Shattered Haven Website Page And First Teaser Video

[keith.lamothe]

If it had been ready for a gameplay video, there would have been a gameplay video

[Cyborg]

If it had been ready for a gameplay video, there would have been a gameplay video

oh okay. I thought that cup of goodness was already playing it. If it's not show quality yet,all right.

[keith.lamothe]

oh okay. I thought that cup of goodness was already playing it. If it's not show quality yet,all right.

Yea, it's quite playable and we've all played it in various iterations, but it wasn't ready for showing to the press or whatever.  Largely because the integration of the new art is still ongoing.  We tried the just-show-whatever-we-have thing with AVWW and we're really not too eager to do that again

[x4000]

It was this or nothing, as we did not want to show gameplay with placeholder graphics.  We've been burned by that before.  But we've had interest in the music and story and so forth, so we showed that off rather than nothing.  And it seemed to be reasonably popular.

In terms of our booth appearance we did show off some gameplay (in fact let folks play).

[zebramatt]

Although I'm definitely even more excited about this project having seen the teaser, I have to admit I cringed a little at the vocalised exposition. As an aspiring author - read: frustrated tippler - dialogue unabashedly for the benefit of the reader I find just a little jarring. Probably because I'm so critical of it in my own scribblings.

But given the context, it certainly didn't spoil the mood. In fact, it made me feel pretty nostalgic for the top-down games of my youth. And maybe that was intentional - in which case, well done! 

[x4000]

There wasn't any Hollywood Narration there; I'm not sure what you were referring to.  But yes, it was packing in lots of information in a way to explain things quickly to the viewer.  The actual game dialogue (and actually the start of the game in general) is fairly different and has more showing than telling.  But with this just having dialogue and neither stage notes nor any description lines, that makes it so that the style is a little bit needed.  I'm a longtime writer, too -- two completed novels under my belt, 22ish incomplete through the process, and one that nearly picked up an agent but failed to do so.  So in most respects I am a failed writer, at least thus far, but I take the craft very seriously and am still studying it.  At any rate, I don't normally write plays or short fiction, so this style of dialogue is inherently a bit awkward for me.  But in terms of most of the important rules, I thought it followed them pretty well.

[Martyn van Buren]

Out of curiosity, X, does your fondness for the name Darrell come from somewhere in particular?

[keith.lamothe]

Out of curiosity, X, does your fondness for the name Darrell come from somewhere in particular?

I'm not sure if attaching a name to characters in situations like that one is an act motivated by fondness

[x4000]

I don't have a fondness for the name Darrell. Or at least I did not. Rather, I knew several bullies with that name, and when I was writing the novel that shattered haven is based on I decided to name te main character that in order to help me overcome my own preconceptions about the name. That's the only real time I've used the name in a story, is this book and the game based on it.

You're probably thinking of the character art in avww by the same name, of course. That was simply reusing this character; and in facts number of the sprite names from avww are simply reuses o character names from my writings. But as none of those other writings have a name attached, that wasn't obvious.

Incidentally, x-4000 was actually the name of a villain from a (pretty bad) novel I was working on in high school. When searching for a name for things outside of stories, I tend to use names from my writings because I spent so much time coming up with them. I'm particular with names, so having a stable of them helps.

[zebramatt]

Lela: Well, there she goes into the bushes anyway.
Pierce (muttering): Who are you talking to?? I'm literally stood right next to you - I can see what's she's doing!
Lela: That was odd.
Pierce (aloud): How old are you??


That was the single most atmosphere-breaking line for me. The rest of Lela's pointing-out-the-obvious I could readily notch up to her being a four year-old, and therefore inherently slightly annoying. (But, you know, endearingly so.)

[x4000]

Ah.