Hello, folks. Did you know 4 AM was a real thing? I keep managing to suppress my memory of it, but it somehow manages to infiltrate my life again. I’m pretty sure right now the only way we can properly ensure that it never forces me out of bed on the weekend to work is to destroy the sun. This may seem like a rather drastic solution, but I have come to the conclusion that it is the most efficient. Because of the work required to implement this strategy, I am going to be writing a fairly light post tonight. It’s not because I have to work super early all weekend, I promise you.
Writing: Not a lot of writing was done this week, sadly. It was overall a pretty quiet week on all fronts. Most of it was devoted to cleaning up the Zuri romance scenes and fixing minor grammatical mistakes. As it turns out, if you are half-asleep, you tend to make a lot of minor mistakes. Back in the day, I used to keep an error tracker to help me determine where and when I was making the most mistakes while writing. The data wasn’t that surprising. Being asleep causes some drastic downgrades to your ability to process coherent sentences. Even now I suspect I am making mistakes and doubt my ability to catch them. The flip side though is that being tired tends to help me increase the amount of writing I am able to put out. I can write creatively a lot faster when the thoughts aren’t being muddled by doubt and questioning. When you have a plan and let it run, amazing things can happen. You then just have to waste a lot more time fixing that torrent. Which is better to do is a matter of personal preference.
A bit on and off topic, but sleep is something that does play a small factor into Fates. While we all remember cute little Faye’s desire to sleep away 99% of the day, being well rested and focused is something that is critical to an investigator. When you’re worried about the world though, it does tend to slip away from you. I feel a bit bad for Natalie, who loses about as much sleep as I do. One scene in Sol’s route even tells a story of how losing that edge to weariness can get to you. Out of Natalie’s team, Sol is the one person who is most observant of those around him and the person most likely to vocalize when he sees weakness. Real life slipping into fiction…
I want to give a special thanks to everyone who showed up for the rambling and writing stream that we had last week. It was a lot of fun, even if things got really wacky there for a while. We are planning on doing it again tomorrow, though I will be tired from working all day and I’m not sure how wacky things are going to be this time around.
That’s all for today. I need to get a bit of rest before the day begins anew. Until next time, Chief out.
Video of the post is something that you old internet foggies might remember.
Hello, folks. This is was a pretty long week, wasn’t it? The weather was just starting to turn and the leaves are finally beginning to fall. Delaware has some really weird seasons for me. Then again, traveling the world has exposed me to a lot of really weird seasons. It’s one of the things that tends to creep into my works a lot. You might not believe this, but it turns out that different locations have different types of weather patterns. Weird, right? It won’t matter after I finish the device… I mean… there is no secret weather machine. This is an update about visual novels. Visual novels…
Writing: This week was pretty much geared towards two very specific scenes, one of which had a CG of it done this week as well. There was one event that was supposed to be in Rising Angels: Reborn that ended up getting cut from it since Sol’s route was dropped. Like everyone who exists, Natalie Puccile has a birthday. It’s one of those things that tends to get forgotten by heroes in video games, including some of the more mundane things like going to the restroom and vegging out on the sofa.
Every character has their own special way of celebrating the day of birth. It’s a bit trickier to do it in the middle of space, especially when certain races don’t really celebrate it. For most of the humans and lupide of Katajion space, it is a fairly traditional event. Parties with family and friends coming over, with the fifteenth being the biggest for humans. Lupide and kitsune tend to have larger celebrations since they generally have larger families and each birthday holds a lot more importance in their short lives. As such, Sol wants to bring back the good old days when they were kids while Kika wants to have an elaborate party that is befitting the moment. Kind of hard to do that on a ship, but never underestimate the resourcefulness of Kika.
Alexi is a bit of an oddball here as Raltins don’t generally have big parties to celebrate anything that aren’t state sponsored events. I’m not exactly sure how I am going to write out her version of the scene.
But the scene I was writing was with Natalie’s guardian. Draemon don’t really celebrate birthdays. Most of them couldn’t tell you how old they are or how long they were wildlings. It’s not like they have calendars in the middle of the unforgiving wilderness. So when Sol tells Zuri about Natalie’s upcoming birthday, she literally has no clue what it is. All she knows is what the rest of the crew tells her. Alexi in particular has some fun with her version of it. It ends up with Zuri not quite sure what to do, but knowing it might be super important to Natalie. The result… well, I’m happy with how the scene is turning out. I hope you will be as well.
Art: Several new CGs and backgrounds were finished this week! Sadly, most of the CG I can’t share because of the massive spoiler potential. Since I can’t share them, I will be a terrible person and give a bit of a tease. Lenna is getting a pretty sad CG. Probably the only one she will get in this game with her status as minor character. The next one is a super cute one with Zuri. Natalie and Zuri are still one of my favorite duos and Zuri really does give everything she has to giving her heart to Natalie. The last one involves a tired lupide trying to recover with the help of her caretaker who may or may not know what they are doing.
WIP: Always hire a trained doctor… wait, they do, don’t they?
As for the backgrounds, there are only a few left. The world of Rising Angels: Fates is almost completely developed!
Rising Angels: Hope: After a lot of problems and difficulties trying to get this project back on-track, we are moving it forward. So far, we have about 65% of the new sprites done and are moving along at a really good clip. Renmiou has been awesome to work with on fixing this. With most of the writing done and only the CG after it, I’m fairly confident that we may be seeing a new Rising Angels game on the horizon!
Yes, the twins are back.
Sunday streams: One thing I used to do a lot was take prompts and have some fun with them to improve my skill as a writer. There’s nothing quite like getting some impromptu practice to help foster ideas and let loose some steam. Over the last year and a half, this practice fell by the wayside as work overtaxed me. Starting Sundays (the day I used to try and take off), I will be starting it up again for a couple hours. My intent is to stream it and give a chance to chat and ramble. The link should be posted tomorrow on the Rising Angels section of the Hyperspace Forums, assuming we can get the stream working right.
Brilliant Shadows has released! For those of you who don’t know, it is a really awesome visual novel done by Ithaqua Labs who are partners with IDHAS. Their artist is also the wonderful Geckos, who did Natalie’s sprite, the GUI, and the new outfits for the sprites. The game is amazing and I can’t stress it enough to go check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
That’s all for tonight, folks. Tune in tomorrow for our Sunday Stream! Until then, Chief out!
What’s the video of the post? I haven’t been listening to much lately… so let’s do a pop flashback! Yes, Chief listens to pretty much everything.
Hello, folks. Normally I write something incredibly witting and charming up here, but not today. Today was supposed to be the release date for Rising Angels: Fates and as you can see, the game has not made it out. This is a personal failure upon my part. So instead of my usual song and dance on the stage, we are going to give a full report on the status of everything.
Writing:
-Core writing: The core writing for the game is in the editing stage and has been completely finished in terms of story. The core of the story is the entire voiced section that is common amongst all routes.
-Investigative writing: As much as I mentioned how much I love this part of the game, there is a lot of writing that is needed for it. Every item that can be presented needs text for it and most of them have small scenes that go along with them. It was far more writing than I originally intended and I am ashamed to say that it is the most behind. As a rough estimate, I have to say we are maybe a quarter of the way through all of the scenes. I’m considering cutting down on the number of events and recycling dialog, but I would rather add as much content as possible to the game.
-Character writing: Most of the character scenes for everyone in the first act have been completed. About twenty percent of the other acts have been finished up and a fair bit of work is still required in this section. Zuri and Kika have the most work done so far on their routes with Yoi taking the lead for the Name side of the house.
Art:
-Background art: We are almost done with the background art. Out of the 50 backgrounds for Fates, 45 of them are completely done and the last five are sketches. We should hopefully have those done soon. 4 planets and two spaceships ended up with a lot of backgrounds.
-Character art: All 21 of 21 characters have been completed! We ended up going a bit beyond what our original estimates called for. Natalie got a sprite and an extra outfit; Kika, Name, Zuri, and Yoi all got extra outfits as well. The cast list is a bit excessive, but I must admit that I quite enjoy large casts and there are a lot of different teams and players in Fates.
-Illustration art: One of our other areas that is a bit behind as well. Right now we are 28 (73 with variations) out of… we don’t really have a set number on this one. Probably going to keep at it as long as the CG artist is willing and I still have my day job paycheck to add more art.
Audio:
-Music: All of 15 of the tracks for the soundtrack have been completed. There are a couple extra tracks in the works that may bring that number further up.
-Voices: All voices except for the final act have been completed. Since we are still finishing up the editing on the final act, things are a bit delayed there. Hopefully, we should have it finished up very soon and we can close out this section.
-SFX: Since the lack of SFX was lacking in RA: Reborn, getting plenty of sound effects for Fates was a high priority. We are still coordinating all of the scenes that require SFX, so our numbers aren’t accurate at the moment. We are investing heavily into acquiring good ambient sound effects and action effects.
GUI:
-Art: All of the art for the GUI has been completed except for the icons for the investigation section. This is the one area that is quite behind. We had a lot of problems securing an icon artist and we are back in the neighborhood of finding one.
-Coding: This is a mixed bag of goods. While the engine for the investigative section has been finished for a very long time, we are still behind on the much larger task of coding in all the sprites, voices, and effects. This is a section I am dreading, to be honest. It is a colossal amount of work and I may be hiring assistants to help out with it.
Kickstarter related:
-Merchandise: All the wallscrolls and dakimakura have been made and sent out. We’ve considered making a couple other ones, but we are waiting to get things caught back up before we design any more.
-Codex: We are about two thirds completed with the codex. Turns out there are a lot of different things in this universe and I’ve got a bad tendency to ramble when I talk about the past.
-Book of short stories/ Collector/Faye side stories: Since work on the main writing has been slowed, efforts have been shifted away from here to help bolster the main. Most of the short stories are slowly progressing when I get some down time after long days at my day job when I just don’t have the mental acuity to wrap my head around the thousands of options and possible factors in the investigative sections. They’re progressing, but slowly.
In short, we still have a fair amount of work to do and most of it depends on the writing. I can give excuses about how many hours I work at my day job, but those are just that. Excuses. We’re fully committed to making this the best game possible and worth every penny that has been invested into it. Though I know delays are painful, I once again humbly ask for your understanding. Next week we will be back to our regular updates. Until then, happy Halloween. Chief out.
And something that spooked me out as a kid for this video o’ the post Halloween edition.
Hello, folks. Chief here reporting from the other side of the world. Or the same side of the world, depending on where you live. There’s nothing quite like traveling the world by working 24 hrs straight. I know it is good life experience that help inspire writing, but some days I could use a little more rest and a little less life inspiration.
Wordcount: With the core of the story done, work has been focused on the investigation sections. The investigations might be my favorite part of the game. While the core of the story is the overarching line that ties everything together and the character route scenes are those sprinkles that tie the bonds of the characters together, the investigations are where a lot of the smaller stories of the Rising Angels series come together. Now, some of the items are simple present the object to the person like Phoenix Wright. I won’t lie, I am the type of person who plays PW and presents EVERY SINGLE ITEM to EVERY SINGLE PERSON to see if it gets some sort of reaction out of them. That is one thing that will carry itself over into Fates.
The other big thing that makes me so excited about the investigation sections is being able to present clues or stories you heard to characters. Knowing who to talk to about what topic will let you see a lot of the smaller stories that take place in this universe. Most characters have their own side stories that you can flesh out and experience. One of my favorites, and one I’ve been dying to tell for a while, is the story of Syl and her brother/family. You can start with the story clue of Syl trying to give a brief moment of comfort to Name about pursuing her sister. You can just take her sympathy and let it end there or you can question around to gather clues and figure out what happened those many years ago. However, not all stories have happy endings and not everyone appreciates you digging through their past or pushing things they don’t like. Push too hard and routes and stories will disappear before your eyes. Push too light and events will never come to light. The life of an investigator is never easy.
Well, I have to end this early as they are calling me back to continue our trip around the world. Never a break for the weary. Until next time, Chief out.
Hello, folks. I managed to do something that I so rarely get to do and managed to watch an anime series. Not just one, but two! A fair number of people have told me that I needed to watch Gate. I think it was once referenced to me as Komi’s Magical Adventure. While I wasn’t much of a fan of the last half of it when it went full anime and forgot it was a military expedition into a fantasy world, it was still an awesome show. It was then followed up by Aldnoah.Zero. It was nice getting a few moments of stress relief and getting some fun ideas for side stories. Makes me eager to finish up and let Natalie rest while another batch of heroes takes on some mech fun.
Wordcount: One ending left. One ending left and we will be completely done with the core, which means we can be completely done with the voice acting not too long after it. While there is still a fair bit of investigation and route scenes to write, having the first major milestone completed towards release is a major boon to morale. The last ending is a much happier one than the rest. There’s something peaceful being able to write the ending where the heroes succeed with a clean slate over endings where they carry mental and emotional scars for the rest of their lives, assuming they live.
Writing contest entries: The writing contest has come to a close! We only had three entries, so everyone who entered takes home a prize. I was a bit worried that we weren’t going to have enough entries, but we had a last minute entry that saved the day.
Third place took the first place for cute endings. I’ve always been fond of a Yoi/Faye romance, even if I don’t think it would have worked out for long. It was a nice entry that encompassed a lot of the themes that the original Rising Angels story aimed to tell. While not long, it does tell a good story that we enjoyed. It might have overtaken second, but it suffered from one major problem in the four categories. There were a lot of grammatical mistakes that detracted from the reading. The biggest one is the super paragraphs. While most of you don’t remember the days when I was Chief Editor instead of just Chief, but there was one thing that always bugged me and it was super paragraphs. Improper grammar can hamper a good story, and when the race is incredibly close, it can influence the voting just enough.
First off, I have to say that this entry has my favorite character. While the other judges put that in check, I personally have to give a standing ovation to an entry that includes Chief as one of the lead actors. I mean, he is just so handsome and dashing. Overall, it was a fairly well written story with few grammatical mistakes and a nice focus. One of the things that docked points, however, was that it was fairly short. Now I am a man who likes a story to be concise. What bugged me was that there was a fair bit of build-up, but the climax of the story was very fast and a bit unfulfilling. Nevertheless, it was a solid story that is deserving of second place.
If you can remind me of characters that I forgot existed, I’ve got to give a point. Including Headmaster Tyclue and a few other characters there were only in the demo of Rising Angels: The Red Rose completely caught me off-guard. I quite enjoyed the adventure of Aria as she paralleled the adventures of Faye in the original story. There was a lot of adventure that spanned the story of RA and it exemplified the theme of the contest at almost every turn. All in all, the story was enjoyable even if it messed up some canon points (Syl will never say more than three words, but that isn’t actually established in the VN continuity). The biggest weakness that put its hold on first in jeopardy though was the one that caught third place. Grammar, grammar, grammar. You can have a fun story, but if your grammar is weak, it throws the reader out of your world and into one of annoyance. If there was one takeaway from this contest for everyone, it would be to always take some time with that old pesky man of syntax.
It was a fun contest and I had a blast reading the entries. While all of us were a bit disappointed in the lack of entries, the ones we received were awesome and a blast to read. With the art and writing contests down, the only thing remaining is the raffle. We’ll be preparing that one closer to the time of release.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for more updates next week! Until then, Chief out.
Video o’ the post was an easy one. I’ve been jamming to this all week.
Hey, folks. Chief here with your weekly update! Last weekend was a bit of a sad weekend as the D&D campaign that I play every other Saturday has come to a close. It was a fitting end for a campaign of epicness. I’m tempted to slip my character into a story later on, she was quite fun to play with. Still, we have a more pressing story with characters to write! Last week’s update had some issues, so things didn’t make it out. I’m quite sad that the combo had to come to an end. On to the update and the start of a new combo. The first update I am sad to announce is that we are looking at changing the release date. I was hoping that we would be further ahead than we are, but there are enough things behind the power curve that I have to admit that a delay is in order. Right now, we are rerunning estimations in order to get a more accurate release date. I am sorry about this and we will keep you all in the loop.
Wordcount: 3,414; Writing this week has led me to the point where I am not really sure what sort of romantic relationship Name and Anton had, are having, and could possibly have. They’ve always been good friends, even in the original work of fiction that introduced her. It was a bit of a rocky start, but it managed to grow and strength as time went on and both of them realized that they didn’t have to be right all the time (just most of it). In Anton’s Vacation, there is some slight romantic undertones between the two of them, but it ended with them showing their strong ties to each other. In the original storylines, Name acknowledged Anton as one of her few close friends and contemplated having deeper feelings for him, but it never formulated anything.
Now that we are going into Fates, the same thing is once again developing between them. The new storyline still has Name leaving the force between the previous events and breaking ties with her profession, but this time Name takes a transfer from SITO to a regular judicial detective. They end up paired together again, but this time there are no major adventures between her leaving and rejoining that would cement the bonds of their friendship. I thought by breaking these existing bonds that it would be possible to reforge their relationship to be a bit more romantic.
Turns out that it doesn’t work out the way I wanted it. That familiarity very rapidly reestablished itself between them, but the spark of romance just won’t ignite. They feel very much like siblings instead of lovers when I attempt to write romantic scenes between them. Anton might be the friend she’ll call at 2AM when she just needs someone to vent to about her terrible day, but he’s not the type to sweep her off her feet. I could force it between them, but it just never feels right. I think I am going to keep them as close friends in Fates. Maybe someday that spark will ignite between them, maybe they just need more time, or maybe the investigative duo are simply meant to be best friends through the nightmares they live in.
Writing contest: There is only five days left in the writing contest! Get those entries in soon!
CG update: We are almost done with the CG in Act 3! Act 3 is one of the most interesting when it comes to illustrations because a lot of the big mystery reveals are in 3 and they’ve got a lot of fun scenes tied to them. There’s also Natalie’s birthday in there, which has a fair number of cute moments between them.
Rising Angels: Hope: We are back on-track after finalizing the details with the new artist! We should have some new art to show you in the upcoming weeks!
Once again, I am sorry for the delay. Once I hear back on some of the delaying problems, I should be able to give everyone a better update on how much longer you will have to wait. Until next week, Chief out.
Video o’ the post this week is a song that’s been on my mind lately. Epic video the first time I saw it.
Hello, folks. Chief here on his third attempt to write this update. I ran short on time during the first attempt early in the day before going to work and must have caught something during the second half because I couldn’t focus long enough to string two coherent thoughts together. I’m still not holding together well, but a short nap at least restored enough sanity to bring you this update! Fuzzy wasn’t happy with it though. I stole his sofa to take my nap on.
Wordcount: 5,553; Split focus this week between supporting materials and getting some extra scenes at the end out of the way. I’d love to talk about how the world ends, but I can’t do that without getting spoiler-riffic. What I will share is an odd observation. When I started writing the split protagonist sections, I was a bit worried that Name and Natalie might share too many similarities in how they do things, being sisters and all. Players don’t want rehashes of choices, but I was rather surprised as things got more tense how different they were despite their shared heritage.
At the end of Reborn, there was an end where Natalie carried a lot of guilt at what she had done. Many players thought it justified, but it was something that I could never write Natalie coming to terms with. Natalie just couldn’t accept that’s how things had to go down. Very noble and honorable in her views of the world, which is why she made such a good pair with Zuri and Sol. Even if he pressured her to do it, it was always heat of the moment with him.
Name and company aren’t quite as strict when it comes to things like that. A lot of the time, the ends justify the means and they are prepared to go that extra distance of moral ambiguity. Yoi in particular never let questionable ethics stop her in the past. It’s a bit disturbing to see how much of a bad influence they can be on the proper, by-the-book Name. Still, this means we can go into the darker ends of Fates without it being forced into a bad end because the team can’t really cope with what they’ve done. It does make me wonder what sort of team people would rather have protecting the world for them: those who have high standards but put the universe at risk to uphold them or the people who aren’t afraid to get dirty to ensure everyone is safe?
The Rising Angels Writing Contest is still going on! You’ve only got a few weeks left to get those entries in, so time to get those pens going!
Almost all of Act 1’s CG are done. We did a lot of bouncing around, but the first full act is done. Hopefully the other three will be done soon. As celebration, here is a WIP piece from one of my favorite parts.
We left off last week with Sector Seven, so this week we will continue our backstory development with the rest of the Katajion Directorship sectors. While most of the higher number sectors are a bit less important than the early ones, they are still critical members in the government and hold just as much authority of their charges.
8- Space Originally one of the smallest bodies of the Katajion Defense Force, Space has rapidly came into its own during the last few directors leading it. Space has the responsibility of protecting all planetary systems, both inhabited and uninhabited, and all space stations. Like the other sectors, Space is directly responsible for making its own craft, leading to an improved time at fielding new ships into the field. Some of these ships are transferred and sold to civilians through the economic sector.
Color- Red
9- Air Like its brethren in the above sectors, Air sector is a member of Katajion Defense Force. From ground level to the outer reaches of the atmosphere, Air has complete dominance. Many directors over the years have sought the merger of the Air sector into the Space sector as Space increased in numbers and power, but the balance of power between the sectors has lead to their continued existence.
Color- Bright Pink
10- Construction From military bases to housing developments to roads, Construction ensures that buildings and stations are made to standards. Construction of things like space ships, weaponry, personal items, and non-structure items are developed by their respective sectors, leading many to think that Construction is nothing more than architects and knuckleheads with sledgehammers.
Color- Dark Green
11- Research and Development Playing both historians and scientists, Research and Development has the task of pushing into the future and understanding the past. R&D works with almost every single sector to help improve and advance the knowledge and technology used by the Katajion Directorship. Because of this central collective, the Katajion Directorship was able to gain a technological superiority over its adversaries in the early days of the war and has maintained it since.
Color- Dark Blue
12- Foreign Affairs If Sector 1’s role is to manage the directorship’s internals, Foreign Affairs job is to manage its externals. While relations with several smaller planetary bodies and the Raltin Empire is strained, there are numerous allied governments, space stations, and nomads that wish to do business, travel, and seek refuge. Foreign Affairs also assists Katajions traveling abroad.
Color- Gray
13- Education Education takes the requirements that are given to it by the other sectors and uses that to help craft the people each sector needs to fulfil its role. Education works with children from a young age to help develop and craft their specific talents and gifts to help make them better at what the directorship needs. This helps ensure that each Katajion is specialized in their roles instead of being a generalized member of society. Transfers between sectors are uncommon, Education will help to train people into new fields if they show the basic aptitude for the job.
Color- Blue
14- Public Relations The masters of spinning the worst defeats into the greatest wins, Public Relations’s role in the directorship is to ensure the flow of information reaches all branches. While their primary role is communication, they also assist in creation of propaganda materials and psychological warfare against the Directorship’s enemies.
Color- Lime Green
15- Exploration The smallest sector and the one most often forgotten about. Exploration consists of units lent from the space and ground forces to explore unknown planets and planetary systems. Unlike the sectors it often borrows from, Exploration prefers to keep out of warfare and sticks to working in neutral and allied areas. Many top Katajion researchers alternate between Sector 11 and Exploration to further their studies in xeno fields.
Color- Orange
That’s all for this week! Time for me to take another nap so I can get back to work in the morning. Until next time, Chief out!
Hello, folks. Guess who is finally back from his romp around the world. I was starting to think that I was never going to make it back. Fuzz hasn’t allowed me out of his sights since I got home. I don’t think he knew what to do with himself with me gone. It’s the first time I’ve ever came back from a romp around the world and had someone there at home excited to see me back. Quite a nice feeling. Oh, we are also at #52 for our updates! That’s right, we’ve been updating every single week for the last year straight. Time to pop open a bottle to celebrate consistency!
Wordcount: 7,729; Most of this week was spent more on the codex and other material for backers than the actual story. I’ve been trying to catch both sides of the house up so things don’t fall behind any further than they have so far. Part of the problem is that every time I get a decent way through a short story, I have this inexplicable urge to turn it into a visual novel. It’s dawned on me that I’ve been writing visual novels so long that it has basically overtaken traditional prose as my default style. So part of me has been considering turning the book of short stories into a book of short kinetic novels. While that would be fun, it also is a money pit as art is not what you’d call cheap and nobody has ever wanted to play a game drawn by me.
The story taking up my writing is quite a fun one that really would play well as a visual novel. It’s the story of the greatest hero of them all, Kika Starr, as she is beckoned through time and space to represent her galaxy in the interdimensional mech fighting tournament. With her sponsor, Old Man Chief, she fights to again prove that her position as the Starr. Then, after I got absorbed by the idea did I remember that Kika, despite being a navigator, has never actually piloted again. She doesn’t even know how to drive the car because everyone has always chauffeured her around. I was a bit disappointed there for a moment as I was ready to drop Kika into her first battle that she couldn’t win without deus ex machina… so I decided to drop her in anyway and watch the great hero figure out what stick did what. Turned into a pretty nice story about Kika facing something she had never had before, putting pride slightly aside, and trying to become the hero she thinks she is. And giant robots. Giant robots are awesome.
We are going to continue our lead up to Fates’s release with a couple of contests. The second contest is everyone’s favorite, a writing contest!
Theme: Challenges to overcome; One of the reoccurring themes in all Rising Angels games is that the world isn’t there to just give things out to you. Hard work, dedication, and that little ounce of luck are the driving forces. Sometimes those challenges are easy, sometimes those challenges are not killing Stan. Either way, a challenge is what awaits you, dear writers! Now overcome it!
Eligible games to use characters from: Anton’s Vacation, Rising Angels: The Red Rose, Rising Angels: Reborn, Rising Angels: Fates
Prizes, what you all are interested in! Both the writing contest and art contest have identical prizes. Now, I’d like to give out more than large cash prizes, so if there are any donations to our contest, I’ll welcome them. I’m chatting with a couple people to see if they would be willing to lend some aid, so prizes may increase.
First place: $200 USD via Paypal
Second place: $100 USD via Paypal
Third place: $50 USD via Paypal
Contest officially starts on September 19th, 2015
Deadline: October15th, 2015
Results announced: October 17th, 2015 during our regular Fates Weekly.
Judging: All pieces will be judged on creativity, relation to the theme, grammatical accuracy, and plain old awesomeness. All pieces will be reviewed by the dynamic IDHAS trio: Chief Editor Komi and his two bumbling assistants. Depending on the number of entries, we might include a fan vote in there as well.
Art contest rules:
1. You must have at least one character from either Rising Angels: The Red Rose, Rising Angels: Reborn, or Anton’s Vacation. You can include other characters, if you wish.
2. Proper credit must be given to all characters. (Mostly if you include characters that aren’t yours or the studios.)
3. You must include the theme in some way, shape, or form.
4. You can submit up to two pieces for contest.
5. Keep it under XXX rating. IDHAS has never been a family friendly studio, but let’s keep the smut out of this one. You can toe that line, just don’t cross it.
Either post entries or send them to overwatch@idhasstudios.com . Winners will be announced on the website and e-mailed.
Okay, time for some learning time! This week (and next because this turned out to be really long), we are going to talk a little bit about the arrangement of the Katajion Directorship and its sectors. As those of you who have read some of Reborn’s codex or listened to Faye in Red Rose, there are fifteen different sectors in the Katajion Directorship. Each of these sectors has a unique purpose and responsibilty to help manage in the directorship. In addition to their duties, each sector has a unique colored uniform to help differentiate them at a quick glance. For example, blood red is the color of the Katajion Space Sector. While this is a short summery of the first seven of the fifteen sectors, I hope it is interesting. Next week, we’ll cover the other eight.
1- Governmental The first and most powerful sector of the Katajion Directorship. Governmental is responsible for the integrity and unity of the fifteen sectors. When a proposed rule change by a sector is announced, it is up to the Governmental sector to ensure that it meets the outlines laid out in the charter. Day-to-day operations of the administrative side are part of the core responsibilities that the sector manages.
Color- Black
2- Judicial Judicial acts as the hand of the Governmental and is responsible for policing citizenry and judging those who have been found guilty of violating the laws of the charter. Due to the loose confederation of sectors, Judicial often has trouble enforcing laws in several sectors due to the power that those sectors hold. Most of the time, Judicial only deals with the crimes of the lower ranks of Katajions.
Color- Brown
3- Intelligence Intelligence holds a high position in the directorship for one reason. Where Judicial fails to hold sway, Intelligence is there with both a secret and a knife. While their primary mission is to constantly watch the stars to ensure the safety and security of those who would seek the downfall of the directorship, Intelligence often takes it upon itself to police those who would seek to abuse their power. Many corrupt directors have fallen to the stalwart guardians of the Katajion Directorship’s Intelligence Sector.
Color- White
4- Economic Though the title of Economic sector sounds like a regimented and controlled sector, the independent nature of the Katajion Directorship has turned the Economic sector into more of a massive collection of guilds, businesses, and individuals than a united sector. While they serve under a single director, planetary councils and guild heads often have more control over businesses and practices than the figurehead director does. All commerce falls under the massive sector.
Color- Light Blue
5- Medical A relatively small sector, but one that enjoys the full support of both the Katajion Defense Force sectors and that of the general population. Directly working with Sector 11 to advance their medicines, Katajions enjoy plentiful and advanced medical treatment in most fields. Unlike other sectors, the charter was written so that medical treatment was considered a basic right and that its funding is a paramount responsibility of the economic sector. However, that hasn’t stopped the economic sector from occasionally branching into Medical’s territory.
Color- Purple
6- Ground Together with Naval, Space, Air, and Intelligence, Ground is a key member of the Katajion Defense Force. Ground is responsible for planetary defense against all ground threats.
Color- Dark Green
7- Naval Another member of the Katajion Defense Force, Naval is responsible for all activities on and below liquid bodies. For most planets, Naval has a very small influence and is often subservient to operations and command by Ground forces.
Color- Yellow
That’s all for this week. Get those writing entries in! Until next week, Chief out!
Video o’ the post this week is a Jpop song stuck in my head. Don’t ask.
Hello, folks. Chief here. Today is going to be another short update since I still haven’t managed to get home yet. I’m trying and making slow progress, but my home and Fuzzy still remain half a world away. For someone who used to travel a lot, the last couple weeks have been painful.So, the fun announcements are going to have to get pushed back another week.
Wordcount: 2300; like I mentioned last week, it is really hard to write on this keyboard, so I spent the time working on outlines for the kickstarter side story and some of the other bonus stuff. I started writing a short story about Kika been pulled into a giant mecha fighting contest, a bit as a joke really, but the idea fleshed out quite nicely. The problem is that I’m now tempted to make it a visual novel, which doesn’t exactly fit into a book of short stories very well. That’s gonna be an interesting problem to sort out…
Story contest: The Rising Angels Story Contest has been delayed one last week. This is the final delay for I shall be home and able to run a contest then.
Rising Angels: Hope: We are finishing working out the fine details with our new artist, but progress has once again resumed. The old man has not given up on seeing this story to its completion. Faye deserves to have a proper ending to her Academy days. I’m very much looking forward to getting it into your hands soon. Probably as a bundle with Fates.
Once again, too short, but good updates will be coming soon. Home is just on the horizon! Until then, Chief out.
Hey, folks. Chief here. You might have noticed that this entry came out a bit earlier in the day than usual. While it may appear that way, I’m actually in Germany at the moment and it is roughly the same time I normally write things. However, because I have been trapped in Germany for most of the week with a laptop that turned out to be terrible for getting anything done on, progress was less than expected this week. Someone else was supposed to write a guest entry, but rampaging alien robots from the future struck and they were unable to get to me. So you’re stuck with old chief this week on a keyboard that is barely better than a glorified phone keyboard.
Wordcount: 944 (Pretty pitiful amount, but it was all I was able to get done before I had to leave on Monday. I was supposed to be home by now, but that’s how things go… Most of the writing was focusing on cleaning up some problems in Act 4. Like I’ve said before, Act 4 is way too long and some late nights led to some less than stellar grammars. Lots of little spot cleanings in the script to make sure it is readable.
Also, we are going to be looking for some additional help soon to assist with the coding in of emotions and voices. If you’re interested in some easy though tedious work, please let us know at overwatch@idhasstudios.com. We’ll have a job posting up for it soon.
Writing Contest: Due to the whole Germany thing, we are delaying the start of the writing contest until next week. We’ve settled on a theme though! The writing contest theme will be “Challenges to overcome”.
Sorry for the short update, but there’s not much I can do this far away from my workstation. I didn’t even bring a camera to show how pretty Germany is (even though I’m technically working, I did manage to get out for some food). Next week has something special for you all though. Chief has been planning this one for a bit. Until then, Chief out.
For the video o’ the post, we’re dedicating a song to the days ahead of me.
