WeekS 3&4 - Golfing with a Decapitated Head and Other Atrocities

Time for the Phantom Magazine weekly roundup! You’ll have to forgive me for being a little overdue, I was just too darned busy last week, so bite me! 

My third week saw me getting over the dregs of my cold, which ended up a right old rotter, lingering like a house party guest at 10am the morning after when all you want is to be grumpy and hungover. Sniffles are no excuse for idleness however, so I spent the week programming ‘contingencies’, a.k.a all the weird things that the player might do. This includes, but is not limited to, throwing the sword out of the play-area, killing the Magistrate instead of the convict, or golfing the decapitated head into the crowd (unprofessional).

I also managed to get the narrative structure of the game together, as demonstrated in the video below. You’ll have to endure the placeholder dialogue that I recorded myself. Don’t worry, the final voice acting will be more, um, professional. We begin with the magistrate giving the newly hired executioner (the player) some instruction, and then move to the first execution scenario. This is followed by an ‘appraisal’ scene, where the magistrate judges the player’s performance and pays the executioner. Pay could be considered the game’s ‘score’, though as player progression may tell, aiming for a high score might not be for the best.

Meanwhile, last weekend I took a sneaky expedition back to London for two nights to get the second session on my tattoo done. I’m going for some tentacles with magical smoke and stars… I’m sort thinking of H.P. Lovecraft meets Harry Potter. It’s gonna be weird/excellent. The artist is Delphine Noiztoy, I recommend checking out her instagram if you’re into tattoo art, she’s fantastic. She also tattooed Grimes, who is pretty much my favourite musician at the moment, so I’m still fanboy-ing about that. Here’s a progress pic:

I‘m actually realising that I’ve now overcome most of the coding obstacles and unknowns that faced me at the beginning of this project. I know that I was being a bit over-optimistic to think I’d get most of the game done in two months, but I’m still feeling very proud of what I’ve done so far. Though there’s still more coding to do, for the next couple of weeks I’m going to start focusing on the art. Though I’ve gotten surprisingly attached to Testman, he’s just not good-looking enough to make the final cut. Sorry Testman!

Keep it weird,
Sam