Following the Family Business

Now announcing a new Darwin’s Soldiers work that isn’t mine! “Following the Family Business” is a new story that will be uploaded by nick22 sometime in the future on the Gang of Five. He’s permitted me to leak a teaser trailer of the upcoming story:

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The morning sun broke into the windows as Micah sat at the table.  the eldest of the three Landon kids, Micah  was, like his father, geared towards the medical profession, although he dealt with cancers, rather than internal injuries like his father. He looked at the morning paper as his younger sister Zya, who was the youngest of the three came in. Zya was a stellar athlete and had excelled in basketball at school. “morning sis’ Micah said. Morning Micah’ Zya said’ mom and dad at work again huh. Donald, his younger brother, soon entered from upstairs. All 3 had their mother’s dark hair and dark skin color, Donald and Micah were tall, like their father. Donald had played football in high school, and was playing it in college as well. . A note left on the fridge was a reminder from their mother Zyanya that they had to go over to Aishas to watch her three kids-,Susie Puxx and Aidan, who were the kids of Aisha with her lesbian lovers Roux and Nixx, who once was a rival to their mother. Puxx took more after his mother Roux with the vulpine fur, and magical abilities while Aidan and Susie looked like normal humans- on the outside. The kids were still quite young, as nixx , Aisha and Roux had only had them within the last 5 years. ‘ so when do we have to leave for Aishas? Donald asked as he poured a bowl of ‘ Secret Plots’ cereal, which included ‘ glowing alien’ marshmallows and ‘ secret file’ pieces. ‘ I can’t believe you actually like that garbage’ Zya said as she looked at the box ‘ its basically sugar drenched on top of sugar, and sugar tossed in for good measure.’  Donad ignored her as Micah answered the question. We have to be over there by nine, bro, which means we have to leave in 15 minutes if we want to get there on time. And zya, I saw you sneak a bag of brownios’ Micah said. ’so don’t go picking on Donald.. that’s my job, I’m the oldest after all. ‘ By two whole years.’ Yeah I know. ‘ Zya rolled her eyes. Micah was 21, Donald 19 and Zya 17.  The three got along well enough, for their parents quickly put a stop to any serious squabble. ‘zyanya opened the door to the house and headed inside ‘ everyone up and eating? good. I need to drive you over there so I have time to go get my nails done and then get your father at the clinic.. aisha is paying the three of you very nicely. 50 an hour, each is a lot of money.. you should thank her if you see her.
– Sure thing mom ‘ Micah said as he pulled a couple pop-tarts out of the toaster.’ One question I have mom. If Aisha is a lesbian, how can she have a son?” Zya asked. ‘ well dear, advances in genetics can take any of piece of dna- such as hair= and it can be converted and usable in making biological kids. And then of course, roux has magical abilities as well, so she can do things with magic that don’t happen naturally. Of course, I don’t want to hear about any disparaging remarks about Aisha, Roux, Nixx or the kids. Do I make myself clear?’ mom, you fought against Nixx fir many many years. You two hated each other..” zya began but Zyanya cut her off.  ‘ well that was then, this is now. We have become real good friends since your father married me and Nixx married Aisha and Roux. Now enough questions. We need to get moving. Donald finish your cereal and lets go. The cars is idling waiting for us to get in..

Failed Project Showcase

A lot of video game ideas have rolled down the ole hickory trunk on this blog, and to date none have reached the illustrious perch of completion. (All my attempts at written-word projects have though!) Every serious video game attempt has reached chronicling on this blog somewhere, however, except one. So I thought I’d acknowledge its existence so it didn’t feel left out.

Reaching both genesis and cancellation shortly after the AGS project, Seska Donitz was going to be a project starring the titular character, a daughter of (believe it or not) Werner Donitz and Seska on Gaman’s moon. Taking place like 50 years or so after the events of Ship of State, it would follow her life on the merged colony of Verner as she attempts to recover the pieces of the Einstein-Rosen bridge and open it to Earth. Sounded RPG-ey enough, and I was trying out RPG Maker so it seemed a fair starting point. Unfortunately, I got as far as the character creator and got fed up with the incredibly low levels of customization. You could barely adjust anything, at least from what I could tell, and I didn’t even see a way to upload custom sprites. So it never got beyond trying to create the titular character, who also looked nothing like I imagined her.

Pictured: Literally the complete output of my attempts to make something in RPG Maker.

Pictured: Literally the complete output of my attempts to make a game in RPG Maker.

Now the only thing I loved about this project was the story. It’s got a great story behind it, and while nobody else liked the Gaman series, I’ve always wanted to jump back in and give it something that felt like an ending. If I ever revive this project, though, it will most assuredly happen in Multimedia Fusion 2, since I recently learned about ctrl-K which lets you add layers (for example, a HUD) which can operate independently of the camera. So this one may see a revival some day. You never know.