I'm going to be posting this here primarily because this journal doesn't get that many views, and I don't think I want this to be commonly known yet. This is a big, ambitious project I'm embarking on, and I know it, and I'm tentative about whether I'll have the grit and knowledge necessary to see it through to its finishing phase. I'm even more nervous about what the gaming community could do to me - I realize there's the potential there for great partnership and the kind of support I could direly need, but there's also the risk of entering into deals with people who would want to sabotage a project like this or steal my ideas, and I don't believe I have the experience in the industry (or in intellectual property law) to tell the difference and properly defend myself.

I am well aware that this is almost definitely not something I can do on my own (in the short run, anyway - it definitely definitely isn't something I can do on my own in the long run). I'm also well aware that games live or die by their audiences, and this is a game that I really, really want to see living. So I'll do my best to be careful, work hard, have passion, and talk about what I can.

Granted, there isn't a whole lot to talk about at this stage anyway since it's all baby steps and conceptualization. That said...

The goals of this [mysteeeerious~] video game currently stand as follows:

• To provide some basic-to-elementary education about First Nation mythology and ways of life to those unfamiliar with them.
• To create a world and characters intriguing enough to make people want to learn more about these things on their own initiative.
• To be, at the same time, respectful of historical and mythological figures within the First Nations communities.
• To develop a simple-to-use, attractive [secret!] system and use it to its full potential within both plot and gameplay.
• To make copious use of the native regions and fauna of Canada (and possibly upper United States).
• To devise a fun, sly, manipulative main character who is relatable despite not being a traditionally accepted (western) form of hero or good guy.
• To create enemies and events that provide comprehensive gameplay, but aren't presented as morally black/white or good/evil.
• To achieve a balance between being easy to share, being easy to play (requirements-wise), and being within my capabilities as a programmer, while still adhering to my artistic vision as a designer who wants to make really cool stuff.
• To be primarily self-funded/low in monetary cost, so that profits can be forwarded to various associated charities.
• To create a kickass RPG that's just as fun to make as it is to play, bitch.

All I can say for sure about the programming platform is that it won't be a Flash game. I don't have the means or the training to create something like that, and using Flash products leaves a rather sour taste in my mouth that can take a while to fade. Blegh.

C++ is likely, though I admit to being abnormally fond of Python. I don't know much about its UI capabilities, though, and first I need to research my options as far as Linux-compatible rendering engines go.

That's all for now. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.