scythiumdev

[scythiumdev]

A design rabbit hole

Over the last few weeks, I have been working on finalizing some design elements for Project Plasmator with involved parties. The standard process of brainstorming the ideas, running them through some testing for whether visually the concepts would work was completed. It was time to move on to the final step; we needed to locate a designer who could design something that in theory could be tattooed on an individual, but would also stand on its own as an emblem.

Fiverr has been my go-to for several jobs where I need fast turnaround on design work that I do not have a good slot in my schedule to attempt myself. I did some browsing of every relevant offered service page the site would show me, bookmarked the ones that made it past the filtering process, and started contacting individuals. 

General illustrators weren’t very up to the challenge based on some of the responses. The tattoo artists however, seemed to have a bit of adventure in their blood by comparison. Eventually I selected one, and gave full details for the design, including visual references. Should be the customer I would want to have, and all that.

Some back and forth about whether the design would actually be used as a tattoo and working out commercial rights later, the artist started working out a draft of positioning of elements for the design. I was interested to see how a request that was so out of left field (asking a nature based designer to make a tattoo including a literal screwdriver) would go. I was pleasantly surprised with a spot on draft, giving feedback on their response illustration. Tattoo artist is beating the other illustrators I had worked with at their own game? Okay Google, add note to self etc. 

Received the final design today and am happy with the level of detail and quality. Just another rabbit hole of design that has paid off! Goes to show that high-risk high-reward hasn’t been fully debunked yet. 

[scythiumdev]

Dig Deep(in) #2

The initial installation process went about as well as can be expected as described in the previous post. After using the system for a couple days, I am finding it completely natural. The larger pool of supported applications compared to my older linux days was a nice surprise.

My main browser, Vivaldi, thankfully had support. Bookmarks? Check. Auto-fill suggestions in my navigation bar? Check. Happy happy joy joy.

Discord installed with zero issues, and notifications from the application are very nice to configure, as the system has built in notification settings that are surprisingly flexible to the user’s preferences for volume or Do Not Disturb modes.

While going through to tweak some of the settings, I ran into a couple interesting... uh. It wouldn’t be correct to phrase them as being “problems” per-se. Perhaps simply oversights in the design and translation departments.

In the time-zones menu area, the phrasing simply does not sound right. 

The more “oversight” portion of the interface is with the clock. Right-clicking the dock/taskbar brings up the option of switching from 24hr to 12hr time modes. As someone of the 12hr persuasion, I switched to such. 

Much better. But I had been duped!

All other system clocks still displayed in the 24hr format! 

[thonk]

Besides these few minor oddities, I continued to be surprised at some of the easy-access software displayed within the Deepin Store, specifically the section for developer software.

All-together, still impressed with the OS so far. Lets see what happens when I push it to the breaking point with some performance testing.

[scythiumdev]

Writing Reality #2

In the previous post I gave what was hopefully some helpful background for why I started this project. This post hopefully will serve to explain more importantly how I am continuing with it.

Where do you start with Game Development?

This was the question at the core of my mind. Research into examples of other developers and their story of success as independent content creators or small groups only gave motivation based on confirming for myself that my own success was indeed possible. It did not, however, help me with the question of “how”. I had to focus on one part of the process if I was going to go anywhere, so I went after how to write “the story”.

I started consuming mass quantities of RPG and TTRPG media in an effort to get inside the mental processes of the GMs and story writers. We are talking hundreds of hours of reading, listening, watching, and ultimately gaining inspiration. This led to me essentially mentally assessing the individuals responsible for the content to try and better understand what was being put into their works. The process was very helpful, leading me to numerous resources that those same GMs had found personally instrumental to their success and creative processes. Encouraging, but not actually very structurally helpful in giving me an example of an effective process of development.

While I am not a professional when it comes to communication, there’s not a lot that scares me when it comes to writing. My comma placement is atrocious due to my writing style but I have come to terms with those issues and am working to improve. Regardless of that, the exposure to countless impeccably crafted narratives and stories made my own task of creating one myself slightly daunting. If I was ever going to become someone who could create not only a theoretical world to bridge for one’s suspension of disbelief but also an interesting plot, I was going to need to start checking my ideas against outside parties.

Busy people tend to have busy friends, and that was where I was stuck. My closest friends who were also willing to listen to my project ramblings (willingly or at least with certain degrees of tolerance) were more or less either unreachable or unavailable at my times of peak inspiration. I had to do some digging about my temperament to eventually come to the conclusion that I ought to be writing out my ideas in a conversational way as an alternative to actual discourse. While not as helpful for “sanity checking” my ideas with other perspectives, giving access to these write-ups for later feedback by contacts managed to be an acceptable temporary solution.

Issue 1: Story and Plot -> Temporary Fix Achieved. Sorta. It’s good enough for now.

Issue 2: World-building and Documentation. Heaven help us. The amount of resources for existing systems’ organization is pathetic, let alone availability of an open structured network for dynamic support of multiple systems. The crazy web of how to record a literal universe-worth of details is/was not easy. It seems like locating a perfect system is impossible. 

This ongoing battle will be detailed more in the future posts.

[scythiumdev]

Writing Reality #1

For unfortunately the last decade I’ve been plagued with such a numerous number of ideas that drowning in them would be the humane path to my demise. To seal this fate, I began taking them down as notes, tagging them for later reference and use with good SEO-practices even within my private system. While some may never see the light of day or even the “sweet release of death” known as the archive or delete button, there are a remnant few that have sneaked by into my (attempt at) To-Do lists for projects.

This series will be about what has become a saga of learning to be a TTRPG (Table-Top Role-Playing Game) developer. Don’t expect large levels of detail about the project within these posts. If you can track down my Discord I am open to questions and ideas there.

“ Viivesi “ - Project Title

So Viivesi as a project is complicated. The idea of it grew over the years from a single character concept into what was essentially the fantasy shell for a full system of reality. When a contact I had told about the ideas indicated that they may have a potential buyer for a franchise pitch, I decided it was finally time to try and put ideas into words.

The opportunity was a very important source of initial motivation to get started on making something that exists as an idea into what could be considered more concrete. Ideally it would be a concept that could be clearly pitched or explained. While the offer eventually was rescinded by the interested party due to undisclosed circumstances, the situation helped me realize that the project was not just another thing that sounded interesting; the project had become a piece of me. 

That realization alone was a bit of a revelation. Creative projects before this had been fueled by my typical personality of efficiency and meeting requirements. It was a passion project, linked very heavily to ideas which appeared in short spurts of inspiration. Somewhat frustratingly, this project was different. Unpredictable and unable to be scheduled, initially the results were discouraging. Not being able to measure the success of the project according to the “Get Stuff Done™” ideals of all my other projects caused me to wrack my mind, looking for a way to force motivation or inspiration to make headway. 

Eventually I came to the conclusion that I could do indirect work on the project when I was not feeling inspired by doing research on other examples of work within the genre of my “writing” project. 

That decision was one of the best mistakes I have ever made. 

I will elaborate on that more in the future posts.

[scythiumdev]

Dig Deep(in) #1

Deepin thoughts post.

I will be playing with several current Linux distros for possible use with personal machine. The previews and screenshots of Deepin contained by this post are from within VMware W. 15 Player.

I believe it was back in 2016 when I first ran into the Deepin distro. One look and was instantly drawn to how gorgeous it was. Unfortunately at the time it had several issues with stability on my accessible hardware, and I had to put off any hopes of transfer to it as my OS of choice.

This week, I was reminded to do a check-up on the system, and was pleasantly surprised at the improvements that were made. 

The installation process (deepin v15.10.1)  was somewhat interesting within the VM that I am using for testing due to the default resolution cutting off my timezone from the select-able view area. This was not difficult to adjust once the installation was completed.

I appreciated the “new car smell” options on first boot-up, giving the user options depending on their desktop UI preferences between a dock and a taskbar based design. Entertaining phrasing used for each as being the “Fashion” or “Efficient” modes respectively.

As a longtime Windows user, it will take me awhile to get used to the somewhat lackluster feeling settings within the system. Don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful and not useless. Regardless of this fact, I have already run into multiple situations where I have been looking to alter a setting with no luck in locating it. Very likely it is simply my own rusty skill set with the distro rather than lack of function.

Overall I am impressed with the OS so far. As I run into the little details and eccentricities with it I will continue to post evaluations and address questions based on my limited experience with such. In the meantime, I’m going to continue enjoying this beautiful system!