Happy New Year and such

First of all, happy 2007, everyone. The year of my graduation...yee-hah. :)

We had friends over for the past 2 days to celebrate the new year, which was enjoyable; it's kind of a tradition between our two families, and it's always nice to see them. This meant, however, that I was spending my time reading, watching DVD's, playing cards, playing Scrabble and other board games, and being a football fan instead of developing for TLS. ;) I did get some work done this afternoon...I actually did a good deal of dialogue writing for one of the main characters in the series (Tomas, the "henchman").

The idea here is to make Tomas much more of a living, breathing character than the "henchmen" in my past modules have been. He's an integral part of the story and he's there with the player at every turn, and if you make the effort to speak with him often, you'll find that he has many of his own opinions and insights into various events and other people that you'll interact with...at risk of looking like a copycat, I would say that he is to the player as Mat is to Rand, except often happier and cheekier (my henchmen always end up cheeky, don't they?). I did say from the start that The Lynncairen Saga combines some ideas from many various works of fantasy literature that I've read; I don't think any of them are drastic copies, but if you take a moment to think about it in-game, you'll be able to pick out a fair number of similarities between The Wheel of Time and The Lynncairen Saga, or the game by THQ called Summoner, for example--they were both inspirations of sort. You may also occasionally find a rare instance of a plot device stolen from The Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter...but I think that everything is put together seamlessly enough that the end product is something of its own, and I think that the central plot stands on its own merits.

In any event, after several thousand words-worth of writing and several hundred pages worth of reading (finished The Subtle Knife and read 100 pages into The Amber Spyglass), I'm tired...and I've got schoool starting the day after tomorrow. By the way, the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman is simply superb. I read it years ago, in 5th grade or so, when it first came out, and I remember being completely nonplussed by it. Now, however, after reading some of the great works of fantasy literature out there and after having developed a heightened appreciation for what a great story is, I simply love this series. It establishes--in my mind--a perfect sense of suspended-disbelief...it's all so awesomely "theoretical" yet still mildly plausible that it's truly a joy to read and think about. There are only two book series' that have ever sent that shiver up my spine when I'm really into a good story, and I arrive at an epic point in the plot...I vividly remember those moments, because they're the ones that make reading and writing all worth the while. The first was when Rand was cleansing saidin and the huge battle was taking place around him. The second was when Nynaeve is in that tavern (either in Crossroads of Twilight or Knife of Dreams) and she tells that other Malkieri guy that Lan is riding out alone to fight in the Blight (Tarwin's Gap, iirc), and he cries out that the Golden whatever of Malkier will rise again. What can I say--those epic moments are just awesome. :) Hmm...oh yeah, His Dark Materials. Same thing here, on a smaller scale...simply superb storyline with memorable characters and a thrilling plot.