Tag Archives: Hesiod

February 16, 2025 · 03:56

The added parts

A little over a year ago I had an idea. It was founded on the God of War 3, not a game copy, not some replica wannabe. But a full grown RPG, based on the foundations of Olympus. I saw what I initially had and I decided to give parts a rewrite. You see, we can only be as unique as we make ourselves to be. The game wasn’t a copy, but it lacked a few sides. I thought that this needed adjustment. The first setting was good, but I wanted more, an introduction outside of Olympus. And that was where I had an idea. The original story was ‘It was this simple’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/01/15/it-was-this-simple/) and I wrote it in January 2024, a little over a year ago. I considered the stage and it was too predictable. As such I wanted to add an intro level. After you go through the mirror, you get to a field with houses, these houses are meant for the upper slaves of Olympus. They had a little more. The houses are in a circle and there is nothing more to see, yet as you enter the houses, they will seem to have security active, these systems have been dormant for millennia, but once activated the become active. I want to set the stage that the upper slave of your deity is save to enter and as such you will learn to interact with objects, you will see the security drone ignore you (in one house only) so you can practice stealth. As such you will have motion, observation and interactions set. You could also enter the other houses, it is not essential at this point but the houses have part of the lore of the story. And you can always revisit the circle of houses when your rank goes up. There are 11 houses for the 11 gods, the 12th house is in Tartarus (in the palace of Hades). The second play through you can select Hades as your deity. 

Then there is the lore of the story. The lore of the upper slaves lead to the lore of the slaves and to scrolls, tablets and jewelry that enables you to select the houses. It was here that I considered another side. As a female you would have the diadem of Aphrodite. But as a male you cannot enter her domain until you have a much higher rank and as such you could gain the bracelet of allegiance to Aphrodite or the Diadem for men of Zeus or the trinket of a god equal of higher then Aphrodite. This comes down to the jewelry of Zeus, Poseidon or Hades. I have yet to create a structure on this. There is Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, the rest are nearly all equal except Athena, Apollo, Ares and Hermes. So they have access to nearly all others (except three) Hades, Makaria,  Zagreus and Melinoe. 

The lore is set to stories on scrolls and tablets. I need to see if it is an IP violation if I use part of the stories of Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar and Apollodorus. If it is, I need to write passages in their styles to give the feel of authenticity. 

So whilst we are about to put ‘life’ bank into Olympus, I need to consider a few other sides. I considered that this might have an alternative use. And if that works it would be some feet to achieve it. But that is for later. 

For now I have to look at what I am seeing not. You see the Guardian gives us “The US vice-president was hypocritical and insensitive, but bracingly clear in his resetting of relationships” You see, we are given a story that fits the need of the Trump administration. And when you take the tariffs and this “Vance portrayed a continent that had lost its way. Why was the security conference talking about defence budgets when it was not clear what they were actually defending? he asked. It was clear “against what” they were defending, but not clear “for what reason”.” This set may mind at work. You see, it is about money (it usually is) and America has nearly none left. America has $36.22 trillion in debt and last year the US budget deficit tops $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2024, third-largest on record whilst they got $4.47 trillion in collected taxation. And the bad nows here is that they had a decrease of 15.5%, a drop from the 14.3% increase we saw between 2021 and 2022. So they are getting less tax dollars and they are borrowing more. So how can that continue? America wants out of NATO because it can no longer foot the bill and the Trump administration has 4 years to go. So when America starts handing out the IP in their patent offices to foot bills, American businesses are up for a massive panic attack. 

That is how I see it and I could be wrong, but after the tariff wars (still ongoing) and their attempt to annex Canada, is the idea so far fetched? Add to that the entire DeepSeek dilemma and whatever they tend to achieve with their StarGate is my idea so preposterous?

As such whatever ideas I have I need to hand to Japan, Saudi Arabia, or the UAE whenever I can, because life in the Commonwealth is about to become nearly unlivable. And the media is still not covering the massive debt that America has and how that is fueling their actions. Is it that hard to see? I reckon that a stronger unification of the Commonwealth will be required and a lot sooner than some non-Canadian politicians imply. And now as Australia gets the tariff bill, there is a chance that Anthony Albanese might seriously reconsider finding solutions with Canada, India and the UK. Ah well, perhaps living under the Greek gods was a lot simpler. 

As such have a loverly day and consider what YOU can do to support Canada in its hour of need.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 13, 2024 · 01:01

Something really new

That was my thoughts at some point today. You see, I have heard the news that there would be coming a remaster of the very first three God of War games. I have no idea how true it is, but I started to think of a different setting. You see the first game scored 94% and was pure gaming heaven (or hell depending of your point of view). 

The game was excellent and checked pretty much every box on what makes a great game. As such I very much doubt whether Remake or Remaster will do the trick. I think it is time to add the Reengineer term to the equation. They should go (if possible) with the same cast. They did a magnificent job and this was on the Playstation 2. 8GB is pretty much the best you could get and that was in a system that only had 32MB at its disposal. Now the picture changes. And it goes way beyond the ‘expected’ settings. Yes to Unreal Engine 5, yes to the enhanced audio. But what more? Well, how about adding another track to the game with environmental settings by Bear McCreary? So we have one score, one basic music added to the game, but depending on where you are the Aegean Sea, Athens, the desert, the temple of Pandora, the realm of Hades. That music alters with musical instruments and perhaps some rhythm. Added, not replacing the original music, which was awesome by the way. Now we get to the story. The story was perfect, yet more could be done.

Books
To give the gamer that little bit extra. The 5 games, all get a book. As you complete the games the story remains the same, but with added findings the books get embossed with additional materials. The books in the styles of Homer, Aeschylus, Hesiod, Euripides and Herodotus could be created in game (sort of) and when the game is completed you can read it on the PS5, or export the PDF file. So if you find all the secrets and optional side missions a book is 100% complete. The book will show you how complete it is. 60% is the main story and the 40% could be added as you find all the eyes and feathers. Why? This has never been done before and to get a new stage, we need to add things, we need to give the gamer who did play the original a game that is more than mere better graphics and music. 

Items
Like in the third game there was an option to find things to make the new game plus a more rewarding event. That could be done in the other four as well. The same items from the original remains. But what happens when you find the Dolphin bracelet of Poseidon? Perhaps in water you regenerate. Just a thought. I am not telling Santa Monica how to do their job. They have shown mastery several times over. But my mind went spinning on what more could be possible.  

They are talking about the first three, but we saw the third being remastered on PS4 (and it was awesome) as such getting all 5 done (optional in two master releases called the Kratos, the Greek era) and beyond that I wonder what more is possible. The first two games were released on systems three generations old. So much more is possible now and the added icing on the cake? It is still a Sony exclusive. It Sucks to be Microsoft here. And the idea to see Cronos in unreal 5, to see so many settings in todays graphics would overwhelm gamers everywhere and having optionally two master collection as well as the new concept of reengineered games would open so many other doors too. Too many ideas are entering my mind (some actually very useless) but the idea that I can play almost 20 years of God of War again is overwhelming my senses. 

If all this becomes reality 2025 might become the greatest year of gaming for Sony lovers. I just rewatched (on YouTube) someone doing the first game in 5 hours and change. I took a lot longer and I saw coffers with items in places I had never considered looking. It was awesome to see a 2005 game pleasantly surprise me 18 years later. It made me consider that some changes would be essential. The small shiny star on things to do was all there was in the PS2 era. Now we an do so much more, as such the reengineer option becomes ever more clearly and that has the benefit of not having been done before to this degree ever. Another new stage for the PlayStation. I can only hope I am still alive when these games are released (traffic is a killer in Sydney).

Enjoy your day, it’s Saturday here now.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 4, 2023 · 01:09

Two makes a fourth

Yup, that didn’t make sense did it? You see, two pieces of information hit me at the same time. The first is ‘Johnny Depp advises filmmakers from Saudi Arabia to ‘go against the grain of Hollywood’’ (at https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/2023/12/02/johnny-depp-advises-filmmakers-from-saudi-arabia-to-go-against-the-grain-of-hollywood/). It is here where we are given “What I believe, in regard to the opportunities of the Saudi film industry, is to build facilities and go against the grain of everything that Hollywood is putting out,” Johny Depp makes sense. I see it differently, not against Depp, because I agree with him. The Saudi Film industry needs a different path. It is basically what drove me to design ‘How to assassinate a politician’ yet the larger station is not merely a different design, because that story is all but done (two parts are incomplete). You see at this point I am watching season 3 of NCIS: New Orleans and a thought took hold of me. It took me back to when I read Hesiod (a very long time ago) and this reflects on Season 2 of Engonos. There were two parts that required tinkering and now as a red line I saw the option to add a third line. You see, there was a reference to Tartarus that was a larger station, a side that has not been touched (read: does not exist). It reminds me of an old story that relates to the Hellraiser comic books. A salesperson is left off the hook providing he increases his tally of souls 15% annually. The demon lets him off the hook because in the end that salesperson will fail. You see in year one he only needs 1500 souls, but in the subsequent years it will be 2070, 2380, 2737, 3148, 3620. So in 5 years he will need to hand over 301 souls each month. That is 3 times the souls he needed in year one. That setting gave me the idea to take a page from these books and give them a twist. Consider the souls pushed into Tartarus, what would any soul do after one day to avoid the rest of eternity in Tartarus? 

As such Hesiod gave me the idea to take it to a new level. He ones stated “The man who does evil to another does evil to himself, and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it.” So, what happens when we take someone like Major Hamilton and let him face the wrath of a damned soul from Tartarus? That was the setting I started with and now we have a new station in Engonos. When we take the greed driven and set the take against themselves. Not a bad day. One article, one setting and a whole new station opened it doors. Not a bad day at all.

Enjoy your Sunday, it’s Monday here.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, movies, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

June 25, 2023 · 15:39

Shaping Domestic Conscription

This is the stage my mind has been in for the last 24 hours and yes it is a DC comic reference. You see, the movie Thor, Love and Thunder woke something up in me. It was the mid 80’s and there was a Dutch version of an Avengers comic book I read. In this there was a reference on a ‘villian’ which led to all kinds of things and I remember that in the end there was an image of all in hell for torment felt relieved for a second as Lucifer felt fear for the very first time. It was about the optional undoing of Eternity. The end god in the Thor movie and he was just like the real thing, except for size (the length of his foot is about the size of the Chrysler building) but lets keep this to semantics and creative freedom. Yet these is the stage, it started my thinking. You see, it started at that time and the movie Black Adam merely build on the stage my mind devised. 

I gre up being a huge Batman fan, in my preteens I grew up on the Batman that Adam West gave us and the man was dope. He was the real deal. OK, that is and will forever be the kid talking in me. But as others went for all the other comic book heroes for whatever reason they had and this tainted the thoughts I had. There was a side in that comic book that gave me pause to think, even now almost half a century later these thoughts are still there. What if the villains were right? They might go about it wrong, but what if there is truth in their actions? Joker, Lex Luthor, Ares, sorceress Circe, Lucifer, and that list goes on. So what happens when we create a hidden trap. A mindset where Batman does the ‘right’ thing, but he falters to see what he does is right. The encounter with someone like Eternity brings it to the surface? It allows for an interaction with Constantine, it allows for all kinds of options. And today’s world is all about what is legally right and what could be correct and they are not the same thing. We have all seen versions of that and as far as I can tell the comic movies aren’t digging into that, even though Black Adam gives a nice stage to exploring that side deeper. The creation of Amanda Waller allows for a deeper investigation of that side and perhaps the people behind DC movies should do just that. You see, there is too much polarisation in these movies and for the most we accept this as the villains in these movies are over the top bad. Yet what happens when the hero (unintentionally) overreacts? We see that in some cases, but at times it is some plot twist. What happens when we wrongly hunt down a person and we learn after we stop them that they were trying to set us all free? Consider that we have ben misled by the church for almost a millennium. Now consider that we have an Arabic setting where an Afreet is set free, but that Afreet is tinted by the history up to 1200AD, that character missed out on 800 years and that anger is now unleashed. We want to ‘protect’ and stop that character and we now have a setting that approximates what we are trying to achieve, because we learn of what was done is only now beginning to surface, in this we create a new level of ambiguity. One that most comics never touch on and it is these new borders where we get a much larger setting for who are the actual villains? Perhaps some are tainted through polarisation and recognising that opens a new dialogue, a new stage of more interesting movies. 

Consider an article from 2019 ‘Medusa was punished for being raped—so why do we still depict her as a monster?’ This sets a new premise towards the stage of a Medusa. In the Theogony, by the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, she is described as being the child of Phorcys and Ceto and she was raped in the temple of Athena by Poseidon and Athena punishes her of all people. So what happens when we see this in a new DC setting, but until the end of the movie we aren’t told of HOW the transgression started and that opens up new doors, opens up other doors too. What if the avenging demon is Lex Luthor, getting aid by Lucifer no less and the stage is that Constantine is trying to figure out what Lex Luthor is up to (and of course Superman gets involved). Yet as we are given a partial tapestry, the loom will see the involvement of others, but until that for example the daughter of Wonder Woman Trinity was kidnapped which starts the manhunt, but at the end we learn that Trinity feared her future and got Lex Luthor to aid in her escape her dark future. Lex feeing for her and feeling his heart for her aids her and it starts a much larger feud all fuelled by Lucifer (which gives us Constantine) and there we have the making of a larger tapestry and the loom involved has the wires in one direction and cannot vouch for the fabric of the tapestry (an Odysseus reference). The stage that still bothers me is how the loom is managed, someone is pulling the strings behind the curtains of the stage and that comes to light after we see parts of the truth involved. It creates new settings of polarisation, not entirely unlike the people choosing team bat (team Cullen) or team hound (Jacob Black). The same is said for the Underworld saga. When the people are left to chose which team is the right one, you get a lot more interaction, a lot more social contribution and that pushes the story and the movies to the top of so many lists. Ambiguity gives us one side, but not all sides. What happens when Ares (opponent of Wonder Woman) is pushed to this degree by the fates Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos? What happens when they are pushed by the future and by someone wielding that side to push towards a reality free of Αion, the god of eternity? We now have a very different setting and we get the question into the open, what makes a hero a hero and a villain a villain?

Just a few thoughts going through my head (its Sunday after all) and tomorrow is another day.

Enjoy the end of the weekend, soon it will be Monday.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, movies, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 31, 2022 · 22:01

The growth within

That is what I am all about today, not growing me (using roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, baked potato’s, thick gravy and a nice Tiramisu for desert) although, that sounds plenty appealing as well. No I have been writing about the grandson of Hades and as he dealt with the initial parts of the equation. Now I am getting to the part of Demeter and what comes after and now it is becoming to linear. That is the danger any writer faces, but for me it is time to up the ante and combine Demeter and what comes next, next is what some call the cliff hanger, for me it is not that simple. It is linked to what comes after and I will not give anything away here, but that is part of the challenge. To make something less linear, to keep it challenging and appealing and to keep it (for a lack of better words) riveting. It sounds over commercialised and for that I apologise. Consider the great TV cliffhangers. The West Wing, WestWorld, Battlestar Galactica, I will need more than a lack of linearity, the dialogues and the setting needs to improve by a fair amount. In all this I have ben about the setting and the story, I also have a fair bit of what comes next figured out, a decent bit of what we will see, face and a nice surprise at the very end of it. But in all this the step before needs to be resolved to let go of linearity. I have a few sand-cogs and twists ready, but I feel that these are for later, not for now. Even now I am seeing another part that can be added, a part I did not consider before, so Demeter is not alone in all this. And the stage is set to a much larger field. This is good, but now it is time to place the stage in a location, it has to be Greece for more than one reason. I considered placing it on Crete, I have been to the Psychro Cave. I saw where Zeus was and Lasithi could be used in other ways too, it could show more, but that takes it to a different stage. It is possible, but at that point I need to reconsider one or two things. More important, there is a larger need to get to what comes after. I never did find the entrance to where I needed to go. It is on Crete, but I never found it, no connections and no markings where an Elean would have placed it. I prefer to keep as much of it as close to the truth as possible, it makes for a more interesting story, and it makes the parts fit together more easily and it makes the story better, or at least I believe it is better when it is based on actual events. 

So as I am considering the options that Demeter is adding to the equation, The new figure to be added gives a much stronger vibe in this and it matters because the next part requires it, but how to set it in motion? I do not want to keep the fates around (for now) so we need a new antagonist as well as new protagonists. I setting that needs to evolve and cannot be rushed and there are a few options. You see Hesiod gave a few idea’s, but in this I would like to use the approach that Aeschylus took, it gives power and authenticity to the whole (OK, authenticity is not the right word), but you get the idea. There is more work to be done and it will take a little time before the next part is added to the blog, but I do want to give you the good stuff, not some repetition of linearity, or at least that will be my attempt. 

Oh well, time to have a sandwich and snore until the sun comes up.

Leave a comment

Filed under Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 15, 2022 · 03:17

To the other side we go

The next day was one of highs and lows. The high was breakfast which was pretty much the best one I have had in several days and I was considering having a second one. I decided on another coffee and merely pondered the events of yesterday. The trip was not a concern, the new job awaiting me was not a concern either, but a nice change of steps. What was a concern was whatever was in California. I was aware of Perses, but only in a limiting way. He was with Asteria the parents of Hecate, but that was about all I knew. Hesiod had written something, but I had forgotten it, I needed to reread those works, or ask someone I knew. But that did not seem like a good idea at present. I went back to Iraklion airport and flew to Paris, it was the earliest flight I could get. De Gaulle to LAX was simple enough and I only had to wait 4 hours. The nice part was that I had a first class ticket, which meant that the lounges were open to me. 

As expected, these French were proud of their culinary achievements, and Air France was willing to share that experience. If breakfast in Crete was great, the snacks and drinks in De Gaulle were nothing short of amazing. The 4 hours and being armed with a few magazines went rather fast. There was an announcement and I walked to the gate to get on the plane. Getting there and on board was easy enough. The smiling flight attendant was a nice bonus and as I went into first class, the idea of sinking into my seat and getting some more sleep was a rather nice idea. I was certain that I wouldn’t be getting any in California.

Part 1
The arrival t LAX was interesting. It was my first time and as I was about to seek a taxi when I noticed a man with an EIB plate. I walked up to the man, he was holding an iPhone and looking like he was comparing it. He showed the image, a picture 3-4 years old. I nodded. His hand gestured to follow him. He walked in a stern stride, not too fast, not too slow. We walked out and towards a large dark Lincoln. He opened the back door for me, I got in. He pointed to the left side “Ouzo and raki”, he pointed to the right of the door “Ice water and orange juice”. He slowly and cautiously closed the door. I grabbed a glass of ice water. The car drove off into the late morning, towards wherever I was going to go. 

It was almost 2 hours later when we stopped at a gate, the gate opened and we entered the driveway. The house was amazing, like nothing I had ever seen before. There was a man waiting at the door. “Good morning Sir, I am the Major Domo. I hope you will keep me on?” I nodded. “Very well sir.” He went on explaining the house and showing the spaces. The office took me by surprise, very spartan, just the way I like it. There was some art on the walls, not really my kind of stuff, but still decent. The nude n the master bedroom however was exquisite. It was an oil painting of a girl standing in front of a window. Her transparent gown down to her hip and her back was turned to the observer. It made me stare at the sea she was staring at through a white window. It was lovely. I could not decipher the autograph. I wonder if the previous owner ever knew the woman. 

I walked back into the living room and into the kitchen. I checked the fridge. “More fruit-juices and ice water please” Patrick the major domo nodded. I looked at the rest, it as all predictable and it was all I had seen before. “I am resting in the office” “Very well Sir” I walked away. There were things to consider. The fires were on the news, but they were all over the place. More than 30,000 fires over millions of acres. It would take time to figure out where to go next, but there was time for that, the TV in the office was big and very sharp. I watched CBS2 and KCAL9 most of the time, they gave me more of the fire information. I had to look into the fire brigade. To find one place in over 30,000 was going to take some time and a lot of effort. But that was for later. I had to learn a lot more on Perses and more important, how he was fuelling the fires in the first place.

1 Comment

Filed under Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 3, 2022 · 00:48

Turned on by a candle

A few thought invaded my mind. In the first the twist I was contemplating for ‘Residuam Vitam’, and I will admit that it was not me who got me there, it was the writing of Hesiod. In Theogony he touched on something and it stuck somehow, it gave me the idea I needed to set the twist in motion and if this works I will have made my footprint in the fields of tragedy. I never aimed for that achievement, but it is nice to make it. Then my mind took a step into a very different direction. The direction of haunted place scammers. Scammers that take historic events and put them in motion to lure tourists and empty their pockets a little. So what happens when it is done with the wrong crowd, in the wrong place? My mind set in motion a place that was haunted. The people were walking in that haunted place, but one of the people was not exactly what he made out to be. He had another flashlight, one with altered LED’s that emit white and blacklight. So as he moved through the tavern he heard something and his hand went into his pocket and the second flashlight came out. There were five other players with him. Three men and two women, and as he moved towards another side of the tavern, he heard noises, then the noises of the couple sniggering nervously. The rest were looking around, he saw that much but not anything more. And the tour guide was next to the entrance door. It was then he decided to try the second flashlight. He switched his flash off and switched on 10,000 lumens with added blacklight. The sight that appeared was almost unworldly. The 6 people lit up like Christmas lights, as were two individuals in black outfits. Yet all that paled compared to the 6 ghosts that suddenly took shape, as well as several weird signs all over the wall. The ghosts were suddenly less invisible and taken aback in almost equal measure, one of them slashed out to one of shapes in a black outfit. The person howled like a little girl, but with a hoarse male voice. The ghosts were doing damage and as he saw the damage occurring, he switched of the flashlight, the symbols were there, but started to fade fast and as the symbols faded, so did the ghosts. There was screaming and people running for the exit, the tour guide leading the exodus from the tavern. 

That is all my mind saw, and it is not part of any of the stories I am working on, so I have no idea where it fits, but the LED field is new, and the occult was always about symbolism, so what happens when these symbols get a different illumination? Perhaps the grandson of Hades will get to face this new challenge, perhaps it will go nowhere, but for now, with the spin expanding and the story of ‘Residuam Vitam’ gaining momentum I feel decently satisfied. Will it become a real mini series? I do not know and to be honest, I am not sure if I care. The story is running its course and it is nearing completion. Time to set the next parts to paper and finalise the story, because that is what I am about, I am in part nothing more than a storyteller, as are many others. And it is the creativity that allowed me to create my IP, allowed me to design new 5G roads and allowed me to set the premise of more. But with ‘Residuam Vitam’ and ‘Keno Diastima’ I feel alive, I created something that might not go anywhere and perhaps some will like the stories I told. Like Hesiod, Herodotus and many others we performed for a small crowd and it made us happy. 

Yes, I have no business comparing myself to these two titans, but if I have seen anything. I doesn’t matter what we are in life, it is what comes next that matters and if you doubt that, consider the law failing the people again and again, governments faltering over Syria, Yemen and Ukraine and those who should do something ending up doing nothing at all, they perhaps fill their pockets. That will be the total sum of their achievements. 

And realising that, I might be a much larger success than anyone even I imagined. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Science, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 11, 2022 · 23:49

A dark matter of factuality

It was something that had been nagging at me for a while. Whilst I was working on an idea for TV, an idea that was in ‘And a little more’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/04/04/and-a-little-more/) and a few articles before then (and one after), the setting was a little too vanilla, too sweet. Yes, it works when you have a pilot and you need to slowly submerge the viewer into this person. But after that you need to have something more and the dark place is at times so much more rewarding. So what happens when loss, loss that would drive any person insane is part of all this? No matter how we slice it, lets say a child is lost to drunk driving, to whatever reason and that person gets off on a technicality, not something that happened now, but something that happened decades ago. So when some events come back, so does the avenging rage. But not like the timeline. But a timeline that is distorted, as memories come back together. So how would that go? That is what I am contemplating. The vengeance is that he takes the life of a family member every decade. A hunt going on for decades and the family is scared beyond believe because this had been going on and they have no idea who to blame. When you know that EVERY decade on the dot a family member dies extremely brutally, how would YOU react? That is the stuff I am trying to add to the idea. You see the dark appeals to all, the need for vengeance appeals to all. In our lives as we add water to the wine, as we add compromise to our values for fairness, the dark gets a free turn on all of us and that side is appealing to all. Yet the power is not to hide it in some lame ‘conspiracy’ setting. We have seen so many of those, but what happens when the deaths also allow for something more? Lets not forget that this is the story of the grandson of Hades. And that is before we get to the part where his father is Ares. Yet that implies that he has another grandfather. All settings that seem to be clear in season one, so what gives?

A stage where decades of corpses set a line in place, a line that I am trying to give volume, but I cannot yet tell in what direction, because I do not know what the direction is yet. That is part of the thrill of creating stories. You need to keep everything in mind, just like an RPG. And this story needs to have angles, sharp sides, soft sides and surprises. It is setting a ying and yang, but shaped like Hesiod and Plato. The dialogue goes better if there is some polarisation, some opposition to either view whilst the bulk of both views are accepted. That is the stage I need to create, and if I succeed the story becomes a lot better and that is what every storyteller tries to do, create the most enticing story. And that setting works when one side is dark, really dark whilst both sides accepts the darkness and shines their own light on that darkness. You see, shadow die in the absence of light or darkness. Both are needed, a shadow cannot exist in absence of either, the first truth all storytellers learn, most often in the midst of their first story and they rewrite it.

I am no different, although I started when I saw the story became too sweet, too vanilla.

2 Comments

Filed under Stories

Tagged as , , , , ,

March 7, 2022 · 22:39

The educational track

What if education got a helping hand? We seemingly play games, we seemingly read books, we seemingly learn. What if we unite this? And here we have a setting to the larger stage and I will admit that Ubisoft has the baton. They got it when they aded the Discovery tour to AC Origin. And when we weren’t in a rush to get the achievements we would have learned a decent deal of life in Egypt. The embalmers, the beer makers and so on. I stated it before, Ubisoft screwed up [plenty, but not that game. That one they got right and credit should be given where credit is due. 

And Ubisoft (others too) have been sitting on top of a whole range of IP that they could redistribute in a ‘plus setting’. The stage is decently easy. We have the person we play, we unite the maps of AC Origins and AC Odyssey and we go to town. Remove the wild animals, remove the enemies and so on. Then we add the tracks and works of 

Homer, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Plato, Hesiod, Democritus, Socrates, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, Herodotus and many more (well over 300 more). When set in a time line we learn and we now have an educational program. This can be done for Greece and Italy (aka Roman empire). The finny part was that I would have expected that Ubisoft had picked up on this, especially after the discovery tour. And let be honest, it is a much more interesting way of learning. See it as missions, from person to person, take a gander from where they were born to where they stopped living (or until the big works are illuminated). We see all thee boring books (not all mind you), but to use games to educate has not been explored enough and weirdly enough Ubisoft has an inside track here the renaissance  (AC 2, Brotherhood), US independence war (AC 3), And there is plenty more to tip on and with streaming systems seeking a larger hold, having the games with optional educational side will be a growing thing and lets be clear the expected $200,000,000,000 that the analysts state that gaming represents might go longer for Ubisoft if they find the larger application and I reckon that AC Origins (with Odyssey) might show to be a larger cash cow that could help them stretch time, time they basically no longer have. I would grasp at all options to stretch what is there. And they are not alone, but they are as far as I can tell the most visible one. 

We need to realise that not all games have an educational option, but those who do could have a larger stage to fill and a larger appeal (especially to parents). And don’t knock the idea. To get kids (11-16) interested in classical education topics is hard enough, getting them to walk the timeline of Homer and write a paper in it (with screenshots) might be the new setting no one in education considered before. It might not be their fault, but I reckon it is the foot in the door Ubisoft desperately needs at present. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 7, 2021 · 22:04

God, the sequel

Yup, it all started two days ago. I left you all with some impressions, yet the stage was larger. We cannot set omnipotence without foundation , well we can because I am here, but I am that one exception to the rule (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk). The others (Hades, Poseidon and Zeus) they grew their powers. We tend to make fun and call some settings ‘fabrications’, there we see “Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead (the underworld)” The gods got a decent role in Homer’s illiad, and more wrote about them in all kinds of ways, yet when you dig down and dig to the past several people, people who had never had contact had similar writings. It is trivialised by people who have internet and mobile phones, yet in the old days they had no contact, in no way were groups of people with no levels of contact ever stating the same believes and adhering to the same rules. Perhaps there is something to be said in “he was appalled by human sacrifice and other signs of human decadence. He decided to wipe out mankind and flooded the world with the help of his brother Poseidon. After the flood, only Deucalion and Pyrrha remained” and it is not the only time, even the first time that floods were a larger stage of cleansing. So why? Consider that power grows and power is gotten from somewhere. If Aristaeus got his powers from bees, what happens if people abuse bees? A stage we might not consider, but in a stage where power was important, the abuse of sky (Zeus) and waters (Poseidon) would inflict the wrath of these two. That is the stage we seek!

If we can create a god (ourselves) it needs a power foundation, the smaller the creature, the more simplistic their needs, the easier their power is milked. Hence the 6 animals I gave two days ago. So when we get to “both nectar and ambrosia were kinds of honey, in which case their power of conferring immortality would be due to the supposed healing and cleansing powers of honey, and because fermented honey (mead) preceded wine as an entheogen in the Aegean world; on some Minoan seals, goddesses were represented with bee faces”, with this I personally reckon that the German Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (1845) was a lot closer to the truth with his view on it and it is important that any game has some handle on the past. Anchors in how power is distributed, how it is gained. If not, then Zeus, Poseidon and Hades could never have defeated Cronos, their father. 

Now consider the paths that Ezio Auditore and Bayek of Siwa undertook (two actual masterpieces), how they grew their powers and abilities. Would it be any different for deities? No matter how the had the ability to do so, they still needed to grow their powers, we all do and now we have a handle on us and on the character we play. Yet if we want something that is larger than life as such some sandbox trip is needed, choices are to be offered. Whether a person has the bee, the wasp or the termite. It starts with a foundation and that foundation grows towards a power base and a weakness, we all tend to look towards Athens for inspiration, but those who do tend to forget to look towards Poseidonia, a ‘village’ on Siros. When we see the elements shown we need to wonder how it was possible and there we have a setting towards the power base of a deity. If Ambrosia is food for the gods, or is it the food that creates gods? One might fuel the other. These thoughts are below the creation of a game, as we set the stage to a larger stage, we need to consider what gives foundation to that stage. A brilliant example is Horizon Zero Dawn, and soon its sequel. We chase in the first game what created the game, we see that there was a machine that creates larger than life events, but there is always a shoe in the cog (Hades). Any stage needs checks and balances or it becomes a fuelled stage of disbelief, even whilst you play it. That was the brilliance that led to Ezio Auditore, a stage we understood (historically speaking). As such, when you figure out that the events in Ancient Greece and ancient Iran (Mesopotamia) are not unrelated, how long until the cogs connect? 

As such we see can see out minds evolve the new god game, but is it a god game or forging a deity? There is a difference and even as the Atari ST, Playstation one, two and three needed us to make mental jumps, the Playstation 5 is now advanced enough to make us see the difference and play accordingly, the specifics are now in our grasp making for a much larger stage of handling evolution. And I reckon that over time cloud gaming will take it to the next level. And in all this Ubisoft was not alone, consider the path that the God of War took, and even he was not alone. It was a path and we forgot about that part in god gaming. We merely have the maker of the games (Peter Molyneux) and his examples Populous and Black and White as examples, but what if growth is a stage that encompasses both? Setting a different sandbox environment might be the way to go and we finally have hardware that can take us there. 

How it done? That is up to the game makers, you can’t expect me to do everything. You need to get creative and make the next stage of excellent gaming, because if we leave it up to Ubisoft it will be anyones guess what excellent gaming looks like and it will end up being below par and we have seen enough games like that. 

So get to work, get to the drawing board and consider the stage we play (entire Greece), what we can do short of everything and start considering what makes power grow. If you are done with that hold it against the deities of Egypt, Aztec and Inca deities and see how you hold up. You see checks and balances is where it is at. That is what makes people choose and it will make them come back for a second and third time. A game played three times over, that is the stage of a legendary game in the making.

Hesiod

As such in this story I left two clues. They were Deucalion and Pyrrha. Why were only those two spared? If you look at the historic writings (Homer, Hesiod, Ovid, Apollodorus) some things add up and some do not. Now, we can allow for creative views and that would be OK, yet Homer (Ionia, 900 BC), Hesiod (Cyme, 725 BC), Ovid (Sulmona, 43 BC) and Apollodorus (Athens, 180 BC). People that can never have been connected in time, also consider that with our options of preservation, we do not have books that last 300 years and that is whilst we have all kinds of machines that allow for mass replication, that did not exist before the 14th century. A whole range of places most of them more than a life time of travelling away, yet the similarities are almost astounding. When you consider those elements, consider what more there I and what is making these sotries survive, now consider what you need to make a game of THAT magnitude survive the onslaught of players and their increased need of perfection, have a great day.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, movies, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,