are really going over my head
I still need to play most of them myself, but I've read enough about them to know the basic premises and the game's universe in general. . . . and I think those comments may have ended up being more generalized than direct responses to you. (DTF should certainly have a better idea of what I'm talking about . . . though some of those references are rather subtle as well, and embedded in relatively brief story elements in some cases -like the "other races" involved that were mentioned at some point in Wing Commander 2 or expansions to that game iirc -some bird like race in particular)
I was also speaking in general about story design, and particularly the complexity of the political/social dynamics (as well as individual character interaction) in DTF's Nature and Patron's War universe. It's just really cool.

Well, that's understandable, a single guy more or less who really held no political or bureaucratic power just signed up the entire human race as allies with a giant alien race that is at war with another, and the Lyth although saving humanity in the end did still cause trouble for them while fighting the Thak. Not to mention the Thak just cared about the strategic location of the planet they invaded, not humanity itself, except that now they do since they are Lyth allies.
IIRC, the Thak were most interested in terran territories (including the planet they attacked) due to the "True Homeworld" thing. There was specific mention among the Thak in "Nature" of some artifact they were searching for which would lead them to the Homeworld. (which is implied to be Earth, of course)
I forget how the Lyth responded to the whole "search for the True Homeworld" thing, but I know the Thak and Vylpurans were more intimately interested in it.
In fact, I'm not sure the Thak interests in humanity (and the colony they initially invated) had become clear to the humans or Lyth in Patron's War. (I don't remember much mention of the True Homeworld at all at that point, but I'll have to re-read it to be sure . . . it was obviously a significant underlying plot element in any case, and that had already been established in Nature)
Well the thing about Rick and Silvia is that it has a persistent world rather than an ongoing plot, its essentially a series rather than a single story being told from start to end, so even if major character gets added or removed, or a large shift happens, it can just keep going forever really.
That's true about the worlds DTF has created for several stories too, including Nature. The difference is that Patron's War has a big gap left open for a story to be completed or continued already. Then again, those two things aren't mutually exclusive . . . he could branch out to stories in that universe without ever tying them into the main plot. (be it events taking place at the same time, or ones that occur after the end of the war or before the formal meeting of Thak/Lyth/etc with humanity)
Hell, Ginbug has done just that with the universe in the Nova Force series (or the "Ginverse" has he calls that :p )
Heh, its funny how I still haven't gotten around to stories like First Crack At This while you keep mtneioning it and you haven't gotten around to kusanagi's older stories while I have.
OTOH, I was following First Crack at This from the beginning . . . and I've been keeping up with The City's a Stage for pretty much the same reason. DTF's stories are the only ongoing stories/series that I've jumped into, caught up with, and continued following on here, let alone ones that pre-existed my joining the site . . . or me starting to consistently watch this site in 2008)
Then again when I see several stories I like by the same writer I tend to just do a mass-search on what threads that writer has started in both the current and archived story forums. Really hoping F Project and Acting gets continued, Connections seems very very unlikely. (Frontlines and it's sequel F Project are kinda similar to Nature except the role of advanced race/first contact is kinda reversed, but with a slightly more limited scope).
That's how I found DTF's stuff . . . happened upon Nature first and then searched for the rest. (kind of ironic that I found pretty much the best one first, and did so in the results a pretty random/unrelated search -so really by accident)