Tuesday 30 September 2014

SRC - A Novel Sneak Peek 1 [Network]

NOTE: This preview is from an old draft, remaining here for preservation purposes. The current draft preview is available in all of my self-published novels.



[05/04-0085]
Two spacecraft, a Y/26t Galaxy and a G/0ld45 D.O.T., were lined up at the starting line. A place of empty space between two other vessels, in the hangar bay of a dark grey plated capital cruiser. A blinking red light flashed between the two racers. Then suddenly, it flashed green. The two spacecraft sped out of the hangar bay and into the deep black of space.
Outside, the race had entered a small asteroid field with the Y/26t falling behind. The asteroids were a dark reddish-brown, with a few of them drifting lazily around. The G/0ld45 had gained an early lead. Gold in colour, it was shaped like an oblong, with a long, thin rotating turret attached on either side, with two red thunder decals on the sides of the main part of the ‘craft. It flipped and rolled over the asteroids, opening up with speed when the driver thought he could chance it.
The Y/26t Galaxy on the other hand, was taking things at a much slower pace. Dark blue in colour, this ‘craft was also shaped like an oblong, but with a spoiler-like rectangle at the back. The decals on this ‘craft were green with two arrows pointing inward on the spoiler and a green arrow pointing centre front on each side of the cockpit. Instead of the fancy tricks the G/0ld45 was performing, the Y/26t just lumbered along and around the asteroids. An asteroid hit the ‘craft and rocked it. Hard. The shields winked out.
The last of the asteroids blasted past the G/0ld45 and soon it was back around to the beginning of the asteroid field by going the longer way, following the course. Soon the capital cruiser the two racers had started at came back into view.
By this time, the Y/26t was edging closely toward the capital cruiser as well. The finishing point was at the same hangar bay the two spacecraft had started at. Unfortunately, the Y/26t scraped the capital cruiser, and with no shields, disintegrated.
Inside the hangar bay of the capital cruiser, the G/0ld45 D.O.T. came to a gradual stop and landed. Then, weirdly, red words of ‘YOU WON’ flashed on the screen. A faint whine could be heard and all was back to reality.
“Yes!” Tom Hughs shouted, “Another victory for me.”
“Well done,” his friend, Lee Johnson said darkly. “Again.” This was a very faint whisper. But Tom heard it.
“What was that?” Tom said sharply.
“I said great work, and also well done for winning,” Lee replied. Then added in his thoughts for the fifteenth time this year.
The two boys were in a room generally called the games room. This room was plain white, and with good reason. The game the two boys had just been playing, Space Racer, was played on the Virtual Disk. This Virtual Disk could project 3D reality images into a plain coloured room to play games, films, music and video viewing channels.
The two boys however, were a lot more different in appearance. Tom was 15 years old with peachy skin and short, brown hair. Lee was also 15 years old with pale skin and spiky, light brownish red hair. Both boys had light blue eyes and there was only 2 centimetres difference between the two. Tom was 145 centimetres and Lee was 143 centimetres.
“Wouldn’t it be good to actually be in a Space Race Championship?” Lee questioned aloud as he unstrapped himself from the supporting seat he was sat in.
“Suppose it would, yeah,” Tom replied absently.
“Come on. You know you want to,” Lee goaded. He had a light, airy sort of voice.
“How can I if I don’t even have a spacecraft!” Tom almost raised his voice to a shout. “And then there’s the transportation and the training and the mone-”
“Okay. Okay. I was only wondering aloud,” Lee hastily backed down.
Tom doesn’t have to know yet. He can’t know yet.

Saturday 20 September 2014

What I'm Waiting For - Volume 2 [Gaming]

Due to the transition from Weebly to here, and the fact that it has been over a year since I last did one of these, I thought I'd do a recap of what I'd said in my last one, as well as what's transpired since then.

The first game I mentioned I'm waiting for was a new installment of Sonic the Hedgehog. I mentioned the Adventure games, and where 06 and Unleashed fit into them [06 only part Adventure and Unleashed only in name] before giving a bit of an opinion of Colours and Generations. Key quote from the next part was "Through all of that though, the handheld games never faltered".

And in a way, that is still true. Let's go from this point on. Lost World on 3DS was just under what the WiiU version gave us. Some considered it better, others worse. But it was given a review score by most critics of just under what they gave the WiiU version. That was 2013, and Volume 1 of What I'm Waiting For was released before Lost World was even announced. So that would have been way before the announcement of Sonic Boom. The 3DS version of this game is critically recieving a lot more praise than its WiiU brother.

Then we get to Star Wars, where at least one of the things I talked about is happening. Sort of.
LucasArts has been reeshablished as a publisher only, Disney gave EA the license for the more core of Star Wars games, and the only core game annouced so far is Battlefront 2015 [of which we're all faithfully waiting until Spring for more info]. And only Battlefront 2015. No other Star Wars core games have been announced so far, though numerous mobile games have been released [most recent of which being Commander].

Either way, there are two more games I'm covering today. Now, it's easy to just say Smash Bros. 3DS and Fantasy Life and be done with it. Fact of the matter is though, both of those games have already been released in Japan, and both are near to release in the US and Europe. I feel it would be pointless to cover those games, because they fall less under 'what I'm waiting for' and more under 'so close now that they'll soon be in my card slot'.

And so, the first game I'll say I'm waiting for is Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. Our first taste of this came from Super Mario 3D World, in the aptly named Captain Toad levels. We had to guide Captain Toad through an obstacle course, of sorts, to collect five stars. The only thing Captain Toad couldn't do was jump. And now he's back, in a game all by himself. This time, we've got one gold star to collect in each of the levels. But hidden within those levels are three gems to be collected. These are optional though, much like the green stars within 3D World. Collecting them nabs you unlockables, so it pays to go out of your way to get them. When this game was first announced, I was interested, but recent livestreams, especially the Nintendo Treehouse one, have me wanting this game. It's full of charm, as all Mario games are, but has that skill involved in the fact that you cannot jump. Enemies usually dispatched with a thwomp on the head need to be evaded. The level design is also varied, from what has been shown, with a level mostly underwater, a level where you cannot stop, and even the usual haunted house level. Whether there's anything else, like new modes, to be shown for the game yet is unknown, but I'm already waiting to add it to my console's list of owned games.

Now, I'm a fan of Frontier Developments, and they do have a number of games coming soon. Elite: Dangerous being the one with the nearest to a release date. The game I'm waiting for though, has only recently seen it's reveal. Back in June. And at E3.

Screamride. A game about building a theme park with the only goal to create chaos and get the biggest scream from your... um, test subjects? That's the way the trailer shows it, anyway. Create a coaster or other ride, and just absolutely wreck it to get the biggest scream possible. With only one trailer to go on though, and no gameplay footage or actual information, it is hard to gain a good idea of just how the game will work though. We do have the consoles it will appear on, that being the Xbox One and Xbox 360. Current generation and last generation. So we know that, just like Zoo Tycoon [also by Frontier] the game will be available as a full game on the current generation with a downgrade [not that it was ever really noticeable with Zoo Tycoon] on the previous generation. It's unknown whether there will be a more drastic difference this time around, but I seriously hope so.

Not being against the previous generation, but there are two ways to do cross-generation games. The first way is simply make a game on the least powerful hardware and port up, adding new or improved features on the current generation console. The other way - create two different games of the same core idea, but are essentially their own game. Forza Horizon 2's doing it, and while not much has been shown from the Xbox 360 version, that's understandable. You want the current generation version to succeed, with back up on the previous generation for those still not wanting to leap up a step. And Frontier has to do that, though I can see why they wouldn't. Doing it the latter way requires two teams, or two halves of one team. And unless communication is good with the other team selected, results can vary.

So, another two games I'm waiting for. One soon to be released, and one only recently announced. And two games coming out within two weeks that I said I wasn't going to cover. I'll be keeping my eye on the gaming news, and I expect to get another one of these out sooner than the gap between this one and the last.


What I'm Waiting For Series

Monday 1 September 2014

September Starts [Network]

I know. I know.
I haven't carried out any animation during the last month, despite saying I would. Fact is, I've been busy with things outside and inside.
First off, I think any readers will have seen the new banner being sported on the website. The Chameleon Chronicles has its second banner presense, and this one shows the critical moment of Oreah's captures. Doctor Who: The Star Wars Chronicles will soon be getting a banner designed by me, which is still in the planning stages. And talking of the website - though I have been making every effort to upload almost every day, Weebly itself has started giving me problems. It does seem server based, as things struggle to load when editing and a message of 'Failed to connect to the server' appears sometimes when I start editing. While it had reached a peak a few days ago, it has since settled down a bit, so over the next month, things should be fine. I hope.
September also brings something else with it. In two weeks, I'm back at university. I begin my animation course proper. I know I haven't had one bit of animation to show since I first said I would, but I figured if I do get anything done over these last two weeks, I wouldn't upload it straight away. I would wait, for maybe one or two more, depending on how long they are, that I make and upload them as one package.
And speaking of uploads, I know I haven't uploaded that sneek peak of the novel either. I'm going to wait for a while before doing that, not least because I want to check some things through before I do. All I will say is that the end of this month is when I expect it will be uploaded. And it will be uploaded here, rather than on the story site. Reason one - I want to keep it away from the fan-fiction on there. Reason two - I'm still not sure that Weebly itself has been compromised. In other words, whether the connection issues are targeted or not, and if they are planned ot accidental. I hope they aren't as that would cause problems, but I'm still going to remove some of those hidden pages to see if that eases it up any.
That about covers it, but last things. I am in the process of converting those stories that have a lot of parts into the right order. Instead of being latest first, the posts will be converted into actual pages instead of the blog posts. You can already see what I'm talking about with the first two acts of Doctor Who: The Star Wars Chronicles.
Also, durng my term at university, posts made to iDarkRula's MKTV might dry up. I have no idea how reliant the wireless is, and so it might be that my WiiU won't be connected to the internet at all. Yes, I know videos have dried up already, but considering how busy I've been, that's not surprising.
Oh, and sticking with Youtube, two more things and then this post is wrapped up. There is another Star Wars Battlefront II multiplayer session soon to be uploaded. After that, the next game I'll be uploading footage for is a fan game. One of the best fan games I've played. But it won't be just the game, as I'll be testing out audio for the videos. In part, this is so the game footage is not alone. Also, it will benefit uploads other than games when it comes to my own works.
Remember, blog posts will still be uploaded here, but until next news update, I am out.