Niall Teasdale's Blog, page 10

My Brain on Jury Duty

So, I got called up for jury duty in the middle of a pandemic lockdown. That was a surreal experience.

This is actually the second time since they called me up last year in the middle of the UK’s first lockdown, but that one got cancelled because they hadn’t figured out how to actually hold trials safely. This time, they had, which is good because they apparently have a massive backlog of cases to get through. It’s a good system too. Instead of turning up and waiting to be put on a jury, they get you registered on the first day (in glorious social distanced isolation), and then you call a number each evening to see whether you should come in the next day. In the courtroom, we all sat there wearing masks with plastic shields on three sides, and you always had to use the same seat and desk to avoid potential cross-contamination. Seriously, if this was in a novel, people would call it unrealistic. We all nearly died of hypothermia because the courthouse was so cold, but catching COVID was unlikely.

All in all, since I spent most of the time at home waiting to be needed, this should not have affected my work very much. Except… I got about an hour’s sleep the night before the first day. I didn’t do much better the next night, and that was followed by sleeping through my alarm for several days in a row as my body tried to catch up. (Seriously, I have no idea how I can sleep through that. It shouldn’t be possible.) My brain is much. Stress, I suppose, though I couldn’t say I felt stressed once it was started. I couldn’t concentrate properly, and I’m still trying to get my head back in the right space. I ended up starting a new project for a bit because I couldn’t work out where I wanted the one I’m supposed to be writing to go.

Mercy Garner

Which means I have a new book partially started. Titans (the image above is the primary protagonist) will become the replacement superhero series when Ultrahumans comes to an end with the next book (whenever that happens). I’ve taken Cygnus and co about as far as I can. I have some plot threads to resolve and then I’ll be calling an end. Titans is a post-apocalyptic superhero setting, if superheroes can really be said to exist after the end of the world as we know it. Meanwhile, Verification of Intent is still slated as the next book out, though if things keep going as they are, I might end up promoting Titans to that slot. It’ll mean a delay after Sign of the Dragon (which is pencilled in for the 29th of March), but we’ll see how things go. At the moment, I’m trying to plot both Verification of Intent and Titans at the same time. I have two timelines open! I’m mad! Jury duty has driven me insane! (Though I was probably insane before…)

Oh, this all assumes the COVID vaccination doesn’t kill me. I was invited to book an appointment today, so I get my first jab in a couple of weeks. Bill Gates will be able to track me wherever I go (not that he couldn’t anyway if he had the slightest interest in doing so). What other awesomely stupid conspiracy theories could I invoke here? With the way my brain is working at the moment, I may even be persuaded to believe them.

An Interesting Game Mechanic – Outriders

There’s a game coming out on April 1st named Outriders. It’s a cover-shooter with superpowers, so nothing special there. It offers solo and co-op play, nothing special there either. The basic plot is that Earth is doomed and a sleeper ship has been dispatched to colonise Enoch, an Earth-like world about 80 years away. You play an Outrider, an explorer/mercenary type with the task of finding out what’s what on the planet. Of course, Enoch holds a deadly secret and blah, blah, now you have to save humanity with lots of bullets and some awesome new powers. It’s different from other game plots, and yet also the same. I’m underselling this: I’m interested enough in finding out what’s what that I plan to play it. If you’d like to see what you think, there’s a demo available for PC, PS4/5 and XBox, which will be available right up to the release date. Link above.

So, more of the same, but there’s a mechanic to this game I find fascinating. The mechanic itself is different, but not so much: in order to heal within a fight, you need to kill things. Each of the four classes has a slightly different mechanism, but they all revolve around you getting HP back when an opponent dies. My personal favourite, for example, is the Trickster, who heals when they kill someone within a certain (short) range. Essentially, you need to play aggressively to win. This has an interesting effect on boss fights.

Typically, due to the limitations of game AI and the lack of imagination of designers, developers make boss fights hard by tossing in adds. You don’t get to face the boss alone, no. Instead, he’ll summon dozens of minions to chip away at your HP and make it impossible to focus on the boss. You need to diminish the opposition and then work fast on the boss before more grunts turn up. Frankly, I find this annoying.

There are two boss fights (one a lesser boss) available in the Outriders demo. I won’t spoil anything by revealing the nature of the fights, but you basically have a fight against a serious boss, solo, and a fight against a lesser boss, with minions. The big boss fight is way harder, despite him having no support. Why? Because minions are your healing mechanism. Yes, the minions make it harder to focus on the boss. They shoot at you and chip away at your HP while their leader is trying to burn you alive. But, if you get low on health, you run over and kill one: instant HP! With the solo fight, you have to be far more tactical, seeking cover and watching out for lingering damage effects. You have to try to kill the boss and you know you’re not going to be able to heal any damage until he’s toast. It totally reverses the general strategy of this kind of game. I like minions in Outriders.

Anyway, if you’re into this kind of thing, the demo takes an evening to play through and I think it’s worth looking at. And it has an interesting game mechanic.

The Empress’s Artwork

Click above to go see the artwork for The Empress’s Mage. One NSFW image, you have been warned.

The Empress’s Mage

The Empress’s Mage is now available. This is a fantasy about a girl’s rise from inquisitive child to a position of power as a magician. Art dump (probably) tomorrow.

SmashwordsAmazon ASIN: B08TRN7T3YUSUKCAAUDE

Happy New Year

Well, 2020 certainly sucked. If you’re wondering what she’s shooting at, it’s the demons of the old year. They’re tenacious buggers. I can see them plaguing us for most of next year too. Hopefully, they won’t be too nasty, though I admit to not being much of an optimist.

Frankly, though, bring on 2021! At least it isn’t 2020!

Sign of the Dragon Wallpaper

In honour of Cyberpunk 2077 finally arriving yesterday, wallpaper! I like my desktop to reflect the book I’m currently writing, so I do UltraHD wallpaper renders for them. Currently, I’m writing Sign of the Dragon, so I came up with this (in three versions) to show most of the (probably) recurring characters in an unlikely circumstance. You wouldn’t get all of this lot on a street in Chiba in 2099, but here they are for your desktop pleasure.

Sign of the Dragon is due out next year.

If You’re an Anime Fan…

I know that not all of you are anime fans, and also that the current epidemic is putting a bit of a crimp on some people’s funds, but I’m going to plug this anyway…

The New Anime Making System Project/2020 is a project to, uh, make a new system for anime production. It’s on Kickstarter and it has, in fact, reached its funding goal, but if you can spare some money and want to see better quality anime produced in the future, maybe you can register your support, so to speak. There are six days left on the campaign, and pledges start at about $5, so check it out.

The backstory: anime production is plagued by low wages and long hours. A significant proportion of young artists entering the profession don’t last three years before burning out. Typical wages for starting animators in the industry won’t pay for a one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo, never mind minor details like food. The project aims to build a studio over the next three years which focuses on producing quality animation while paying reasonable wages. And their video says it better than I can.

Okay, plug over with, back to writing The Empress’s Mage. 94,000 words and I’m nowhere near finished. Why do fantasies always end up so large? I blame LotR.

And, you know, check out that Kickstarter if you can spare the time and money.

King Solamet’s Mines

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King Solamet’s Mines is (finally) available. This one is not long and I’ve decided to charge $2.99 for it because of that. I’ll make up for it with The Empress’ Mage which is going to be much longer.

SmashwordsAmazon ASIN: B08NCM2ZHJUSUKCADEAU

Explosions!

I bet you’re thinking this is a Konosuba reference (or you are if you’re into anime), but no…

It’s Bonfire Night in the UK and I’m watching The Saga of Tanya the Evil. Why? Because the sound of the explosions on screen is almost drowning out the sound of the explosions outside. Seriously, I was watching something earlier and I could barely hear the TV for the detonations outside. Good thing it was subtitled.

For those unfamiliar with Tanya (Gekijōban Yōjo Senki in Japanese and commonly rendered as Yojo Senki in English), it’s an isekai with an interesting twist. A rather unpleasant salaryman is murdered by someone he just fired and, for reasons, is reincarnated as a small blonde girl in what amounts to Imperial Germany. The world has magic, Tanya has a high magical potential, and she volunteers for the military at nine before they can draft her. Her country is in an extended war with neighbouring countries and she hopes to get rapidly promoted to a desk job where she can relax and live out her life in relative peace. Well, obviously, not going to happen.

The twist with Tanya is that the protagonist is not a nice person. I wouldn’t actually characterise her as evil, but she is self-centred, manipulative, and willing to sacrifice anyone to get to her ultimate goal, so long as such sacrifice doesn’t reflect badly on her. She won’t tolerate anyone in her command being injured or dying, but that’s because it would hinder her promotion. She recommends one of her soldiers for officer training behind the lines, but she does so because it makes her look like a caring superior.

Tanya is epitomised by a comment from one of the command staff officers who describes her as ‘a complete and utter monster in the form of a little girl.’ He later revises this, describing her as a devil. And by that point, that’s more or less meant as a compliment.

I’d recommend this one to anyone who hasn’t seen it. I own the first series on Blue-Ray, despite the fact that I can stream it on Crunchyroll whenever I want. The fight sequences are amazing and the story has some glorious takes on theology. It’s also funny, in between portraying war as something you wouldn’t want to be involved in. And the music is fantastic.

Happy Halloween!

It’s Ceri’s birthday today, so here’s a little something to celebrate.

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They’ll be having the usual party. So…

(Apparently, they’ve been having some refitting done on High Towers while I wasn’t looking, hence the new staircase in the front hall.)