It feels like I’ve done some very early spring cleaning over the last few days. Basically, I restructured the site to fit its (and my) focus better, though the biggest changes aren’t visible until you start looking around.

I finally decided I’d rather do Children of the Dreaming Mother as a game, not as animated shorts. I also changed the name to Fragments of Maia (Ed–and later changed to Fragments of Mira, as stated in this note) to fit the game’s objective. To learn more about it, visit the mini-site. To read in more detail how I got from there to here, read the first entry in my new dev blog.

I set up the Nocturne page as a nice little hub for that world and all things connected to it. May have more stuff here to link to eventually; may not. Either way, it’s there and has a nifty new graphic.

And speaking of nifty new graphics, I’ve also spruced up the Webcomic main page (finally) as well as the Friday Feature page. I’ll probably add something to the Games page, too, eventually (other than the minor update I made there), but for now, it’ll do as it is.

Phew! I guess that’s it for now as far as the main stuff goes, and I hope you like the changes!

Category: News & Info
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Hi! If you’ve been hanging around the site long enough, you might know I was planning a series of animated shorts called Children of the Dreaming Mother. It went through a lot of changes even before I reached the point of 1)deciding it would be animated or 2)giving it a title. At first, since I knew there were some people who would miss my videos, I thought of doing something like my Gaiden Reviews (basically instead of of straight-reviewing a game, I’d make a short film based on it), but only with original stories. Unfortunately, that whole “I’d rather just not be in front of a camera” thing kept getting in the way. I also wanted less and less for the main character be me, or even “Gaming Pixie” or “Chellevira” for that matter.

Then, I thought maybe Flash animation… but maybe 3D in Blender would be better? Then, I did some test renderings (or tried) and realized a five-minute video would probably take about a week to render on my aging PC. -_-; So, it was back to Flash again, and I had seen people do amazing things in Flash and similar programs.

But that never felt right, either, especially as I worked on the story. Basically, I had this girl who was suffering terrible nightmares and needed to go find things in the dream world — pieces of herself — and then reassemble them to make herself whole and make the nightmares go away. Or at least that’s what she thinks. And she has to solve puzzles, fight monsters, explore the world, interact with NPCs and… and…. This is starting to sound like a game.

That thought of how this “series” sounded a LOT like a game (and probably a fun one at that) kept nagging at me every time I tried to work on it as a video project. Also, when I was honest with myself, my main reason for planning to do any kind of video was because I didn’t want to disappoint other people by leaving that world entirely, not because it was necessarily what I wanted to do for myself. And I’d already decided that that was a bad way to go about things.

It’s kind of hard to commit to something when you know deep down there’s a better way to do it, and I’d been wanting to try my hand at game design for some time. So, rather than think of a game story from scratch and throw it onto my already-massive project pile, I figured it was best to make use of what was already there. And that’s why Fragments of Maia (now Fragments of Mira) is the planning stages now.

Maybe later on, I’ll write how Nocturne came about.

Category: Game Dev
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Well, I just spent the greater part of two days doing some site restructuring. Feel free to look around, hope you like the changes, and I’ll provide more info soon. Also, since this took so long, I’ll have to delay the new comic until Tuesday or Thursday. ^^; Sorry for any inconvenience.

Category: News & Info
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You need to watch this series because ADORABLE CARTOON KITTIES! ^_^ (Oh, and it’s clever and nicely-animated, too.)

Category: Friday Feature
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[Note: This article series will contain spoilers, including ending spoilers. Also, please keep in mind that 1)this is only what I got out of the film; I'm not telling anyone how they "should" think and 2)this is based more on the director's cut than the theatrical release.]

Oh, Sucker Punch. Where to begin? In some circles, simply mentioning this movie is enough to start a flamewar, or at least release a deluge of ranting and ridicule. Some people say it’s misogynist, sexist, a terrible movie and/or may give you cancer; others say it’s a misunderstood masterpiece, and a feminist one at that.

I remember when I first saw the advertising. I just rolled my eyes and thought, “Here we go again. Attractive young women running around wearing skimpy outfits in some dude’s sleazy masturbation fantasy disguised as a ‘Grrl Power’ movie. If I wanted to watch porn, I’d watch porn, not this.” And I was content to dismiss it as just that.

For some reason, though, Sucker Punch stuck with me and I started looking up the reviews. Most of them were about what I expected: the movie’s a mess, it’s exploitation, pointless action with no substance and all that other jazz. What came as a surprise to me were the minority of positive reviews it got which, while often admitting the movie wasn’t exactly perfect, also claimed it was more intelligent than it looked at first glance and that it even expressed some legitimately feminist themes. Moreover, the people who liked this movie really, REALLY liked it at least in equal measure to the hatred of those who didn’t. Anything that polarizing was something I had to see. So, at my first opportunity, I watched it for myself.

I’ll admit I sorta cheated: I watched the Director’s Cut. It has eighteen extra minutes of footage that (to avoid an R rating) didn’t make it to the theaters… including some new scenes near the end that make the movie’s overall themes make a lot more sense. (It is possible the get the same substance out of the theatrical release. It’s just a bit harder to see.) That aside, I have to say it’s not at all what I expected. Yes, there are cute girls in sexy outfits. Yes, the action scenes are more flash than substance. But I think there’s a lot more going on here than the thinly-disguised exploitation film I was half-expecting.

To put it mildly, this film is complicated. It raises a lot more questions and themes than I’m prepared to address in one short article. Is it feminist? Is it misogynist? Does it actually hate men? What the heck did I just watch?! What was this movie trying to say about issue XYZ? And who was really telling this story anyway?

Over the next 2-3 weeks, I’ll get into all of those things. To give you an idea of what to expect, here are my short-version answers to some of the most controversial questions:

• Yes, I think it’s feminist. Just not in the way you’d expect.
• No, I don’t think it’s misogynist. Not by a long shot.
• No, I don’t think it’s exploitative. I think that exploitation is more than just short skirts.

I hope you’ll stick with me as I discuss my reasons why.

Category: Articles
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Category: Dreaming You
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It’s hard to put into words the impact that game Xenogears had on me. Oddly enough, I first played through while I was sort of in the midst of a spiritual crisis. (For the uninitiated, Xenogears is surprisingly heavy on religion and philosophy. It’s a wonder it didn’t get banned or something in the US.) Let’s just say I totally got the young priest in this game who found out — in spectacular fashion — that this thing he’d give his life to was based on a big lie. Xenogears also gave me an interest in Gnostic theology. There aren’t a lot of games around that can say they did that.

Any-who, here’s the intro sequence. Even now, after all this time and many, MANY viewings and playthroughs, this still gives me chills.

Category: Friday Feature
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No new article today, but there IS an update. I finally updated the Characters page with artwork and starter bios for Nehema and Darkness. Enjoy!

Category: News & Info
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I recently got Manga Studio EX and I’m sorting out all the new stuff. Because of that and some other things, this week’s comic will be delayed. But there IS an update: a page about the world of Nocturne, where said comic is set. This should give you a little more idea of how things work and maybe where they’re going. Enjoy!

(Oh, and having more suitable software probably won’t improve my art much, so don’t expect miraculous changes. ^^; The main benefit is that I’ll be able to ink/color/letter these things more easily.)

Category: News & Info
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If I have to pick my favorite Final Fantasy game, it’s almost always a toss-up between #6 and #9, a.k.a. probably the most woefully underrated game in the series. Like a lot of people, I was put off by the “kiddie” art style at first, but once I got past that, I adored it. There are a lot of reasons for that. The characters (especially Vivi). The music. The world. The sweet love story. All the little call-backs to previous games in the series. It’s just a joyous game with a touch of bittersweet, and my dream come true would be for Squeenix to remake it.

This week’s pick is a music video someone made using scenes from FF9 and based on the game’s main theme, “Melodies of Life.” Since I can’t watch it without smiling and crying, it must be pretty well-done.

Category: Friday Feature
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