Brain dump: Tangled

I've been working on developing a universe that plays well with the real world, something I can combine easily with my photography or whatever. While exploring these ideas, I discovered it can also do a lot of great stuff with characters and interaction, which is also something I've been itching to focus on! Anyhow, here's just a brain dump of ideas and framework for it.

Tangled

In the tangled universe, everything is connected, and everything revolves around connections. People are connected to other people via relationships, connected to gravity through the laws of physics, connected to our world by presence, etc. Every connection can be cut, and when that connection is cut, influence ceases to flow through them.

The fewer common tethers you have with another person, the less you are able to observe, or interact with that person. If enough connections are cut, they simply fade away from the world they used to be bound to. This gives a cost/benefit to cutting too many connects, should you have the ability to do so. Someone who separates himself from too many things will no longer be able to influence the things he hoped to gain an advantage over. It can also be a cruel, cruel punishment for your enemies.

There are a few ways to separate connections, the first and most obvious is simply by interacting in the correct fashion, destroying an object, killing a friendship, that connection vanishes from the world. Weavers are another possibility, the unfathomable creatures that wander the web of the universe, eating connections at random. Once in a while, weavers can be influenced, captured, controlled, but such a task is tricky, risky, and prone to failure or disaster. Surgeons are an uncommon race, massacred and scattered from their homeworld due to their unique ability to manipulate connections. Skilled Surgeons are difficult to find, and highly prized. The ceiling on their powers is often un-discernible.

Here are a few ideas for people or things that might exist in this world:

Weavers are creatures that feed on the threads of connection, they wander through the universe, and eat the tastiest, most unusual morsels that they find. Not many things can sever a connection, which makes this creature a prized ally, and a feared opponent. Their motivations are rarely categorized as good or evil, if they can even be called motivations at all.

Wanderers are not connected to any specific worlds, they simply explore. Here one day, gone the next. Given their tenuous connection to the world, normal people can rarely see them. Only those that are also somewhat disconnected will notice them, though Wanderers often don't stand out all that much. A wanderer that frequents a world may grow a tenuous connection to it, allowing him to interact with a wider number of its inhabitants.

Knots are a social construct, primarily. The longer a connection lasts, the stronger it becomes, and the longer it remains in the presence of another connection, the more likely it is to get tangled or knotted. Knots make connections harder to cut or even step away from, and often convey extra information or amplify the strength of those connections.

Psychopaths have their connections to empathy or emotion cut. These connections are often found to be delicious, and are among the most common threads for Weavers to snack on for general sustenance. Cut connections rarely go one at a time however, so many psychopaths will also have other connections cut, making them often quite dangerous people indeed.

Teleporters are not simply able to move from one location to another, they actually ignore the concept of distance entirely. There is no need to walk across a room to pick something up, they can simply put it in their hand, regardless of distance. This is a very rare and powerful disconnect, as separating someone from the concept of distance but not separating them also from the concept of location is extremely difficult, and not something that happens by accident.

Surgeons are people that are skilled in the separation of threads. Those wishing to gain advantageous disconnects will often come to them to undergo risky operations. While no separations are impossible, many are implausible, such as the Teleporters. Only the most legendary of Surgeons could even hope to accomplish such a task.

Surgeons:

The Surgeons were discovered by Wanderers early on in their cultural development. Any later, and the Surgeons would have been a completely unstoppable force. As it was, many Surgeons had attained truly godlike states. After a long and complicated war of control, all those surgeons that could not be harnessed were killed, or cut away from the universe. Much of their surgical knowledge was lost, and the few remaining Surgeons fled throughout the web of the universe, hiding themselves as best they could.

Surgeons still crop up on occasions, sometimes as linchpins of remote locations, sometimes as the tools of ambitious puppeteers, sometimes as obscure Surgeons for hire, or just simply hiding out and avoiding unwanted attention. The life of a Surgeon is a difficult one at best.

Review of 2013

2013 went by in a flash. Not all years do that for me, but this one certainly did. Usually, that's an indication that memorable things didn't happen, or I fell too deep into a routine, or something of that nature; but I don't think it was necessarily anything that bad. It was all just laying the groundwork of things to come later.

A year is a very long time, and I always have trouble remembering things over such a length period. Fortunately, there's an archaeological record I can dig through: Facebook! It might not have everything, but I'm enough of an addict to get a pretty good picture, or at least ring some bells.

The first thing that stood out to me was the tail end of my photography project! 2012 was the year my photography really took off, and I did my 1 pic a day project. I guess it kinda culminated with one of my photos ending up in the CPCC student gallery. It was a testament to the power of a well implemented and executed new year's resolution. It seems they can do some good after all. I barely touched my camera this year, and it shows in the few pictures I have actually taken. I'd like to fix that, but it's not on my priority list.

Perhaps more notably, it's now been a full year since I quit teaching! After 5 years at CPCC, I really needed a change, and so I left. I don't really miss it. I liked being around the people everyday, coworkers and students, and giving presentations. I can still do that elsewhere too, I just need to learn how to present on less technical stuff, it has a remarkably limited audience. I don't know if it's changed much though, I'm still around all the same people, working with the same students, just in a different context. I guess I was hoping to be out of here by now.

First year at the GDC (and ECGC) as a volunteer as well! And here's to hoping it'll happen again. I met a lot of good people there, and I hope that going back again will help solidify, or truly establish those relationships. I also hope to get a real in-person glimpse into the indie community there, I never really saw it the way I have since witnessing it on Twitter.

I picked up a job working on Breach & Clear not too far into the year. It was a fun job, and it gave me some important insight about larger projects. I could write forever about the things I learned there, but that's for another time. I also left them towards the end of the year as well, and I'm happy about that too. I needed the time back to really focus on making other things a reality.

SIGGRAPH was also pretty great! First time in LA. It was a great reminder that volunteering at a conference is far more interesting than simply attending one. It was also a good reminder that I really want to talk at an event like SIGGRAPH or GDC. I'll make sure that's on my list for this year. More talks at conferences. But it was nice to dive back into some hardcore computer graphics again, re-exploring my roots.

In 2013, I also participated in at least 4 or 5 game jams? Those are keepers. The 10 Second Sextants, Sharkagachi, One Way Trip to Calida, Snipe Arena, and Mineshaft. This year, it's on my list to actually submit 'em, market them, and participate in the community instead of just watching.

And Twitter! I picked up tweeting, and I really wish I had done so sooner. It provides me with the community that I can't find here in Charlotte. Real game developers, doing game developer-ey things. I finally am starting to feel in the loop here. I need to keep creating stuff on there.

Ferr2D Terrain was a massive success, probably one that I've really undervalued thus far, but it truly is a big deal! It's a nice reminder that I really could live without a formal job, if I didn't have to support anything. I have so many ideas for it in the future, and a lot of other extension ideas that could also work quite well. I just need to find the time for all of 'em. An interesting note here, the core of Ferr2D Terrain only took a few days, while overall development for it took about a month. That's pretty darned fast!

But probably the most important thing from this year for me has been Simbryo. It really kicked into high gear in November. We now have 26 games out on both Windows 8 and Windows 8 Phone (52 total =D) which is completely and absurdly awesome! We've still got a ways to go on our Centurion project, but I think we should be able to make it, and when we do... it'll be amazing! Of course, that'll all be over just by the first half of the year, so I really have no idea what to expect for the second half. Hopefully a big project or two of our own =D

So, yeah, a lot of groundwork. I expect good things in 2014, much better things. And even though my 2013 resolution completely flopped, (1 'project' a month) I don't think I really needed it much. My resolution for this year though, is to write something at least once a week. I think that helps tie in to a lot of my community building, presentation, and creativity goals that I'd like to hit. It's also not that hard =D (read, very realistic). So, here's to a good 2014!