# 267 • TSH - Flippant

[Anna]

http://www.pasteldefender.com/to%20save ... 20267.html

It's since a few hours online, and nobody noticed?
So here it is the thread.
(Always me, always I have to, - guy's, you're lazy!)

Meanwhile, I was with cat Pico at the veterinary, made a car wash, supermarket, and was in the Baumarkt =(store for buying stuff like carpets, things for the garden, painting walls, repair toiletts, and so on... - how do you call it?)

Edit:
Oh Mann, was für eine saumäßige englische Grammatik!

[Plasman]

My guess is that you're talking about a hardware store...
You mean they type of place you can buy hammers, nails, paint, wood, glue, etc. (the sort of things you'd need to fix up stuff around your house)?

And yeah, I noticed you'd started quite a few threads in the past. I guess you're just lucky (or maybe it's because you're a few hours ahead of the US).

And Jennifer, keep it up! We're on the home stretch now!
(insert Rocky theme music, or whatever strikes inspiration in you)

[Anna]

My guess is that you're talking about a hardware store...
You mean they type of place you can buy hammers, nails, paint, wood, glue, etc. (the sort of things you'd need to fix up stuff around your house)?

And yeah, I noticed you'd started quite a few threads in the past. I guess you're just lucky (or maybe it's because you're a few hours ahead of the US).

My dictionary says: "DIY cent/re" , I really think if it's english it could be allright, but my feeling was not good enough to use it, especially in an american forum, you've got such different words.
Hardware store, sounds good!
We have a big one just a few minutes with the car away.

Ahm, now I'm eight hours in your future, your west coast time.
In October it will be nine hours again, (european summertime is over then).

And Jennifer, keep it up! We're on the home stretch now!
(insert Rocky theme music, or whatever strikes inspiration in you)

Rocky???
Wouldn't it be more fun to use an other one?
Here, Test-Update of my MagixMusicMaker
Ahm, no, do not using it, it blocks!
Link: https://download.yousendit.com/B7D92B5B067DE44C
(My favorite is the intergalactic cheese factory)

Vola looks real great in her spacesuit outfit, maybe it's the missing hat, we should tell it to her.
But by the way, I like Jennifer's art style more and more, sorry, that's a fact.
Here use of dramatics of the composition in the panels, not only the using of light and darkness.
How she set the persons in position, she's getting better and better...
I hope she will keep her progress.
You see, she had the skills with making UJ. (I can proof it, because I've got two editions of it on my desk!)
But as she started PDH, some of it was lost, I wonder why this was happen.
And so... Jennifer is doomed never to stop creating any online web comics.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

You see, she had the skills with making UJ. (I can proof it, because I've got two editions of it on my desk!)
But as she started PDH, some of it was lost, I wonder why this was happen.
And so... Jennifer is doomed never to stop creating any online web comics.

When I started PDH, several things were brand new to me. One was using a digital tablet - I had never used one before... as you recall, the whole of Unicorn Jelly was created using only a mouse. It may seem odd, but the digital tablet was very hard for me at first. After three + years of nothing but mouse drawing, it was surprisingly difficult to draw with a pen while looking up at a screen.

The second thing was color. I was not used to having so much color. Color massively increases the work load, and it is almost too much in a way. I was both giddy and overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Trying to fill a full page was another new thing for me. It is very easy to plan the steady march of the little 'three-act-play' of doing a three panel comic. That form almost tells itself. Beginning, middle, end, over and over. But a full, blank page, to be turned into an unknown number of panels just felt overwhelming as well.

The last big thing I had to get used to was lacking countless tools that make drawing easier and more precise. I no longer, on my tablet, in my drawing software, had line tools or fill tools or circle tools or any other kind of tool. All I have is draw, airbrush, and a kind of smear function. Everything had to be done freehand, and it is impossible to use a ruler with one of those pads, so... I just had to wing it. It took time for my dexterity to match what I had to do.

In all of these things, it took me time to find my path, to find my stride, to become comfortable with them.

A last reason is that even after a year of rest, I was still just a little burned out from Unicorn Jelly. UJ took a LOT out of me. I was just exhausted by the end of it. I felt as if a Lianhan Sidhe had been sucking my life-force for three years in exchange for a magic story. Maybe, for all I know, that is what happened. All I do know is that even then I was tired. But I had to get back in the game. A year off had cost me so much momentum, so many readers, as to nearly reduce me to starting over from scratch. If you are an online cartoonist, never take a year off unless you cannot help it. I couldn't help it.

But, as the story of Pastel unfolded, I got a second wind, and started feeling strong again. My 'Muse' was long gone, which meant I had to write my own stories, but, I also wasn't feeling drained all the time. Not like back during Unicorn Jelly. It was still tiring, though.

PDH was a learning experience for me. Any improvement in my art is a direct record of my learning process in what was for me a very new, even alien, environment. The difference between drawing with a mouse (what I had been doing for the past 14 years before PDH, not just the time with UJ) and learning to draw with a digital pen on a tablet was just enormous.

Nowadays, I cannot even imagine how I managed to draw with a mouse.

But then again, back in the old days, working at Activision, when they showed me my first ever mouse (on the Amiga!), I had the same issue with switching from drawing with a joystick to drawing with a mouse. At first, I hated the mouse, I could not imagine how anyone could use a bulky soap-bar with a wire for anything. After I got used to the mouse, I could no longer imagine how in the world I had managed to draw with only a joystick all those years.

Still, it takes time to adapt to new technology, and new ways of doing things.

[strange_person]

I felt as if a Lianhan Sidhe had been sucking my life-force for three years in exchange for a magic story. Maybe, for all I know, that is what happened.

You already know my theory.

[Dan]

Are they talking about a head?

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

I felt as if a Lianhan Sidhe had been sucking my life-force for three years in exchange for a magic story. Maybe, for all I know, that is what happened.

You already know my theory.

Oh...yeah. Thank you. That still resonates.

[OtakuMan]

*Record Scratch*

You worked at ACTIVISION?!

~Otaku-Man

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

*Record Scratch*

You worked at ACTIVISION?!

~Otaku-Man

In 1984, after playing a lot of Pitfall II, Lost Caverns on the 2600, and drawing too much on my C64 with a joystick, an idea seized me that would torture me for the next 14+ years. That idea was for a game, a game I called 'Multiverse'.

I drew up a design document for my game, did working examples of parts of it using Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker, and drew two dozen mock-up screens showing all the important sights of the game. Then I set out to go to Activision, which was nearby, back then.

My oldest friend, Stephen was sick of his job making circuit boards. The one thing he loved was programming, but it was just a hobby. I offered to help him, if he would help me to make my dream game come true. We struck an agreement - I would help him become a professional programmer, he would make my game. I took him with me to my Activision meeting as my lead programmer.

My Product Manager was Brenda Laurel, and she instantly saw the wonder of my 'Multiverse', and I left the same day with a check for just over 10K, and a contract for Stephen and I to make our game, with the assistance of the resources of Activision. My design had floored them.

Things began to go sour, though, after a month or two. Stephen lacked confidence, and self motivation, and found it difficult to get things done. Activision started losing confidence too, and came to the conclusion that maybe he needed to work under an actual manager, someone who could motivate him. Stephen was shuffled off to working on the game of 'Labyrinth', as well as other projects, and I was given work while I waited for them to 'train him', doing art for everything from the C64 versions of Aliens and Transformers to expansion packs for... Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker. I also did the original Shanghai tile set on the Amiga, redesigned 'Crazy Rabbit' into 'Pharoah's Revenge', and, well, a bunch of other stuff.

As time went on, I became increasingly upset that my game was not being made. Eventually, a year and change later, it ended up in a big row where I faced off against the CEO of Activision and his cronies, with my entire family (we had all moved in together by then, the better to do my game) and was utterly shot down. My game, his cronies said, could never be made, it was physically impossible.

This was bullshit, of course, but, that was the end of that. Shortly after that, Activision fell, bankrupt and under federal investigation for various crimes, and there was a huge stock fraud thing and... by then we had moved on, and I was working for other companies, like Electronic Arts, and Epyx, and so forth, and Stephen was working for various game companies too. Eventually, Activision reformed, under new management, and became the company you know today.

I spent the next 14+ years trying to get 'Multiverse' made. Each time, I redesigned the game simpler and simpler, in the hopes that a less ambitious version of the idea would actually get done. By the end, my original idea - essentially Spore in 2D, done as an infinite universe, infinite galaxies, infinite worlds platform game, with procedurally generated graphics, music, sound, creatures and levels - was reduced to a crappy JRPG that included nothing of my 'Multiversal Heart', the procedural engine that made Multiverse what it was. Then I had a nervous breakdown, finished with a heart attack. Too much stress over a failed dream. That was the end of my career.

[RaharuAharu]

*Record Scratch*

You worked at ACTIVISION?!

~Otaku-Man

In 1984, after playing a lot of Pitfall II, Lost Caverns on the 2600, and drawing too much on my C64 with a joystick, an idea seized me that would torture me for the next 14+ years. That idea was for a game, a game I called 'Multiverse'.

I drew up a design document for my game, did working examples of parts of it using Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker, and drew two dozen mock-up screens showing all the important sights of the game. Then I set out to go to Activision, which was nearby, back then.

My oldest friend, Stephen was sick of his job making circuit boards. The one thing he loved was programming, but it was just a hobby. I offered to help him, if he would help me to make my dream game come true. We struck an agreement - I would help him become a professional programmer, he would make my game. I took him with me to my Activision meeting as my lead programmer.

My Product Manager was Brenda Laurel, and she instantly saw the wonder of my 'Multiverse', and I left the same day with a check for just over 10K, and a contract for Stephen and I to make our game, with the assistance of the resources of Activision. My design had floored them.

Things began to go sour, though, after a month or two. Stephen lacked confidence, and self motivation, and found it difficult to get things done. Activision started losing confidence too, and came to the conclusion that maybe he needed to work under an actual manager, someone who could motivate him. Stephen was shuffled off to working on the game of 'Labyrinth', as well as other projects, and I was given work while I waited for them to 'train him', doing art for everything from the C64 versions of Aliens and Transformers to expansion packs for... Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker. I also did the original Shanghai tile set on the Amiga, redesigned 'Crazy Rabbit' into 'Pharoah's Revenge', and, well, a bunch of other stuff.

As time went on, I became increasingly upset that my game was not being made. Eventually, a year and change later, it ended up in a big row where I faced off against the CEO of Activision and his cronies, with my entire family (we had all moved in together by then, the better to do my game) and was utterly shot down. My game, his cronies said, could never be made, it was physically impossible.

This was bullshit, of course, but, that was the end of that. Shortly after that, Activision fell, bankrupt and under federal investigation for various crimes, and there was a huge stock fraud thing and... by then we had moved on, and I was working for other companies, like Electronic Arts, and Epyx, and so forth, and Stephen was working for various game companies too. Eventually, Activision reformed, under new management, and became the company you know today.

I spent the next 14+ years trying to get 'Multiverse' made. Each time, I redesigned the game simpler and simpler, in the hopes that a less ambitious version of the idea would actually get done. By the end, my original idea - essentially Spore in 2D, done as an infinite universe, infinite galaxies, infinite worlds platform game, with procedurally generated graphics, music, sound, creatures and levels - was reduced to a crappy JRPG that included nothing of my 'Multiversal Heart', the procedural engine that made Multiverse what it was. Then I had a nervous breakdown, finished with a heart attack. Too much stress over a failed dream. That was the end of my career.

Pff Hardly the end. You got a fantastic poly family out of the deal, and how many humans can say that!!!

Also 2 hit comics, and the admiration of people who I would consider the target audience of people whom you care what they think ^___^

Honestly I do not see why your game can not be made today, just look at the success of other
Roguelikes and Dwarf Fortress in todays high end graphics gaming world. These games have a cult following!

[strange_person]

You forget, Jenny D. ain't cool wit' backtracking.

[Anna]

Honestly I do not see why your game can not be made today, just look at the success of other
Roguelikes and Dwarf Fortress in todays high end graphics gaming world. These games have a cult following!

Jennifer needs a quantum computer, I suppose.
(or probably only a "simple" damn good tool of game-creating-software, - and a big team.)

[Relee]

It's not that Jenny's game can't be made today, she just refuses to make anything less than a bleeding edge big-name game. This isn't the first time it's come up.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

It's not that Jenny's game can't be made today, she just refuses to make anything less than a bleeding edge big-name game. This isn't the first time it's come up.

Actually, it's that after the breakdown and the heart attack, I am so over making video games. It just isn't worth it anymore. It isn't fun anymore. That's the deal.

[Relee]

It's not that Jenny's game can't be made today, she just refuses to make anything less than a bleeding edge big-name game. This isn't the first time it's come up.

Actually, it's that after the breakdown and the heart attack, I am so over making video games. It just isn't worth it anymore. It isn't fun anymore. That's the deal.

Oh and that.

[strange_person]

They just weren’t that complicated or new after a while, when this graphics stuff started picking up. I suppose when the first 3D ones started coming out. A lot of the procedural stuff people are just starting to do should have been done many, many years ago, if you ignore the graphical side of it.