Early Images of Scribe's Descent

Here are some screenshots from Scribe's Descent:

Boxer

Mallory

Early render of First Game Level

Ezimin has a new 3D Modeler and Musician

Ezimin Interactive just brought on board a new 3D Modeler and a Musician. That brings our team to 9. I'm really excited about the awesome stuff they will help us create for Scribe's Descent! Another note - I just finished modeling Boxer's head and his hair in Blender. Now I need to do some tweaks to the hair shape and texture before I move on to model his accessories.

Updates on Ezimin and Scribe's Descent

My apologies for not updating this blog in awhile. I've been quite busy with several things. I've brought on another artist, an intern/personal assistant, and a musician for the Ezimin Team! I've made a lot of progress on the 3D model of Boxer, one of the main characters of Scribe's Descent, and I've made big strides with the camera and character control system as far as coding goes. I've finalized the Ezimin logo and one of the artists has finished the SD logo. I've composed a few more songs and have further revised the novel for the game. In fact, if you head over to ezimin.com, you'll see a running list of what we've done so far.

Advanced Third Person Camera System

I've spent gobs of hours working through the Advanced Third Person Camera System tutorials on 3dbuzz.com (which are free) and taking the scripts they show you how to build and modifying them for our use in Scribe's Descent. I can't tell you how much better the camera is now! I used to have a lot of problems with the camera running through the floor, through walls, and how stuff would get between the camera and the player, so that you couldn't see the player. Talk about a frustrating game experience. These scripts eliminate those problems quite gracefully. I'm really excited to roll that prototype version out soon. Now I haven't had time to integrate the character switching code into this new camera code, but I hope to do that soon enough. That's my next agenda item for programming.

Scribe's Descent, draft 1 is done

Scribe's Descent, draft 1 is done! Working on draft 2 right now.

Almost Done with Scribe's Descent (the Novel)

I've put in 52 hours in writing the first draft of Scribe's Descent, and I've been loving it! I hope readers (and players) enjoy it at least half as much as I enjoy it. I'm halfway through chapter 7. I think there will be 11 chapters in total, so I figure I still have 4 and a half chapters to go. I've been cranking out 2 chapters a week, so I think I'll have the whole first draft done in 2 weeks, which will be around July 7th. It would have been nice to have it all done by July 2nd, which is Ezimin's next monthly meeting, but I don't think that will happen unless I pull a few all nighters. I would have been done with the whole first draft a few weeks ago if it didn't take so long to type this stuff out. Maybe one day I'll break down and by the digital pen from Livescribe.

Writing the novel Scribe's Descent

About 35 pages into the first draft of Scribe's Descent, which is the novel for Ezimin Interactive's first game. I'm trying to get the first draft done by the end of the month so that by mid to late July, it can be revised well enough to finish planning out the production schedule for the game. The story is publically available for download on www.ezimin.com

A Strong Start

So far, we've put together a very, very basic prototype on the ezimin.com site. The name of the game is Scribe's Descent. I've come up with rough drafts of some songs for the game, and our concept artist has begun to draw concept sketches of the main characters. I've written up a few more business documents, including an org chart, roles and responsibilities, and an rough outline for our pre-production tasks.

Company Name - Ezimin Interactive

I finally decided on a company name - Ezimin Interactive. Here's the meaning behind it:

Ezimin - 1.(political) those who rule the Kingdom of another. 2.(spiritual) The 5 warrior apostles chosen by God at the end times to lead the Church into battle against Satan's army. Ezimin is the plural form of the word Ezim. This is a fictitious word that only has meaning from the ASF series. NOTE: it is not a 'real' word!

I registered the domain for this. In the coming weeks, I'll be building an official company website at http://www.ezimin.com
Also, I finally registered. asignetforever.com
I'll be slowly putting content on that site as well.

First Steps

So far, I have done the following for the new company:

-wrote a game story
-came up with some core game mechanics
-made a small prototype of some game mechanics in Unity
-recruited a 3D artist, concept artist, designer, marketing person, and a programmer
-wrote company policies
-began game design discussions with the designer

I've also started to read 4 books on game business development: Game Production Handbook, Business and Legal Primer for Game Development, The Game Localization Handbook, and Team Leadership in the Game Industry.

I still haven't decided for sure what the company or the first game will be called.

ASF Games about to start development of an initial title

Because I will take a good, long break from school starting this summer, I will finally have the time I need to start ASF Games. This is the company that will create the A Signet Forever game series, but before it starts that, it will create a few smaller puzzle RPG games. These games will hopefully take only 6 to 12 months to create, and will do several useful things:

-Bring in a bit of revenue for the company
-Develop a core team of developers
-Give me a solid handle on how to really design and build quality RPGs
-Establish business procedures and industry contacts
-Establish business credit
-Marketplace recognition for our company

I feel God is telling me to start small and grow big. I already have a 3D modeler, programmer, and designer on board, with a few more people thinking and praying about joining on, as well. Please pray for us as we move forward! The first title is still in the design, story, and scheduling phase.

The ASF Series is Completely Outlined now!

I finished outlining books 6 and 7 of the series this week. The entire ASF series is now outlined! That means I can finally go back to Book One, A Contest For Souls, and pick back up with revising it. The last time I revised Book One was on June 2nd of last year. All in all, it took me 10 months to outline 6 books. I suppose that's not too shabby, considering how much music, programming, and art I created for the game during that time. So, my plan for continuing the revision process is to look at more big picture structure elements of Book One and figure out if some scenes need to be removed, redone, or re-ordered. I'm also going to do a lot of emotional impact analysis and character development analysis to make sure that the people seem real and that the reader forms a deep emotional attachment to them. I have a few ideas on how to approach that, so we'll see how it works out. I also have some more world-building exercises to re-engage in to make sure I understand the world of Crucible on a deeper level.

Crucible - the name of the world of A Signet Forever

I've been brainstorming possible names for the world in which this novel series takes place for the last 2 weeks. Today, I finally found a name I like - Crucible. I feel this name fits because, like a crucible, the world of ASF is a rugged container where the faith of its people are tested by intense heat. There's no escaping the rigor of it. It comes to those who prepare themselves for it and, alas, it comes to those who try to wish it away from themselves.

Almost done with the outlining

I finally wrote an ending for the entire A Signet Forever series and now I have a few holes in the outline to plug for parts of the outlines for books 6 and 7. Of course, the ending I've written is subject to revision, but I finally have a fairly clear picture of how the story will wrap up. Plus, I've added more features to my editing software. I'm already finding it to be a useful tool and it's not even close to being complete! The best of all this is that I'm really enjoying the process of outlining and writing and listening out for God's direction as I do. Please pray for me that I would hear His voice clearly so that I can write the best series possible for the saving of souls.

ASF Editor Software

I've started making my own desktop application that helps me edit my novels for A Signet Forever. Here is a screenshot of what I have so far: The feature shown here highlights all the places in my novel where sensory details are used concerning smell. This feature will be expanded to find touch, taste, hearing, and feeling. (Sight will be omitted due to the natural overabundance of sight details found in a story). If a novel is lacking in sensory detail, it is usually in the other 4 senses. This tool will have many more features that are just not available in the editor tools on the market today. Who knows, if I make this tool powerful enough, i just might sell it and use the proceeds to help fund ASF.

More outlines

I've been busy with my Masters program at ODU of late, but I have gotten back on track with my outlining of the ASF series. I've finally finished outlining book 4 and I am almost done outlining book 5! I think I've nailed in some very critical and intriguing backstory for Eliason in book 5 that really adds interest to the present plot developments. I feel re-energized to plug away at the rest of the series now and the end of the series keeps getting closer and closer. I can't wait to see what happens next in the story. Strange, that the author would feel that way, isn't it?