Character biographies

Got them done this afternoon, I realise there are gaps and plot holes but as I write the actual story I will get to know the characters more 

Link to biographies

Evaluating them I feel they need more pading out and need to be more like the main character one but as I said above as I get to know the characters more when I am writing the story, the more that will be added to the biographies

And yes I feel better today than I did the other day

Fallen ill

Over the past week I've been feeling ill and has affected both my work ethic and attitude, I've had headaches, runny nose, stomach hurting, that sickly feeling where you know you're going to be sick but you never do so you stick your head over the toilet to try to be sick but nothing, I thought I could handle it and deal with it, but no

Anyway fact is if it comes to it I might get the character bios done and maybe do some of the presentation, but don't expect reems and reems of work, all I can say is I will try

What I've done this week, date beginning 24/09

- I lost the use of my PC from Monday to Wednesday this week, so I have lost 3 days of working on my FMP, I have placed in measures in my PC setup to stop this from happening again 

- Also spontaneously I have started up a word file for writers that have inspired me and it may be a writers specific work but the file itself is just in the works 

Link to the word file

- I kept going on with my characters biographies and they are coming on nicely, I aim to get them all done by Friday of this week

Lost my pc again

Again I have lost my pc yesterday, I am currently getting it fixed and should have it back by the end of today, in thus it affects my FMP because I have lost a day of working on my FMP.

Just updating you on the general state of affairs.

Plan for today 21/09/12

- Start Project proposal

- Start annotating and analysing my pictures for character image references

- Finish of The Creator character biography 

But besides that not much for today, well it may seem a little when I write it down like that but its quite a bit especially the character biography. 

FMP Presentation

I have my first of many FMP presentations on the 10 October which is going to be fun (not), so today I started working on my first presentation, I still have the conundrum of showing my idea generation because there is nothing else (job wise) I would want to do in the gaming industry. I say that because mainly what ever I would choose to do for my FMP would be an aspect of the career I would want to go into so for example what I am doing now is narrative writing and is only an aspect of what a game writer would have to do in his/ her job. But anyway idea generation wise I only have the different ideas I had about writing and that's it so to put it bluntly I have no contingency plan if this fails.

Not to mention one of my big weaknesses would be public speaking and generally presentations but I hope I get better with practice seems this presentation would only be the first of many. 

Complications

I don't think I will be able to get to my set marker and get all the character bios done for Friday  considering the loss of my pc the other and the loss of tonight through my English I may be looking at not this Friday the next Friday after that, I believe being the 28/09, hopefully by then it may be done 

MY PC

Yesterday after being on my PC for about an hour playing Civilization 5, I smelt burning, I carried on thinking everything will be fine, sadly not about five minutes after that my PC just went off. I have no clue what is wrong with it so the PC guys near me are working on it so I loose my PC for a day and a bit hopefully nothing major wrong. The affect on my FMP is that I loose a day of writing bios so I am a day behind.  

Character biographies

Found a good template for character bios the other day I'm going to use it, I know a little bit about each characters background so hopefully this template might help me to flesh them out a bit, I aim to get it done by this Friday so probably expecting to get one character done per day and yes the character bio link was converted from Word so some of the things I had on word have been deleted 

link to the character bio template 

link to my character bios (un-finished) 

Timeline done

Got the timeline done today only had a little bit left, was harder to end the story than I originally thought, I ended up ending earlier than I planned to and the aftermath part I left out of the game, I thought about ending it on cliffhanger but it didn't feel right for a game because that would imply there will be a sequel. Which in my eyes there would just be DLC and maybe a prequel.

SPOILERS to the main story, I would advise you not to read it if your waiting for the actual thing itself, the timeline is really just a basic plot line so I know what I am writing about if I ever get stuck 

Link to timeline

Author: Todd Benson

Plan for today 14/09/12 and for the future

Plan for today is:

- Completed Timeline

- Start working on the first of many presentations 

- Try to think of any other ideas I would've gone with if I couldn't have done writing (think of least 3) because of the fact is I don't have a contingency plan if this fails  


Plan for the future

- The stage of my idea generation should have been completed by the end of September 2012

- The research stage should be done by end of October 2012

- The design stage should be done by end of November 2012 

- The production will be started start of December and be done by end of April 2013  

- Completion of evaluation should be done before the hand-in for the evaluation, the hand-in being start of June 2013  

In total the whole thing should last 9 months which isn't a very long time when you look at it from a distance. 

The dates above are not set in stone so they could change over time, the above is just a guess, I should have the solid dates by Christmas.  

Character research

Image references for characters

Last weekend while writing the timeline, I had visions in my mind what they would like and what sounds I would be hearing at certain moments. So I started to build up a bank of images for each character some more than others are easy to find pictures to relate to and say to my art teacher "that is what I want him or her to look like". Bear in mind it is a work in progress so I haven't got a boat load of images but I am sure the the boat will gain more passengers. 

- link to my base character research (unfinished)

(and yes I know the Google doc that the link goes to is buggered, I had to convert the Microsoft Word file to a PDF then upload it to Google docs, all because Blogger doesn't allow attachments) 

Author: Todd Benson

Sit downs with tutors about my ideas for FMP

One-to-ones with tutors

Last week I had one-to-ones with 2 of my tutors, the first tutor was my course leader and the main teacher of what we actually had to do FMP wise, the second tutor was my concept art teacher from last year, who is their to assist with arty needs. These two would be my council because with my FMP I am not just writing a narrative a for a game, I aim to draw some main characters and create various drafts then a final then put the final draft  in to a scanner form their into Photoshop. The reason I want to do this is because Photoshop is one of my weakness and another one being my English (things like punctuation, grammar and the basics which I never picked up in Primary school, so in such I am currently resitting my English GCSE to improve my English). 

 My first tutor sat down with me and ran through and looked at the ideas I had, I think at this point I new I wanted to just go down the writer route because if had to choose something other than writing it would probably come down to: 3d environment design, something to do with what a actual game designer would do in his or her job and then the writer route. My first tutor agreed with me that I should pick the idea that I have written the most about which was Deaths Apprentice, by the end of the one-to-one he had written a checklist for me on a piece of paper, so from then on I started working on one of the points on the checklist which was a basic plot, so I had to give a history of events before the story that linked with the lore I had written on the second draft and then give the list of events that happened during the story. I can see the point in doing this because each key point from the basic plot would become a chapter. 

At this moment on 13/09/2012 at 13:50 GMT this is where I am currently in the time line, I aim to have it completed by tomorrow, by the way beware of SPOILERS in the timeline, all I can say is you've been warned. Read at your discretion.

- link to time line here as it stands (un-finished)

After my one-to-one with my course leader the day before being Thursday 6th September, the next day being the 07/09 I had my one-to-one with my art teacher, I explained my ideas and she read through the word file to get a feel of what I am doing for FMP because really at the moment I can't really describe it in a sentence. I told her my intentions for the Arty side of my FMP and she said to research through primary and secondary sources to collect images of what I envisage these people to look like. So I added this and other things she said to look into on the checklist underneath from the day before. 
   

- FMP checklist here, as it is now

The writing at the top is my first tutors and tells me what I need to do for the story part of the FMP. The writing underneath is my own but is the comments what my art tutor said I needed to for the character drawings and anything else.

Author: Todd Benson

starting off...

For Starters

Past (High School)

To start of I am new to this blogging thing so don't expect mastery in the blogging arts. As you can tell this is none what so ever formal I intend to keep my blogging informal, unless I am told informal is wrong. 

First off a little bit about me. I am Todd, I am 17 years of age and I am studying an Extended National Diploma BTEC in Games Development. This page is mainly for my Final Major Project (FMP) and any ideas that I developed further from the idea generation. The picture to the right is a picture from the last day of my high school probably the best smile I've pulled so in turn the best picture I have, just to put a face to name.

Mostly my FMP is based around what job I want to go into in the Games Industry in the future, the job being a writer, this would in tale me writing the story for a game which would include a basic plot, character bio's, location, genre and the actual story itself and etc.. When I decided this it was about 8-10 weeks ago back, then it was the summer holidays. The way I started off was I typed down names of stories I had floating around in my mind, one came from a dream I had, another was an idea a friend on my course had. These were all just names of the stories. After I wrote the names of the stories down I developed into a basic plot for each one, some I didn't get down to writing and then some I developed more than others and wrote more because I had more ideas for them. Mostly this was all idea generation by this point but it grew as I had ideas for each one. 

Present Me (College)

See the attached document for my first draft and my initial idea generation

CLICK HERE

After a few weeks of waiting for college to start and see what my tutors thought, ideas were still coming in so from the first one Deaths Apprentice (D.A) I created a lore because I felt like I needed to explain what some of the terms meant and just to generally give some background. I of course became more interested in writing the lore than the actual story itself. The others I more a less left there because I felt no motivation to write anything on them. 

My second draft below

Click Here

Author: Todd Benson