Here’s a quick update on my creative endeavours over the last week or two. I will try to make this a regular weekly update (even if it gets repetitive) just as a way to remind myself to blog more often too.
So, the big new thing I’m doing is creating video games using a tool called Stencyl, which is a slightly more advanced tool in the same vein as Scratch. It’s for making 2d games but I have some fun ideas, one of which is to get as close as possible to a first-person shooter without being able to move in a 3d environment!
Earlier this week, I got to show off my first attempt, which is a cute puzzler in which you play a pixie sprite of the forest, where some evil person has laid pitfall traps for the little furry creatures (they look like mice or rats or shrews or something). You have to find rocks to plug the pitfalls, while also making sure the creatures don’t fall in the holes.
I took my netbook to the local game creators’ social gathering and got some positive feedback. I also got some very positive reactions when my young niece and nephew tried it a couple of weeks ago, so I’m happy with it so far!
I’ve also been doing a self-build PC, although this has been one of those projects that spirals into something a lot bigger than it started out.
At first I just wanted to upgrade my CPU so I could stream some of my gameplay on Twitch, only it turned out that the CPUs I was looking at wouldn’t fit on my old PC’s motherboard, so I needed a new new motherboard – and I decided I might as well upgrade the graphics card (GPU) at the same time.
When I received the motherboard, I discovered it doesn’t fit in th old PC’s case so I ordered a new case too – at which point we moved from “upgrade” to “build a new PC with a couple of salvaged parts” – the only parts remaining being the power supply unit, the hard drive, and the RAM memory card…
A memory card, it turned out when I started putting the things together, that doesn’t fit the very similar-looking slots on the new motherboard. SO! I went on PC Part Picker and found out what really would fit, and ordered that.
The new memory card came yesterday and I started putting the PC together at last and, well, it’s almost done. There’s just one more part I need… the motherboard has not one but TWO external power sockets, and the second ocket doesn’t fit the plug from the power supply unit. Fortunately, adaptors do exist, but I won’t get mine until the middle of the week, so I won’t know if I’ve screwed up the motherboard or plugged things in wrongly or anything, until then.
And finally…
I have written another 2,000 words on my second novel (working title “Properties Of Pleasure”), which is an out-and-out erotica novel set in a near-future world where the government operates a system of consensual slave auctions and people volunteer to be sold for either one or two years (keeping 90% of the price when they emerge from their term). The novel follows one person with strong submissive and masochistic fantasies through the selection, training and slavehood process. I’ve just got to her first day in the training facility before the auction.
Valery North - Writer 