American Jurassic's Blog

Hiatus? What hiatus?

americanjurassic — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:14:06 +0000

With the release of Katawa Shoujo confirming some assumptions about the western world’s readiness for bishoujo visual novels, Pier 7 Media is back at work on American Jurassic.

Watch this space for more information.

Filed under: Progress reports

zeitgeist

americanjurassic — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:15:49 +0000

When I first planned this VN back in October 2009, part of the allure was getting to make something old new again (and conveniently sidestep the issue of my powerlevel being substantially under 9000). The Western genre has a number of characteristics which fit VNs: romanticized escapist setting in the popular imagination; easily recognizable character types; potential for SoL; heroes, villains and romance. And best of all, no competition to set the bar beyond reach.

Ah, hubris.

Well, Rockstar Games and Hollywood fucked that all to pieces in the past 2 months. Red Dead Redemption (whose title suggested postnuclear zombies to me) is not only a video game but a sandboxer which means it’s similar in gameplay to a VN. And worse, far worse, it looks like GoTY material with research, genre authenticity, and engaging characterizations. And it sold 5 million units in its first 21 days. 5 million.

So, I told myself, at least I have an unusual enough sci-fried side concept. Then, I discovered “Cowboys v. Aliens,” which stars Harrison Ford and premieres in Spring 2011. 19th century Arizona setting, too. A week from today, “Jonah Hex” will hit the theaters; advance reviews indicate it’s a dog, but will likely continue to feed the public interest. Both are based on comic books, by the way.

My personal feelings about the existence of a Man Upstairs are neither interesting nor profound, but there could not be a more obvious kick in the pants to get cracking on AJ.

On a separate note: The demo. Some of you may have noticed the download link for the demo is missing. While it was gratifying to practice game production, releasing the demo mainly served to highlight where the game needed work the most. Substantial hammering is going on behind the scenes and the previous demo serves no useful purpose any more. Goodnight a1v0, we hardly knew ye…

Filed under: observations, Progress reports

Revisions

americanjurassic — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:04:21 +0000

As the writing for the first draft of Act 1 comes to a close, I’ve had time to reflect on what American Jurassic is, and just as importantly what it isn’t. The byline for this blog —for this project— is “Cowboys. Dinosaurs. Romance.” In setting up the situations for the romance, I’ve been guilty of neglecting the other stars of this yarn, the dinosaurs and the men who rope, tame and round them up.

So far I’ve had the opportunity to compare this work in progress with two others (thankfully with dissimilar plots/settings), and those who have taken the time to look at it have been frank about its strengths and the places it needs work. While we’re still very much in need of additional artists for backgrounds and event CGs, without the creative input this project has received so far any further art would be moot.

climatic deserves much of that credit, but I’ll let him speak for himself.

Filed under: Progress reports