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More Radioplays?

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2015 5:58 am
by IskatuMesk
I have been long considering the viability of attempting new projects. Currently, all ventures have either been failures (Starcraft 2) or are otherwise too lofty for my current mental state (Unreal 4).

Last year I ended up turning Black Sun into a radioplay, and while there was some interest in further productions, I generally regarded the production work too strenuous to pursue for anything more complicated.

However, now, in July 2015, much time and many trials have passed since then and I find myself wanting to do production work again but cannot find an avenue worth pursuing.

Keep in mind, if I was to attempt another audio drama, it would 99% not take place in the TOA world from which Black Sun came from. Retribution's arc ends with its introduction into Segment 3 of TOA, which means I would have to make a TOA radioplay, and the difficulty of that would be far too great even for a studio to attempt, especially seeing as I will not live to see more than 1/6 of its writing in any reasonable state of completion.

This leaves the Apex world and very possibly a Loladin of Legend world if I wanted.

Apex, the heart of my Starcraft 2 pursuits, eventually transformed into an amalgamation of my various pet projects including a host of character designs based on CC community members.

Apex is divided into four major sections, and only two of which seem possibly viable for a potential radiodrama production.

Apex RN - a very small and manageable interlude into Alkhazir's Shogun arc that takes place before the events of Apex Prelude segments. I ran a practice run on some of the mission scripts. Here is one of those scripts.
Apex Prelude (aka Apex F)- A four-segment 40 mission campaign script, the vast majority of which is written and virtually all of it was finished in concept for sc2.
Isador (aka Apex H) - A lengthy ARPG script that was largely completed early this year.
Shogun (aka Apex H2) - Currently in concept phases.

Keep in mind, the scripts are unsuitable for radioplay as-is. I would need to basically rewrite them and expand them about 3 fold. For every paragraph of dialogue there would ultimately be another 2-3 paragraphs of related narrative. The main difficulty is translating what was once gameplay concept into writing. I came to multiple individuals in the recent past with this conundrum, and they without exception agreed that a play-by-play of a hypothetical ingame situation would make the best results.

Here is some written concept of such a thing.
His bunker finishes. The enemy wanted to ignore it. The invader could feel a quick victory oozing into his grip like so many expired fish assholes. He even missed the one marine that escaped Alkhazir's barracks, slipping into the Bunker before it could be returned to the earth in pieces. From its armored interior, the lone Marine unloads 2centimeter slugs into the attackers currently occupied with the command module. It is about this time Alkhazir's opponent realizes a lone SCV has been repairing the module from the opposing side. He attempts to push inwards and remove it. Alkhazir sees his opportunity at last. His remaining SCV's surge forward, their mining drills eagerly accepting the aggressive push. His opponent realizes his folly, but it's too late.

Alkhazir is not out of the morning wood yet, however. Multiple enemy bunkers have finished by now, and reinforcements are already flooding into them. His second barracks completes, and his workers return to refueling his dryheaving economy.

Ah, the wonders of local subspace gates. How odd it seems, the SCV's returning resources to the command module, only for an additional Marine to inevitably pop out of an unrelated structure. Alkhazir's calm has been joined by a sidekick of strategy, now. His two Barracks diligently formulate microcline slabs into organic compounds. Genetics are computed, nanites feverishly weave flesh and bone. The toil of his machines are muffled behind the doors of four-eyed hogwash under the hood. Alkhazir need only worry of the control.
I cannot decide if I should pursue further exploration of this writing at all, much less translating it into radioplay.

I suspect each mission of Apex F could turn into 1-3 hours of audio. For this reason I would not be replication my Retribution recording pipeline, else this would take decades. So, the recording quality would be not quite as high. Assuming I start writing now I might be ready to start casting by autumn or winter. I would release missions episodically but I would only start recording when all writing is 100% complete and peer reviewed so I can contact outsourcees. Outsourcees include community members such as Ricky and Arcan.

Do you feel that this is something I should consider, or should I continue to focus my efforts into Unreal 4? Are you more interested in Apex or Loladins of Legend?

All of this assumes my living circumstances remain stable. For the inclined, I could be homeless at any time.

/edit

For the record, I wanted to originally turn these scripts into CGI (like how Retribution was intended to be). However, research yielded that doing so in Unreal 4 would not easily support my existing assets. I wouldn't be opposed to trying it in sc2, but after discussing with a machinima creator who used the engine, it would be extremely difficult even for the most simple scenes.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2015 1:05 pm
by Schwa
Hmm, maybe be worth your efforts to focus on the Unreal 4 stuff, however, Apex F comes before that project in terms of events. Still it makes sense to allocate your efforts in Unreal 4 as it has more elements to it in addition to writing and voice acting. Then you can loop back and finish up Apex F as a radio play that can be released before or after your Unreal project. You can gradually work on it if you're stuck in Unreal 4 or need to wait on assets, but that's where I'd focus.

As for LoL, it would be interesting to see more of that, but I only know bits and pieces about that project. I can't really advise beyond that.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 7:41 am
by IskatuMesk
Ricky also believes game projects are the most worthy investment. However, given I am reliant on HKS for that...

.... I would probably do best to continue to at least try to pursue CGI variants in Unreal 4. The complete lack of documentation and information related to what I am trying to do is pretty prohibitive, though. If I knew animation, it wouldn't be such an issue. Ugh.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 8:21 am
by UntamedLoli
IskatuMesk wrote:If I knew animation
Get to it!

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 2:00 pm
by Krazy
Make a webcomic about existential dinosaurs.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 2:45 pm
by wibod
Record martin whenever he's in vent and splice together the cuck chronicles.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 7:46 pm
by Ricky_Honejasi
Ironically, I might actually like some webcomics from Mesk.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 8:36 pm
by IskatuMesk
Not a fan of comics, to be honest. And those are more difficult to pull off well than CGI.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:46 pm
by Krazy
Okay, then do a radioplay of R.U.R. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/capek/karel/rur/

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:52 pm
by IskatuMesk
Never heard of it. Nonetheless, the chances of my doing a production on writing other than my own are basically zero.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 7:59 pm
by Krazy
I think you should do a Let's Play of your game script as though it was a radioplay.

I'm just combining words now though.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:12 pm
by IskatuMesk
I think you need to smoke weed everyday sir.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:44 am
by Zilla-
Image

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 10:19 am
by IskatuMesk
Well. The feedback has been pretty skewed to the side of sticking with game-related efforts. I guess the radioplay idea would be more worthwhile if it was an investment into CGI. More telling is my hesitation on the matter.

A good argument in the favor of radioplays is that it's a proven field. However, a great deal of doubt circulates the very design of the writing, whereas the first project was not difficult to translate. The lack of visual elements inhibit the Apex writing heavily, and Loladins of Legend is a world that also depends heavily on visuals for many things.

Although I have access to the assets I don't have access to a system that fits those assets. Unreal 4 is the closest fit but my inability to actually process things in an intelligent manner presents an impassible barrier. I've given no trivial amount of thought to how I can tackle the limitations of my abilities and matinee's inputs, but I've yet to come up with any worthwhile solution. I have some theories but I cannot muster the willpower to put in the leg work necessary to verify if their are viable.

I guess that leaves me at a dead-end after all. Ah well.

Re: More Radioplays?

Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 11:27 am
by Revolta
Didn't you say something earlier about how you can't really care about mass appeal (not that a few posters counts as mass, but you get the idea)? Just do whatever you actually want to do. It's your time and your project.