The Labyrinthine Dreams Kickstarter is on!

If you click this link and help us out with a donation, you'll have my eternal gratitude!

Nerve-wracking stuff, this crowdfunding business. We've put a dream of ours in the hands of the masses. But if it works out, Mark (ArtBane) and I will be able to work towards a major milestone in our personal and professional lives. The short version of this is that we're seeking $6,000 to enhance our puzzle game Labyrinthine Dreams. Most of the funds would go towards hiring a couple of professional artists, with other portions meant for expected business and marketing costs. If we're able to secure the money and get this work done, we'd have a real commercial game that had a chance in the competitive independent game market.

Regular readers of this blog know that I've got a long history with RPG Maker. Our six-year collaboration on Master of the Wind was how Mark and I made a name for ourselves in the RPG Maker Community, who bestowed a highly generous amount of acclaim and awards on us that remains humbling. Since then, we haven't been quite as focused. I took some time to write my novel The World Beyond and later, we began to work on our detective game X-Noir. We had some thoughts of a commercial future for X-Noir, but now that we're about two-thirds done with it, it seems that will not be its destiny. It's a little too odd, too tough to refine into something with a feasible commercial future. We needed something that would be ambitious and unique without being too sprawling and difficult to polish. Enter Labyrinthine Dreams.

We had seen a few of our friends successfully put together games that were fairly short, but highly focused in their story, gameplay and art style. Meanwhile, we had spent 2005 to 2011 on one of the longest completed RPG Maker games ever released. X-Noir was meant to be on a smaller scale, but the highly detailed nature of the game's story has turned into a fairly big undertaking itself. This time, the game would be designed so that players could complete it in about an hour and there would be one consistent gameplay mechanic throughout - mazes. With this project, Mark had a chance to tackle an idea he'd been holding on to for a while - a game set inside a dream. He had briefly worked on a previous game with this concept called Vacant before we determined that I'd be back in the writer's seat.

It was interesting timing to be sure - I had just returned from the hospital after the birth of my sons. Vacant had been dark and sinister, but I wasn't necessarily feeling dark and sinister. My mood was something like exhausted triumph. The year that led up to the birth was packed with drama, adversity and confrontations, but my wife and I had gotten past them all and now we had two cute little guys. I could go into more detail, but one of the Kickstarter rewards is an audio commentary so I should probably save it until then. But in general, I wanted to distill my experience into a story that was vague enough so others could relate to it. I'd say there's two main themes of Labyrinthine Dreams - one is an old-fashioned arc of perseverance and redemption, the other is a critical look at the toll that our cultural obsession with productivity and profit takes on quality of life.

We've got a full playable version of the game now that gives a good sense of the story and gameplay, but as with all our projects, it's art that we need some help on. There's a four-minute video on the Kickstarter page that gives a few more details. I hope you'll decide to help out, either by donating or by spreading the word. Thanks!

This and That

A little behind on the movies lately. Knocked Up and Ocean's Thirteen are still in the pipeline....meaning I haven't seen them yet basically. I do plan to, though, I've just been pretty busy with work and such. And during the time I'm home, I usually just want to relax. The new job is a lot to take in. Some of the stuff I do is the same basic stuff I've always covered...charity events, library programs, etc. But keeping track of endless Town Council/Planning & Zoning/Conservation Commission meetings is proving to be a new challenge. Especially when they don't get out until 11:30 pm on some nights. People have a lot to say about proposed condominium developments when you ask them, as it turns out.

There's some comfort in knowing that on days after meetings like that, I tend to only spend about four hours in the office...and that's not my idea either. I'm often told to go home by the editor...because if I didn't I might rack up overtime hours. It's incredible the lengths the company will go to to make sure I don't go over my forty hours. It's like they would rather die than have to pay the extra $15 or whatever it would be if I went a little over. But hey, whatever. I'm not exactly looking for less free time at this point.

Plenty of side projects grab my attention while I'm home as well. The biggest is, of course, Master of the Wind. Closing in on Arc IV now....and I'll have more to say when it's complete. However, I did see today that Mark uploaded the trailer we made to Arc III on YouTube. When I decided to post it here, it suddenly occurred to me that with the song selected...this would technically qualify as a Power Metal Music Video. Two birds with one stone, I guess. Enjoy this homemade PMMV.

A Third Introduction

Blurty, Livejournal, now Blogspot. In some form or another, I've had a blog since 2003. I've had one since before the word "blog" even became popular. (lol hipster) I decided to begin this third generation with a brief little intro mostly aimed at anyone who doesn't know that much about me. Chances are most, if not all, of the people that read this won't need this information....but I am hoping to snare some new readers, so let's go for it.

I grew up in Durham, Connecticut and graduated from New York University in 2005 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Cinema Studies and a minor in Journalism and Mass Communication. College was full of big and happy changes for me. I became part of "The Cartel," a group of guys (and one girl) who enjoyed playing Smash Brothers, going out for dinner, shooting the shit about various forms of entertainment, and generally communicating in a dialect composed of inside jokes and cultural references. Even the title of this blog is a tribute to one of the most enduring jokes from our social circle. If any non-cartel members can figure out what exactly it means, I'll be very impressed.

During college, I also met my girlfriend of five years. Katie has continually been a steady and essential part of my life during those NYU years and beyond. She instilled in me a wider awareness of current events, particularly politics. As I got obsessed with the Connecticut Senate race last year, she may have sat back and wondered to herself "What hath I wrought?"

Another project I have in the works in Master of the Wind. It's a seven-part superhero game made with RPG Maker XP. XP is only the newest evolution of the RM programs I've tooled around with for years, and this time around I collaborated with my old friend Mark, aka "ArtBane." Progress updates on the game should be frequent sights in this blog as well.

In terms of my post-college life, I've certainly used more of the Journalism than the Cinema Studies. However...it is summer, and I do still write movie reviews for the Town Times. On May 21, I start my full-time reporter position at the Southington Observer (only took two years), but that won't keep me from weighing in on this summer's films...and during Oscar season, well, you'll see.

So welcome [back] to the lab.