Game Project Update: Emotions Run High

I got bored.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t thinking about giving up this project. In fact, now that Dr. Visor approves it as my new thesis project I can’t afford to give it up, lest the wrath of my conscience destroys me with nightmares.

Damn me if I haven’t been reading too many Steve Jackson’s books.

The developments on this project are quite few sadly, due the busy-ness of beginning a new semester. I had planned on going to the resource website to download the latest stuff, and then edit them. Some of these new resources don’t need edits, just planning where to put them.



These would be great for that castle siege in Act 1.

Hah, the castle siege scene! Players won’t have time to stop and help the soldiers. I’m going to need to get rid of one soldier and replace it with a monster the soldier’s fighting against. It’’s be a lot of work, since I’m using up to 3 different types of monsters but I really, really wanted a massive siege.

Got some more stuff for the more dramatic sprite edits. But this one is a unique edit, nobody else has it (nobody in GamingW that is). This is a testing pose for the final battle in Act 1. I don’t mind putting this up as a spoiler cum teaser because I’ve got a far better pose for the Great Evil Boss in Act 4 final battle.

Each class of magic has its own casting effect. Ice magic would have sparkles and icicle-blue imagery while the metallic magic is more subtle but instantaneous (metallic magic = bombs, bombs, BOMBS!). This down here is a prologue scene. I’m not really sure if I should include it though and in which chapter.



”By the Angels, how could you... why?”

I’m not a really good GIF animator (hehehehe) but I hope you get the idea. Dark and evil magic uses a purplish-black glow, to highlight that the magic doesn’t always expose its nature until it oozes out of the bad guy.

Also to be reminded, as a continuation from my last game project update, I’ve finalized the basic outline that I had planned for my protagonist main magical scene. It’s not as good as some of my older magic circles but that was done intentionally.

In the scene I’m planning, Keea had to cast her high-level spell in a hurry and the circle isn’t perfect, and her comrades to aid her in combining energies would either be wounded or missing. The shape isn’t a full circle either; in thaumaturgy, this is an aggressive circle.


Very nice. Background please!

I’m going to take a little bit more cleaning up to do before I impose this art into a picture and an animated charaset; thus my biggest graphic project yet. But anything to stall the coding, riiiiiiiiight?

Don’t worry about the coding though; I’m saving the best for last.

Sort of.

As you can see, the graphics I’ve selected are mostly fighting or casting scene and then some. In the heat of the battle, the drama has to be greater, thus new effects and customized graphics come into play.

Because I don’t want to be something like, oh wow, super tension rising and got to go do something, rescue somebody or stop that bad guy and I’m running across dangerous obstacles, war zones, but what the heck? I had to stop and do a crossword puzzle.

Night Brings Weird Messages

I’m not really into dreams and dream interpretations. Yeah, sure I’m really into magical theories and practises but my interest is mostly academic and for pleasure. Sorry, but when it comes to making serious dream study and possible connections with the metaphysical plane, I stand next to Freud.

So when the little girl Sharlinie kidnapping episode continues with the family actually hiring bomohs (witch doctors) to crack coconuts and free white birds, I felt more pity than disgust. It’s a hopeless task to go to witch doctors, but the family is desperate, just as desperate as the police force trying to locate her.

For me it’s prayers, not bomohs, that should be turned to in bringing hope to counter distress. Unless these bomohs work for free and they are actually proven to be successful, it’s best not to revert to them. The bomoh’s prediction that Sharlinie would be found in a week is bulls**t, in my opinion.

Magic, spells and folk practise is all good in checking the weather or if the paddy fields brings best harvest. But when a child’s life is at stake, for God’s sake, at least let it be done privately instead of giving them quacks free advertising. False hopes, false rumours, and when the deed doesn’t turn out the way it goes, the witch doctor still gets paid.

Family still get bumped.

Enough of the possibly devastating repeat of the tragic Nurin case. As Ron Weasley once interpreted Harry Potter’s tea cup as ‘going to suffer but be very happy’, here’s something I have that means completely nothing.

A Dream Book.

Yup, just as the title says.

I wasn’t always anti-prophetic dreams. In my younger years, I was a hell of a believer. I planned my days using horoscopes and toss pennies into wishing fountains. I arranged my bedroom furniture by feng-shui. What washed-coloured clothes I have are arranged to be worn on specific days.

By God was I ever a mystic fa**ot.

After I outgrew my magic markers, the souvenirs of those days had been reduced to just this little piggy from the book market. It was MySis’s friend’s book who, upon moving to overseas, didn’t know who to dump it to so I adopted it from the rubbish bin.

It’s basically a dictionary of sorts. You choose the prominent subjects on what you’ve dreamt before and basically connect the dots. Let’s see about this dream I had last week.

I was on the second floor at Giant Kelana Jaya hypermarket; I recognize the place well. There were other people there. Busy people, all rushing but they all seem to move in the same one direction. I was standing, or at least, walking very slowly.

I push pass the crowds and enter the market proper but the aisles were empty. Not product empty - there were items for sale - just nobody was around. Which is really odd because as I looked back, the crowd was full and moving but nobody had entered after me.

But then a guy wearing all black appeared from the crowd and walked towards me. I couldn’t see face, or rather I don’t remember his face but he was very tall and had black hair. I think he was stalking me as I started to run away really fast. I took a long route toward the produce section.

Looking back, I saw the dark guy also running toward me. He had long strides. I remembered feeling scared. I saw a stick and grabbed it (a broom? A mop?) and swung it at the dark guy. It hit his head and he fell back, staggering.

I guest I should have just ran off but I used the stick to fight him again but he ducked and grabbed my wrist so quickly that I dropped the stick. He pulled at the back of my neck and pushed me to the floor. I fell down. I thought he was going to hurt me and that’s when I knew that it was a dream.

Then I heard a series of loud bangs, like New Year’s fireworks had burst too close, and the area was filled with white smoke. The dark guy covered me on the floor with his body or maybe he dropped a big blanket over me. That’s when I began to think that he was protecting me. It was the way his arms were placed on both my sides.

When the bangs stopped, the guy pushed himself away from me. It was still smoky everywhere. I turned over and looked at him. This is when the memory of the dream was hazy. I think he said something and I answered. Then he gave me his large black coat and told me to go somewhere safe. And he got up and left, ran off.

I don’t know what caused this dream, but it might be the TV series Numbers DVD I watched that afternoon. Much of the stuff here are hazy, as dreams evaporates come daylight. But for the curiosity, let’s look into the Dream Book.


Staring with...

Market: Dreaming of an outdoor market in which all sorts of foodstuffs are temptingly displayed is an omen of prosperity, but if the food is wilted or otherwise spoiled, it predicts hard times.

I was running for my life. I didn’t stop to check the expiry date on the products.

Crowd: It is a portent of profitable new associations to dream of being in an orderly or good-natured crowd. To be in a crowd that is reading bulletins of war outside a newspaper office predicts a business victory that will be unexpected.

Didn’t say anything about a crowd that’s ignoring me. I can’t find the dream meaning for ‘stick’ so I try adding ‘broom’ and ‘mop’ together.

Broom: To see a broom means that thrift and better luck will come to you in the near future, if the broom is new. If the broom is an old one, you will lose in the stockmarket. If a woman loses a broom she will be a cross wife and a poor housekeeper.

Mop: Using a clean new mop in a dream foretells favourable comment on some of your work. Seeing an old and dirty mop in a pail of filthy water is a warning not to repeat evil rumours that you hear.

Neither of those two makes any sense.

Man: To dream of man in the abstract is a warning against too much brain work. For a woman to dream of a man foretells a meeting of an interesting person who will be a platonic friend.

Okaaaaaay... How bout...?

Assault: Grave danger is predicted by dreaming of an assault being made on a woman. If a man is the victim, the augury is of disquieting news. If you are the victim, there will be a serious altercation in your household.

Oh gee, I’m doomed.

Noise: If in a dream one hears noises that do not readily lend themselves to any particular happening, the portent is having to meet bills of long standing.

Actually, I don’t need a dream to remind me of that.

Smoke: To dream of smelling smoke and not know where it was coming from augurs worry for a long period. To see smoke coming from a fire or a chimney is a sign of increased income.

Sounds like my early 2008 is grim.

Coat: If you dream of putting a coat on a hanger in a closet, you will receive the approval of someone whose opinion you value highly. To wear a ragged coat in a dream is a portent of riches and easy living. To help someone put on a coat is a sign of lending money to a friend; but if another helps you put on a coat, you will have to borrow money. To loose a coat foretells that your feelings will be hurt by someone you admire. To throw away a coat is an omen of the loss of a friend; but to give one away predicts making new friends.

Never thought coats are so important for one’s future.

That’s as much as I can gather. No keywords like ‘rescue’ or ‘protect’ or ‘bombs’. Put the subjects together and I get a nonsensical nonsense since none was sensed save it.

I’m going to be prosperous and gain new business-friendly acquaintances (mostly likely ignoring me). But then a person who wants to be my friend shows up but he/she will have ulterior motives. Sometime later, I’m going to lose something I’ve invested in which results in a major potentially risky adjustment. I’ll still have to pay for outcome and I’ll be worrying about it for a very long time, in which I’ll have to borrow money.

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