The Lost Exit

I had just finished getting off of work. After clocking out on my computer, I headed towards the elevator through two glass doors. I push the bottom of the two silver buttons between the elevator doors to call the elevator. Moments later I hear a “ding” sound and walk in to push the ground button so I can finally head home. Before the doors closed a lady with sun-colored hair and pale-white skin walked in. A nod sufficed the acknowledgement of each other’s existence within this confined moving room.

Continue reading “The Lost Exit”

See the blog on the left side?

No? Okay, it’s missing for a reason. A couple of weeks ago I received an error that my maximum bandwidth had been getting close. I was confused as I have 200GB of bandwidth and on a good month about 10MB is used since I don’t get a lot of traffic. It turns out that the comments on the site had bots come in and place tags that would attract other bots. It gradually increased over time to the point where I was receiving 1,000,000 hits (yes, one million) per week. This brought the site down really fast. I was previously utilizing Nucleus CMS and a subdomain for the blog, but after that debacle I have decided to push it on to this site. At this point it’s a matter of figuring out what I want to keep and what I don’t want to keep.

Now for some updates! The next album is still in progress. I honestly haven’t worked on it lately as everything I have written in my head is for a different style of music. At this point I’ll probably write two albums simultaneously and release one when I feel like it’s done. For my Tutelary game I’ve been slowly making progress on it. My laptop that hosts the files has been overheating lately and I haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and really put something out. Don’t worry, it’s all backed up on Dropbox! I can only do so much before the laptop burns my lap and I’m looking into new laptops now.

Most importantly, I’m continuing my education (again) and won’t have a lot of time to concentrate on either the album(s) or the game, so please be patient. Don’t forget I have a full-time job. Mind you I’m not making any money or expecting any money for either of these and they’re more of hobbies than anything else.

A Tutelary Update: Chapter 3 is complete!

I’m pleased to announce that Chapter is 3 is complete and Chapter 4 is currently going strong. Now that most of the towns have been designed, the game development will go much more faster. At this point it’s mostly adding dialogue and events that will consume the rest of my time. After Chapter 3 ends, the open-world environment is going so you can go literally any where you want. You may come across some difficult monsters if you go to new areas!

My proudest achievement outside of the journal system is that townspeople will interact with you based on current events. Regardless of what town you’re in, people will be talking about the latest rumors and events. I also had to update some minor bugs, work on the animation for the bow and arrow, and get the “guard” function in battle working properly. The guard function acts as a defense and blocks 50% of damage. It also replenishes 10% of your hp (ala Legend of Dragoon). Battles are more randomized. No, not more frequent. What I mean is that you will face a random amount of opponents each battle. It could be anywhere between 1 and 8.

Frustrations and progress

Moving to a new host has proven to be a bigger headache than I had hoped for. I’m having issues restoring my previous blog. All the information is there, but getting it to connect is proving to be difficult.

I will also be re-doing the portfolio section. On another note, my album is coming along quite well and I’m pretty excited about it. The bad news is that I haven’t worked on Tutelary in a while.

Europa

I found myself waking in what appeared to be a space station. It would make logical sense, to say the least. Plenty of white technological pieces surrounded me as I sat up from my rather tiny bed. The bed was comfortable despite its size. I couldn’t help but think it reminded me of those TempurPedic commercials. After all, they were NASA technology. Getting out of the cramped space where I lay was not the most feasible feat I’ve done, but I got out of it slowly and headed down the corridor grabbing on to the sides to pull myself as gravity was limited. As I got closer to the cockpit, I took a peak outside the windows. There sat Europa, one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

We enclosed upon the georgeous moon like we were landing on our own moon orbiting Earth. Earth was no where in sight though. A soft landing later and we were touching the surface. There was myself and another man, mid-30s with dark short hair and an average build. He was the commander of the flight and my job was to gather samples from the surface of Europa. We put on our suits and headed towards the bottom of the ship. He was the first one down the ladder, being the first man to step on this distant planet. It wasn’t soft, like our own moon, it was hard as ice. The surface was glossy and a whitish-blue color. It’s never been touched before and there’s no tracks to prove it. The commander carried the American flag across the surface as he glided like he was ice skating. I followed pursuit. We didn’t know exactly how we’d walk on the surface, or whether it could even support us. When we moved, it was more like jump-ice-skating than anything else. I found it easiest to do an ice-skating motion. Not more than 20 feet further and we both slammed the flagpole into the ground as if claiming the moon belongs to us,America.

We gazed upon the distance and we see the sun far away. Almost like the brightest star in the night sky on Earth, just a little bigger. It was the first thing I wanted to look for, but of course there was one thing that stood out the most in my vision. The largest planet in our solar system stared right at me not too much further from the right of the sun; Jupiter. They eye of Jupiter was the most captivating sight I’ve ever seen. I was in heaven; a cold, frozen and distant world staring at the eye of Jupiter. I fell on to my knees at the sight of such beauty. For once, I felt like I was somewhere where I belong. It was a frozen landscape before me, with red-colored canals and Jupiter invading most of the sky with a distant bright star to the left of it. Unfortunately, we were not in the situation to live here yet. Someday though, we will…