I spent this whole week in AGAD just... chilling.
Which is not normal. Like, even when I'm focusing my work on Mountainheart primarily on film, I usually don't have NOTHING to do. But... this week, I had nothing to do. I was able to easily get the additional audio taken care of, and my side-story based on the Mountainheart game is... about an hour's work away from completion. A full, 20 minute long audio project that tells the story of Mountainheart from beginning to end. The main difficulty for me this week was... dealing with the time I had, to be honest. I've been working on Mountainheart entirely in film, and, well... it's nearly done. I only have a little bit longer to go, and my work in AGAD has simmered down. This really is the end, huh? Even though we as a team didn't get far, I'm proud of the work we were able to do.
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Today, I did what I promised myself I'd do this week. I've been pretty chill, just seeing what other people were doing and giving my input where needed.
I've spent most of this week making minor edits and improvements to the main seven audio tapes, updating them to bring them more up to par and fixing any minor errors I could find in them. This week's been pretty smooth sailing... though fairly directionless. The greatest accomplishment of our team this week has been Cameron's modeling and creation of the vent systems, which look really good! These are essential to the creation of the game's central mechanics. Next week, I'll make the final touches on the game's story, finally designing all of the short tapes to add little bits and pieces of lore to the Cliffside Facility. Have you ever had that moment where you hear a song and just... make a story to go along with it? Or, like, interpret it for one of your own stories? I've had a lot of those.
I think it has something to do with my upbringing involving so much music, maybe. Or maybe music just gives me that urge to t h i n k. I think that's pretty beautiful, personally. The way we can hear a story in a little tune that someone else made, and interpret that story in a way that gives us enjoyment. I think that's absolutely sick. ...There isn't too much of a point to this blog post, to be honest. I just wanted to mention that, 'cause a couple dancing with each other to a slow jazz song is a PEAK VIBE. Just thought I'd throw some characters from a story I'm making into a scene like that for fun... and now that scene is hopefully gonna be in the final cut. And I'm thinking about writing it. It's a fun feeling. The next time you listen to a song, you should try and make a story out of it. It's a... surprisingly relaxing experience. I've done it.
The seventh tape has been completed. I'm... so happy with how it came out. And I'm also exhausted. This was, undoubtedly, my greatest accomplishment of the week. I spent SO LONG working on it, and I'm so proud of the results. You have NO IDEA how many stops I pulled out to get this thing working well. I had to consult my music teacher when I wasn't able to get the cassette noises right. I think I'll let the tape speak for itself. Spend next week helping my team and resting my arms a bit. Enjoy. This week was surprisingly chill. I'm very close to being done with tape 01-B... which is really exciting. It's the absolute biggest of the bunch, and I'm SO incredibly proud of it. 01-B is the final piece of Mountainheart's story, and as such, will be the final piece of my biggest contribution to Mountainheart (not counting the GDD).
It's been a struggle, to be honest. Getting the audio together and working in a good way has been, by far, the hardest, issue in creating Mountainheart's story... but I did it. I found the clips, I put 'em together, I recorded my own voice, I learned how to edit audio, all for this. This will be my greatest accomplishment yet. Next week, I'll finally finish 01-B. Not sure on the exact day, with my complicated schedule... but it'll happen. The eighth class continues on. Yet again, not as many opportunities to do work as I'd like. I've been spending my time in AGAD working on the map and talking with folks about how to proceed from here, and how the game as a whole works.
I'm hoping to be able to get the class done by next week, so I can go back to working on the tapes full time. I'm so close to being done with all of them... which is really exciting, actually. But, nonetheless, I've still got a lotta work to do. This week, Cameron's work on the cassette system and inventory have been REALLY impressive this week, as well. Easily our biggest accomplishment. This week has been... complicated. For the past two weeks, I've been struggling with an extra eighth class on top of the usual 7 (don't ask, it's complicated), which has cut into my working time in film class. Tape 7 is being prepared... but it'll be some time before it's fully put together, which is... difficult.
My time has primarily been spent on revamping the facility map to fit the new direction of the game, and working on tape 7 with the time I've had left over. Next week will be spent focusing on these things, as well. ...So far, Cameron has been an invaluable asset to the team. This week, he did some REALLY good work on the cassette player itself, which is... well, it's amazing. My guy is absolutely shredding. The lurker's AI is already done, too? Which is ALSO insane. Horror is super fascinating to play around with, and making an encounter with something like the Mountainheart scary is an... interesting task. However, with my focus on art this week, the others should have a pretty good idea of how to make this work. Explaining to the others how horror and terror mesh together to make fright was... difficult, primarily because it's a difficult subject, but I think they got it!
My greatest accomplishment this week was finishing all of the voicelines for Mountainheart. I'm excited about my role in this project, and I believe that, with my help, we can truly make Mountainheart come to life. Over Spring Break, I'll be working to consolidate concept art and actual assets, to prepare the team for making the world in which the game takes place. At long last, we're on track! A lot of this week was spent handling the difficult situation with our team's direction, but we're finally in a good place, after yesterday's meeting. Cameron has taken over as the team leader. This new direction is promising, and definitely the best thing we managed to do this week, even after all of the difficulty. Cameron is gonna be holding meetings to keep us all on track, and this project might legitimately come to life in the end.
This week, I've finished all of the cassette tapes that don't require a seperate voice actor, and I'm going to be progressing with finding a voice actor and recording the smaller messages. I'm super excited for the future of Mountainheart, now. I'd upload a tape here... but the file size is way too big, whoops. I'm a bit tired of this. Not the work I'm doing, I love the work I'm doing... but... everything else. This is starting to feel like a disorganized two person project, and I can't lead everyone because I really don't know how to, and it's not my damn job. I've been working on my audio logs, and communicating with and helping other team members... but I really feel like Quinn is kinda failing at actually leading the team, and I'm not effective at doing it in his absence.
It is the leader's responsibility to keep people on track and let them know what needs to be done, but he (as he directly told me), thinks that it isn't his responsibility if Pranav and Liam aren't on track. When it directly is. This game might've been my idea, but I'm not a leader, I'm a writer. I can't manage everyone. I'm going to talk to him on Tuesday, when I get back from my trip. Hopefully it goes well and he doesn't brush me off again. Tape 5 is nearly finished, and I'm pretty proud of it. So... I guess that's my greatest accomplishment for the week. |
Xander MacIver I am a storyteller. I love analyzing video games, shows and books to see what makes them good. Archives
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