Saturday Night Dream

Saturday night I saw the movie “Golden Compass” which was an entertaining family movie, nothing amazing but had a good premiss and some interesting concepts, I’d certainly be interested in reading the book.

On to my point, that night I dreamed a theme I have often, the end of the world. To be be specific the zombie invasion was happening. My family along with some others where huddled up in my house. In terms of weapons, just on my own persons was a metal baseball bat, a shotgun, a handgun and some extra ammo. In my room I had a lot more ammo and a sniper gun... the term full stock certainly comes into play. 

The zombies themselves had an odd way of communicating, they would speak some words that sounded english but some that sounded like latin but very gabled. They had some form of intelligence and seemed to be connected somehow. They had a cycle where they would all retreat back into the ground or sleep, certainly a strange bunch of creatures. They would also stay away from certain areas of the town at certain times.

This is where the mentioning of Golden Compass comes into play and how it influenced my dream. “Dust” (which is this like sparkly magical substance) opened up a hole in the sky above the grocery store and connected the grocery store to a grocery store of another world. We could walk through this bubble and shop at this other worlds grocery store. Unfortunately it was limited and when we walked out of the bubble we would go back to the zombie infested world.

I saw a few people i know die in their dream and give their life to save others, very sad. When we were huddled up in the house we would crack open the door, a few of my friends would stand on the inside and hold the door from bursting open where I would take a spear and stab the zombies trying to get in.

There was also a website in this dream, I posted on every website form or place I could find looking for other pointing them to the site “www.isanyonealive.com” I checked just to make sure its not real. It’s not... I’ve certainly thought about buying it or something like it, not sure what I’d setup there but we will see.

Video game story telling

There are different ways to tell a story in a video game, each one has pros and cons, but I think some leave a better impact than others.

Each of these following games perceived a story in a different way.

The Longest Journey – The point and click adventure which was very story driven, each solving of a puzzle would reward you with a little more of the story than you had before and sometimes cutting to a cinematic scene which takes you out of the game play, hence basically watching a movie.

Diablo 2 – A point and click RPG, this game conveyed its stories by dialog when you spoke with NPCs, this progressed the main story. However after each chapter the player was rewarded with a cinematic scene. The cinematic was part of a story that had in the timeline of your character already happened, or was a few steps ahead of you. So you weren’t learning any more about your character or what had happened at this moment, it was more about the back story and how it brought you to “this point.”

Civilization IV – Civilization has no primary story to speak or, not text book written of a story, its kind of a create your own. The story of your civilization starts to unfold as you interact with your environment and other cultures, its almost like a super “create your own story book adventure” except with infinite possibilities. While it doesn’t go deep into the characters or personal situations, the civilizations and challenges become characters themselves.

Half Life – Less is more. The game never removes you from your view, it never says “hey look that’s the main villain over there!” it just unfolds around and in front of you but leads you in an inevitable direction. To me this is one of the most brilliant pieces of story telling because it forces the player to discover the world and push the story itself, much like how Portals story telling was, simply brilliant.

At some point I will try to construct a video game story, I think similar in the story telling design of half life where you are immersed as the character on this journey.

Dream Job

Bioware is hiring for a story writer for their vide game development team, the requirements and submission for the job is actually really cool: Bioware Job Description

I’m not saying I’d submit something because I’m not familiar with the Neverwinter Nights tool, however it does propose an interesting concept. Come up with a “demo” of what you can do, an example of what your trying to accomplish, either as a video game story writer, designer or whatever.

This is a concept that I’ve never seriously looked at before, sure I have writing pieces but I’ve never taken a crack at making a video game demo with story driven concepts in mind, a “although I don’t have the experience on my resume, here is proof of what I’m capable of.” I think this is something I need to look into the future, perhaps I’ll be drafting a fantasy story of sorts that someone could “play” through in 15-30 mins, find an game engine to adapt it to, see how it goes.

Although written word to video game translation may not be that good, short story to video translation hasn’t always come out how I thought it would be, I’m guilty of butchering my own story with my World of Warcraft Reflection video submitting. I wrote a short story called “Philips Battlefield” I thought it came out really good, but then when I translated to a machinima it came out okay…. But not nearly to the caliber of the original story and a lot had to be cut or change because of technical limitations. For example the beginning was suppose to start with this big war and the machinima starts in a grave yard.

Well here is the video anyways, we made it to the finals of the contest, I am proud of that much:

And the days go by

Too many days have gone by without an update. I have to remind myself that this is a scratchpad for ideas not for a polished final product. Which here are a few of my ideas as far as the zombie story goes.


There is a little girl who, when she cries summons demonic entities that attack everything in site. I’ve decided to use the same fairy tale reference with this character as I did with Anna in my Definition of Fear story (which I have not posted yet lol). Anna’s reference is little red riding hood, the little girl in the zombie story is going to be little bow peep… except I need to make sure she is as far away from the typical horror girl as possible the long black stringy hair has been done to death, and I personally like to do as different as possible.

All the characters in the story will eventually meet.

The zombies are different than any other zombie in any story EVER. When zombies are in close proximity to one another they become a collective, capable of doing very group orientated and problem solving tasks. Think of an ant hill and how they work together… now replace ants with 100 zombies….

Additional characters will include the “Self Aware Zombie”, when this character awakens he will not realize that he is even a zombie, in fact when he sees other zombies he is frightened away! Being the “aware” living dead as he is, he is able to tap into some of the share consciousness that the other zombies have. His personality will embody my comic relief, I need to write him as funny and likeable as possible.

Zombies - Food for thought

The middle of nowhere is always the middle of somewhere on the map, the middle of this somewhere is deep in the rural forest of New England. Not off the map as one would think, but secluded to the point where one can escape the rush of traffic and the doldrums of office life.

Quiet.

This is where one finds a balance of nature within, a certain level of tranquility with the world around you that can only be described as bliss. Life moves slower here, people breath deep, if you stay long enough you may not want to leave.

Calm.

Through the labyrinth of trees, taking comfort under the shade next to the lake rests a log cabin. From a distance it looks to be made of the same wooden log toys one played with as a kid.

Peaceful.

These are exactly the reasons Tim Macame moved here, he’s not sure how long his stay will be but with little in the way of electricity and only the basic amenities the hardball corporate life is fading into a distant memory.

Chaos.

The back door to the cabin burst open as Tim darts in breathing heavy like a race horse, sweating profusely off his round bread role body and chubby cherub cheeks. As fast as Tim bursts in he is frantic to shut and lock the door behind him, his presently plump weight gives him extra push to slam the door shut but his slipper digits betray him from locking the door.

A strong kick back from the door pushing from the other side knocks Tim back a step. This extra thrust is enough for a hand to reach in, craving much of what Tim has, flesh. Not the hand so specifically but raging ragged dead, biting and clawing it’s way to get in. Drool from the beast spills out of its mouth as it roars in it’s feeding fever trying to get in. Tim is holding the creature out, but he is tired, too much running from things like this today, exhaustion has taken its toil, but the nightmare continues to bark down the door does not letting up its pursuit.

Tim eyes the shotgun on the counter, the weapon is just out of his reach, holding the door and stretching out to reach is the only way to end this. Tim places both palms of his hand on the door, and uses his foot as a stopper with his forehead pressed against the door staring at the creature he utters the words “you suck”.

Spinning around Tim reaches out with his right hand for the gun but the motion has caused the gun to move further away. He grunts with frustration extending his arms out further giving the nightmare enough leeway to push the door open some more, Tim catches the door with his left hand whitening the knuckles at the strength of his grip.

The nightmare bites, “ARGH! FUCK!” Tim screams, the pain is enough incentive to lunge back and grab the shotgun. With the nightmare's mouth still clinging to Tim’s hand, Tim puts the barrel of the shot gun right in the creatures face and pulls the trigger.

Bang.

The sound of the gun on such a quiet day can be heard for miles, but all of those who would be startled are dead. The door is shut and the gun lays smoking on the floor. Pain who’s threshold ranges from a slight pricking inconvenience to a thrusting spear whose only relief is death. Tim is too shocked to decide which he feels; he stands motionless pale face by the horror that has occurred.

“That didn’t go well” Tim unclenches his left hand that had been tucked under his arm pit, or what is left of his hand.

“Not even enough left to flip someone off” his monotone humor was enough to give him a smirk before collapsing.

Sleep.

What felt like hours to Tim were really only minuets, he awoke dazed in a cold sweet but well enough to stand. Like a zombie, Tim went through the motions of preparing a pot of baked beans, he is not infected nor will he turn into one of those nightmares, he’s just hungry. Tim continues his making his gourmet feast still babying his decrypt hand, Tim add some spice to his meal by taking out what he calls “his little helpers”, several bottles of pills that include high dosages of multi vitamins, calcium and a jug of water.

Prepared and served, he sits at the table eating the beans out of the pot he cooked in, spooning mouth full after mouth full with his right hand. Although still the sloppy antics of an over weight compulsive eater, Tim’s face and wonder bread rolls have significantly slenderer since earlier today.

Tim picks up his jug of water and chugs gulp and gulp, leaving little room for air until it is empty. A sigh of comfort and relief expunges from Tim followed by a well desired burp.

Tim looks at his left hand which is not so decrepit now, “almost done”, short of a boney figure and a opened splotch, Tim’s hand had almost entirely grown back. Not surprising to Tim as this is his bodies natural ability, in lies the reason for his more to love physic. It’s not that he doesn’t care what goes into his body, it’s more of make sure that when something comes off, it grows back.

Zombies - Blood Queen

Scarlet lays spread out on her bed, a naked goddess waiting to be scarified. She takes another drag and blows smoke rings one inside the other, tits she calls them and sucking the life from some real ones is what she desires.  

An alarm in her room goes off, she wets at the buzzing sound; “play time” she says. While the alarm is perfectly capable of going off on its own, the device has been cleverly rewired with an electrical board and other wires labeled “go green,” these wires weave up to the top of a seven story apartment building where it’s connected to a solar power panel. The panel heats the cell of water vapors inside causing them to move about, thus moving electricity into the basement of the building where it’s then stored. Although the true nature of this modified device is to act as a sun dial, to tell Scarlet when the sun has gone out of view.  

The water from below jets out and Scarlet’s body is bathed in a variety of sweet spices, a women of stunning beauty and a well endowed chest does not need such trifles to attract her pray; but goes through the motions because she likes it. Makeup on the other hand can sometimes be a chore, a rather difficult task when you have no reflection. But after touching every inch of your body over and over again, thousands of nights when it never ages, you get to know it pretty well.  

Sunglasses at night only add to her allure as she gazes out from over them, Scarlet sticks a naked leg out from underneath her coat and waves “Taxi!” Even in a major city the cabbies all stop for this red headed bombshell. She gets into the cab; the smell of curry is overpowered by the sent of her fragrant hair.  

“The Smell of Sex” she says calmly.

Even the Taxi driver’s hands are sweating from her words, “I'm sorry where are you going?”

“The Smell of Sex, it's a club over on 4th”, she remains emotionless.

Thunderous sounds of techno can be heard down the street, her taxi pulls to the front and she steps out a movie star. The line is long but Scarlet takes no second look, the bouncer only smiles and un-clips the reins to let her in. She giggles to herself, "I've been so patient this week" she licks her lips showing off her sharp fanged teeth, "time to eat."

Zombies - a Necrophilia’s dream

“I’m so fucking hard right now.” said Geoffrey dazed over his dream becoming reality.

Reality, it’s a dream for some, and a nightmare for others. The nightmare is what Lisa is hoping to wake from and while “I’m so fucking hard right now” is a line from Lisa’s favorite fantasy romance novel it is far from what she wants to hear.

Lisa looks back to see if her nightmares still follow her. "Ah!" she tearfully screams "someone fucking help me!" 

Geoffrey's bubbled dream is blown harder at the site of Lisa running towards him seeing Lisa’s nightmare chasing after her. If Lisa knew what state of mind Geoffrey was in, she would agree; she would be better off facing her chasing nightmare to be devoured.  

A shattering rip of sound whips through the air as Geoffrey’s gun makes a needle pricking precision shot into Lisa head. 

“Not a miss” Geoffrey thinks to himself, the bullet enters smooth and clean through Lisa temple, chewing through the memories of her life; her first kiss, her grandmother's death, moving into her apartment, running away from all of this and out the crack in the back of her head.
Bullets fly and not being satisfied with just one death, this speeding bullet enters gunk filled mind of Lisa’s nightmare! Disappointingly, Lisa’s nightmare is already dead, sort of dead, more like undead, although now really dead. The reanimated nightmare of dead is now still and his blood clots out in chunks. Lisa’s body remains lifeless and much to her dismay the physical blow and shock has separated her soul with her body, she stands as a ghost looking down at her broken body.

“This day really suck” Lisa speech is useless now. She talks to know one but her self, but continues to do so over the shock over her own dead.
Geoffrey skipped over almost joyously to his two victims.

“You asshole you where suppose to shoot him!” Lisa yelled when nothing could be heard.

“Ha! Mine!” Geoffrey yelled at the deceased living dead. A school boy with a new toy, Geoffrey sticks his tongue out, biting it as he flips Lisa’s body over.

Lisa’s soul is confused, “what the hell are you doing? Aren’t you going to burry me at least?”

“Well can’t do this here” Geoffrey tucks the gun into his shirt, “no telling when another one of those things could circle about.” He picks up her legs and drags her along the ground, “you and I are going back to the Morgue.” A sales pitch and a promise, Geoffrey smiles and gives a wink to Lisa. Lisa is quite literally in her own world of the dead, she can watch, touch, yell, pout, but her ghostly manifestation is to at this point invisible to all and has no physical bearing on the world of the living.

“Oh good, well at least he’s taking me to the Morgue” all she can do is watch, sadly her naïve mind which has been blown out the back of her head, can not comprehend the true insidious nature that Geoffrey has for her physical body. The only thing she can concentrate on is how she appreciates Geoffrey for dragging her on her back so that her face doesn’t get messed up, “Its better this way since my hair is already a mess.”