About the Writers ( Q & A)

[MaximB]

Nice to read such thread....didn't see many Q&A "Ask the developers" threads in game forums.
Also I like the WW blog, I really love and appreciate the openness.

So devs :
1. Who are you ? (your name, and what do you do in life besides working on ww games)
2. Where do you live ?
3. How old are you ?
4. What do you do (writer/art) ?
5. What games you worked on ?

Hope it's not too much questions

P.S
@Aleema: is that you in the picture ?

[MrEnvy8]

Nice to see another writer posted on this thread Hi Zensliev!

To also answer the question posed earlier in the thread (that Zensliev did a fantastic job of speaking to):

Writing a visual novel type game can be very similar to writing a regular story, and a lot like the "Choose your own adventure" thing that Zensliev brought up. The narrative is all there, it's just a matter of letting it branch. All the possibilities of the multiverse exist, the player is just the traveler who can find the route.

As for variables: I tend to just name them with exceptionally obvious names. So, for instance, instead of "SC13=True" it's "Samuelconversationwentwell=true" Makes them way easier to remember. Then later on I try to clean up the names, so they're not so unwieldy.


Also: This question was asked-

Nice to read such thread....didn't see many Q&A "Ask the developers" threads in game forums.
Also I like the WW blog, I really love and appreciate the openness.

So devs :
1. Who are you ?
*I'm secretly Ray Muzyka. Don't tell Greg I'm moonlighting!
2. Where do you live ?
*On earth.
3. How old are you ?
*276 on Tuesday. My secret? Pilates. And waffles.
4. What do you do (writer/art) ?
*Ooh, we should have an "Ask the Artist" thread started too. What do I do though? I dick around.
5. What games you worked on ?
*All of them. Development on chess was a hard time. You should have seen some of the playtest reports "Players having a hard time understanding how the Knight moves" "Players don't understand the term 'Machine Gun' or why the rooks have them" "Players attempting to eat pieces. Next test, not hiring hungry 16th century serfs." It was stupid, honestly.
6. Are you a terrible liar, and an awful person?
*Yes.
7. Really?
*Yup, pretty much.

[Fearsome]

Wait- if all of the answers were lies- Envy's an ALIEN! *Fearsome emits a shocked gasp and a look of fascinated horror begins blossoming across her face*
So, Mr. Alien, where did you study Earth Social interactions for writing Roommates?

((Why yes I had 2 Mochas this morning and an hour's sleep last night- why do you ask?))

[MrEnvy8]

Wait- if all of the answers were lies- Envy's an ALIEN! *Fearsome emits a shocked gasp and a look of fascinated horror begins blossoming across her face*
So, Mr. Alien, where did you study Earth Social interactions for writing Roommates?

((Why yes I had 2 Mochas this morning and an hour's sleep last night- why do you ask?))

Dammit! I'm awful at this secrets thing (And also this 'keeping track of the forums thing'). I knew I should have studied earth longer

Don't worry, your earth game about the cluster-mates will be fine. I have watched all of your documentary "Perfect Strangers", and have supplied Jack with many goat based follies for your young learner class humans.

[Taleweaver]

Well, guess I should introduce myself then too, shouldn't I?

I'm a semi-pro writer and pretty much a VN veteran. Most of the time, I've produced my own games (all of them non-commercial), though like with Bionic Heart 2, I can also be hired. In my works, I try to cover a wide range of settings, characters and topics. My blog contains links to all my previous works both free and commercial, so please give them a try.

[Lonestar51]

If I may:

How did you go about writing a sequel? From what jack wrote I guess you got a rough draft what the sequel should be. How much did you refer to the first part, and how much did you try to develop the characters and settings yourself? (And btw: how rough was the draft?) Where there some other constraints?

[Taleweaver]

If I may:

How did you go about writing a sequel? From what jack wrote I guess you got a rough draft what the sequel should be. How much did you refer to the first part, and how much did you try to develop the characters and settings yourself? (And btw: how rough was the draft?) Where there some other constraints?

You may

Jack gave me a quite detailed listing of early scenes, and the first scene (Tanya at police HQ) had even been written already. (This is why the first SBF is different from the others.) The objective was to continue one of the story arcs from BH1 - namely, the "Tom, Helen and Luke run off to Mars", so the "alien plotline" from BH1 was non-canonical. This left me with two questions:

1) What would Meier want with a prototype like Tanya?
2) Why would there be a secret Mars colony?

I basically found my own answers for these questions and developed the story as such. The virus was an early idea from Jack's draft, though the original concept was to have Luke and Tanya cooperate in spreading it, and if both succeed, humanity is wiped out and our surviving protagonists leave for a new planet to start a new colony there.

I didn't quite see Luke that murderous from the get-go, so I had to make Mars the place where he is made that way, which is why the Martians became as they are, and you know how I explained their mindset in the context of the game world. Luke's part is probably the biggest piece of character development; there's a small bit going on with Tanya where she learns about her origins and comes to hate the rest of human society, but she's already well on that path in BH1.

The greatest fun was designing the supporting characters. (I especially like how Lucas Walker came out. The conversation between Meier and him is pretty much Dr. Evil from the "Austin Powers" franchise trying to put pressure on Stavro Blofeld from the "James Bond" universe - probably one of the darkest funny scenes I have written.) I tried to give everybody a distinct voice - you be the judge about how well that worked.

Other constraints - only very few. Jack allowed me to write the story I wanted to write and was apparently quite pleased with the result, even though it wasn't much of what he had originally planned. So I'll gladly work with him again if he asks me.

[Lonestar51]

Thanks for the detailed answer. As soon as I finish BH2, I will take a look at your other games which you mention in your blog. And should you work together with Jack on a new winterwolves-project, I will be sure to buy it.

One more question regarding Bionic Heart 2: DId it make much difference that there was a first part by someone else? If so how?

[Taleweaver]

As I had a great many liberties, no, it didn't make much difference that there was a first part. I was mostly trying to keep characters' personalities consistent, but that wasn't what I would call "difficult".

[Lonestar51]

So I'll gladly work with him again if he asks me.

After playing BH2, and one of the freeware games from Taleweaver, and enjoying them... here is my question: Will there be any more WW games written by Taleweaver?