#interview
Steve McQueen and his cinematographer Sean Bobbitt discuss their working relationship in an in depth conversation about 12 Years A Slave and their previous collaborations. An enlightening interview around a film full of powerful visual choices.
Dee interview transcript, Jan. 24, 2018 (Part 3)
[Tell me about your experiences meeting Nimoy, Roddenberry and the rest of the cast.]
Leonard Nimoy was the only cast member I met when the show was still in its original run. When he was in Oregon in 1967, he came to the home of the president of my sci-fi club and chatted with us for about 45 minutes.
Gene had invited me to visit the set in 1966, but I didn’t go. If I had known that 50 years later Star Trek would still be around and I’d still be a fan, I might have tried harder to get there!
In 1970, my husband got a job that took us to Pasadena, which was lucky timing for me. The show was beginning its run in syndication and growing more popular, Trek fandom was beginning to consolidate through the first conventions, the founding of the Welcommittee, the proliferation of print zines, and the push to get the show back on the air. I fell in with a group of fans who were incredibly busy with all of those things, and there was such a buzz of energy and creativity when we met, because everything was new and untried and exciting. Fans were basically inventing fandom as know it today, and for almost 4 years I was in one of two spots (the other was NYC) where most of the action was happening.
Meanwhile, all the cast except Leonard were pretty much out-of-work actors — they were not movie stars back then — and living next to LA meant it was very easy to get to see them. They did not charge anything to come to fan events in those early years. Jimmy Doohan once came to my house when a bunch of us were meeting for the campaign to get the show back on the air, basically because we offered him home-made lasagna!
Saul Leiter
A week ago today, we published the first half of an interview with “M”, whose husband was in a 3-month coma back in the early 2000s.
It’s one of the posts I’m proudest of in the history of this blog.
This post is even better.
In this half of the interview, M shares what she wishes writers would and wouldn’t do when writing about comas. About survivors. About the strain on families and purse strings.
M, if you’re reading this, thank you. Thank you again.
Aunt Scripty: What would you tell writers to make sure they get right when describing comas, and their care?
Doctors and nurses do encourage family to talk or read to the patient. Having arguments in the same room is strongly discouraged.
They will kick family out if they deem they not taking care of themselves. Family is asked to leave for a little while on a fairly regular basis so the nurses can do their jobs without family or friends being underfoot. The nurses will also come in regularly while the family is there to do a regular check and change IV bags and such.
I did not actually see the more invasive parts. (Moving the patient to avoid bed sores, dealing with bodily fluids, and for the life of me I cannot remember what they did with solids.)
The family or at least the person who is in charge of making medical decisions will be meeting with the doctors regularly for updates they will also like get called for emergency decisions while not at the hospital.
Those decisions can be many and varied. In my experience it was mostly, we need to do x, and we need your permission to do it.
The main point I would insist on is that there is no miracle, “wake up and they are okay.” It is not quick and it is not pretty.
I seriously cannot think of a single book or movie where their treatment of comas and the recovery has not completely snapped my sense of disbelief. Kill Bill comes immediately to mind as it completely doesn’t work that way.
Whatever put them in the coma doesn’t just disappear when they wake up. If it was a medically induced coma it still doesn’t erase the original reason the doctors decided to put them in the coma.
The doctors really don’t want to put someone in a medically induced coma.
I also want writers to realize that awake and aware are two separate things. Awareness also has several stages. The whole “someone wakes up and begins to talk” thing needs to stop. That control over their body is also a gradual process (of course depending on the time in the coma and why).
Muscle loss is going to be a thing, even if it is a fairly short time. Weight loss will happen no matter what the staff does, partially because of the muscle mass loss. PT (physical therapy) will likely be needed unless it was a very short time period. OT (occupational therapy) as well.
Nerve damage can happen! Even if that part of the body was not affected by the original cause for the coma. Bed sores are a real thing, it takes lots of repositioning by the nurses and luck to avoid them.
Depending on the length of the coma the patient’s body may have extra holes in it that will need to be closed and heal after their recovery is under way (GI at least). They are likely to need to be fed through said hole for a while, eating is something their body may need to relearn how to do.
If there was brain damage it can take up to two years to heal, if it’s going to. Though after that there is little chance of regaining lost cognitive abilities.
On the other side remember how much this disrupts the lives of family and friends, but also remember that these people have to somehow keep their own lives going enough to do things like pay bills (and possibly cover the bills for the patient) and feed themselves.
A lovely thing for writing is that this gives plenty of opportunity for people to take their stress out on one another or throw blame or form closer bonds.
People close to the person in the coma can get PTSD. Relationships that previously were good and healthy can blow up. Friendships can be lost.
As a side note, brain damage can cause personality changes. This can be huge or it can be things that only someone truly close will notice. For us his body language changed a lot. Which threw me for a loop. The little signs that he was open to help or not were not the same. Signs of frustration were different. The little shifts that use to mean he was interested or disinterested had changed as well.
Aunt Scripty: What were some things that happened that you didn’t expect during his care? What did you expect to have happen that didn’t, or were very different from your expectations?
The major surprise at the time was no one else had any idea of how this could have happened either. That it continued to not make sense to some of the best neurologists in the field. Looking back it make much more sense now, brains are weird and doctors don’t always have the answers we want or need.
At the first hospital they actually had him prone because of the pneumonia. That startled and scared the hell out of me.
I think by the time he was at [MAJOR MEDICAL CENTER] I didn’t have any expectations, I was already shocked and confused.
Looking back something that does confuse me is that no one ever suggested that I or his parents find someone to talk to mental health wise.
Aunt Scripty: Can you talk a little bit about the financial aspects? This can’t have been cheap.
Writers should also take into consideration (at least in the US) that Neuro ICU is not inexpensive. At the time just the stay in the ICU was over $10k a day and that was early 2000s.
Dealing with the insurance was a headache and a half on top of everything else. And we were lucky, our insurance was very good and did not have an upper cap.
After the first few weeks I had a direct number to call a specific person at the company so I didn’t have to explain the whole situation again and again. We still had to talk regularly.
One of the big things I remember was one of the drugs they wanted to try to control the seizures was new to the market. I remember the time release version came out a few year later. So at the time it was really expensive and the insurance refused to cover it at first but one of the specialists wrote up a detailed reasoning of why that drug in particular was important and it was cleared.
I don’t remember what the deductible or copays were but I paid those and had to pay for the transportation out of pocket but did get refunded eventually for most of that.
The eventual total was mind boggling and terrifying, I received the bills for it while the insurance company was still sorting out its end.
For just the stay in the Neuro ICU the bill was well over a million dollars.
That did not include the stay at the first hospital before he was transferred. It did not include the time once he was out of the ICU. It did not include the physical therapy that took months. It did not include the surgery he had to do to get the feeding tube out. It did not include the occupational therapy. It didn’t include follow up care or his meds, that without he would die. I think the meds would have been over one thousand dollars a month without insurance.
Besides the medical bills, life continued to go on around us. Student loans had to be paid. Even though our landlords were amazing and dropped our rent by an insane amount I still could not afford it.
His credit card bill still had to be paid on top of my own bills. I did not have access to his bank account and his parent refused to sign the paperwork that would give me access to pay for just his bills. Car payments still had to be made.
The constant calls from the hospital disrupted me at work so much and I was spending as much time as I could at the hospital that in the end I ended up quitting.
Again here I was lucky, I could move back in with my parents and had some savings. But factor in the gas and parking and car care for at least 6 months of traveling to the hospital or rehab everyday. Oh and food while at the hospital if I remembered to eat.
I had to fight the insurance to get him the physical and occupational therapy he needed to become functional again. Then continue to fight for his meds to be covered as they were changed many times trying to find the best combination.
So that’s where we stand. And personally, all I can say is holy shit.
I’ll just be over here in the corner, crying softly and screaming at the American healthcare system.
Thank you yet again to M for her time, her words, her experiences, and for baring her own burdens as the family of a coma survivor.
I encourage anyone with a similar story to reach out to me on Tumblr, or at auntscripty {at} gmail {dot} com. I would love to hear your story.
Be safe, be well, and I love you all.
xoxo, Aunt Scripty
New volume tells us it is never too late to go vegan.
This is an interview published by Farm.org and highlights a new volume by Virginia Messina and co-authored with Carol J. Adams and Patti Breitman:
Virginia Messina, also known as The Vegan RD, has a few books under her belt including “Vegan for Life” and “Vegan for Her;” both which I highly recommend. In her latest installment, co-authored…
“Job Interview” ~ by Fattybulous.
Boss: “… and what can you offer for the enterprise ?” ~ -u-
Featured:Mikou the Pyrotte.
Hope you like it :3
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May’s Featured Game: TRÄUMEREI
DEVELOPER(S): Veynn
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace
GENRE: Horror, Exploration
WARNINGS: Suicide
SUMMARY: One day, a young boy wanders into the woods with only the twisted, mangled remnants of dreary branches obscuring the bleak horizon. As the sun starts to set beneath ruby-red clouds, the boy, Noël, happens upon a desolate cross-bridge atop a river of blood. Upon crossing over it, he finds himself standing by a gate wrought from stone.
Confronted by the fantasies his beloved grandmother read to him as a child, the boy finds himself lost in a dark ‘Wonderland.’ However, all is not that it seems.
While exploring, Noël must gather the memories of those forsaken souls who roam lest their hearts shatter.
Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!
Introduce yourself!
*Hiya everyone! I’m Veynn; the developer of Träumerei and Kinderszenen. I’ve been in the RPG Maker fandom for about two years now. I absolutely love the horror genre and wanted to try creating something immersive!
What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Veynn: Essentially, Träumerei is a horror game with dark fairytale elements that starts off with the protagonist, Noël, 'wandering’ off into the woods one dreary day. In-order to save himself, he must continues to explore the twisted world he stumbles upon….
I was inspired to create my game after my dreams and nightmares. I thought they were interesting so I felt like putting them to paper. Also, when I first started working on this game I wanted it to be much shorter and have a creepy, whimsical 'woodland’ atmosphere like that of Little Red Riding Hood. Though in the end it wound up much differently.
How long have you been working on your project?
*Veynn: I started working on this project around June 2015, but after the demo I ended up revamping everything. So, all-in-all I’ve been working on this for about a year and a half.
Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Veynn: Yes; I was influenced by Little Red Riding Hood, folklores, and myths in terms of atmosphere!
Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?
*Veynn: Progress has been going quite swell but I’d say my biggest challenges occurred right when I first started working on this project. Since I was new to RPG Maker it took me a bit of time to figure out how to use it and exactly what style I should use. I kept switching between pixel-based art and alternative styles before settling on a 'painted’ 2D sidescroller.
Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Veynn: Minus the style change, not much has changed over time. Though, I’d say it was originally going to be slightly shorter and less detailed in terms of character backstory.
What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Veynn: I’ve always been the only developer of the game, but I recruited voice actors for the primary characters.
What was the best part of developing the game?
*Veynn: Could I say…everything? Hahahaha, it’s been such a fun experience. But if I had to choose I’d say I enjoy character and background designing the most!
Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Veynn: I regret making the demo so short, but as it’s not actually 'canon’ I don’t find this to be too big a problem. If anything, I wish I had settled on a particular style much sooner–there are a lot of old maps that I did like but I can’t quite use them in the game anymore due to the conflicting art styles.
Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Veynn: As for this game and its characters, I most likely will not do anything with them as I feel there would be no necessity. However, I am working on a small side game that take place in the same universe.
What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Veynn: I look forward on hopefully bettering my other projects after garnering experience from working on this one!
Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game?
*Veynn: Not really, no.
Question from last month’s featured dev: At what point in development do you start making the game? Do you write out the story/dialogue/events in its entirety before programming? Or do you just have general concepts planned and flesh things out as you go along?
*Veynn: I actually did write a very, very basic outline for a 90 chapter webcomic months before I decided to make Träumerei a game project. So, I’d say I started development a few months after drafting the first basic plot synopsis. After that, I started to work on both dialogue and eventing before saving programming for last.
Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Veynn: Make sure to plan ahead, but more importantly, have fun! If you want to make anything, go for it! Do whatever makes you happy. And, even if things may seem daunting at first it does get the easier as more time goes on. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice and help or to work alone or with a team–in the end just rely on your judgement and feelings.
It really does seem difficult at first, but it’s absolutely well worth it to try. All you need is patience and enthusiasm!
We mods would like to thank Veynn for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!
Remember to check out TRÄUMEREI if you haven’t already! See you next month!
- Mods Gold & Platinum
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April’s Featured Game: ARCADEA
DEVELOPER(S): Aishin
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace
GENRE: Fantasy, Adventure, Puzzle
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: In the world of Arcadea, people can accomplish their dreams. How? Through video games of course! Everybody who lives in Arcadea has a special arcade machine they can visit in their dreams that lets them fulfill their strongest wishes. Whether it’s to go on an adventure, or make friends, or fall in love, or solve a mystery, or completely start a new life, there’s a game made just for them..
The game follows Maisie, a new arrival to Arcadea. She’s not very interested in all this gaming stuff; her only goal is to find an important person. But along the way, she can’t help but be roped into other people’s problems. She also can’t help that the arcade machines seem to glitch around her. A lot.
Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!
Introduce yourself!
*Hello everyone! My name is Aishin and I’m the developer of ARCADEA! I have been in the community for about 8 years. I started working with RPGMaker in 2014 and played around with some horror game concepts that never came to fruition. I realized that drawing dark or creepy things and trying to scare people wasn’t really up my alley. After failing to make a horror game, I attempted a more happy and relaxing concept and was much more satisfied with the results.
What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Aishin: ARCADEA is a fantasy story that mainly involves adventuring through different strange lands, solving puzzles, and doing quests. In between the adventuring segments, the player plays little mini-games on arcade machines that act as foreshadowing as well as introspective character explorations. It’s a game about the safety as well as the troubles of escapism. It’s also games within a game and that’s always fun right?
My initial inspiration was from seeing other RPG Maker games. Being in the community and seeing other games being developed made me strive to make one of my own!
How long have you been working on your project?
*Aishin: A little less than one year so far. The story and characters have been through many revisions and changes. I’m happy to say that I am fully satisfied at the final revision and I will be bringing the world to life as best as I can~
Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Aishin: My game was influenced by fairy tales, mainly Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid. I also was heavily inspired by the MOTHER series and its quirky humor, as well as very meta games such as OneShot, Libretta, and Undertale. Also To the Moon, as it was the first RPG Maker game I have played that was not horror. Games that, after playing them, makes you kind of sit there… in wonder.
Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?
*Aishin: The biggest challenge was actually finding time to sit down and work on the game. I’m about to finish my third year of pharmacy school and the workload leaves me too tired to even pick up my tablet pen sometimes. However, every moment I actually do spend on the game is very satisfying and I am getting faster and more efficient with everything: spriting, mapping, drawing, eventing, checking for bugs, etc. I’m just waiting for school to be over so I can start putting my all into this game!
Oh and also debugging. Oh man do I hate script conflicts.
Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Aishin: Many many MANY aspects. Originally, the game wasn’t even going to have arcade machines! Crazy stuff.
After the addition of the mini-games, everything just…happened. The characters all got fleshed out backstories, the main character actually became a CHARACTER rather than a player’s avatar, more games and puzzles were made, the world became more dense with ‘stuff’….
The story became simpler. But the actual themes and concepts around the story became more real.
What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Aishin: I’m the sole developer of the game. I have a couple of friends that act as my beta testers. They also help with edits, proofreading, and ideas. I am planning on finding a composer in the future for music compositions (the one thing I can’t do by myself :c).
What was the best part of developing the game?
*Aishin: For me, it’s seeing everything coming together in action! Seeing my character sprites moving around on a map I made, saying dialogue that I wrote is such a fulfilling feeling. And making the maps as beautiful as I can is pretty fun!
And then a bug happens and you just sit in a corner and cry.
loljk
Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Aishin: I wish I learned Ruby before starting this project. I had to learn as I go but unfortunately that lead to random script issues. I had to request a friend’s help to solve them and luckily it was nothing too bad. The good news is, I am now able to resolve script conflicts on my own! (And with google)
Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Aishin: This will probably be a stand-alone game. The story and characters have a definite beginning and end. I feel like there’s no need to expand on this world any further.
What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Aishin: I would like to see people play it. Whether they like it or not, I hope I get some critique on the game. It would be nice if people really enjoyed playing it c:
Of course, more sleep is another thing to look forward to.
Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game?
*Aishin: GAME BREAKING BUGS. Also I really hope there aren’t any weird story plot holes…
Question from last month’s featured dev: What are some practical tricks you’ve learned in RPG Maker that novice (or even advanced) developers might not know?
*Aishin: - If you want to make the screen pan, make your character transparent and have them walk where it’s needed (have a dummy sprite act as your character in the meantime).
- Take advantage of the addition and subtract effects of pictures when doing lighting for maps (especially parallax maps). Also you can have the light or shadows fade in and out by using the 'Move Picture’ event and adjusting opacity.
- USE THE ’\!’ BEFORE ANY DIALOGUE CHOICES THE PLAYER HAS TO MAKE. This prevents the player from accidentally clicking through too fast and picking an answer that they don’t want! I can’t tell you how many endings I messed up on getting because of this.
Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Aishin: Definitely try! I would start with a free program like RPGMaker Lite and play around with it. I think what turns most people away is feeling that the RPG Maker program is very complex. But it’s actually pretty easy to pick up on!
Also, starting small is very helpful. Making a ginormous, long game immediately is pretty daunting, especially if you’re inexperienced (although some people have managed to do it). I would at least know a little bit about events and scripts before jumping into a huge project.
And if in the end, you feel that making games isn’t for you, you at least get some experience and knowledge out of it. As well as a greater appreciation for games and the work/process that goes into game development!
We mods would like to thank Aishin for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!
Remember to check out ARCADEA if you haven’t already! See you next month!
- Mods Gold & Platinum
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March’s Featured Game: Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass
DEVELOPER(S): Kasey
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace
GENRE: RPG, Exploration, Comedy
WARNINGS: Blood
SUMMARY: Jimmy dreams of the most fantastic things. He dreams of big yellow fields of sunflowers. He dreams of living woodwinds and talking mice. He dreams of his mom. He dreams of his dad. He dreams of all the video games he’s played with his uncle. He dreams of his brother standing beside him like a ten-foot giant. Sometimes he has nightmares, too. Jimmy’s about to go on the adventure of his lifetime - and no one’s going to know about it but him.
Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!
Introduce yourself!
*Howdy! My name’s Kasey, and I’m the lone dude working on Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass. You might also know me as Housekeeping on rpgmaker.net. I’ve been working with RPG Maker seriously for about six/seven years now, I think. I was also the developer of A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky, The God of Crawling Eyes, and The Heart Pumps Clay; I was also one of the developers that worked on Born Under the Rain (I mainly did the script and the music on it). Before that I played with RPG Maker on and off for years; I even made a 5-10 hour game on the Playstation version of RPG Maker in high school, which is clear and indisputable proof that I was the most popular guy in school. I also have played guitar for fourteen years, have an MA in English with an emphasis on creative writing, and if you put a dog in front of me I will pet it until it gets tired of me.
What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Kasey: Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is about a lot of stuff, but I think that what it’s most about is depicting what it’s like to be a shy, introverted kid. It’s also about success and the pressure Americans put on themselves to be successful, the importance of empathy, imagination, video games, fear, family, etc. Basically, these are all things important in childhood, so I think that’s the umbrella theme that works best.
For Jimmy’s subject matter, I was inspired by several things, so it’s hard to pin it down. But, in a more practical sense, I’d been wanting to move forward and make a commercial project since I first started seriously working with RPG Maker, but I always thought that I would have to find a team. So, I think what inspired me the most to actually get on this path by myself was seeing in-development screenshots of Lisa. I said, “Hey, this guy’s doing everything by himself, and his art style might be simplistic, but it looks great, so why can’t you do that?”
How long have you been working on your project?
*Kasey: I’ve been working on Jimmy for about two-and-a-half years. Before that, I was working on a shorter version of this game for a half a year or so, so let’s call it an even three.
Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Kasey: Oh yeah! Earthbound is the first and most obvious influence; there’s some tonal similarities, but I mainly used it as visual inspiration. I was also inspired by Yume Nikki’s approach to using setting as a form of characterization; that opened up a whole new world of storytelling for me, which is pretty exciting. Jimmy essentially has a “class system” in that he can imagine different monsters and change his abilities; this was heavily influenced by Final Fantasy 5’s class system. The field actions are somewhere between Breath of Fire and Lufia 2/Wild Arms’s tools; they give Jimmy new ways to interact with the environment, including solving some basic puzzles, but the game isn’t puzzle-heavy like Lufia 2.
Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?
*Kasey: Yeah; in a game this size, you run into all sorts of things. I think the biggest challenges for me tend to be with drawing. I’ve got a lot of experience writing, composing, and eventing, but I’m a middling-to-poor artist, so I’ve had a major learning curve there. There’s not much of a story towards overcoming my artistic deficiencies; I just keep at it. The cool thing is that I can see some clear progress from when I started, and that keeps me on task.
Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Kasey: Here’s a boring answer: basically, no, my initial concept is the same. Well, that’s not entirely true; like I mentioned earlier, Jimmy was originally a much shorter game that wasn’t going to be commercial (it was also drawn with crayons and looked like garbage), but, once I committed to making a full-length RPG, it’s been the same. This is probably because this isn’t my first rodeo, so I knew what I could do and planned within the boundaries of the engine.
What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Kasey: I am…utterly alone. Boohoohoohoohoo!
What was the best part of developing the game?
*Kasey: I like writing/eventing scenes the most, which sucks, because it’s a relatively short part of the process, and it’s one of the last things I do.
Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Kasey: There are things I learned–mainly about drawing–that I would have liked to know when I first started. Like, I wish that I would have known what saturation was; yeah, that’s how clueless I was. My early work was super saturated and is an eyesore; I had to go back and lower the saturation a bit. I would have liked to know I could hold ctrl when using the select tool in Graphics Gale and push the arrow keys to test to make sure that tiles looped correctly. I would have liked to know that you can create a picture file that’s the same size as the resolution of your game, place images on that, and use the x/y coordinates to determine where your pictures using the move/show picture commands will end up. That’s the kind of stuff I wish I knew–would have saved me so much time early on.
Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Kasey: It’s going to be a standalone game. I have a very rough idea for another game in the same universe, but I’ve got a lifetime of ideas, so I would need a very good reason (inspirationally) to pursue that.
What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Kasey: I just want to see people enjoying it!
Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game?
*Kasey: Yeah: I’m scared to death of marketing. That’s why I’ve been dragging my feet on getting a promotional video together (don’t worry, I’ll get to it this summer). I’m afraid I won’t be able to reach enough people and not many people will play it. I’m afraid that the coolest thing I’ve ever done will be overlooked.
Question from last month’s featured dev: Which character from your game do you relate to the most? Why?
*Kasey: This is an easy one: Jimmy. I’m still a fairly quiet adult when I’m with a large group of people, but when I was a kid, I was so, so shy. I remember when I was a kid at church camp (don’t laugh, I’m from Texas; this was inescapable), we were doing some exercise in compliments, and the camp counselor said that I was quiet, but he could tell that “the wheels were always turning,” and I think that was a pretty accurate description of me–now to a degree, but especially then–and that’s what I’m trying to depict with Jimmy–all those wheels.
Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Kasey: The best advice I can give you is to get into every aspect of game development. Make a short project–maybe an hour or so–and do EVERYTHING. Make all the graphics, make all the music, experiment with every single eventing command, make little puzzles, change the window skin–do it all. Some of it’s going to feel like cleaning the gutters, but you’re going to get so much perspective. Even if you end up working on a team later where all you do is draw character cut-ins, you’ll at least know to an extent what your other team members are going through, and that’s IMPORTANT. Also, play lots of games with a critical eye; think about why things are engaging and how they could be improved. Culture is built off of itself, so learn from the past and make it better.
We mods would like to thank Kasey for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!
Remember to check out Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass if you haven’t already! See you next month!
- Mods Gold & Platinum
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January’s Featured Game: Wishbone
DEVELOPER(S): Skitty,Kwillow,Ellie,Natasha
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace
GENRE: Western, Drama, Farming Simulation
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: Wishbone is a character drama-slash-farming sim game that takes place in a wild west-inspired setting. The player takes the role of a farmer, fresh off the wagon in a new town and tasked with building a successful ranch. Wishbone might seem sleepy and mundane at first, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon: a fierce, prolonged standoff between the lawmen and the outlaws that will decide the fate of the town itself.
Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!
Introduce yourself!
*Skitty: Hello! I’m Skitty, a scruffy weirdo whose hobbies include drawing, programming, and cooking. I also happen to be the coder, project manager, and one of the main artists. In 2014, I released my first game, Theo’s Big Adventure, but actually haven’t really been involved in the community… I’m a bit of a hermit.
What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Skitty: It’s kind of a funny story. Several years ago, I used to be part of the Fallout: New Vegas roleplay community on tumblr. Just for fun, a few of my friends and I came up with an alternate universe where instead of living in the post-apocalyptic desert, all the characters lived in the wild west instead. We ended up having a lot of fun with the idea! My friend, Ellie (who is also working on this project as a writer), suggested the idea of an Animal Crossing-esque game based on that setting… and I, having coding knowledge and having made a game before, volunteered to make it. The struggle between the four central characters remains the same as the initial concept, but the project and the people of the town have evolved a lot since then.
How long have you been working on your project?
*Skitty: I started it around April 2015, so it’s a few months short of two years old. Progress has been slow because I’m also juggling a job and other obligations, but even during busy times, I typically manage to work on Wishbone every week. Every couple weeks, new features get done and updates are posted to the dev blog.
Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Skitty: The three biggest ones are Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and Red Dead Redemption. From Animal Crossing, we have have befriending townspeople and decorating your house. From Harvest Moon, we have the farming mechanics and romance. From Red Dead Redemption, we have hunting, foraging, and outlaw bounties. And I suppose Fallout: New Vegas deserves a shoutout for kicking the whole project off, albeit indirectly.
Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?
*Skitty: Honestly, we’ve been fighting against RPG Maker’s limitations since the beginning, since the game we’re making is quite unlike a top-down RPG.
Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Skitty: It actually hasn’t changed a whole lot. In the beginning, we had this core concept, basically just Animal Crossing plus Harvest Moon. But even back then we knew we wanted a big plot and minigames and sidequests and stuff… it was just a matter of figuring out if those were feasible to program.
What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Skitty: It’s pretty much the same as it always was–me as the programmer/project manager/spriter, Katie as the portrait artist and other spriter, Ellie, Dax, Jester, and Reuben as character/plot contributors. Oh! I guess the big difference now is that we are in the process of hiring a composer?
What was the best part of developing the game?
*Skitty: Seeing it all come together into something finished and cool. Sometimes I like to just lovingly look at the maps and videos and such I’m proudest of and think “wow, I did that! And it turned out almost exactly how I’d imagined!”
Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Skitty: Man, I’d definitely be craftier about how I handled the code for the animals. I didn’t know a lot about scripting at first, MONTHS worth of headache could have been avoided if I’d known how to use script calls.
Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Skitty: We definitely have plans to use the characters again, but when they’re revisited, it’s going to be in different contexts. You won’t see the desert of Wishbone again, but the characters will absolutely be popping up in future projects.
What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Skitty: Gosh, it would be amazing if people liked the game enough to call themselves a fan! I’m definitely looking forward to people’s reactions to discovering plot twists and easter eggs and such. I hope people like the characters, too.
Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game?
*Skitty: I hope there aren’t too many bugs in it when I release it! I mean, I’m testing it as I go, but it’s a really big and complex game… there are going to be things I don’t catch. I’d be really disappointed if I released it with a glitch that broke people’s save files.
Question from last month’s featured dev: What’s the biggest turn off you can get on an RPG maker game?
*Skitty: Hmm… honestly, using the default sprites tends to be a pretty big turnoff. As an artist, it is very important to me that the game have an “aesthetic”, a sense of atmosphere, that the characters feel like individuals… that’s what really catches my eye and makes me want to learn more. I know not everybody is an artist, but like, a simple 8-bit sort of style, or even a “shitpunk” style like Space Funeral is more eye-catching than the default tiles.
Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Skitty: Try to set realistic goals for your first (or second, or third…) project. It’s so tempting to want to tell your magnum opus immediately, but that’s usually a recipe for ending up frustrated, disappointed, and quitting. My first project, Theo’s Big Adventure, was fairly short, used mostly ripped sprites from Mother 3 and ripped music from other video games, and still took a year and three months to complete.
We mods would like to thank SkittyandKatie for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!
Remember to check out Wishbone if you haven’t already! See you next month!
- Mods Gold & Platinum
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