Phoenix Creation Journal #8

Welcome one and all to the Phoenix Creation Journal dedicated explicitly to progress on Journey of the Vanguard, the Choicescript powered interactive novel by yours truly. That said, this is will be where I store old announcements in order to keep the WIP forum post on the CoG forums clean.


Version 0.3
-Completed the main portion of the mountain survivor section, and have made it viewable in its entirety.
-Four custom auras have now been added to the game. This includes a new listing in the stats page to display its artsy name, a new choice in the first chapter where the players can choose their aura directly.
-Aura choice affects relationships with future characters within the game.
-Added additional text to the post-training scene to give readers who don't look at their stats page an idea of what they're most skilled in.
-Reworked all skill stats. Previously, all of the skill stats started at 50. Once training was complete, skills that went untrained would recieve penalties at the end of training. Now, all stats begin at 10, and there are no penalties at the conclusion of training. This was done to better represent the player's power level in relation to more experienced characters in the early game, and to allow for a greater sense growth throughout
-Stat checks updated to account for new skills stats
-Hunted down typos
-"Saboteur" is now spelled correctly as a class name.

Version 0.2.5 Patch Notes:
-Added New scene of interaction with the MC's aura teacher
-Added access to the functional portion of the new Survivor chapter 
-Edited the dream sequence in the survivor chapter to allow for some player choice
-Fixed bugs involving player name being set incorrectly

Version 0.2.3 Patch Notes:
-Added an announcement to let players know when they can view their skills in the stats screen.
-Added a "Weapon" field to the stats screen to display the player character's primary weapon
-Changed the name of the "Technician" Utility Skill to "Hacker" to better differentiate it from the "Engineer" Battle Skill.
-Fixed bug where players who got in the escape pod without question could not progress
-Fixed bug where players who unlocked the Futurist class would not progress
-Reworked some of the code to enable scenes to pass quicktest.
-Reworked the code on the stats screen so that text based stats are all properly capitalized.

Phoenix Creation Journal #7

Hello all, and welcome back to the Phoenix Creation journal. As some of you may know, I recently started a new project, currently titled Journey of the Vanguard. So far, it's been a blast creating it, and for those of you curious about it, I've got some interesting news to share!  So with that said, let's just dive right in.

That was a quick update
So, about one hour after the playable alpha of Journey of the Vanguard went live, I had to rush out a hotfix because literally everyone who sent in feedback said two things:

"This seems really interesting!" (Aw shucks.)

"Also, found a bug." (Aw shit.)

After reading through all the player bug reports, I dove back into the code and eventually dug up quite a few bugs, including one that was keeping virtually everyone from reaching the actual end of the readable portion of the game.

So those were squashed, and the v. 0.2.2 hotfix was released. Since then, I've finally managed to figure out how to get quicktest working (still trying to make progress with randomtest), and you can bet that all future updates will be subjected to them before release, hopefully ensuring far fewer mishaps going forward.

I've since forgotten what bugs were squashed, so I'm afraid I can't post any kind of patch notes this time around, but I also guarantee that all future updates will have them, and they will be found right here on this blog.

Outside of that, I'm happy to continue to discuss the game over at its thread in the Choice of Games forums, here.

That'll do it for this creation journal. Phoenix, out.

Pet Project- Life of the Vanguard

So, first off, I'm not dead. Second off, I've decided to rectify this by giving myself a project so massive, it's bound to kill me.

I recently rediscovered the interactive fiction company Choice of Games, and dove back into their scripting language to see if I could do what I failed at once before and craft an interactive novel. Will I succeed, I don't know, but the prologue is done for anyone curious about what in the actual heck I'm rambling about.

I'll go into more detail about the game once it's a bit more... finished, but for now, I give you:

The Life of the Vanguard (title work in progress)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/bcpiqo12tte17cb/Journey%20%283%29.htm?dl=0

Nerdgasm: Legends of CALLED IT!

Hey everybody. You remember that time I did a post on how the CW was totally putting their own Justice League together? No? Well here's the proof, go read it now. I'll wait.

By your schedule.

So yeah, a lot of what I said, I still hold fast to, but I just thought I'd give a quick update to my theory, because now I can tie it into Supergirl! (But not in the way you're thinking.) Read on, oh true believer! Except don't, because "true believers" are Marvel fans, and this here's a DC Nerdgasm. Anyway, let's actually do a thing now.

What's the same?

Out of the gate, you'll note that my original post and video juxtapose the CW's Justice League with the "classic" line-up as it were. That means Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Martian Manhunter, and a seventh person. It honestly doesn't matter who that seventh person is. The animated series says Hawkgirl, the classic comics say Aquaman (and so, by the way, does Young Justice.), the New 52 says Cyborg and also replaces Martian Manhunter with Aquaman because reasons. Pick your favorite classic line up, it's not hugely important.

Upon reexamining my theory with current canon, I hold true to Oliver Queen's Green Arrow being the Arrowverse's equivalent of Batman. He has no superpowers, but he has extensive training, his adventures are the darker ones, he has very strong ties to the League of Assassins. Green Arrow is Batman. Not really hard to see that.

I also hold onto my comparisons of the Atom as the equivalent of Green Lantern, Vibe as the equivalent of Flash, and Firestorm as the equivalent of Martian Manhunter.

What's changed?

My previous assumption of Roy Harper's Arsenal filling in the role of 7th wheel though, proved sorely mistaken. On one hand, I suppose this makes me sad, because that means I wasn't totally and completely right, like always. On the other hand, this is great news because, as I said in that YouTube video way back, each hero really should bring something different to the table.

More good news, there are now plenty of heroes to choose from to fill the role of 7th wheel. Hawkman, Black or White Canary, Captain Cold and Heat Wave, oddly enough... all very interesting possibilities, and this time you will note that I will not say definitively who it is because I fell into that trap last time.

But if I had to toss in another two cents, I'd say White Canary. She's already with the Legends of Tomorrow and it's nice to have more than one girl on a super-team.

Speaking of...

Remember how I said Laurel as the Black Canary was essentially the CW's Wonder Woman, because she was literally the only heroine still alive when that article was written? Well, since then, a new character has joined the Arrowverse that is way more of a fit for the role of Wonder Woman than Black Canary.

Who? Hawkgirl of course! It all lines up pretty neatly. Strong, powerful, female warrior who flies and uses ancient weaponry. Who am I talking about in that sentence? Exactly why it works so well! So yes, Hawkgirl is CW's Wonder Woman equivalent.

So, in summary:

We see you CW. We can all see you.

Weren't you supposed to tie this in to Supergirl?

I was just getting to that! If you'll notice, I still haven't talked about my theory of the CW's Barry Allen being the local equivalent of Superman. Which is a semi-awkward segway into the concluding point of this article.

Barry Allen's the Flash exists as the most powerful (good) metahuman on the face of the earth. He's also the much lighter counterpart to the local Batman equivalent, who he fought once. He exists as a symbol of hope and an all around moral high ground type.

A lot of the weight of that character archetype gets lost if you live in the same universe as Superman (You know, not the Man of Steel one). I stand my ground in saying that the Arrowverse doesn't need Batman or Superman, because it already has characters filling their roles quite well, and adding Batman and Superman into that mix would only diminish the existing characters.

Which brings us to Supergirl.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for superheroines getting their time to shine. Jessica Jones? Loved it. Captain Marvel? Can't come out soon enough. Wonder Woman? God DC, don't screw that up. And by all accounts (from a good friend of mine), Supergirl's a very solid outing for a female led superhero property. Aces to that. But Superman exists in her universe. And if she's in the same universe as The Flash... well there's that whole problem I just talked about.

I love Supergirl, but I don't want Superman coming anywhere near the Arrowverse. He'd wreck the perfect balance we've got going on right now.

Unless they went the multiverse route, which I guess works. Huh. Defeated my whole point in one sentence. I'm not very good at this, am I?

For more evidence that I've clearly chosen the wrong line of work, check out my efforts on YouTube, where I'm trying to sell the concept of you becoming a superhero.

Lazy Sunday Post: Copied Right

So somewhat recently, I've been learning a lot about copyright law and the public domain, and also fireplaces, but that's a completely unrelated story. On a further unrelated note, in one of the episodes of the Flash, a Central City Police officer is name checked as Officer Buchavich (I'm guessing that's how you spell its. It's pronounced Boo-kuh-vich). That's a hilarious sounding name, right? I can't be the only one who thinks that. What kind of TV writer puts that name in a throwaway line? That's gotta be a reference to someone they know. Or something. Right?

Anyway, that's not what I'm actually here to talk about. Back to the copyright thing. Specifically, I'm going to very briefly and generally go over some extremely complicated legal wackanonsense and then offer my two cents on the subject. Bear in mind my sources for this article are YouTube videos who put much more effort into research than I do, so... take that with a grain of the seasoning of your choice.

Copyright laws, at least as best I can figure and overly generalize here, originally existed as a way to protect creators and let them profit off of their own ideas basically for their entire life, and after this generously long period of copyright, their work would enter the public domain.

Now, the public domain, at least in my opinion, is an amazing and beautiful thing. The concept of characters, songs, books, and movies being around so long that they belong to everyone and have become a part of everyone's shared culture is... kind of an amazing. It says something about a work or a character if people other than the original creator want to do something with it. Characters like Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and Robin Hood... so many people have used this characters, in so many different ways. They're almost like a common mythology we all share.

Public domain characters and works inspire people, and as a creator, the idea of someone taking something I made and using it to make something new is... indescribably beautiful. And now I'm thinking of Emmet's speech from the end of The Lego Movie again.

I recently learned that if Disney weren't a company founded by a anti-Semite, currently being controlled by greedy, soulless monsters in nice suits, copyrights wouldn't have been extended to 95 years, and Batman, Superman, and dozens of other characters would be in the public domain right now. And it makes me sad that they're not. Not just because it means my direct to DVD film Batman For Now, I Guess will be delayed from hitting store shelves for another few decades at least either.

It could have been.

Batman and Superman (and a bunch of other characters I don't really care about) have been around for over 75 years, and they are still recognizable, household names. I know for a fact (no I don't) that I would have to switch continents before had even a hope of finding someone who didn't know who these characters were.

They deserve to be in the public domain.

And in case I'm a worse writer than I think and my tone and stance weren't clear, I mean that as a good thing.

Batman and Superman are, really at this point, part of our shared culture. Our shared identity. They've transcended being just cool characters and they've become aspects of who we all are and what we all know. They are just as culturally ubiquitous as names like Sherlock Holmes or Robin Hood, if not more. I just think they've earned the status of public domain.

The status of characters, modern myths, that belong to the people, free for anyone to take, remix, reimagine, or reinterpret as they see fit.

But that's just my wishy washy, Lego Movie inspired take on the idea of public domain. Someone reading this will probably find it repetitive, naive, or overly sappy, but whatever. It's just two cents. No point in picking it up.

I will say though this is way more serious than I usually do for a Lazy Sunday Post, so here's a picture of Wings roasting weenies over my spontaneously combusting body.

I'm told this is covered under for better or worse.

If you're interested in finding out what YouTube videos I pulled from, it was this one and this one. Speaking of YouTube, I've got my own channel, which you should totally check out.

Lazy Sunday Post: Where Are You Coming From?

I make a lot of jokes on this blog about how small my audience is. So many in fact, I'm not sure what I'll do if I ever do develop any kind of audience. I'll be like a fat comedian who finally lost weight. (Sidebar: was that joke offensive? Doesn't matter, nobody reads these. SEE! I did it again!) Today though, I'd like to spend an entire Sunday evening breaking down that very small audience, because it confuses me. A lot.

For starters, did you know that my Crackpot Theory explaining Sharknado garnered 25 views, compared to the five and two views of the only other posts on this blog at the time. A 500% increase in readership over the course of a single post! I'm not statistician, but that sounds like a really big jump on paper.

Pictured: Not a statistician.

Weirder still, is that following that post, readership plummeted right back down, and did not exceed that view count until the recorded breaking Squirrel Survey Setup garnered 35 views. That post, as I mentioned earlier, was the first to be tweeted about upon its release, with a follow-up post on Facebook.

Now, I can track the amount of clicks the links I put up get, and the most clicked link I've ever posted (at time of writing) has... eleven clicks. That leaves fourteen page views completely unaccounted for on the last article. Also, there is a single person in Germany who clicks my links. I don't know who you are, but whoever you are, you sir/madam are a champion.

According to Bloggers stats page, most of my traffic is coming from google.com. That makes about as much sense to me as a female demographic does to Warner Brothers (Oh snap!), which leads me with one central question:

Everybody reading this right now, WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? Or to phrase that in less yell-y sort of way, exactly what led you to this blog? Specifically this entry? I know it's a total hassle, but if you could take two minutes to explain in the comments the chain of events that led you to here, it would be much appreciated. I also apologize in advance, as I'm sure you were expecting something a lot more interesting.

I'm just trying to get a sense of what's going on here, maybe figure out how to reach more people the same way I reached kind, handsome, and charming folks such as youself. And if you help me out by taking the time to write such a comment, I'll be sure to include a shoutout to you in my next YouTube video. By the way, I have a YouTube channel. Did you know? Go check it out, it's great. It also has extremely low viewership, for equal reasons I equally cannot explain.

But mark my words, this image will appear in a video. 

Lazy Sunday Post: ¡Soy Coconut!

Before I go any further, let me just say that it was way more of a hassle than it should have been to type out that title. I won't name any characters, but someone *cough* upside down exclamation point *cough* has a very stupid keyboard code that turns my current tab into a new tab.

So that happened. On with the actual point of this post.

As many of you may have notice, I am an extremely handsome shade of brown. For those of you who haven't noticed, take a minimum of ten minutes to admire the handsomeness of the below photo.

Awwwww yeah.

I know, right?

The beautiful shade you see before you is a result of my fiery Latin heritage. My mother was a full blooded Puerto Rican (Rican is a word, Blogger. Racist.) and my father was a Mexican more than anything else. Such a heritage came with great many things. Homemade tortillas on Sundays, eating a lot of tacos, knowing what a tostada actually is, and having someone yell ¡sientete! at you when you were a little kid.

One thing it did not end up coming with though, was the ability to actually speak Spanish. Early on in my childhood, I had a lot of visits from my mother's side of the family, and those people spoke Spanish like it was going out of style. Because of this, 'lil Phoenix didn't know the English words for rice and underwear until he was like, two.

From a childhood like that, you'd probably have guessed I was on the road to bilingualism. Unfortunately, I guess people just sort of stopped speaking Spanish around me, because eventually I stopped speaking it too. I also went on to lose the ability to name the make and model of any car I saw, and decided that blueberries were disgusting. I made some poor choices in my developing years.

And now, after all that Spanglish in childhood, and three years of Spanish in high school, I can declare myself to be a backpack, and family get togethers remain so much bargled (not a word but it is now) speech intermixed with the occasional use of the word "with."

And to put the icing on this coconut-y cake, Wings actually speaks better Spanish than I do.

Yo quero ser un hippopotoma.

That's it for this Sunday folks. Cheers.