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.
I cannot decide if I should pursue further exploration of this writing at all, much less translating it into radioplay.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 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.