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Atonal Dreams Weekly Update 24 - Sex Sells, Revised Roadmap, Script Snags

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago1,425 words

I haven't done much this week, annoyingly! So here's some rambling about sexual objectification again (yay), a revised roadmap for tasks I've done and still need to do, and some thoughts about scripting snags re character psychology that I'm currently in the process of working through.

I've done frustratingly little this week... again. The usual mental illness is the cause, though I wish it didn't interfere as much as it did... Bleh. So I'll mostly be writing about some related stuff rather than actual progress this week.

Sexual objectification... again

Pretty much all the comments last time were about the sexual objectification topic - since I suppose it's the kind of thing people are more likely to have opinions about than the specifics of an in-progress game - and I tried to reply to them, but eventually got too worried about saying something offensive or 'wrong' in some way so I decided to just stay quiet.

I've encountered some things over the week though that seemed relevant to it. I don't want to talk about it in detail again, but I'll at least mention them.

One thing I saw was this literal, unabashed porn game which did ∞ a Kickstarter ∞:




I'm not making a porn game (obviously??), but it's interesting that this extreme example of sexual objectification in action made like 2 million dollars from its Kickstarter. I wonder how much of that was because the company that made it was apparently fairly large (I read something that suggested it was, but I don't exactly play porn games so I wouldn't know), and how much was because it stirred up controversy (which is how I found out about it) and people backed it because they were getting frustrated by everything else telling them that they need to suppress their sexual feelings constantly. I don't know; I've not exactly looked into it, but I could understand that psychological perspective.

By contrast, I also saw this comic (I think it's a comic?), also in the context of controversy:




It's about the gay, overweight, gothy daughter of an otherwise sexy superhero (who I've only ever vaguely heard about; I'm not interested in comics). From what I gather, it sold very poorly... though I've also seen a lot about how comics in general are a dying form of media, so that probably has as much to do with it as anything.

I suppose the two things these bring to mind are:

1 - If you're one of the ones finding any hints of sexual content in Atonal Dreams distasteful, are you repulsed by the first one and supportive of the second? Do you feel I'd be taking a better path were I to do something similar to the second one?

2 - The first path earned a whole lot more money.

Games attract an overwhelmingly male audience, so them appealing to the so-called 'male gaze' doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. It's not as if depictions of men in romance novels - which attract an overwhelmingly female audience - are considerate of hypothetical male readers' feelings.

I used to put hypothetical female players' feelings first, and honestly it's because I was hoping that if they saw that and liked what I'd made, they'd like me, and I'd be less lonely. Now I cringe at that, and would rather just make things that appeal to my own male perspective. It's not like I'm making outright porn or anything! I just don't want to be puritanical for what are essentially political reasons.

I'd probably have a very different opinion if I had a partner or daughters or something, but I don't. I did talk with a female friend about all this, and her thoughts are in line with my own about it all. Though it was interesting hearing her perspective since she dislikes the hypocrisy of so-called feminists criticising the male gaze on one hand while posting sexy, skimpy Instagram selfies on the other.

It's all exhausting to think about though.

Revised roadmap

I suspect that's all anyone will comment about, but I also want to actually talk about my own game in a way that's interesting/valuable to me. I spent some time this week reading through all the old blog posts I'd written about it (when I had no energy to do actual work), and while it's usually frustrating to feel I'm coming along slowly or even getting nowhere, seeing how much I actually have done is... well, it's nicer than feeling like I'm getting nowhere, anyway!

I set up a roadmap a while back, but quickly failed to meet the naively optimistic deadlines I'd set for myself, and largely neglected it after that. I've revised it now to look like this (which you can see on the main alorafane.com page):




These seem to be the stages I've done already and still need to do, I think? They're not all equal in time costs! The initial concepts could be said to stretch back all the way to mid-2019, when I was devising Divine Dreams - then called the 'MARDEK Reimagining' - while others, like character design, might only take a few days. So I've finished fewer than half of these tasks, but the remaining few likely won't take as long as I've already taken.

One of the embarrassing recurring themes from my old posts was how hilariously inaccurate my predictions for how things would take were, so I won't even attempt to estimate a date for anything!

This script stage seems like a particular wall though...

Scripting

I suppose I've been struggling with what could be called writer's block, or maybe just general reduced motivation. If you ever read about the productivity habits of anyone who focuses on writing, I imagine you'll see a lot about struggle! It's tough.

Something I'm having to do at the moment is figure out how the three dream sequences ∞ I talked about last week ∞ will work exactly. I have sketchy plans for all of them, but going from those sketches to actual dialogue lines is challenging.

I was trying to write the dream which is formed by Collie's mind, and joined by Savitr. In it, she pictures herself as a Blight Wolf - which is what she grew up as - and the dream would explore her struggles with that part of herself... though this struggle with the self seems to be a common theme for all the characters, and I'm concerned about it seeming too repetitive. Many of them struggle with feelings of being trapped, for example, or they feel profound guilt about harm they've caused others in the past. Things that consume my own mind.

Collie, though, is Courage elemental, and the whole thing with her is that she used to be wild, untamed, and now she's trying her best to become tame, which is why she's a dog but used to be a wolf. Lots of metaphorical layers which I find interesting, especially the connections to actual gameplay mechanics (taming). Her main thing is that she's supposed to be suppressing some deep anger - which is how Courage manifests darkly - which is different to the usual self-loathing sorrow that I naturally experience and can more easily write.

If Collie is angry, is she angry at herself, or at something external? It shouldn't be the same as Savitr's, Pierce's, or Ossoum's troubled feelings; I can't have everyone be consumed by some kind of self-loathing! It should be distinct from Destruction's darkness in particular; dark Courage shouldn't be about wanting to destroy things exactly.

Something that occurred to me while brainstorming was this contrast:




That could kind of work, and it'd be interesting to explore both angles, but she's less dressed as a Blight Wolf, and more covered as a Cherub, so the aesthetics clash with the metaphor, if I were to go with that.

I need to just do some more brainstorming; sometimes it takes several sessions to work through a particular problem, as has been the case with other plotting snags previously. I get through eventually! Most people probably won't think or care too much about the specifics of character psychology anyway, but for some mysterious reason (HAVE I EVER MENTIONED MY DEGREE) it's of particular interest to me!



Overall, I'm annoyed I didn't get more done this week. Lots of mental stresses and distractions. Hopefully next week I'll be more productive!